Still standing in the grave, Gary felt the initial rush of energy fading. He looked around and saw the slugs were wriggling into the ground or slithering away. He assumed they were searching for other people to infect.

But infect wasn’t the right word, and Gary knew it.

Unlock was the right word.

Without warning, two colourful, semi-transparent screens appeared in front of his eyes. They floated a foot in front of his face. The one on the left was smaller, like a loading screen, which listed the seeding percentages as they rose. The much larger screen on the right-hand side said “Initiating...”

Gary could still feel the afterglow of the slug inside him. He surmised that the rush he had felt was him being initiated into whatever madness this was.

But what did the seeding screen mean?

This is happening everywhere, he thought, with an intuitive leap. The entire world is being seeded. The slugs are first seeding then initiating.

As if to confirm his hunch, the screen and voice added a further line of information to the seeding percentage. A rather grim one.

70% seeded, 75% seeded.

Current casualties: 750,000,000 800,000,000 900,000,000 1 billion.

One billion people dead? In a matter of seconds?

Gary tried to comprehend this new information, but the scale of it was beyond his capacity to imagine. If the black rain had happened everywhere, there’d be casualties. That was inevitable. Car crashes seemed the most likely cause, assuming that the slug things could slither through roofs and into people. Panic and fear would account for a lot. 1 billion dead still seemed high, though.

The right-hand screen flickered into life.

The voice he had heard no longer read out the words.

You have been initiated.

Perceptions of reality unlocked.

Your system screen is now accessible. Please use Character Command to open and close system screens. Tutorials are available. Please use Tutorial Command to access Tutorial screens.

Mana Potential unlocked.

You can now access your personal Mana store. Please see the Tutorials for more information on how to use Mana.

Character sheet unlocked.

Your characteristics are being calculated. Characteristic calculation complete. Your Character Sheet will follow.

Levelling unlocked.

You can now level up. Please see the Tutorial for more information.

Meanwhile, the screen on the left-hand side of his vision continued its updates.

85% seeded. 1,250,000,000 casualties.

Seeding level acceptable.

Casualties acceptable.

Upgrade complete.

Reality 6775 (Class 0, Designation Earth) has been integrated.

Casualties acceptable? What did that mean?

Was the screen telling him that someone had wiped out over one billion people so that the earth could be upgraded? Gary had little time to consider the implications of this. As promised, his character sheet appeared on the screen on his right.

Name: Gary

Race: Human

Occupation: Grave Digger

Class: None (Survivor)

Level: 1

Experience: 0/1000

Speed: 11

Strength: 13

Constitution: 12

Intelligence: 12

Perception: 13

Stealth: 10

Willpower: 14

Charisma: 11

Hit Points: 20

Recovery: 1HP/hour

Mana Points: 10

Recovery: 1MP/hour

Fear Points: 0

Recovery: -1FP/20 minutes

Wounds: None

Trauma: None

Equipment: None

Weapons: None

Skills:

Landscape Gardening (Int) +30%

Combat:

Fists Damage 1-3

Languages:

English (British): 85%

French: 5%

Multiversal Common: 85%

Objectives:

Find other survivors.

Gain experience to level up.

Achieve Level 2 and choose a class.

Stay alive.

Gary read through the text with a mixture of bemusement and disbelief. Part of him was sure he was dreaming, or that he was on hallucinogenics, or that he’d just gone mad.

Maybe it was all three.

Another part of him knew that none of that was true. In less than ten minutes, the rules of reality had changed.

He skimmed through the character sheet, grimacing at the occupation listing of Grave Digger. Landscape Architect, he corrected, but the screen refused to change. He recognised the statistics from the video games and RPGs he’d played, and suspected the system had classified him as above average.

Mana points he took to mean magic. He now understood that the glow he had felt was because of the mana points being activated. So that was kind of cool. The initial rush of wellbeing and power he had felt had died down now, however.

Fear points didn’t seem great. And the instruction to “Stay alive” was also a cause for worry.

Still, he had other things on his mind.

If this was happening everywhere, then he had a lot to worry about.

Were his family and friends okay, or had they been part of the one billion plus killed during the seeding? With 8 billion people in the world, that meant, what, there was a one in eight chance that anyone he knew had died?

He had to find out.

Phone, he thought.

He had left his phone in his jacket, which was lying nearby on the grass.

The screens were obscuring his view. Gary waved his hand across them, trying to make them vanish. Nothing happened.

He waved at the screens again. They refused to vanish.

“Go away!” he yelled at the screens, but they remained.

“Uh, Character Command? Close Character?”

The second one did it. The screens vanished.

He paused. What if he needed them? He hadn’t thought to access the tutorial despite it being mentioned several times.

“Open Character.”

The screens reappeared. Gary nodded. Okay, good. He could access and close the information screens as he required.

“Close Character.”

