The apocalypse started on a normal day, just like any other. Kat woke up, got ready for the day, and went to school. She sat through a few hours of classes, ate lunch, and went back to class. The bell rang, and she got on the bus to head home. Naturally, that’s about when things went south.

She had her head down, browsing the internet on her phone when the bus suddenly swerved. A few kids screamed out, her phone flew out of her hands, and the bus tipped onto its side. Unluckily for her, the side that she was on was pointing up to the sky, causing her to fall to the other side of the bus. Her head slammed into the back of one of the bus seats, and the world went black.

While she was out, the rest of the kids on the bus quickly scrambled to get off. Nobody attempted to move her, as they were more preoccupied with themselves, or they thought that the paramedics who would show up later would take care of her.

She didn’t hear the screams as a few of the students were attacked. She didn’t smell the blood being spilled. She didn’t feel as something approached her and started chewing on her arm. She slept through it all, not even stirring a little.

After a while, her body grew cold and the creature stood up and left. Her arm was in tatters, chunks of flesh missing. A strange virus was coursing through her body, slowly changing it.

When it made its way to her brain, it paused. Some could call the virus sentient, which might explain what it did next. It examined her brain and realized there wouldn’t be much left working if it took control. It froze for a while, seeming to try and come up with a solution.

It naturally couldn’t stop its takeover of her body, but it could change how it took control. The virus needed to be able to adapt to anybody after all, and that was simply one of its capabilities.

With a new step added in its takeover process-bettering her brain for it to function better- it started to add instead of subtract. It replicated itself many times faster than normal, adding neurons, creating new pathways, reinforcing what was already there, and making completely new actions her body could take.

Now, it needed to get the energy to do this from somewhere, and she was already dead at this point. So it started to consume itself, pulling the virus from various parts of her body. As the virus receded, it pulsed with a life-giving energy.

Her body slowly started to turn back on as the virus retreated, but her brain was still changing. Her arm had long been fixed back to normal, and her heart had started beating again, but the virus stayed in her head. It didn’t know when it should stop, so it kept improving her.

Eventually, the virus was dead everywhere in her body except inside her head. With no more virus to drain from her body, it started to devour itself. The improvement slowed down exponentially, but it kept going.

Time flew by, unnoticed, until the last of the virus was gone. It had run out of energy, and just keeled over and died. Her heart was beating, the virus was gone, but she remained asleep. Her brain didn’t start like the rest of her body did, and instead remained dead.

So she slept.

It has been almost a decade since the apocalypse started. Society had regressed, but it had also advanced by leaps and bounds. Around a year after it started, people had discovered abilities, of a sort. Nobody knew how they appeared, but with the limited amount of ammo now that production had shut down, it was accepted as an easy alternative.

Abilities were capable of growing stronger, but it took an immense amount of energy. As a result, immensely strong people were only beginning to show up now, nearly a decade later.

Huck was one such individual. He was capable of manipulating electricity, one of very few people who could. It was for this reason that he was currently being hunted,

Some of the survivors' bases didn’t want him to fall into other bases' hands, and didn’t want him uncontrolled. That had led to the current situation of being chased by another individual, capable of manipulating the air. They were about equally matched in speed, but unfortunately, the air manipulator was slightly faster.

Huck was rushing down an abandoned road, passing many abandoned cars. He sensed someone in front of him, and quickly came to a stop. Standing in front of him was a dude, sandy blond hair, hands in his pockets.

Huck knew he wouldn’t be able to get away from this fight, so he quickly dropped into a combat stance. Electricity crackled around his hands, while a small dust storm rose up around his opponent.

There was no need for words, as Huck had made his position rather clear, and his opponent was probably under orders to kill him, not recruit him. They exchanged a few blows, with Huck slowly forcing his opponent back. While he was a tad slower, he had a much more offensive ability.

They fought for over an hour, no words exchanged, but no lethal hits had landed yet. Huck was growing impatient. If he didn’t finish up here soon, more people might eventually show up.

He started pushing his opponent away, so he’d have enough time to charge a stronger attack. By the time his opponent realized what Huck was doing, he was already too far away to stop it.

Huck charged a large ball of electricity, trying to condense it down as much as possible. His opponent, realizing he was too far away to stop it in time, quickly tried to make an even larger distance between them and give himself more room to dodge.

He moved backwards until he was standing in front of an old, decrepit school bus. Huck released his attack and his opponent dodged. Unfortunately, however fast the air manipulator was, he couldn’t be faster than a bolt of lightning.

