AN: This chapter is meant to go ahead and set me up for the beginning of the year. I will probably put up another chapter or two before January, but mostly I wanted to go and

get it started. Feel free to ask questions, but there shall be few spoilers given.

Prologue

The cosmos, a grand ever shifting stage on which the great drama that is life unfolds with each moment that passes. In the vastness of that eternal dark only the light of the stars can turn back the infinite night. Those stars, pitiful lights that shine for but a brief time, are all that stand between life and frozen oblivion. Generally fixed in place, though still always moving, they provide a point of reference for those who gaze upon them. So then, how would one of those individuals who look up to and rely upon those stars take it when one begins to move of its own accord?

In the case of the people of Earth, the reaction was keen speculation. The scientific community was in an uproar as a new star appeared in the heavens and moved at incredibly speed toward the Earth. For the better part of a year they watched as it grew brighter in the heavens. No one knew how long the star had been traveling toward Earth before it was noticed, but within that one year time frame its appearance grew to the size and intensity of the moon.

People all over the Earth saw it as a sign of the end of days. In many ways their misgivings proved to be correct. On the third of October in the year 2018, everything changed. The day of judgment that many had long thought would come had arrived. It did not come in the form of any religious decree or the return of a savior. It came in the form of a small blue screen that popped up in front of each person across the world at exactly the same time. It would even become known in the future that those who had been unconscious at the time, or blind, had seen that screen inside their mind.

Congratulations Mortals!

Due to the many advancements that you have made as a species, we have determined that you meet the minimum standard qualities for eternal enslavement as a suitable power source. While the psionic potential of your species is still in its infancy, it has developed to the point that we might be able to use your people to power one of our intergalactic colony worlds in the future.

Good job! We appreciate your efforts.

Unfortunately, intergalactic arbitration agreements have forced us to allow you to decline our attempt to enslave your species for all eternity. We recognize that the possibility of missing out on the opportunity to become our power source might be considered a great sadness for you. However, the law is the law.

You are now granted one chance to become a champion of your species and enter a winner take all battle to the death that takes place in what might be considered hellish parodies of your beloved current mythologies. Everyone who accepts the call will be taken and placed into terrible danger for the sake of your species. Death is both highly probable, and a sad waste of a potential power source. However, we do have to offer you this chance to opt out of becoming our eternal slaves.

While you have absolutely no hope of victory, if you should develop even one person capable of defeating our Grand Emissary in combat we will acknowledge your desires and regretfully allow your species to continue to wallow in the existential nightmare that is free will.

So, anyway. Would you like to play a game?

You can totally say no. We won't mind getting on with things. There's no point in putting yourself out there and risking a gruesome and terrifying death after all. Click no. It's OK. Go ahead. Click no...

[Yes | No]

[--]

Suffice it to say, humanity was not ready for such a bizarre thing to occur. The masses were even less prepared when millions of people spontaneously disappeared, but soon it did not matter. Those who chose to enter the game were forgotten as the minds of those who remained behind lost all knowledge of the event.

The great star in the sky disappeared from view. Not even a hint of its existence remained in the minds of the people. While the physical evidence of the star's arrival was left behind in the form of blogs, videos, and other things, a strong mental suggestion buried within the psyche of everyone on the planet caused them to avoid thinking of such things.

It was not long before those who remained behind returned to their normal lives as though nothing had happened. Outside of the occasional sense of wrongness about the world that many felt, nothing more was said about the wandering star or the people who had been forgotten.

**

Chapter 1: Born to Be Wild

Darkness, an all-consuming and unending darkness was the totality of his experience from the moment that he awoke. For a time he had thought that he had gone blind, or deaf, or perhaps he had died. He did not know what had happened. He knew only that something terrible had occurred.

He screamed out incoherent gibberish for a time. It proved to him that he had both a body, and that his lungs worked at the very least. Though, what good screaming into the endless night did for him, he could not say for certain.

After some time passed, he know not how much, things slowly began to change. The darkness began to shift. It roiled and twisted like a living thing. Somehow, he began to make out shapes and images. He did not recall exactly what happened next as he had fallen unconscious once more. However, when he woke up again it was to a different sort of darkness.

"What the hell?" he asked groggily as he sat up in the darkened room. He wondered where he was for a moment. It was hard for him to think. His body felt numb, like he had been drugged. The room span a little in his field of vision as he looked around.

The only sights and sounds he could see were the cold gray walls, a glowing ball of light, and a single door. Immediately, he rose to his feet and staggered toward that door. He leaned heavily against it while he sought some means of opening it.

He searched every inch of that door with his fingers, but it was perfectly smooth and could not be opened. Honestly, the only reason that he had thought it was a door was its difference when compared to the wall. It was made of some sort of metal, or perhaps a particularly hard ceramic. He could not be certain.

