Chapter 2: A World in RuinZ

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I had no place to go. That was why I chose to stick with Otoha after leaving the police station.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“I did once. Not anymore.”

Having someone around amid all the death is reassuring, and that certain someone also happens to be incredibly knowledgeable about everything zombie-related. What more could I ask for?

She allowed me to tag along without much deliberation.

“Lone survivors banding together to weather the apocalypse is a staple after all.” She nodded listlessly.

“A staple of what?”

“Zombie movies.”

“Alrighty then.” She appeared to have a thing for zombie flicks. That would explain her desensitization to zombie-induced horrors. Still, I couldn’t help but feel she was letting the line between fiction and reality blur a little too much in her mind.

Not that there’s much making the whole “reality” side super concrete anyway.

According to Otoha, the entire world was in ruins. Apparently, the infection had swept across the globe in only two weeks or so, almost like a fast-forwarded zombie movie.

Japan, in particular, got the short end of the stick. The initial mass zombie outbreak happened in a single day. Even though a state of emergency was declared right away, the entire country fell to its knees not even a week later. They couldn’t determine the source of the outbreak, nor could they push back the horde of zombies in time.

The government took its sweet time recognizing the outbreak as a serious threat, and by the time they did, it was already too late. Three days post-outbreak, it collapsed.

Four days post-outbreak, most of the population had been infected, and only a few survivors remained among the horde of walkers.

“How’s the situation overseas?”

“There were riots over at CDC HQ.”

“What does that stand for again?”

“Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. is screwed. Europe too, most likely.”

“Great, just what I needed...”

This was all new to me, as I had effectively shut myself off from the outside world ever since entering NEEThood. That would explain why basically no one besides me was online this past week. They probably had more pressing concerns to attend to.

Even as the world was coming to an end, the servers were still up and running, thanks to solar power and the smart grid system—which, from what I understood, was a self-sufficient, fully automated electricity network, which was why the servers hadn’t gone down even at the zenith of our doom.

I Stepped Out of My Room One Day and the World Was in Ruins, so I Teamed up with the Local Zombie Guru to Weather the Apocalypse! That’d make for a snappy title.

It took God seven days to create the world, so maybe another seven days was just the right amount of time to destroy it.

Trivial quandaries aside, I had to decide on a course of action one way or another. My family was now a pack of zombies, and I didn’t care much for any of my former classmates, so I could safely check “looking into their well-being” off my list. Maybe I would’ve cared more in my pre-NEET days, but now my entire world consisted only of FPS games.

I would’ve tried to contact my FPS buds by now if it weren’t for the fact that, aside from maybe two, I knew nothing about any of them. We had never felt the need to share personal info, so now we had no way to get in touch.

In any case, I may as well just focus on surviving for now.

Thing is, I don’t have the chops to make it on my own. That’s where Otoha comes in. She’s made it all on her own this entire time; it only makes sense to stay by her side and absorb every little morsel of wisdom she’s willing to throw my way.

“This sewer tunnel is ginormous.”

We were, in fact, in an underground sewer tunnel.

At the moment, the two of us were situated in the main sewer line, where all the neighborhood wastewater pooled together into one nasty body of liquid. There was plenty of space above our heads despite the fact that we were traveling along elevated walkways.

“You okay back there?” Otoha asked with a sudden turn of her head, as though she’d just remembered my existence. She was leading the way with a shovel in her right hand and a flashlight in her left.

“Not exactly... I think I’m gonna hurl.”

Predictably, the stench down here was unbearable. It had a moldy kick to it, the kind you could almost feel. My stomach wasn’t taking it too well.

“Can you hold it in?”

“Of course, just... just gimme a sec.” I raised my hand to signal for a quick stop.

How is she holding up this well? There has to be some trick behind it. Or maybe she’s just noseblind...? Either way, there’s no way I’m gonna let myself show weakness in front of a girl. That’d be the end of me for real.

“Try not to get any on the bag.”

“Thanks for the concern,” I grumbled.

I had a backpack chock-full of “borrowed” goods strapped to my back. It was not a joy to carry in the slightest.

I’m starting to think she only took me in to be her pack mule...

“Something wrong?” She looked back once more, but this time around, the shovel hanging from her hand felt almost intimidating.

“It’s nothing. Nope. Nada. No siree.”

“Is that so?” After tilting her head to the side for a moment, she resumed walking.

