“Well shit.” Decker says.

Inside the bike room just over a dozen zombies shamble around. The door to the exit is still wide open. With this being the only door inside the bike room from the building we’ll have to fight our way through to the open door.

“How many do you think you can handle?” Decker eyes me.

I look inside myself and examine my reserves. With just under three quarters of my mana I can easily handle over half of them with just Rifle Rounds. Getting up close and personal I can handle more.

“A good portion of them. Seven on the low end. All if I’m pushed.”

Decker eyes me over.

“Kid this isn’t the time to be showboating.” Andy says.

His words spark annoyance in me. Looking around I gesture to the countless dead bodies that we’re forced to stand on.

“I don’t think he’s showboating Andy.” Decker says.

He takes a second while Andy huffs. I stare at him letting my annoyance with him be known.

“Alright, here is the plan. I’ll open the door and you’ll take down the closest, giving me space to get in there. Then Joel and I will fight our way to the other door. Once it’s closed you two can try taking out any zombies you think you can handle. But you need to be dead sure you can do it safely. No bite or scratch can befall any of us.” Decker says

He eyes me and I can tell he isn’t telling me to be careful because he doesn’t think I can’t handle myself. But because he’s actually concerned about me.

We all nod in understanding. Decker opens the door and I rush into action.

Four Rifle Rounds pop into existence as I race into the room. Taking stock of the situation I quickly count sixteen zombies spread throughout the room. With the majority being closer to me.

Focusing on the two closest to me I shoot off two of the four rounds. Their heads vanish in a spray of blood. The next closest two meet a similar fate.

Something black blurs past me and the next closest zombie is decapitated before I can react. Decker’s speed amazes me not for the first time. Taking notes from him, I switch to melee casting Mana Saw on my baton.

The blue energy builds in the bend, giving the weapon an weird ax look to it. While more mana hungry than just coating the shaft, I hope to preserve my trusty weapon by taking more strain off of the metal.

I fly into action letting my mana chew away at the skull of another zombie. Decker already lashes out with his sword striking two more zombies. In the time it took me to kill one he’s already killed two.

Out of the corner of my eyes I watch the tall man almost dance through the crowd. His sword is darting out and about, hacking into the horde of zombies. It looks as if he’s from some of those old kung fu movies.

With half of the zombies already dealt with I’m left a little shocked at how easy this has gotten. Before becoming a mage it took so much effort just to kill one. And now I can easily handle dozens.

A zombie shambles forwards and I notice that it's a level four. The light above its head is still a cool blue. It lunges at me faster than most of the other zombies but is still slow enough that I can easily doge.

I wish I knew how much faster they got with each level. How does their leveling up even work? Do they grow stronger and faster with each kill or with each level? How much do they increase per level?

I side step the lame attack and bring the swirling pool of mana set in the bend of my baton down. Blood gushes out as the mana digs into it’s head. The zombie's health quickly depletes to zero after only a few seconds of holding the baton down on its head. The blue box above it’s head becomes black and I whirl around, ready for the next one.

Decker lunges forward lobbing off two heads with a quick swing of his blade. Looking around I count only four zombies remaining. Looking beyond the open door to the outside I see more standing just on the street.

Knowing that this could get harder if more press into through the open door I race forwards. I dive under the grasp of one zombie and roll to a stop before the door. I grab the handle, giving it a good yank. The familiar click rings out as the door is pulled close.

In the corner of my eye I see a car flying down a road. Zombies fly and bounce off the hood of the vehicle. I watch in shock as the vehicle speeds away and out of sight.

The sound of it catches the attention of the zombies on the street. They turn their focus off of us in the bike room and down towards where the car sped off. I can still faintly hear the roar of it’s motor.

The door closes and I remember where I am. Turning around reveals a single zombie remaining. Andy stands behind it moving faster than I expected from him. He takes the bat up and brings it down with a frightening crack. The zombie’s health drops by six points.

Before the zombie can even react to the violent attack Andy already has his bat above his head. He brings it down causing the blue light to flash black. Leaving us humans as the only animated bodies in the bike room.

“Good work everyone.” Decker says.

Andy breaths heavily as if he just ran a marathon. Sweat beads on his forehead. And I’m left wondering just how out of shape he is. While not a fat guy he isn’t skinny either.

“Wow, that’s exhausting. How are you keeping that up for so long?” Andy asks Decker.

“From what I can tell your battle focus is affected by your own endurance. I’ve been running every morning since childhood. My Endurance stat is sitting at 11, what’s your’s?”