He started to pound on it after a moment. He screamed for someone to come. After a short time passed he gave up. Soon he began to recall recent events. "I wasn't sleeping... Was I?"

He looked around once more. "Is this a dream?"

Never in his life had he dreamt of being trapped in a room with a glowing ball, but he had certainly had stranger dreams. After he spent some time searching the walls, he turned to the most obvious thing in sight.

The glowing ball of light hovered in the center of the room with little show of care or concern. Was it a light source or something more? He approached it carefully to see what would happen. Until now he had been wary of it, but at the moment he was out of options.

Once he approached within a certain distance of it a curtain of energy flared outward. He threw his arms over his face with a loud cry. Nothing terrible happened to him, however. A brief time later he lowered his arms and saw that something had changed. The light had shifted in size and shape. It now resembled a transparent three dimensional version of himself. Floating in the air near his doppelganger was a series of words and numbers.

It took a moment to realize it, but when it hit him his eyes widened. He slowly shook his head. "This... that floating square was telling the truth?" Before his eyes, he bore witness to what he could only see as a video game status interface.

[Name: Scott Davidson]

[Age: 20]

[Race: Earthling]

[Level: 0][0.00/1000]

[EXP: 0.00]

[Life Span: 1 Day(s)]

ATTRIBUTES

[Strength: 1.07][Resilience:0.89]

[Vitality: 0.81][Dexterity: 0.78]

[Concentration: 1.48][Charisma: 0.74]

FEATS

[None]

POWERS

[None]

[—]

"This, how is this even possible?" asked Scott as he stared at the transparent image. How was any of this possible? When did life become something so strange that a giant star would appear in the sky and tell everyone to play a game or die? More to the point, why had he chosen to accept?

A siren blared suddenly, and a loud voice announced. "The game begins in five minutes. Please study the information provided if you value your life."

"What the hell?" asked Scott, shocked by the sudden noise.

A blue screen popped into view. On its surface it held an image of a rundown old farm house. Below it, certain information was provided.

Reality Overview

You have chosen to become a champion for the people of Earth. This annoys the Grand Emissary as it prolongs the amount of time that it will take to destroy your civilization and acquire the souls of your species as a power source.

Normally, your impertinence at denying a swift and just destruction of all you hold dear would end with an excruciatingly painful death. However, the powers that be have decreed that there must be some sort of fairness in these undertakings. You have been granted a stay of execution for one day, but to survive longer you must pay the toll.

The toll comes in the form of EXP. You must expend one hundred EXP on your lifespan in order to survive another day. You may purchase as many days of continued existence as you wish. However, you must also spend EXP to purchase food, clothing, weapons, fantastic powers, candy, exotic prostitutes, or anything else that you desire.

The only thing that you cannot purchase is personal resurrection, or your freedom from the game. Someone else must pay the price of resurrection on your behalf. At present, you have made no contacts with any other champions. The only way to leave the game is to defeat the Grand Emissary. You may challenge him at any time, however, you only get one shot and will not be provided information regarding his abilities. (He's like, super easy to beat, though. You should attack him immediately.)

If you die, there is no recourse. Your body will be disintegrated. We will add your soul to our collective. Resistance is futile, but feel free to do so if you wish.

In this first mission you will face a challenge commensurate to your capacity. Future missions will vary in difficult between easy for your capacity, to impossible for you to complete alone. You may purchase the right to enter a mission as part of a team for one thousand EXP. The challenge rating and rewards will be upgraded accordingly. However, as you have no EXP, there will be no further explanation regarding this facet of your new existence at this time.

[--]

Time passed quickly as Scott read through several more screens worth of information. With less than one minute left he reached the actual mission briefing. He could now see what it was that he had to do.

Mission Briefing

A new world has been created on your behalf. This world will be titled, Dead Men Walking. Your task will be to locate and secure a place to survive the night. That is your only necessary goal, survival.

Difficulty: H-4

World Type: Survival Horror

Force Response Authorization: Solo Mission

Primary Goal: Survive Till Morning

Reward: 10 EXP

Suggestion: You may see people who need your help, or feel a desire to attack the walking corpses that you see for some reason. Feel free to ignore the people and those terribly violent primate urges. You surely won't need the additional EXP from undertaking side quests or defeating enemies. Just sit back and relax... Don't strain yourself there, champ. It'll all be over soon.

PS: If you are bitten or scratched, it'll be fine to ignore it. Taking damage from a disease ridden walking corpse could not possibly be bad for your health.

[—]

Scott stared at the mission screen. "What the hell...?" He wasn't even certain what he was looking at, but it almost sounded like they were going to dump him right into the middle of a zombie apocalypse without any items or special abilities. What sort of game gave you nothing to start off with?