I’m just being delusional. There’s no way she’d do away with me after I finish carrying all her stuff... right?

As much I would’ve liked to believe otherwise, it wasn’t entirely implausible. She was just that much of a mystery to me. Not only were we complete strangers, but she also had that permanent poker face which didn’t help matters.

“Anyway...” I decided to change the topic. “There’s got to be a good reason why we’re crawling around in the sewers, right?” I couldn’t shake the feeling that we could get boxed in all too easily.

“Sure is. The encounter rate here is lower, and the severe odor helps mask our scent.”

“Makes sense.”

Zombies were like a broken record—for the most part anyway. When not satisfying their hunger, they mindlessly mimicked past behavioral patterns. Thus, we were less likely to run into a zombie in a place scarcely visited by humans.

As for the second point, I wasn’t too sure about how zombies could detect their prey, but it certainly didn’t hurt that the sewer practically eliminated the two most likely contenders: sound and smell. In that sense, this is pretty much as good a place as we could be in.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?”

“I’ve been down here countless times. I know what I’m doing.”

“You make it sound like you’ve been roaming the sewers since long before the apocalypse.”

I doubt that. For one, it’s probably illegal, and two, you’d have to be an actual nutjob to even consider it.

“As an added precaution, yes.”

“Are you serious?”

Isn’t it kinda hypocritical of me to call her out on “weird” behavior when one of my own flimsy justifications for indulging in FPS games is that it basically doubles as army experience? Then again, my weird thing has at least a little basis in reality; hers is pretty damn out there.

Maybe I’m just biased; I’m pretty sure a number of Americans would see things in a different light. I hear there’s a niche market over there that sells firearms based on their zombie-fighting properties.

“Up,” she urged, climbing up a rusty ladder nearby.

“I can’t wait to get some fresh air,” I said as I followed suit.

As safe as the tunnels were, my nostrils had had just about enough. I would’ve gladly run the risk of bumping into another zombie if that meant breathable air.

“Wait...”

Here I was fully expecting to emerge in the middle of a sidewalk, but instead I found myself in a lifeless room lined with rows upon rows of stacked boxes.

“What is this place?”

“You’ll see.” She closed up the manhole we’d come out of, went over to the door, and swung it wide open.

I was greeted by an empty parking lot. All those neatly painted lines, perfectly measured down to the millimeter for maximum space efficiency, and yet not a single parked vehicle in sight.

“Really hits home.”

“Over here.” Otoha was already walking over to a nearby two-story building.

It looked oddly familiar. That was when I happened to catch the words “Mister Watson” and “hardware store” on the side of the building.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said as I turned around to make sure this wasn’t just a bad trip.

Heaps of boxes were stacked together by the entrance, brandishing labels such as “DOG FOOD,” “TOILET PAPER,” “BOOKCASE PARTS,” “STORAGE BOXES,” and the like.

We’re at the local hardware store. I remember coming here back in my middle school days... So that’s why it looked familiar.

“Why the hardware store of all places?!” I was under the impression that we’d been heading for a military base of some kind, but apparently not.

“It’s what the trope calls for.”

“Now’s not the time to be bringing up tropes! You’re going to get us kill—”

“Pipe down.” She held down the back of my head with one hand and pushed the other firmly against my mouth.

Her soft, dainty hand came in contact with my lips, and I could feel something snap inside my brain. I hadn’t felt a girl’s touch in... well, too many years. She was far from a girly girl, yet my heart wouldn’t stop racing.

“Hold your breath,” she hissed, forcefully pushing me against a nearby wall. She then pressed her body against mine, leaving zero breathing space between us.

Is this one of those fabled “girl-slams-you-against-the-wall” moments?! I never thought I’d live to see the day. I think I might just pass out on the spot. It feels like my heart is gonna burst out of my chest at any moment. She might be weird, and lacking in the expressiveness department, but that means nothing in the face of her extraordinary cuteness.

“The coast is clear.” At last, she released me from bittersweet captivity. “Keep your voice down and follow my lead.” With that, she tiptoed away.

Oh, so that’s what all that was about.

Her forcibly shutting my yap was to avoid detection, which meant that this place wasn’t as zombie-free as I had initially thought.

I’ll trust you for now.

I cautiously scanned the area before tagging along behind her.

We circled to the side of the building, at which point she started making her way up the fire escape.

“Isn’t there an easier way in?”

“I’ve barred off all entry points besides the one on the roof. Oh, and watch your step.”

