Without any warning, Cayden drag Pete out of the room. The midnight outside is dark. Because of the earthquake, all the electric wiring and utility pole are down. The light bulbs and fluorescent made one last attempt to lit up before bursting out of the glass.

Pete flinch.

“Tell me we’re not dealing with ghosts here please.”

Cayden fumbled in his bag for a flashlight. When he shone it on Pete’s face, his eyes narrowed.

“What? There’s something on my face?” Pete tried to avoid the strong light from blinding his sight.

“You’re bruise is gone.” Cayden put the flashlight back in his pocket. He proceeded in going down to the first floor.

Behind him, he heard Pete slapping and pinching his face.

“Wow, what is this? Some kind of magic? Oh, wait. It’s the tower! A tower granting healing magic? That’s super cool!”

Cayden frown. Pete continuously sounds optimistic about this whole tower thing. How can this guy be so idiotically happy?

“Hey, Cayden will this tower grant us some kind of superpowers too? Like, you know, super skills to teleport, to regenerate, to –“

Cayden shoved Pete’s jaw aside, almost flunking him down the stairs.

“I wouldn’t be so optimistic if I were you.” Cayden left Pete speechless and went on his way down the first floor. Before going out, Cayden throw another object in the door.

This time it did not disintegrate. The barrier is gone. The vase that was thrown outside is the landlady’s most treasured ceramic vase she bought at auction.

“If the landlady saw you, she’ll kill you.” Pete remarked. His figure hidden in the shadow looks oppressive. Pete is slightly built with more muscles than Cayden, if he stand in the corner like that, without speaking anything, he could have passed as serial killer. Too bad he was a chatterbox.

“We’ll be dead if the zombie her saw us stalling here.”

The moment they step outside, a light wave suddenly crush them from the sky. Cayden involuntarily move to cover Pete from the impending danger. But the light wave did not touch them, it only spread to the nearby buildings, taking the pressure of the wind and in its height of stretch, it burst.

Pete that was pushed to the ground groaned. When he saw that the danger is gone, he asked.

“What was that?” Cayden did not answer him. What can he say? He doesn’t know it too.

After the light wave disappears, a foul stench emerged in the area. Both crunch their noses.

“Did someone forget to take out their trash?”

Cayden continued to move forward. The machete is hung in his waist. His left hand grip it, in case there’s a surprise attack in the corner. It wasn’t obvious because the surrounding is shrouded with darkness but Cayden’s face is filled with discomfort and disgust.

He got a bad feeling about this. Maybe the thing he feared has already happened. That there was no longer any survivor in the city except them and the other twenty challengers.

The Buble City is 196 kilometers long and 32 kilometers wide. That’s a lot of place to scout for in ten days. It’s either the zombie apocalypse has already happened in the city and only twenty challengers survive or there are in alternate world the Tower created just for them.

Cayden studied the intersection. He walked to the side, right where there is the pocket forest built for the central part of Buble City. His eyes were restless, anxious. Beside him, Pete continued to chatter endlessly, if only he knew the apocalypse will take place today he should have read the Black Clover manga to confirm the spoiler he saw on social media the other day.

The pocket forest has tall thick trees surrounding the center circle of Central Park. Benches appeared occasionally. Cayden vaguely remembered he and Missy visited this place once. They certainly talked but he can’t remember what the conversation is about.

Cayden wondered what happened to his workmates. To his boss. Maybe all of them are attacked while celebrating their first wedding anniversary.

At this moment, they suddenly heard footsteps from the forest. At once, Pete shut his mouth. Without Pete’s chattering, the forest was so quiet they could hear a single leaf falling off the branches.

The two did not move, silently taking advantage of the dark surroundings to hide from the approaching person.

In front of them, a single moonlight shone between the packet of thick leaves, illuminating a person. It was a man, and an ugly stench can be smelled coming from him.

The smell is so bad, Pete almost vomited on the spot. The man staggered towards them. Cayden unsheathe his machete. But the person closest to this man is not Cayden, but Pete.

