First Few Deaths

*BOOOOOOOOOOM!*

A loud explosion was heard all over the world that day. Everyone could feel what was happening. The earth shook hard as a massive earthquake enveloped it.

Fear started to creep in as I fell sideways because of how strong the earthquake was. I was now becoming dizzy. A vomit was about to come out of my mouth from the nausea, and I had to force it in.

"Is everyone one okay?!" I yelled

I heard no response from the line. They must be busy holding their own in keeping themselves safe. We have to survive this, because otherwise, everything we did to get here will be for nothing.

The tremors finally stopped, but I know how this goes. The first stage was the earthquake caused by the comet crashing the moon, and the thirds stage was the zombification. Then the second one would be…

*CRASH! BOOM! CRASH! CLANG! BREAK!*

Sounds of glass breaking and other objects exploding were heard all over the place.

"It's finally starting!" I yelled.

Glass shards were now going through the roof and the windows. It was slowly getting near me. Something was wrong. I felt like there was a terrifying presence that was heading towards me.

"This is different…"

Time began to slow down as a large shard went through the window and was darting straight towards me. It was bigger than the rest and it scared me. I don't know why but it terrified me. It was about to hit my head so I instinctively covered my face. It hit my wrist and I was sent flying towards the wall before passing out.

_______________________________

[Reset complete. Waking subject up]

I then woke up from a sting felt throughout my body.

"What was that?"

I slowly rose from where I was laying down. There were colored shards sticking everywhere. The place was totally wrecked now. Where am I? Who AM "I"? And what am I doing sleeping here? Why can't I seem to remember anything? This is weird. I then started to touch my head and to my surprise, I was wearing something weird.

"What's this? What am I wearing?"

I then left it alone and looked around. There were paintings on the wall and there were shards sticking out from the wall. These paintings looked like words…

"It's a message!"

The message read.

"You who don't remember your name and your past."

Is it referring to me?

"If you want to gain your memories, head down to the study room at the end of the hall on the second floor and turn the head of the statue on the desk. A path will then be opened for you. Follow the path to the lab. At the desk is a helmet. Put on the helmet. Your code to activate the memories you've lost is 'Paradox'."

Why in the world should I believe this? This looks shady…

"Trust the people you meet on the hallways or the lab. You all planned in gaining your memories back."

What? This doesn't make sense! But then again, it's the only clue I have. What could go wrong?

I then grabbed the gun and the sword that was on the ground and slung them over me. The door was now slightly opened. The handle was busted.

"Must've been destroyed along with the place. Whatever happened here, it didn't end well." I thought to myself.

I slowly peeked at the door to see if anyone was there in the hallway. Seeing that there wasn't I then went out and hastily tiptoed towards the staircase. Looking down the stairs, I confirmed that I was already in the second floor. I then continued tiptoeing towards the end of the hallway and entered the study room which was described in the instructions.

I then went inside and did as what the instructions on the wall told me to do. This led me to the helmet that read 'Mind Jump'.

Mind Jump?

This made me hesitant. I'm in a dilemma right now. I truly want to find out but at the same time, questions come up to mind.

What if this was a trap?

I took my time in thinking about it and finally decided.

What more can I lose … right?

I then placed the helmet on my head and waited.

[User recognized. State Code]

The sound of the system surprised me.

I hesitated before I was finally able to manage to get the words out of my mouth.

"Pa-Paradox"

[Access Granted. Loading Paradox Files]

[Loading Complete. Uploading Files to User's Memories]

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

I could feel my head explode! It was as if information was now forcefully being inputted in my brain. It was really painful!

It was after a minute that it calmed down and I begin to clearly see who I really was.

Then this messaged played…

It was me facing a mirror… talking to me…

"Hey…I can't tell your name… But you are me. Well, you were me…"

Yes I can see that. But what happened?

"You can't use your name anymore. The reason is simple, the more you remember about the joy you had before you forgot, the more the crystal eats you up. The crystal feeds on happy memories, which people at this time would desperately seek."

The Crystal? What Crystal?

"From now on, you are Paradox. You can't use your name in this world. Knowing you past name will give a person happiness and relief. And that will cause the crystal to feed on you. I sent you locked memory of your previous mind jumps. This will be activated if you see certain familiar objects. When a locked memory resurfaces, it won't be detected so you'll be safe."

Again with the crystal… and what does he mean by 'this world'? Am I in another world?

"Let me explain so listen carefully…"

I then stopped asking questions and shifted my focus to listening.

"You are now in the post-apocalyptic world. This was caused by a comet crashing on the moon. Some of the dust from the comet were crystalized and it rained down on earth hitting everything in it."

… This has to be dream. The first thing to die was the moon, and the next person to die was my old self. That was reality…

"You have to deal with the shock, we are now in this world."

I calmed myself and then mentally prepared myself for the next information.