That was when I noticed that two steps were missing right in the middle. If somebody were to go up the fire escape without paying attention, they’d surely plummet to their doom.

“This is genius.”

Zombies didn’t possess the mental faculties to consider their steps, let alone overcome a broken staircase. It was foolproof.

I handed the backpack to Otoha and carefully straddled the booby trap. She handed it right back to me, and we continued on our way.

Moments later, the rooftop was in sight.

“Crazy how abrupt the transition is from down there to up here.”

Aside from a shack tucked away in one of the corners, the rooftop was pretty much just neatly spaced rows of solar panels stretching on and on. The entire area was fenced off, as you might expect.

I walked over to the fence. The complete absence of large buildings around the area made for a spectacular view. At least, it would’ve been, if not for large patches of dark smoke here and there. I half-expected fire truck sirens to be blaring all over the place, but instead there was just silence. Disturbing and uneasy silence. No signs of human life anywhere.

Zombies, on the other hand, were all over the place, making their presence known. Dozens—no, hundreds of them were creeping around the hardware store’s outer fence. The awkward attempts at walking and the nearly translucent, pale skin stuck out like a sore thumb, even at a distance. They were spilling out across the roads, and even the nearby park was swarming with them.

Zombies as far as the eye could see. One had a large metal pipe going through its stomach, one had a knife sticking out of its neck, and the list just went on and on. They’d all suffered horrific injuries, yet they wouldn’t stop moving.

There was not a single living person among them.

The entire town had been overtaken.

“She wasn’t joking around...” I muttered.

Back when we’d first met, Otoha told me, in no uncertain terms, that Japan was in shambles. Despite that, I’d wanted to see it for myself. I’d figured that maybe she was just blowing things out of proportion; maybe the zombie outbreak was just a localized phenomenon which only affected this tiny area. I’d desperately wanted to believe that.

My hope was shattered right then and there.

I couldn’t yet tell if the entire country had been swept away, but it became clear that at least this town had been overrun and that the government wasn’t taking any measures to sort things out.

“You coming or what?” she called out, glancing at me over her shoulder.

“Be right there.”

I gave myself a moment to really take in the view before turning away and running off without ever looking back.

◆

Otoha wasn’t kidding when she said she’d barred off all entry points except one. The front entrance had its shutters down, and the windows were barricaded, save for a few tiny ones by the ceiling that were just for ventilation.

“Nothing’s getting through here.”

Her anti-zombie measures didn’t end there. The entire area had been remade into a hedge maze of sorts by arranging pieces of furniture, household appliances, and various other knickknacks into a chain of barricades.

“Did you do this all by yourself?” I asked in awe.

“I took heavy inspiration from the movies.”

“That’s insane.”

The genius behind the labyrinthine approach was that it was perfect for artificially extending the walking distance between point A and point B, not to mention the fact that it severely limited mobility. Some real-life castles employed similar structures. I too had once had the displeasure of playing through an FPS stage built with this design in mind. The lack of effective cover had been super frustrating.

I took a moment to look Otoha up and down. The girl was scrawny with a lingering air of fatigue. Everything about her being screamed indifference to life, as though she’d stared into the abyss and it had stared right back. Anyway, she wasn’t the type you’d expect to be this proactive in her survival efforts, but looks can be deceiving.

“Want to see my weapon stash?”

“You have one?”

“Naturally,” she said with a nod. Her deadpan expression and sluggish motions made it hard to tell how she was feeling, but a subtle glint in her eyes betrayed her underlying giddiness.

I was then dragged over to a long table resting in the corner.

“Voilà!”

I whistled.

What a collection.

It had all the staples: crowbars, hammers, nail guns, steel bats, metal pipes, all that jazz. More importantly, there were multiple “combo” weapons she’d made by attaching two or more items together.

“Behold, my pièce de résistance.” She busted out a mop handle with two kitchen knives sticking out at the top. It seemed almost like a makeshift spear, or her own household spin on one.

“It’s modeled after the sasumata, hence the two-pronged design. The knives got all wobbly after only a few uses, though. I’ll have to look into that.”

“I see.” The thing in her hands was inspired by a pronged polearm originally wielded by samurai. I couldn’t help but notice her roundabout way of saying she’d field-tested the weapon, but I tried to ignore it.

Her tone was flat, yet the flair with which she spoke was rather unsettling.

What a wacko.

Not that I could complain, seeing as this odd fixation of hers ended up working in our favor.

