Myke walked out of the room. In the hallway, he felt a relief looking at the perfectly fine closet room door. Excited he rushed to the door and opened it.

He looked at the wardrobe in amazement. The old wardrobe stood there covered in dust, but it was totally strange that he can see it at all. The closet room doesn’t have a window and with no electricity, the room should have been very dark.

Amazed he thought about the moon earlier. It appeared unusually bright and he could also see the whole city clearly, although it was in the middle of the night.

‘It’s me! I have changed and now I can see in the dark.’ – he realized this looking around in amazement.

Excitement and curiosity grew in Myke.

This cocoon he busted out of. Is this the reason he can do this now? What else was he able to do?

Lots of questions popped in his head and as a scientist, his curiosity grew more and more.

First, he needs to put some clothes on and find some food.

The wardrobe was in good condition and all of his stuff was untouched. There was even a towel in here.

He wiped his body and put some clothes on. Although these were his clothes from before it felt weird for him. The clothes were somewhat loose but also too short. He was pretty tall before and looking at his clothes, he was now at least 190cm. Wondering how his look changed he went to the bathroom looking for the mirror.

The bathroom was in a bad condition and the mirror was in pieces on the floor. He picked up a bigger piece and cleaned it impatiently with his sleeve.

A sigh of relief came out of his mouth. It was the same old face he had for the past 42 years. Just a bit thinner and also much younger. Even the scar on his left eyebrow was still there. A friendly face with black hair and big dark brown eyes that almost always put him right away in the friend zone with the ladies. He wasn’t ugly by all means, but also not very attractive. Just the average guy from the neighborhood.

“At least no surprise here, but I have to shave and cut my hair soon” - he muttered to himself

He picked up his backpack from the closet and went to the kitchen.

Here was even worse than in the bathroom. The door was missing and what was left from the furniture was broken to pieces scattered on the floor. Seeing this he knew that there is no other option, but to go outside to search for food.

He found a kitchen knife in relatively good condition on the floor and put it in his backpack.

Myke thought shortly about the options he has now. First, he decided to go to the convenience store he always went to. The store was just a couple of blocks away and had canned food in his assortment.

Canned food was his best choice. Looking at the world outside he judged that he was gone for a long time. With this in mind, canned food seemed to be his best option for something still eatable.

He searched quickly for some more stuff he may need and took off for the convenience store.

On the street outside of his building, something felt off. Looking around at the wrecked cars and broken streetlights he finally realized that it is very quiet. There were no signs of life at all. Not even a single insect could be heard. As a scientist, he knew that when humans are gone nature should have taken over. Being so devoid of life was more than odd.

He felt somehow depressed from this. Even more questions without an answer.

“Are there any other survivors?” – he muttered

It was so quiet that it felt somehow wrong to make a loud noise and break the silence.

Myke decided to hurry up to the store. It seems that he was in the cocoon even longer than he thought before. If there is no food in the store, he has to think about something else, maybe leave the city and continue with his search from there.

It was depressing for him to know nothing about the current situation. He was not accustomed to making decisions with so little information. He needed more information. He needed to find someone to talk to. He desperately wanted to be able to assess the severity of the current situation.

‘Is it just this city or the whole country or even the whole world?’

As usual, he started making plans in his head.

The priority was to find and secure food.

Then search for other survivors and gather more information about the current state.

Surviving alone would be very difficult. The most difficult part will be to get enough food, especially in the winter.

Even more depressed from this line of thought he reached the store without noticing it.

The store seemed to be ok. The front glass was broken, but most of the shelves inside were still standing.

He could see inside the store. Most of the inside was trashed, but there were some cans to be seen on the shelves at the back.

“Food?” – exited he rushed to the back of the store.

In the excitement, he bumped into one of the shelves and it fell with a loud crashing sound.

He froze for a moment, but after a while, he relaxed again. There was still no other sound to be heard. With more caution, he continued to the back of the store.

The cans were in good shape, even though the etiquettes were long gone.

He could gather around twenty cans. At least now he had food for a couple of days.

His stomach gurgled again. He was too hungry to go back to his apartment to eat, so he decided to eat right away.

He opened a can with the knife from his backpack. He looked and smelled the beans inside.

Satisfied with the content of the can he started eating.

‘Hmm, it is not as bad as I expected’

After eating two more cans he was finally full. With the hunger satisfied he felt better. Food is secured, now was time to bring the rest back home before continuing the exploration.

As he walked out of the store it was already dawn and the first sunlight lit the street.

He looked at the direction of the sunrise and his eyes widened in surprise.

There were two people in the distance walking slowly toward him.

Myke couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Hey there!” – he shouted at them while waving with his right hand and started running.

Their movement and reaction felt strange. After they noticed him, they also started running in his direction.

Suddenly he stopped. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and shiver passed down his spine. One more look at the approaching figures was enough to make him shiver in fear and slowly retreat.

Something was wrong with them.

‘How could this be? This is impossible!’

“Aghrrr…” – they started growling at him

Watching more closely he saw their deformed rotten faces, he turned around and started running away in panic.

“You can’t be real! This is not happening!” – he shouted while running away from the zombies.

The rotting corpses ran after him unimpressed.

‘This is bad, this is very bad’ – screaming in his head Myke ran away as fast as he can.

At this moment He saw more zombies coming around the corners and his heart almost stopped.

‘Did they heard the shelf crashing?’

Looking around for escape he saw more and more zombies coming from all directions.

He was surrounded.

‘Is this the end?’