“I’m at a three.” Andy says quietly.

“Try putting some stat points into it when you get them.” Decker says.

Andy sits down, trying to catch his breath. While he does so, Decker turns to me.

“What’s that?” He asks, pointing at my baton.

“I call it my Mana Saw. My mana sorta acts as the teeth of a chain saw. It makes getting close and personal with the zombies easier.”

While explaining the spell Angila watches me intensely. Feeling a little awkward by her attention I turn away and let the spell dissipate.

“When we’re done I want to sit down with you and have you show me everything you can do.” Decker says.

“I can do that.”

Silence falls between us. Andy’s labored breathing being the only thing to fill the vacancy in our conversation. I war with myself by asking Decker for a request myself.

In my experience adults don’t like people asking them things. My father would have an extremely bad reaction to requests from me. But Decker seems different than my dad. More open and caring.

“Is there something you want to ask?” He asks me, noticing me hesitating to say something.

Throwing caution to the wind, the part of me that wants to ask him wins the war.

“Could you possibly show me how to use that?” I ask, pointing at the still dripping blade.

He looks at his sword then to me and smiles warmly.

“Certainly. But I warn you it took me just under fifteen years to learn to use this.”

“Really? Did you used to do Kendo or something?” I ask.

Decker laughs while whipping the blood off of the blade.

“No no. When I was young my grandfather had me join a Shaolin Monastery.”

“What’s that?”

“A temple that teaches Buddhism. Part of that is to gain wisdom through physical training. I learned to fight with a sword there.”

Deckers eyes grow distant as he speaks. Not like he’s looking at the screens but more like he’s thinking about the past.

My mind races with the new information. I mean how cool would it be to be taught how to use a sword. He’s like some warrior monk right? Is that insensitive to say? I want to ask him so many questions about his time at the Monastery, about his fighting abilities, about himself. But I hold myself back. It doesn’t feel like the time or place to be talking about those kinds of things.

We rest up in the bike room ignoring the occasion beating on the glassdoor to the outside. I pondered what the person driving the car was doing. Maybe they escaped one of the garages downtown or were trying to get to someone. However I couldn't shake a feeling of unease that the sight of the car gave me.

Since all of this started I haven’t seen a single moving vehicle until now. I assumed that was because everyone was just swamped by the zombies and overwhelmed but that still doesn’t make sense. This city constantly has people driving on the roads, even if the zombie apocalypse sprung up there would be people rushing around in their cars.

Wait, the earthquake apparently caused all of us to pass out right? If that happened to everyone there would have been countless car crashes. Just thinking about the speeds people travel on the highways at night makes me shiver. How many people died before they were even given a chance to survive.

“Which do you think we should tackle first?” Decker asks.

His words break me from my thoughts. Thinking of it, the garage is probably jam packed with zombies. It would be better to tackle it after I recharged some mana. We might even try to level up Andy and Angila a little beforehand too.

“I think the kitchen should be next. But you and I should hang back while Angila and Andy try to get a few more levels. With how they are now I don’t know how safe it would be bringing them into the garages. Especially if there’s higher level zombies down there.”

“Higher level zombies?” Andy asks.

“Yeah, a level twelve almost killed me after I silenced the alarms. It’s actually the one that put a dent in my baton. They’re faster and far stronger than most humans at those levels.”

“I saw that level four you took down. I assumed their level was just how much health they have.” Decker says.

I shake my head in the negative.

“No, everything seems to get boosted as they level. Health, defense, speed, strength.”

“Do you think any high leveled ones are in the garage or kitchen?” Angila asks.

“I’m not sure. I think they level up by eating people. So at this point I don’t know how many can be high leveled right now.”

Thinking back to any experience I had with high leveled zombies I remember the red glow that the boxes above of them had.

“If you see the blue box above them as red don’t engage. I think it means that they’re higher level than you.” I say

“Thanks for the heads up.” Decker says.

Andy and Angila look frightened.

“What if we’re attacked by one?” Angila asked.

“Call out for Decker or I and we should be able to take care of it.” I say.

This seems to draw a frown from Andy but I ignore him.

“Alright so next up is the kitchen. Everyone ready?” Decker asks.

I turn my gaze inwards and examine my refilling mana pool. The rain of mana slowly refills the small lake inside of me. However I realize that the mana is flowing more sluggishly. As if it’s more of a syrup than a liquid.

I chalk the change up to my tiredness and reaffirm myself that we should hurry up.

“Ready.” I say

Andy and Angila agree and we set out as a group to the kitchen.