“Routine check-up time,” she said just as I was getting a feel for one of the steel pipes.

“Routine wha—” I whipped my head around and came face-to-face with two criminally soft mounds of supple flesh.

“Uh, err, well, let’s not do anything we’d regret sober!” I squeaked. She was, for whatever reason, taking off her clothes.

Is this her way of saying we should make like Adam and Eve?! Or maybe she’s suggesting we huddle together to keep warm, or—

“What’re you talking about?” The way she said it made me realize that I was the one getting worked up over nothing. Maybe I should’ve read the mood a little more carefully.

“Whatever. Anyway, I’m looking for bite marks.”

“How come?”

“To see if I’ve been infected.” She pulled off her jacket, shirt, and pants in a flash.

The soft, porcelain skin buried beneath layers of bloodstained, mud-smeared clothing had little Johnny’s interest piqued in more ways than one.

Jokes aside, I wanted to kick myself for ever having thought of her as “scrawny”—after taking a good, hard look at every one of her silky smooth assets, I realized that this box didn’t do a mote of justice to her impeccable proportions, and in the following essay, I will explain why...

“Wh-Why go through all that?” I asked, averting my gaze.

One might fall under the impression that I was just your average overly self-conscious teen getting horny because “teens will be teens,” but they’d be flat-out wrong. According to this one book I read, captives under extreme duress tend to develop a strong emotional bond with their captors to boost their chances of... leaving behind genetic material. Actually, forget I ever brought that up.

“Our nervous system produces adrenaline in response to perceived threats, which decreases the body’s ability to feel pain,” she said matter-of-factly while feeling around her body. “Wouldn’t want to end up like that one character who goes zombie overnight and chows down on everyone’s brains just because they were afraid of causing a rift in the group. That’d be way too clichéd.”

“Fair enough, I guess.”

“You know, zombie bites didn’t always work this way. Originally, zombies were thought of as the wicked creations of Haitian necromancers who raised people from the dead through the application of ‘zombie powder.’ These zombies didn’t possess the ability to infect people.” Halfway into the quasi infodump, she began fumbling around in her sports bra.

Ooh, lemme adjust my viewing angle, aaand... Crap, she’s already finished.

“That all changed due in large part to Romero’s film Night of the Living Dead, which instilled the concept of zombies possessing vampire-esque features into our collective imagination, greatly reshaping our understanding of the creature. Another major development came from the beloved horror game franchise Resident Evil, which spread the now-widely accepted idea that pathogens cause zombification.”

“Yoo-hoo, earth to Otoha...”

“Judging by the news, this particular outbreak follows all the preestablished patterns to a tee. The victim gets bitten or scratched, develops an intense fever after a set amount of time, dies, and then turns zombie anywhere between one and twelve hours later.

“Through deductive reasoning, we can conclude that this is a highly infectious disease caused by some unknown pathogen. Determining and isolating anyone infected in the early stages of the disease is absolutely vital.”

Otoha rambled on and on, oblivious to her surroundings. She seemed to get awfully talkative whenever the conversation shifted to a topic even tangentially related to zombies. It was as if the mere mention of them brought out a spark hidden deep inside her.

“Anyway, that’s why I need you to undress for me,” she concluded, turning to face me.

“How about no?”

“It’s for our collective safety.”

It was a reasonable demand, sure. From her perspective, I was just some rando who she’d oh-so-benevolently chosen to take off the streets. By all means, she had the right to confirm whether or not I posed a potential threat.

That’s all well and good, but would it kill her to handle this whole thing with just a liiittle more tact?

“Do we really have to do this? There’s gotta be a better way.”

“There isn’t, so strip.”

“You’re killing me here.”

“Chop-chop. What’s the big deal, anyway?”

“Oh, you know...”

What am I supposed to say? That little Johnny wants to play?

“I’m asking you a question.” She took a step closer and looked me dead in the eyes.

Shoo! Stay back, foul wench!

“You’ve been bitten, haven’t you?”

“You presumptuous little—wait, when did that get there?!” A shovel had mysteriously materialized in her hands.

I’ve gotta act fast, or my head’s gonna get cracked like a melon over some false accusations!

“Okay, you asked for it!”

I might want to die immediately after, but at least I’ll live to fight another day.