The screens vanished again.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning hit the ground around thirty feet away. A loud ‘kraka-BOOOM!’ noise accompanied it. Gary fell backwards in shock, stumbling into the wall of the grave that he was still standing in.

“Not sure I can take much more of this,” he muttered.

The screens reopened without prompting.

On the smaller screen on the left-hand side, the percentages had vanished and a new line appeared.

You have received a sudden shock.

+2 Fear Points.

“Yeah, no shit,” Gary grumbled.

He could feel the fear points. It wasn’t just the fact that his heart was beating so fast. It was like they were dragging him down, making him less sure of himself. Less able to act than normal.

Gary looked across to where the lightning had struck and saw someone standing there.

The figure, maybe five foot nine, was dressed in monk-like robes. A hood covered his face. He chanted something, his hands raised and glowing with dark, eldritch energy. Purple and black swirls of power twisted and danced around his hands. The chanting grew louder.

“Okay, whatever is going on here, it’s time to go,” Gary muttered.

He had no idea what this robed figure or the black and purple energy signified, but he guessed it was nothing good.

Gary placed his forearms on the edge of the grave, intent on boosting himself out, but felt his arms weaken.

You see a Necromancer (Level 4) and hear terrible chanting. You attempt to flee. Willpower check.

Your Willpower fails you. You cannot flee.

+1 Fear Points.

“Oh, come on!” Gary shouted as he fell backwards.

This was getting ridiculous. His hands trembled and there was a lump of fear in his throat. His legs buckled as he scrabbled backwards against the wall of the grave. He felt like something out of a cheap horror movie, the victim who is too dumb and scared to run.

“Pull it together, man...”

But the fear was overwhelming him.

The necromancer’s chanting grew louder. He clapped his hands together and the black and purple vines of power turned into a ball of power which exploded across the graveyard. The stream of colour passed through Gary, but left him unhurt.

The Necromancer casts “Rise From Your Graves” as an area affect.

The dead are rising from their graves!

“Terrific. That’s just terrific,” Gary muttered.

Despite his sarcastic bravado, he was three Fear Points up by his count and felt as timid as a kitten. If the dead started coming out of their graves, he could guarantee that would be more Fear Points and therefore less ability to act. He opened his character sheet to confirm his count.

The Weapons: None listing was bothering him.

He reached out of the grave and took his shovel.

As soon as he did, the screen added:

Shovel 4-6 damage.

25% Chance to Stun.

Personal Item: You feel confident with a shovel in your hand

+ 1 Willpower

Resistance to Fear Points +10%

Gary gripped the shovel. Who knew that such a humble item could have such a calming effect? His Fear Points had dropped two points, and his confidence was being restored.

He looked across at the necromancer, who was still standing in the same spot, doubtless waiting to see the results of his spell.

Okay, Gary thought, priorities. Run like hell or confront the necromancer?

He wondered if he could get a sneak attack on the figure, smacking him with the shovel. The necromancer hadn’t noticed him so far. Would that work? And if he managed that, would it stop a horde of undead rising?

All around him, Gary heard sounds which convinced him it was too late to stop the dead from rising. There were distant cracking noises, like the sounds of coffins being broken open. The noises of earth being shoved to one side. And then moans that could only come from the undead.

Okay, that was that decided, then. The spell had been cast. There were no takebacks.

Run like hell was the only sensible option.

Gary heaved himself up out of the grave.

As he did so, another message flashed up.

ALERT. SYSTEM ERROR. SYSTEM ERROR.

Parameter conflict.

Living but Rising from Grave?

Living/Undead?

Alerting System Admin.

System Admin Alerted. System Admin (Admin number: 551) assessing.

Assessment made.

Parameter conflict resolved.

Core error at initiation established.

Reconfiguring subject.

Wiping character sheet.

Gary’s character sheet vanished, to be replaced with new text.

Rise from Your Grave!

You are undead.

Class: Human Undead

Type: Basic Zombie (Herder)

Level: 1

Experience: 0/1000

Hit Points: 25/25

Recovery: 1 HP/10 minutes

Attacks:

Claw +10% 1-3 Infectious chance 35%

Bite +20% 3-6 Infectious chance 75%

Special Weapon: Shovel 4-6 damage

25% Chance to Stun.

Defence:

Immunity to poison. Immunity to drowning. Immunity to radiation. Immunity to Diseases. Immunity to infection.

Special:

Regeneration.

Regain 3-6 HP for eating the living.

Regain 2-4 HP for eating the recently deceased.

Goal: Eat the living.

Level Up.

“Oh,” Gary muttered, “No, no way. You have got to be joking. I’m not dead! This is a mistake! I’m not a zombie!”

But the system hadn’t finished.

Almost as an afterthought, it added:

Experience Points for defeating Basic Zombie (Herder) (with Special Weapon): 125 XP