"These crystals are now stuck in our bodies like parasites. There are things you need to know about these crystals. First, these may be parasites but at the same time, they are a blessing. The fact that you are here listening to me is proof of that."

What does that mean?

"This means… If a person was not hit by a crystal, they would turn into a decay… also known as a zombie. This happens through the inhalation of the flying comet dusts in the atmosphere."

Zombies?! There are zombies here?!

"That's the side-effect of the comet dust. On the other hand if you were hit by many shards, you would have mutated into a decay with abilities."

My goodness… How many crystals do I have?!

"As you can see, you are neither of the two…"

Ahhh… Thank God!

"Once your body has been injected with a shard, the body automatically deflects the other shards therefore, people who survived only has one shard on their bodies."

Oh that's a relief…

"Unless you have a black shard with you, then you are dead."

Stop pausing and leaving out important details! What if I have a black crystal?!

"But if the black shard gives a glow then that will keep you alive. And if you have enemies with black shards, be careful. They might have lived, but they are one of the most formidable enemies that you'll encounter. But if you had allies with black crystals, then you could have a powerful teammate."

I see, so these shards can make a difference. What are other shards like?

He then went on to explain the different colored crystals…

I was informed there are 8 kinds of colored crystals: Blue, Red, Green, Pink, Yellow, Purple, White and Black…

Each one will give abilities beyond any human imagination. No color was more powerful than the other. It depended completely on the host. Yes, the host played a major role in how to wield its abilities... The difference was that the Black crystal had unpredictable power manifestations.

The Blue crystal had abilities like speed, swift reflexes and strength. Other skills can also manifest along the way.

The Red crystal users were cunning and aggressive, hosts with this crystal color would tend to attack with brute force. Skills like pocket-opening otherwise known as teleporting was one of its specialties.

From a heavy wind to a soft sound wave, pink crystal holder can have these abilities. The abilities of this user would differ depending on how much the host has trained and practice its abilities.

Green Crystals often tend to have mysterious assets. They can be invisible and blend in the surroundings as they camouflage.

The host which has a purple crystal has the ability to be like water. They could be powerful like a waterfall or stealthy as a calm pond. But like they ocean, they can be very mysterious.

Yellow crystal hosts tend to boast about their defense. They are very dominant when it comes to defending.

White crystal users are very rare. No one knows much about them because their skills are mostly Escape-based. But rumors were that they were very powerful as well.

And finally, the black crystal hosts. Surviving a near-death experience, they were also very rare. This showed that the will of the host was very strong. Like the white crystal hosts, not much information was known about them since there were a few of them. But even if the people would try to learn about them, those who study them end up becoming missing.

He was vague with other abilities, and just said that they would manifest depending on how we trained.

This was a lot to take in. Powers? Hosts? And abilities? Sounds like an anime story that came to life. But yet, this was not a joke. This mind jump showed me a past version of myself who was preparing for this war. I was not about to throw it away.

He also mentioned that I had comrades with me in the mansion. He told me the details about the preparation and what to do afterwards. I was now convinced and as he was talking, the locked memories started to resurface, allowing me to remember some of it. My past self also reminded me about the abilities manifesting at a later time and to survive until then.

The transmission then ended with the mission to find the missing clues as to why this is happening and how we can help the world.

[Transmission Ended.]

The system notified me and I remove the helmet feeling excited.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

I was startled with the group of people who were close to my face who observing me intently, they now backed away as they were also surprised.

"Who are you?!" I asked.

"We should be asking you the same question. In fact, who are all of you?!" A short woman with white hair said in an angry tone while pointing to everyone.

Another locked memory resurfaced. Out of nowhere, I remembered all their names, or at least, their names in the apocalypse.

"Anyway, did you have the same instructions on the wall as well?" I asked them.

"Yes." A guy with a sullen expression said. This guy gives me the creeps.

"So? Did it work?" A beautiful woman said this in a shy tone.

"It did. And I know who you are. And for you to find out about the truth, use the code that was on the wall to know who you are."

Toni was the first to hesitantly take the helmet and put it on. It took about 2 minutes for her to remove it.

She then placed in on the table and faced me

I was nervous because she had a pouting face on

And then she hugged me.

Finally, she remembered… The old Toni must have told her something important.

Seeing as this was happening, the others followed without any worry. After an hour everyone was able to gain their memories. The weird part was that they seem to remember everything and… I don't.

Well that didn't matter right now…

I then remembered something and began to frantically search my body. Everyone was giving me weird stairs as I was touching my body like crazy. It was not easy to spot because it was covered after our suit self-repaired.

I finally found it!

The crystal was found on my wrist and it was huge. Wow! This thing actually fit inside my wrist? The best part was it was colored…

Blue!

"Speed… Reflexes and strength huh?" I said to myself

I became really excited as to what I can do in the future.

The others also understood what I was doing and they then followed suit.