I whipped off all my clothes in one swift motion, leaving me in only my tighty-whities—if you don’t count the dog tag, that is. I had “Hound Nine” engraved on it as a half-joking way of bringing the virtual world along with me, as well as various tidbits of personal information, such as my birthday, sex, and blood type. Maybe having all that personal info below the code name seemed contradictory, but that’s a story for another day.

“Feast your eyes on this!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, brandishing the monstrous bulge in my underwear.

“So, lady, how d’you like them apples?”

She ran her eyes over my upper body in silence. Really took her sweet time, too... But her poker face cracked as soon as she looked down, and she let out a little gasp.

What is that supposed to... Oh God, I’ve been bit, haven’t I? I’m now doomed to wander this earth grumbling and groaning with the rest of my zombie kin. Why, why, why?!

Otoha remained frozen in place. Her cheeks took on a tinge of red, which grew more and more pronounced as the seconds ticked by.

“You feeling alright?”

“Erm, checkup’s over.”

“Am I in the clear?”

“P-Put your clothes back on.”

“So no bite marks?”

“No. Now please, put something on,” said the half-naked girl in front of me.

You know, my little Johnny wouldn’t be as rowdy if you’d taken the time to cover yourself up first! Can’t say that, though, or I’ll look like a real douche canoe.

“I took it too far, my bad.” I picked my clothes up off the floor and quickly put them on.

Otoha had her signature deadpan expression slapped on as usual, but she couldn’t stop blushing the entire time. Maintaining eye contact seemed nigh impossible too; her eyes were darting all over the place.

Call me presumptuous, but I believe it’s fair to say that she’s feeling a wee bit embarrassed right now. So, the girl’s got some emotions under that hardened shell after all.

◆

Once things settled down a notch, we decided to get a bite to eat in the staff room. Personally, I’d skipped breakfast, lunch, and dinner because there were more pressing matters to attend to—y’know, coming to terms with the whole zombie apocalypse thing and whatnot. After the initial shock had faded, my empty stomach had started waging war against me once again.

“Want some?” Otoha asked, holding up a can of crackers she had stashed away in a survival kit.

“You’re too kind.”

I’ve been running for my life all day in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and all I get are these lousy crackers? What a disappointment. Well, I guess things could always be worse.

I tossed a single cracker into my mouth, fully expecting it to taste like wet chalk.

“Hey, these ain’t half bad.”

“An empty belly is the best cook,” as they say, but these are actually pretty tasty.

“You’d be surprised how good canned food is these days.” Otoha was sitting cross-legged on a chair, nibbling away at her cracker like a cute little possum.

“I hear Japanese MREs are simply delectable,” I said between bites. “I’m not surprised that the same is true for regular old canned food, too.”

“What’s an MRE?”

“Meal, Ready-to-Eat. In other words, military rations. If you’re ever in the market for a military expert, look no further than your friendly neighborhood FPS gamer god.”

Come to think of it, we really know jack squat about each other. Not that we’ve had the time to bond over a nice cup of tea or something, given the circumstances.

“Coolio.” She nodded and took a swig of bottled water. “Is that where your knowledge of guns comes from?”

“You could say that, yeah. Never saw one in real life until today, though.”

My gun obsession was what had led me down the FPS rabbit hole to begin with. The only reason I could more or less disassemble a gun was because I’d fiddled around with all kinds of gun controllers, even if it didn’t help my gameplay.

“Anyway, what about you? Who might you be?”

“Just your average high schooler.”

“You sure? Something about the way you tore those zombies a new one didn’t exactly scream ‘average’ to me.”

“I just set my mind to it.”

“Uh-huh...”

Call me crazy, but I wasn’t entirely convinced that your “average” high school girl was capable of committing cold-blooded murder or scraping by with military-tier survival skills.

In what twisted, mixed-up world would anyone consider that to be the norm? Welp, at least she’s pure where it counts.

I fondly remembered Otoha’s flustered face when she caught a glimpse of my you-know-what.

Then again, who am I to judge?

“Were there any other survivors when you first got here?”

“Nope, just zombies. I made sure to dispose of every last one of them.”

“I see...” A chill ran down my spine as I pictured the carnage.

“Did that upset you?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

“Maybe a little?”

As much as I hated to admit it, having another set or two of hands would’ve really boosted our chances of survival. I would’ve loved to believe Otoha and I could take on the world, but there was only so much the two of us were capable of.

“You can call dibs on the next batch, then. My treat.”

“Pardon?”

“Taking down the next batch of zombies, just like you wanted.”