One thing annoyed him more than everything else, however. He could not trust what he saw on the screen. It was like they wanted him to die as quickly as possible. The fact that he would only receive ten EXP for surviving was the biggest indicator. If he did what the suggestion cited, he would be executed anyway.

A brief wave of nausea overtook him. He nearly collapsed to the floor. "What the hell did I get myself into?" he asked the empty room. Everything had been so bizarre when that blue screen had popped into existence. Something about playing a game to decide the fate of humanity had captured his imagination, and he had chosen to accept. But still... What had he done?

Light appeared around the edges of the door where it met the wall. A voice called out. "Door now opening. You have one minute to enter the game world or you forfeit the challenge."

Naked, afraid, and entirely confused, Scott watched as the door faded from sight. There was a semi-transparent field of energy in its place. On the other side of that field was what looked to be a highway, the smoking ruins of a gas station, and several dozen people who shambled mindlessly about the area.

"Oh, fuck me sideways..." he said. A bright red number sixty appeared in the semi-transparent field. It began to steadily tick down toward zero.

He panted heavily for a moment, and then licked his lips. Scott had not known what to expect when this all began, but just looking at what awaited him was enough to make him hesitate.

He was not an action hero, no great warrior. He was a stock boy at a local grocery store. Hell, he was a townie who had not even gone to community college. There was nothing remarkable about him, and yet he had still said yes when given a chance to do something significant. That chance had led to this moment. He now had to run headlong into a zombie apocalypse while butt naked, and somehow survive till morning.

Deep, breaths were taken as he built up his courage. There were only eighteen seconds left when he slapped himself hard across the face twice then unleashed a primal roar of determination. He ran forward and into the world beyond like his ass was on fire. There was no other option save for forfeiting and being executed anyway. He ran in for good reason as well. If he really ended up in the spot that the door showed him, there was no way to be stealthy. It was wide open and filled with the dead.

Scott hit the ground running, and his naked ass kept running, as he made a bee line for the only thing he could see that might be able to help him, the open road ahead. The people shambling nearby turned toward him the moment he entered the area and moaned loudly. Dozens of hands rose up and reached toward him in eager anticipation of sinking their jagged teeth into his sweet meats. The undead began to stagger forward at a slow, but undeniable pace.

"Shit, shit, shit." exclaimed Scott as he ran as fast as he could. He was forced to weave between a few of the walking corpses. Simply coming within a few feet of them had nearly made him gag. The stench that rose up from their rotting forms was enough to gag a maggot, much less a guy used to bathing twice a day.

Sad sounding moans echoed behind him as he kept going. He did not believe what the screen had said even slightly. He planned to avoid being scratched or bitten altogether if possible.

His feet already bled from a multitude of small cuts as he ran across rocks and pavement. He could not stop, could not allow himself to feel the pain of it.

Smoke from the burning gas station shifted with the wind. It billowed in his direction and he was forced to run through it. He was blinded for a brief moment, and he choked on it as he passed through. Grasping fingers reached toward him from the smoke. Yellowed and blackened in their decay, those ruined fingers came within mere inches of touching his naked flesh as he hurled himself forward.

Panting for clean air, his lungs burned as he moved onward. Mentally he cursed himself for not having taken up running when he was in school. As things stood, he already had a terrible ache in his side from how fast he forced his body to move.

A look of bewildered belief crossed his face as he ran past the last zombie in his path. The highway beyond seemed devoid of the shambling dead. A glance to either side proved that they were not far away, however. They came at him from the nearby fields on either side of the roadway.

"There has to be a hundred of them." he said as he was forced to stop and take a quick breath. He was out of shape, badly so. A quick look back told him that the gas station couldn't be more than a half mile away, but he was panting for air. It was possible that his adrenalin had forced his body beyond his normal capacity, but in the end it did not matter. He was exhausted.

Despite the cramp in his side and the burning in his lungs, he moved on. He slowed to a steady trot instead of a desperate sprint. The zombies staggered behind him their hands outstretched. It was a losing proposition and he knew it. Unless he could find some form of transportation he would never escape them. At the very least he needed a pair of shoes to make it easier to run.

The horde grew larger as he trotted down the highway. Outside of the occasional scare caused by a zombie popping up from a ditch, nothing disturbed his jog. He outpaced those behind him a short distance, but never enough to stop and take a lengthy rest.

Bloody stains on the highway marked his passing as his bloodied feet continued their march forward. Unarmed and naked, he had no confidence to fight even one of the things chasing after him. There had to be well over one hundred of them staggering down the highway in his direction at the moment.

The miles passed. Sweat poured from his body, and he vision began to blur. The heat of the day was almost too much to bear. He had neither eaten nor drank in hours. He had only continued to run from the horde hankering for a hunk of his sweet ass.

It was then, when all hope was lost, that he saw something in the distance. On the horizon of the overly flat landscape he saw what looked to be an old farmhouse.