Because of the smell, Pete’s head is a bit disoriented. Cayden knew this and hurried to aid Pete. Before he can approach, Pete smack the god awful smelling man in the jaw. The man staggered backward.

The man growled darkly and pounce again.

“Shit!!” Pete made a sideway slice in the air, cutting the man from his left abdomen up to his right shoulder. But the wound appears to not affect the man. He pounce again.

“Stay away from me you fucking smelly shit!” The dizziness Pete felt was set aside as anger bubbled in his chest. He lunge towards the man and cut his head off, without any hesitation.

Seeing this, Cayden whistled.

“What?” The ugly blood did not spill on Pete’s clothes, unlike Cayden’s cutting head strike earlier. He guessed Pete is too disgusted to even let the man’s blood spill on him.

“He disgust you that much?” Cayden asked, flipping the fallen head to face him.

The face soaking in his own blood has extremely dead pale face, his skin is covered in blue green blood veins. His eyes are white with his teeth turn black. When Cayden pried open the man’s mouth further, a horrid smell erupted. Causing the already disgusted Pete to mull over the ground and spill the noodles he had for lunch.

At the man’s mouth are foul smelling dark red stain pieces of flesh bitten off from poor human’s body parts.

“Come on, let’s leave. Before we attract his friends.” Cayden urged Pete. But Pete did not move. He’s still shivering and bawling his lunch to the ground. Leaving Cayden no choice but to drag the poor man as far away from the zombie as possible.

Walking deeper into the forest, they finally arrive at the end of Central Park. The surrounding is as darker as it can be. Coming out in the open with only a flashlight as light source can be considered reckless of them.

But Pete and Cayden have no other choice. The Dark Tower gives them only ten days to find the rest of the twenty challengers scattered in the city and arrive at the Dark Tower on July 7 at midnight.

Ten days is too short to scour the whole city with over 700,000 population. When they arrive at the main road, the walking street light post has someone sitting and leaning over it. His back facing them. Pete and Cayden went around to see the man only have his torso with his head intact left.

The two legs are gnawed by what looks like wild animals. The strong stench coming from the corpse is the same with the smell from the man they meet. Upon remembering the man earlier and seeing the masterpiece he left, Pete can’t endure it any longer and vomited again.

Cayden grab Pete’s collar. “Come on big guy, get used to it.” Pete bend over and lurched beside Cayden’s shoes.

Cayden click his tongue and patted Pete on the back. Because it was currently midnight, the visibility advantage they have is very poor. If it wasn’t for the moonlight illuminating the whole place they would not see the current situation the road has.

Back at the apartment building, they did not see any cars. Now here too, there’s no cars on the road. But the garbage was scattered everywhere. Even the dumping trash from nearby shops are toppled over and its content spilling on the side roads.

Cayden did not appear to be surprised when he saw the blood trails on the walls of the buildings and shops. As Pete and Cayden stared at the gloomy dark city, a heavy feeling weigh on their chest.

The sight was never like this when they stared at the window. It was never this dark, nor smelly, nor disaster like. Everything looks normal up above.

What happened between the few minutes they spent inside the apartment building to cause the current situation of the city to be like this?

“Man, I miss the traffic. Where are the cars gone off to?”

Cayden let his head down. “It’s the Dark Tower Pete.”

“It took the cars?”

Cayden nodded.

“Why? To prevent zombie traffic?”

“It’s preventing the people to leave the city. In the first elimination game people aren’t allowed to go out of the city within the ten days duration. We are stranded and forbidden to call outside help. That’s how it usually is in every elimination game.”

As they left the Central Park, the rancid smell of the rotten corpse intensified. Pete took a piece of cloth from his bag and wrap his nose and mouth with it. Despite his effort, the smell still entered his nose.

The two walked forward in a vigilant manner. Their footsteps are slowed and quiet. Cayden practiced walking without a sound and it became his habit. Whether he’s doing it intentionally or not, he doesn’t care. Pete, on the other hand, knew from zombie movie knowledge that zombies are easily attracted by sound.

They were careful with their moves when suddenly, they found something or someone moving from inside of one of the shops.