“You’ve got the wrong idea, sis. I don’t want nothin’ to do with it.”

Tone down the projection, will ya?

“It’s for your own good. You need the practice.”

“Fair enough, but I’d like to keep it professional.”

“Aim for the temple; if you go any higher, there’s a good chance your blow’ll glance off, like this. Roundness of the skull and all.”

“Could you please be so kind as to NOT wave that dirty shovel all over the place?”

I was very much open to the idea of learning to fend off zombies myself, but there was just one problem.

“You’re pretty good at this, aren’t you?”

Otoha’s indifference to all the death and suffering around her made it hard for me to fully trust her. Most sane people would completely lock up at the sight of a zombie—no way in hell would they have the composure to chop one’s head off without batting an eye. What set her apart from the overwhelming majority?

“What did you expect from a zombie buff?”

“I don’t quite follow...”

Being knowledgeable about zombies was one thing; claiming that said knowledge magically translated into real-life experience was another. That was like saying I’d make a top-tier soldier after investing enough time into FPS games. Oh, wait...

“The only reason you’re alive right now is because of all the zombie media I’ve consumed over the years, which has allowed me to visualize every aspect of a potential zombie apocalypse.”

“You don’t say...”

“Not that I ever expected it to come in handy.”

“Who would’ve, in all honesty? I’m still struggling to come to terms with everything, too. It’s all so surreal.”

“It’s a dream come true, isn’t it?” The light in her eyes, the blush on her cheeks... it was almost as if she’d been waiting for this to happen her entire life.

You’re cute and all, but you should really see a shrink.

◆

“I say we turn in for the night,” Otoha said. She had just gone and slipped into some comfy workwear.

“Agreed.”

Any other self-conscious teen ’round my age would have creamed at the mere thought of getting to pass the night in relatively close proximity to the fairer sex, but frankly, I wasn’t in the mood.

It’s been a long day, so cut me some slack!

I was pooped and in desperate need of some good, quality shut-eye, but the ever-looming threat of a potential zombie ambush kept me wide awake. How lovely.

“Looks like we’re in the clear.” Otoha was keeping tabs on the CCTV footage from a six-monitor setup tucked away in the corner of the staff room. A few of the cameras were situated outdoors, which wasn’t exactly ideal, but the indoor coverage was about as good as it was going to get.

“Make yourself comfortable anywhere but the couch—that one’s mine. You should find whatever you need to sleep in the store. Just be a dear and don’t accidentally set off any of the booby traps while you’re at it.”

“How many are there?”

“You might lose sleep over it, so I’ll keep it a secret.”

“Didn’t really feel like sleeping anyway.”

“You should. You’ll need to be rested for tomorrow.”

“What’s happening tomorrow?”

“You’ll see.” With that, she padded over to the couch with a cute little yawn and passed out on the spot.

You’d think that with all the zombie media she’s absorbed throughout the years, she’d know better than to doze off in the presence of a man who could’ve been broken beyond repair and seeking to take out all his pent-up frustrations on her in a terribly cruel and violent way. Who would hear her screams and come to the rescue if I actually were one of those men? Nobody, that’s who.

“You really need to get a better grasp of the human condition,” I muttered before turning my attention to the CCTV footage. The images flickered in and out at fixed intervals as the six monitors had to accommodate for dozens upon dozens of cameras. I happened upon one of Otoha’s fabled booby traps after an intense bout of staring.

A little sign read “DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE, KEEP OUT.” Otoha had taken the time to write it out herself... How cute. The trap was about as basic as could be: a couple of batteries wired to a doorknob above a floor drenched with water.

Would an electric current even affect a zombie...? Oh, right, Galvani’s frog leg experiments showed that electric shocks could be used to mimic signals from the central nervous system. That means a good zap would stop the zombie dead in its tracks... Kind of like Mom, now that I think about it. Given that explosives and chemical weapons are off-limits for obvious reasons, this is about as lethal as it’ll get.

But the fun didn’t stop there.

“Good lord. How does she come up with this stuff?”

Chimes, trip wires, loosely stacked boxes... Otoha’s general approach seemed centered around stalling the zombies or sounding an alarm more than anything else. Still, the sheer variety was genuinely mind-boggling.

How the hell is her apocalypse model this detailed?! Her eccentricity really isn’t doing her any favors. If she just did away with the weird parts of her personality, simps would be flocking to her like flies swarming hot dung.