He tried to create a wind shield, which only successfully deflected a small portion of the attack. The rest hit him head on, completely burning his body and frying his brain, killing him on the spot.

Huck barely had any time to relax before an ear-piercing scream erupted from the decrepit school bus. He was quickly on guard, preparing for whatever might attack him. What he wasn’t expecting, however, was the shout he heard after the scream ended.

“What the fuck!?”

Kat woke up to excruciating pain, as if her entire body were on fire. Her reactions were completely understandable under these circumstances. She looked around and noticed how… overloaded…everything was.

The colors were popping in her vision, the sounds were so much louder than before, and her sense of smell was almost too much. Not to mention how fast her mind seemed to be moving; her body seemed off, as if she was supposed to learn how to walk again. She knew what she needed to do, but her body reacted differently.

After struggling a little, she managed to stand up. Looking around, she took stock of her surroundings. The bus’s windows had long since shattered, and the seats had started to flake and disintegrate. The area outside the bus looked like nature was trying to reclaim the road, which was strange. After all, it didn’t look like that this morning, had it?

Only able to see out the front and back of the bus, Kat decided to leave it and get a better grasp of her surroundings. She stumbled her way out of the bus, completely shocked at what she was seeing. Everything looked…old.

Looking around, she eventually noticed someone watching her. He looked around her age; 18 at most, but probably closer to 16. He looked wary, almost nervous. Giving a quick glance around one last time, she realized she probably wouldn’t get any answers from looking at her surroundings. So, she decided to ask the only other person she could see.

“Okay, um, so, what the fuck happened here?” she managed. She didn’t even know how to phrase the question in the first place.

He stared at her for a moment, a hint of confusion in his eyes, before opening his mouth.

“I fought someone.” That was all he said. He didn’t elaborate, he didn’t mention why he fought, nothing.

“Alright, but how the fuck does a simple fight cause the entire road to become almost completely reclaimed by nature?” He paused, stared at her for a while, and studied her.

“It...doesn’t? The road has been abandoned for years,” he said, sounding ever so slightly confused. They continued to stare at each other.

“No it hasn’t. I was heading home this afternoon on this very road. Years couldn’t have just passed by in the blink of an eye like that. And besides, where are all the ambulances? We were just in a crash.” Kat seemed like there was something at the edge of her mind, but no matter how hard she tried to think of it, it remained out of reach.

The two fell silent, unsure of what to say. Suddenly, the boy locked eyes with her and asked her, “What year do you think it is?”

Her brows furrowed in confusion, she answered, “2019?” He stared at her for a moment, and then started to chuckle. The chuckle eventually turned into a full-throated laugh, before he caught himself and silenced himself.

“No. It’s 2028 now.” He was rather good at reading people, so he could tell she was speaking the truth. “You’ve apparently been asleep for nine years, without eating or drinking. You don’t even know what happened in these years.” He started to laugh again, before quickly catching himself.

“Name’s Huck,” he said, holding out a hand.

“Kat,” she responded, grasping his and shaking it.

“Now, what do you say I give you a crash course on what you’ve missed?” He said with a grin that didn’t seem completely malice free.

She sat there in shock. The zombie apocalypse had happened on the very same day her bus crashed. Humanity had collapsed, but, like always, it quickly bounced back.

She learned about people’s abilities, which ranged from elemental manipulation, to mental manipulation. There were even different tiers of abilities,with the highest recorded existing tier being tier nine. Huck was a tier four, which, while rather uncommon, wasn’t all that impressive in the grand scheme of things.

There was also the research on zombies, but that hadn’t advanced as far. Most of the research wasn’t made available to the public, and a cure or a vaccine hadn’t been created yet. After multiple accidents in the research institutes, development on anything related to the virus was temporarily put on pause.

The sun was setting, and Huck started a small fire. He slowly roasted a rabbit, before chopping it in two and handing her half of it. She wasn’t sure if it was due to the shock, but she didn’t feel like eating.

She realized that she should still eat, as she apparently hadn’t for almost ten years. The rabbit was tasteless, and it took everything in her to keep it down. Her stomach started twisting into knots, and she had to leave her portion unfinished.

Huck gladly took it off her hands, devouring it for her. The sun had long since set, and they took shelter in a nearby abandoned building. They settled down for the night, and Huck was quickly asleep.

Kat, however, couldn’t fall asleep. No matter how much she tossed and turned, her mind refused to turn off. So she lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to process what she had missed.