With the zombie on top, he smelled its putrid breath in full. Gagging at once, he still tried to punch it with his working arm with no success. But this time, it didn’t care about that as its face moved down and bit into his broken arm. Teeth like sharp blades slices through flesh, and he felt its tear off a chunk. The sensation of being eaten alive was like no hell he could’ve imagined.

And then it took a second bite. Casually munching on the bag of meat too weak to fight back.

He tried his best to smash fist after fist into the zombie, but it shrugged off every attack. Tears streamed down his face, and he began wishing he fought it carefully with the spear instead. Or set it aflame at the least.

Or just fucking used the safety stone!

He just prayed for it to end with every punch to its head. He wondered why he wasn’t healing for a moment, but as nothing happened he knew that relying on that ability wasn’t an option right now.

Screaming in pain and rage, he saw how the zombie’s hard skull actually dented from his repeated bashing and he saw a flash of hope in killing the thing first. But just then, its mouth went for this throat and tore it out.

Blood squirted out, spraying all over the grassy ground, and all attempts to scream went mute.

Pain wracked his body for the next ten seconds before he fainted. In those final moments he only wanted to know a few things. But he knew no one would ever answer them, and only his stupidity was to blame for this death.

Why did he think it was smart to use his standard for zombies? Oh right, since that’s what everyone he ever knew would’ve done… What a pity.

As he passed out, Joey slowly bled to death under the zombie’s incessant munching.

* * *

And then his eyes opened. Both constricted to pin pricks as overwhelming shock overcame him. Heavy spasms passed through him as he remembered the sensation and pain of the zombie biting through his flesh, and a hand slammed against his throat expecting to feel a chunk torn out…

But it was intact. His right arm moved fine as well, as though never broken. Had the deadly zombie just been a dream?

Was he… Actually alright?

Standing up, he saw the fire dwindling as though left unattended for an hour or two, and he quickly chopped another dry log in two before throwing it on the fire. As the light strengthened once more, he saw an oddity on his left arm.

The markings from the tapestry had vanished. In fact, they completely receded all the way to his shoulder, and as a hand rubbed his neck gently, he shuddered.

“So… that’s 5 lives? One for each limb and then my chest? Or is it 6 for my head? But what happens–” In the distance he heard the sound of something dragging itself through the dirt again and panicked. Did he use the safety stone now?

What if its purpose wasn’t to hold off zombies but something far stronger?

He placed the stone axe into his cube and quickly took out a stick, it easily lit on fire but as he tried to wave it across the surroundings to force back the shambling figure, it went out. He rushed to relight it and looked away from the noise.

“I can’t stay here. But the fire… But the fucking zombies!” He began to run away whilst cradling the lit stick in his hand, aiming in the rough direction to one of the forests at the plains’ periphery.

To anyone of a calm mind, it was obviously the dumbest mistake possible, as he had a massive tree he could ascend and test if the zombie climbed as well. But after literally being eaten to death by a lone one… Well, logic isn’t exactly the first thing which comes to mind in this case. Every now and then, the sound of scraped dirt appeared around him, and he ran away without hesitation.

Before long, he was in the forest, and whilst some things like owls hooted or insects chirped, the only noticeable noises were his tireless running and the shuffling of those undead.

As the stick burned, he saw the fire approach his hand sooner and sooner, reaching the point where he took out a new stick and lit its end on fire to continue running through the forest.

Sometime later, after burning through two more sticks, he came across another shack which was empty, and for a few seconds considered hiding in it. But when thinking about how easily he kicked down the other one’s door… Inside he found an identical layout to the first and didn’t even think about it in depth.

On the table were a few notes of paper which he took with his cube before running away. This time he already heard a couple sources of sound moving towards the shack.

“How the hell are they finding me? Where did they even come from!?” Too exhausted to put the emotion into swearing, he simply focused on running away from the sounds of movement

From the quick trips into his inventory, he knew there were only 3 sticks left as well… This couldn’t continue for long. “Maybe some dead trees are nearby?” Without looking he accidentally stumbled over a hard object in the ground and nearly tripped, just barely catching himself at the last minute.

A quick check revealed some curiosity. It was a brick?

Clearly a large one as some light tugs barely moved it, not that he had time to focus on such things. That is until he finally looked to the line of bricks to his side, it made no sense for them to simply be here alone, and with his store of sticks running low, he took the plunge. As the spray of bricks all wedged deep into the dirt ground grew denser, it soon transformed into a brick path.