Although, to be fair, I wouldn’t be where I am right now if not for her quirkiness. I’d probably be dead, watching the zombie cop moan as he stuffs his face with my juicy spleen, just like everyone else.

Imagine going about your daily life without a single care in the world, believing that even if the world does come to an end one day, you won’t be around long enough to experience it firsthand... only to look outside the window after finishing off the most delicious cup of tea and see one of your neighbors chowing down on your other neighbor in plain sight.

That would be enough to drive anyone mad—or, at the very least, cause them to teeter too close for comfort on the brink of insanity. Otoha seems like she’s really enjoying herself, but I’m always fighting off the urge to retreat into the deepest recesses of my mind and pretend none of this ever happened.

For all I know, I might just be a deranged lunatic, throwing myself against the padded walls of my cell while everyone else blissfully goes about their day.

My mom, my dad, my little brother—they’re all out there making the most out of life. They might have their disagreements, but in the end, they’ll always be there for one another. I get to enjoy a life of solitude, and they get to enjoy life without a deadbeat son. It’s a win-win. What’s not to like?

“Oh, who am I kidding...” I was getting teary-eyed, and my nose had started to run.

As much as I tried tricking myself into believing I was better off without my family weighing me down, and that their deaths meant absolutely nothing to me, deep down inside I knew I’d go back to my previous life in a heartbeat if I could.

“This is what I get.”

I hated my family, I hated society, and I hated everyone in it. For so long, I had wished they would all die and leave me be.

You got what you wished for. Hope you’re happy.

“Sorry ’bout that, high school girl I never got the pleasure of meeting.”

Or maybe I had met her. Never cared much for any of my classmates, to be honest. Their bullying didn’t make my life any easier.

Thankfully, it never got physical, but they had always openly laughed and made fun of me, as though they expected me to sit there and take it like a good little boy. The teacher knew all about what was going on but didn’t bother to intervene.

They called me all sorts of names, ranging from base level stuff like “weirdo” and “loser” to “school shooter in the making” whenever they felt like adding a touch of pizzazz to their usual lineup. Allegedly, this was all in the name of toughening me up.

No one’s a villain in their own story, I suppose.

There was no deeper reason behind it, though; my class had needed a target they could safely point their fingers at, preferably someone who was different from the rest. I just happened to be their scapegoat. No more, no less.

How ironic is it that their blind adherence to this flimsy concept of “normal” is what allowed the zombie outbreak to spread as effectively as it did?

It’s almost as if my darkest desires were granted by some higher power with a twisted sense of humor. Maybe if I’d kept those desires to myself, this could’ve all been avoided. Then again, hindsight is 20/20. Those people are dead and it’s all my fault. I killed the—

“Here.” Otoha suddenly pulled out a bulky biker helmet from underneath her couch and handed it to me.

“What for?”

“It muffles sound,” she said, staring into my eyes.

“Uh, thanks?”

She nodded and then went right back to sleep.

What did she mean by that? Oh, of course, it’s to deter zombies.

But where did she learn that from? Otoha doesn’t strike me as a biker chick, nor did I see a bike parked next to the police station. She went there with the express purpose of scavenging, and it would’ve been way easier to load up her spoils on a bike than carry them all the way back on foot. Plus, zooming past the zombies would’ve been a breeze.

Actually, lemme think about this for a moment. Why was there a helmet stashed under her couch, of all places? Did she expect me to have a nervous breakdown? Highly unlikely.

But... what if she had a meltdown of her own, and it got so bad that she needed to put on a helmet to avoid attracting zombies?

What if that deadpan expression isn’t a sign of indifference, but rather a tangible representation of a broken individual who went through a range of emotions so extreme that it left behind nothing but a battered, hollow shell of her former self?

“I had you all wrong,” I whispered.

Without realizing it, I’d been engaging in the same exact line of thought that had led to my own bullying.

What’s normal and what’s not is relative. Why should I, or anyone else for that matter, get to judge her by some arbitrary set of standards? Eccentricity shouldn’t be rejected. If anything, it should be celebrated. I’m living proof that someone’s oddities can do the world some good.

“Owe you one,” I said and popped on the helmet.

The world around me now felt distant, as though I had plunged into an endless void, never to return. It was strangely comforting.

It must’ve been hard sharing this little piece of your world with me, but rest assured, it’s in good hands.

I curled up in the corner of the room and remained motionless as my consciousness slowly drifted away.