The Reality

Knowing full well that going back was impossible, Lisha walked ahead while the light coming from the hall diminished.

But as the good survivor that she was, she wasn't afraid of the dark but of what lurked there.

In full darkness and with nothing to guide her way, Lisha went further and further. At times she butted against things on the ground but didn't know what they were. Sometimes it was hard, at others mushy and squishy. She didn't have to see to guess what they were.

At some places, she had to climb atop undistinguished forms. At each step, a smell of putrefaction assaulted her. Enough to make her want to puke.

After 5 minutes of walk, she bumped into stairways and climbed ever so carefully instead of going down. The higher places were always the most secure. In this way, the apparent darkness faded away as she made her way to the rooftop.

Near the end of the staircase, looking at herself and the path she carved she understood why the door was barricaded. From head to toes she was covered in blood, pus and pieces of flesh of unknown origins.

It was a sight for sore eyes but she couldn't deny how much it fitted her as a zombie.

Looking back to the stairs she saw the piles of corpse mangled left and right that bothered her climb.

When she looked at the destroyed rooftop door with claw marks, it didn't take long to understand that what happened in the hall happened here as well.

Walking on the rooftop, she discovered what remained of a survivor group. Albeit they fought to the death, they couldn't survive a Nyx's assault. Who could survive such a nightmarish beast without preparation?

Their chest was clawed up and their core eaten. It was gruesome scene.

But at least she got where she wanted to be. Looking at her right she saw the humongous hole made by the explosion.

This aside, she didn't pay more attention and focused on the constant noise she heard the moment she stepped on the rooftop.

She walked to the edge, protected by the guardrail and looked to the horror house below. Which promptly made her back off in heartbeat.

"I thought the 3rd floor of New Paris would be safe but how god was I wrong."

Nyxss.

Nyx everywhere.

If floor 0 of New Paris was plagued by undead then the 3rd floor was by Nyx. Worst, she knew thanks to News that Nyx had a whole bunch of evil friends wherever they go.

Nyx also had the hunting habit to use zombies as scoots.

But as she sneakily looked below she could spot none of them. Meaning they are either all destroyed or playing hide-and-seek within the many floors of the library.

'Fuck! The situation is worst than when I was at the school.'

The danger assessed and the way outside more tight than Fort Knox she turned tail and looked at the poor fellows on the rooftop.

Although her current state could give her a VIP place in the undead club it would make her a target of the bullied humans.

A disguise is what she wanted.

Thankfully there was everything she needed here. The fellows' bags were left untouched.

Inside them, she found the perfect tool for survivors: high-luminosity flashlights, food, maps and the most important of them all a nerve gauntlet!

"Thank Heaven! Goodbye, Stone Age!" How long was it since she could touch a piece of technology? 4 years? 5 years?

This group has resources but bad luck to end here. But luck was as important as an ability than strength.

She was the 'living' proof.

Naturally thanks to her luck stat, highest across aeons, the nerve gauntlet she found still worked fine but as if to mock her, it switched off the second after.

"..." 'Who told me to open my mouth.'

"I guess I'll have to found a source of energy too." However, it was already a great harvest. Thinking this, she joined hand and prayed to them before processing to the next part.

"Sorry, but I need these clothes." And with some guilt lingering, she undressed the body and did her best to dress like a normal human. With the amount of torn clothes and her broken arm, it was quite difficult but she managed to get something acceptable.

"I look like an avant-gardist pirate..." And indeed she was. With a dark patch of clothing to hide her eye, a cap and a clawed jacket she had just enough to be demoted from a S-class undead to a B-class undead.

But her best prize laid in new snickers. Just seeing her 1000-km shoes laying aside made her sore.

Yet, even with all that, anyone not blind would unmask her.

"Maybe at night... No, impossible." She disregarded the idea right off the bat. Only if she was desperate would she expose herself while praying for the opponent to be blind. But with this out of the way, she now turned her sight to the food and thus the question.

Could she eat?

"I need to tackle it sooner or later but... what am I exactly?"

'And what can I still do?'

Questions she had since the beginning which bothered her... which afraid her.

"..."

"...My sense of smell is quasi non-existent." Inside the corridor, she only felt a slight tingling in her nose and now, when opening the canned food, she smelled nothing.

But with a whatever-should-happen motto, Lisha went for the food with mild pressure and...

"Ptuu! Ptuu ptuu urgh... shit."

Shit.

It tasted like shit.

In a pitiful attempt, she took a bite of the most disgusting thing ever.

Disheartened, she took hold of a bag, but what mattered and got back from where she came.

The rooftop showed her how much getting out was a near-impossible feat, but staying at the library was a secret boon too even though forced.

With its vault of knowledge, who know how much she'll discover about this plague and her situation. Moreover, even if she were to go back to her school, what could she do in her current state.

"Besides the urgent disguise, my foremost goal is to discover what I am and what I can do."

While descending stairs and jumping over bodies, she thought of that worrying body of her.

A sentient zombie? undead? There were so many names for this that she didn't know anymore. Not that she cared.

The crux of the matter is that she never heard of something like this. She heard about few people awakening an evolution with their human core but it was so rare.

But then again, officials kept all they had about the evolution wave for themself.

Military? The same warmongers as ever. She didn't know how her father could work among idiots like that.

"I'm lost beyond measure..."

She had no data to rely on yet and maybe her condition was on a timer, like the nerve-gauntlet, maybe she'd switch back to full zombie out of nowhere.

The sole idea terrified her and stopped in her track, locking eyes with a corpse on the stairs.

In the span of an instant, her face overlapped with the dead and she thought of future demises.

"I... I can't die." In an angry tone, Lisha remembered all the atrocities that her enemies did to her but also the family she wanted to reunite with.

Lisha shook her head and with another step, crossed the deads and continued on her way.

If her core was limited in time then it'd be game over and what a shitty game it was.

From what she knew on core, animals evolved to survive the human threat and got a new set of ability unknown to this day. But years went by since then.

We're speaking about evolution here and I doubt mere animals were the cause of human downfall.

Thinking about cockatrices aka the evolved end form of chickens she saw on TV, she wondered if she would also turn into something like this.

Albeit uncommon, they sometimes butted head with stronger zombies but never did they think of evolved zombie.

But looking at her broken arm and how she struggled to get out of the wreckage, the thought of being a 'super' zombie eluded her, although she couldn't discard it entirely as she was still 'alive'.

But she still had a good swing. Even with one arm, years beating couldn't disappear.

Maybe she'd be able to awaken something like the fire monkeys of mont Beru or the unbreakable Rui bone rhinoceros.

Humans knew that they couldn't use their core because it wasn't activated but her was. But unlike the testimony of the few evolved humans, she didn't feel the warm heat as described.

There was nothing. Nothing at all. But maybe she didn't do it right? Who could teach? No one. But where was she? Inside the biggest data trove of the continent. If she didn't get an answer here, where would she?

Like that Lisha took the corridor leading to the floor below and found nothing to be afraid of but other dead bodies in fewer numbers. At the door entrance, there was none whatsoever.

As cautious as she was, she strained her ears to listen in whatsoever things maybe awaited her beyond those doors.

But arriving at the four-meter mark she didn't have time to do that anymore.

"Fuck!" and in a dash, she ran for dear life from whence she came.

One second after, the same doors burst open and three people followed suit.

Another second after, a horde came in to grab their legs.

'Fuck! Fuck!! Why...am I... this... UNLUCKY?!'