And here's what happened…

Fairy (Lovely) found her crystal behind her neck while Toni (Antonia) easily found hers beside her neck. And they both had pink shards.

Kaizer (Ken) found his yellow shard on his right shoulder. We have someone with defensive properties. Sweet!

Jaden (Yan) found a very small shard on her left palm. It was purple.

Shine (Sophia) found her shard at the back of her right hand. It was pure white! A rare one! And it's on this team.

But what shocked me the most was that even though this was rare, we had 3 black crystal hosts…

Shadow (Sabrina) found hers on the back of her left hand… opposite to Shine. We had to help Nine (George) look for his before finding it on his back. And Giga's (Jerome) was on his right hip.

Wow! We had a cool line-up. And there were more coming over here. This was based on the locked memories that were resurfacing. I wonder what their crystal colors are?

The daydreaming was cut short.

As I was about to instruct everyone as to what to do, we could hear groaning and growling from upstairs. We all looked at each other and understood that it was here…

ZOMBIES WERE HERE…

So we all rushed up stairs…

We then saw a few zombies on the first floor. Based on what we saw, there were about 14 zombies that were here. They must be one of the slow-type zombies. We then planned to take out these monsters and reinforce the place.

Everybody didn't react and was tensed. No one wanted to kill anyone. I was included. Suddenly, a memory resurfaced. I remember that this was one of the instructions given to me by my old self. I had to use this because we officially became a bunch of wimps when we forgot everything.

"Activate: Kill instinct"

There was a light that flashed in front of my eyes. Instant information was now sent to my brain. And this caused my fear to vanish. One thing that this information proved useful was the fact that we were not wimps.

We are killers…

I turned to face everyone and there was killing intent in their eyes and soon their bodies were emitting it too…

We all looked at each other…

A creepy smile was plastered in all of our faces. We were sure of one thing now… We were all hungry to kill.

We all rushed down stairs and began hacking every decay we faced.

The greed to kill was not masked because we were fighting amongst each other as to who was going to kill each decay. We were getting noisier and noisier from the shouts of arguing.

*GROOOOOWL!*

A growl then silenced us…

We just killed the last slow-type decay when rumbling sounds were heard.

In the distance we saw decays running towards us…

FAST-TYPES WERE COMING!

We then flipped over the tables and sofas, and crouched behind them readying our guns.

This was the first wave we encountered.

What differs fast-types from slow-types is that they loved going in groups. And this was not a small group. We can see them just outside the windows. There were around 500 of them. They were still far ahead.

I then had an idea.

"They are still far from us! Quick! Run up stairs and ready to fire our weapons when they appear on the stairs!"

Everyone understood the plan and we began to run upstairs.

Nine and Kaizer hurriedly placed two tables in front of us to form a first blockade and then they placed a sofa meters away from the tables for us to take cover. The narrow hall would allow us to limit the space of the decays to pass allowing us to focus fire on the decays.

We then faced all our guns to where the stairs were and readied to fire.

"The moment you see them, light 'em up!" I shouted.

I then looked at everyone and they had a weird smile up on their faces. It was like a person with an evil grin.

They were eager to kill.

That was when I was sure that we won't die today.

"Finally… something to kill." Jaden said as she licked her lips.

Then as she said that, the first 10 zombies appeared in front of us.

"FIRE!" I commanded

*BRRRRRRRRRRRRR!*

Sounds of guns were now loud in the air.

A horde was now coming towards us as they ran towards the sound of the guns.

One by one, bodies began to fall on the ground. The bodies of the zombies were now being trampled on by the other zombies.

Heavy fire was now being applied to them as we quickly reloaded and fired again. We were now slowly running out on ammo. The pressure was now becoming heavier.

"We are getting nowhere!" Fairy complained.

"Just keep pushing!" Toni answered

The zombies were now getting nearer and nearer.

"I'm out!" Kaizer informed us

"Me too!" Jaden said

"I'm out as well." Giga was now out as well…

This is not looking good for us. Though we were running out, we noticed that they were getting fewer as well.

"We're almost there! Keep firing!" I encouraged.

"I just ran out…" Nine said…

Fairy, Toni, Shadow and Shine then were out of ammo too…

I was the only one left.

I kept firing until there were a few zombies left.

Before I could finish off the last 3 zombies, I ran out of ammo.

I could feel the panic rising up…

They were now inches from me. I could feel a memory resurface…

It was death… over… and over… and over again…

And fear took over my body.

I was ready to give my life to the decay that was about to bite me when suddenly, a body dove and tackled all 3 zombies.

They rolled on the ground before stopping.

The zombies then began attacking him and he was now being mercilessly attacked by these zombies.

Kaizer and Toni then jumped over the barricade and began hacking the zombies with their melee weapons.

When the last of the decay died, we then went to near to see who saved me…

"No way…" Jaden said

We were all horrified to see the person lifeless…

__________________END OF CHAPTER___________________