He couldn’t make out the exact colour, but the bricks all seemed to be extremely dark in colour but not exactly black. And this path wasn’t even that long, from the first brick to now he only travelled five or six steps. And that’s when he found a path which sloped underground… The ground above this tunnel was supported with a complete layer of bricks, clearly forming a massive structure.

Whatever it was, he didn’t want to enter. No way the dangers inside were lesser than the zombies, and he almost turned around until a glint appeared at his side. Looking closer for just a moment, he was prepared to run the moment disappointment set in, but that isn’t what happened…

It was a metal door. Although a layer of dust dulled it immensely, it still held that chrome finish like polished steel.

Did he risk the room? Or risk running out of sticks whilst running around in the forest?

“Ahhhh, damn it then! I’ll use the stone if I have to!” He reached for the door and pushed it open easily, nothing inside impeded him, and as the makeshift torch lit up an exceedingly small room, he quickly slammed the metal door behind him and noticed a massive steel bar bolted into the frame and acted as a lock when lowered into a slot.

With the door closed, he finally rested, placing his back against it before a slow slouch to the floor began. For a minute or two, he just held his head in his hands, close to sobbing but shocked out of it as the sensations of his death replayed over and over.

His heart tore apart as his thoughts only extended to his family, and said, “They’re all gonna be dead. All of them… Why did I have to say that?” He recalled the last words he’d spoken to his parents about a week ago.

They were talking about how loads of jobs had opened up in a city to the north of the county, especially looking for civil engineers for a few infrastructure projects. If he joined it would be an easy salary about 30% higher than what he currently made. Of course… He ended up arguing over his dad about it again.

He absolutely despised being an engineer, only a tiny fraction of it was fun, and the part composed of that was actually just delegation to actual builders.

Needless to say, the man still failed to understand what he hated about being an engineer, even after 15 years he failed to escape that incessant push to enter a field he couldn’t have hated more. His mother, as sweet as she was, hated taking sides, but even then stuck with her husband more often than not. She simply didn’t understand why he hated it, even if she acknowledged it.

And how that weekend ended?

“How about just dying so I don’t have to put up with you any fucking longer?” He still replayed that line in his head, the regret wore him down.

About to huddle into a ball and sleep, the metal door suddenly banged as something slammed into it, and he jumped forward in fear. However, even from the repeated banging, he saw that it remained completely intact without even the smallest marks. At the very least, this room had clearly been built to withstand things like those zombies.

Picking up the barely burning stick as well, he saw that An oil lantern hung on a hook nearby. In a random attempt, he lit it and became surprised that the oil within actually still burnt so cleanly. With a surprisingly bright flame too for its small size, he finally got a good look at what sort of place he chose.

The small room was far larger than the small shacks he encountered, as he could stand upright and easily fit himself ten times over in this room. Whereas just two people completely took up all the shack’s space.

However, the majority of this room contained three bunk beds, all of which were merely wooden slabs with some hay in hemp bags to sleep on. No doubt they were uncomfortable, although far more so than the brown stone bricks which made up this place. He didn’t understand what the use of this thing was for though, perhaps the deeper levels were some sort of dungeon.

But then why is this room near the surface?

What use did it possibly have to the dungeon?

Only in time could he find that out, and as the banging finally subsided, he pulled himself onto a bed and used the straw filled mattress of another to fall asleep in the chilly room. At the very least, he still had access to his cube, and he somehow survived the zombies.

Not a single part of his body felt physically exhausted, something he accepted with this body’s oddities as usual. But the mental exhaustion was insurmountable. He just wanted to cry and sleep so much that it must have been years since such emotions overwhelmed him so. The man he normally showed off was dry, bland, dull, and just all round empty.

And now, after just a single day, that changed so much?

A week ago he didn’t give a single crap about what he said to his parents, yet now he cared. Was that just some last second reconsiderations before death? Or had he truly changed, and if so…

Why? He wanted to know why so badly.

To answer the myriad questions which ate away at him like a plague of locusts. To be able to grasp that which spread as a wildfire within his soul. But after a short while spent pondering in silence, he finally received some sleep.

While it might seem that tonight marked some momentous occasion for something to change, the reality is that the new day was no different than the last. Joey was not becoming a new person, and nothing great at hand occurred in the world as a whole.

He only began to return to the person he wished to be… Once upon a time that is.