"Argh!" Noah let out a wordless scream as the news broadcast on the TV and electricity all suddenly shut off at once.

He discovered that he was free to move again as he clutched at his head. The pain began at the base of his skull then travelled along his spine into the rest of his body. The wave of pain was countless times more intense than the hangover he suffered from the night before as it washed over him.

[During the trial phase, all aboriginal users' ability awakening shall be enhanced.]

[Aboriginal life form advanced weapons shall temporarily be permitted.]

[The trial phase shall end once ten percent of the training district: Earth aboriginal population awaken.]

[Role quota shall be allocated to users who perform exceptionally.]

After the voice belonging to the System disappeared from his head, Noah noticed that aside from the air smelling a lot purer, he could move smoothly again.

When Noah crawled out from under the table, he was able to see that his house was a mess. He had only recently moved to the city alone into this small house in the suburbs. He decided to go outside to check on his neighbours to see if they were okay before he cleaned up the mess inside.

"Hey, are you okay? Did you hear that voice too?!"

He walked out just in time to see a group of his neighbours gathering outside on the street. The street didn't look much better than the inside of his house did. There was debris from scattered roof tiles of homes with a few abandoned cars, which Noah assumed must belong to some of the people already on the street.

The person who called out to him was a slightly overweight young man dressed in a polo shirt with bleached blonde highlights styled into spikes, a few years younger than Noah. The young man looked a bit dishevelled and dusty but otherwise unhurt.

"Yeah, I'm okay. How about you? Is anybody hurt? What's your name? I'm Noah."

"I'm Joseph. We need your help. There's an old lady we just pulled out of one of the cars. We think she may have had a heart attack because she's not responding," Joseph said.

"Ahhhhh! She bit me!"

Noah and Joseph looked over, a middle-aged woman held her neck as the old lady got up from the ground in front of her.

"It won't stop bleeding! Why'd you done that? I was trying to help you!" the middle-aged woman yelled. Whatever else she intended to say was cut short as the old lady threw her to the ground before jumping on top of her, sinking teeth into her throat.

"What the hell?!" the people gathered around cried out in shock as they moved away from them.

"What is she?! Look at her face! It's a god damned zombie apocalypse!" someone yelled out as they began to run away in a panic.

Noah noticed that the old lady seemed to have an unnatural ripple pass through her back, the middle-aged woman that had tried to help her had stopped moving, but the old lady was still mauling her throat.

"Get off her! What're you all still standing around for? Stop her!" Joseph yelled out as he started to run over while the group was staring in a daze.

"Wait!" Noah called out to Joseph as he caught his arm.

"There's something not right. Look at her back." Noah pointed to the ripple in the woman's muscles, which seemed to be slowing down.

"I think we should maybe get those people away from her," Noah suggested.

The old lady suddenly turned her head to make eye contact with him. Her eyes had become entirely black without any emotion, devoid of life like an endless abyss. The woman's face was twisted in unnatural angles with razor-sharp teeth, replacing her empty gums pushing out her dentures, which lay discarded on the ground beside the unmoving woman.

"Uh oh, what is she looking at us for?! Aren't there people standing right beside her?! Shit!" Joseph cursed as he hurriedly started to back away.

"Agh!"

The old lady let out a cry as she jumped to her feet then began to run straight at Noah. The people around her seemed to wake up as they started to scatter in different directions.

"Do you owe her money or something?! Shit, why did I have to stand beside you?" Joseph was starting to panic as the old lady drew closer.

"I don't know what she wants. I've never seen her before in my life!" Noah replied as he turned around and dragged Joseph into the house.

"Don't drag me into this with you! If you haven't noticed, you don't even have a door!" Joseph cried out as he pointed at Noah's ruined doorway.

"Push the table into the doorway while I try to find something we can use!"

Joseph quickly ran over to the table and charged it forwards into the doorway while he let out a mighty roar.

"What are you doing? Quickly stand it on its side, that's not going to stop her!" Noah cried out as he glanced over just in time to witness the old lady-now monster charge straight into the edge of the table.

"Oof!"

The old lady-now monster let out some air as she fell onto her back before growling and climbing to her feet again.

"Ha! I bet you didn't see that coming, did you, grandma?!" Joseph laughed as he flipped the table onto its end and used it to block the doorway.

"Alright. You can come to help me anytime now, Noah!" Joseph quickly lost his humour.

"I'm coming! Hold on!"

Noah came back into the room from the garage carrying an old blunt looking woodcutting axe. Joseph was struggling to hold the table as the old woman-now monster threw herself against it.

"Alright, quickly get out of the way!"

Joseph placed his hands on Noah's shoulders as he moved behind him, but the table had already stopped moving.

"Well, that's unexpected..." Joseph muttered as the table slowly fell back onto its legs, revealing two creatures with a demonic appearance standing in the doorway. A monster let out a scream of rage as the pair burst into the room.

"Wait, there's two of them now?! How many people do you owe money?" Joseph attempted to make light of the situation as he looked over Noah's shoulder towards the pair of monsters.

"I don't know him. I just met him five minutes ago. I'll be going now!" Joseph said futilely to the two monsters as he stumbled backward in panic.

Noah let out a roar when the first monster got close to him. It was the middle-aged woman from earlier that the old lady-now monster had mauled to death. Right as he recognized the middle-aged woman, the beast swung a claw at him. But Noah was faster, he was already wielding the axe towards the monster's face.

The axe glanced off the monster, knocking it off balance. The old-lady-now-monster tripped over the first monster, knocking the pair of creatures to the ground along with Noah as he overextended himself. The beast quickly recovered as it leapt on top of him. Noah tried to hit the old lady-now monster with the axe as he held her back from his face, but she was too close without enough room to bat her properly. To make matters worse, the other monster was now swinging a claw at his over the shoulder of the other monster.

"Help me!" Noah cried out, but he couldn't see Joseph anywhere.