He did not know where the strength came from, but he picked up the pace. He sprinted as best he could, and then when he grew tired he would walk a short distance before he began to jog. Whenever he had the stamina he would repeat the process. The zombies behind him became more and more distant as he forced himself to go beyond his comfort zone and deplete more of his limited energy reserves. He needed the time to check the house before the horde caught up.

Nearly exhausted, he managed to reach the drive way that led off the main road toward the house. The house was a good distance off road, which made him groan slightly. Scott glanced back and estimated how much time he had before he had to get moving. "Five, maybe ten minutes?" he asked the air rhetorically.

Either way, it did not matter. He had to check the place out quickly and get moving. Even at a glance he could tell that the old wooden structure would not hold off over a hundred hungry undead. He needed shelter, but not this. What he needed was concrete, mortar, and a private island with him on it. A pair of underwear would be nice as well. Anything at this point would be a welcome additional to his non-arsenal.

Scott trotted down the little dirt path then performed a quirk perimeter check of the building. He saw no zombies outside, save for the horde shambling toward him in the distance. He peeked into a few windows from outside, but saw no movement inside. He tried the doors, but they were locked.

A quick check of the little garage on the side produced a moment of elation, followed by annoyance. There was an old truck there, but the back left tire had been taken off and the truck had been placed up on blocks. It would not be going anywhere.

"Dammit." snapped Scott irritably. He checked the position of the horde then ran back into the garage and performed a quick search. There were a few tools that might be useful. There were no socks or boots, nor any useful clothes in the garage, however. He would remain in his current non-attire for a time, yet.

Too much time had passed. He had to go. Scott snatched up the first aid kit from a drawer and an overly large crowbar from the wall then started to head out. There was no time to search the house since he would have to find a window big enough to crawl through and then smash it. The thing he needed most was transportation, which he was not likely to find inside the building unless this supposed realistic landscape had more game-like concepts than what seemed to be at play. If he had more time, he would check the house, but he did not want to get trapped inside.

Unfortunately, even in the garage he found little hope for escape. Other than the lawn mower in the corner, he saw nothing with an engine that might get him out of his predicament.

Scott, slightly delirious from the lack of liquid refreshment and constant running glanced over to the lawn mower. "No..."

It was loud, it was stupidly exposed. Everything within two or three miles would hear it running. He spared it a moment's thought then growled. "Shit. Beats walking..."

As luck would have it, the homeowner had been the lazy sort who left the key to his riding mower in the ignition. He tried the engine twice, and then on the third time the yard terror awoke with a roaring thunder. "Hell yeah!"

Scott put it in reverse and set it to the little rabbit instead of the turtle. Why lawn mowers needed symbols to show which end was full-throttle and which was slow, was beyond him.

Either way, he hit the gas and the machine lurched backward before moving out at a high rate of speed. He turned the wheel hard and it continued in reverse until he had maneuvered it to face the road.

The fastest members of the horde had nearly reached the drive way by the time he got into position. Scott glared at them then shoved his foot hard on the gas. The little lawn mower that could, lurched forward without preamble and nearly tossed him off in the process. He remained seated, however, and the speedy little fellow pulled him forward with all the horse power it possessed.

Scott whipped out of the driveway and onto the road just ahead of a zombie that wildly waved its arms in his direction. He honked the horn then tore off down the road. As he felt the wind on his naked body he could not help but lift one hand in the air and shout, "Thank you, generous hosts!"

He was going to die in this god forsaken hellhole. He was certain of it. A glance back at the staggering zombies revealed that he had put a good bit of distance between them and his sweet meats already, but that did not change the fact that he was in deep shit. Still, for the first time since the ordeal had begun he was able to take a breath and just let it all wash over him.

Not long after that moment of clarity, he noticed a small compartment below the steering wheel and a little off to the right. He opened it as he motored along, and discovered a set of dark aviator style sunglasses squirreled away inside.

Scott drove down the street one-handed while he put on the sun glasses, a grin upon his lips. He had already accepted that he would not survive till morning. He had no skill for such a thing as surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

It was not long before he engaged in the only proper conduct a young American might engage in at the end of the world when riding down the highway on a stolen lawn mower in order to escape a horde of zombies. He threw back his head and started to sing the song, Born to Be Wild loudly and off-key. He could not possibly make more noise than the lawn mower. There was no danger of attracting more attention by doing it, and it did the one thing he needed at the moment even more than a pair of underwear.

It gave him a moment of sweet relief away from the terror he had faced that day. He had jogged, walked, and occasionally forced himself into a sprint over the course of several hours while his death staggered slowly behind him. He might look like a complete lunatic to anyone who saw him singing while riding down the street naked on a lawn mower during the zombie apocalypse, but he didn't care. He was determined to have at least a little fun before he died.