V1C3

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The night wind howled through the darkness like a cry, the scent of rot whirling through it.

Lin Jue and Song Hanzhang’s footsteps echoed through the empty cement road, the rows of greenery on either side under the dim lights seeming to hide prowling monsters, staring and watching. The old streetlamp sizzled and went out with a pop.

The sudden darkness made Lin Jue’s hair stand on end and he tightened his grip on the metal pipe, the sweat from his palms making his hands slippery.

“It’s coming.” Song Hanzhang’s voice sounded in the darkness with a trace of a tremor that couldn’t be hidden no matter how hard he restrained himself.

Lin Jue stared straight ahead. Less than ten meters in front of them, a figure staggered forwards, its stiff movements indescribably unsettling. It was so slow, but enough to make a man feel like he would suffocate from fear- it was their dead kin, once human, now hunter.

“One alone is easy to kill. I’ll attract its attention, and you’ll use the pipe to knock its cervical vertebrae at the back of its head. Remember, hit hard!” Song Hanzhang said coldly.

Lin Jue nodded heavily, his grip on the pipe tightening even more until the veins of his arms bulged out.

“Don’t be that nervous, you’ll just be wasting your energy. We’ll have to survive for another nine to ten hours,” Song Hanzhang said almost comfortingly and pointed to a nearby camphor tree. “Climb up. Attack when I’ve gotten its full attention.”

The zombie approached Song Hanzhang. He was prepared to bolt for it at any moment, but he remained unmoving as it came closer and closer. Lin Jue crouched on top of the tree and felt his legs shaking. He doubted he even had the courage to jump down when the time came, but if he ran away, he would lose his only teammate…

Five meters, four meters, three…

The zombie’s sluggish movements paused, then suddenly, it started dashing to Song Hanzhang, Lin Jue seeing clearly from the branches how it almost leaped towards him.

Song Hanzhang nimbly threw a kick against its stomach, pushing it to the ground, then backed up a few steps and started running. The zombie slowly crawled up and with lurching movements, continued chasing after him. It didn’t notice Lin Jue at all with how close it was to Song Hanzhang.

“Move it!” Song Hanzhang shouted.

The command shot through Lin Jue’s clouded brain like a lightning. He leaped down from the tree without thinking, held the metal pipe up with a shout, and smashed it into the back of the zombie’s skull. The zombie staggered forward with the dull sound of the pipe’s impact and stayed there, hunched over. Then with a crick, it suddenly turned its head around one-eighty degrees!

Under the dim light, its bulging eyes and ferocious facial features and fangs piercing through its own lips were nightmarish. It slowly opened its mouth, showing off the entirety of its teeth still dripping with blood as its turbid eyes shone with excitement at finding another prey.

Too close! At this distance, Lin Jue was clearly able to smell its rot.

“Augh——!” The zombie snarled and lunged at him, its body still twisted horribly.

In the face of death, Lin Jue’s mind blanked and he forgot even about running. Instinct forced him to raise the weapon in his hand and with overwhelming strength, he shouted and whipped it into the zombie’s skull. The sound of metal against bone sounded again and again. Naked fear imprinted itself onto Lin Jue’s eyes, his vision tunneling only onto the monster in front of him.

——Kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it!

“Enough!”

Lin Jue completely ignored Song Hanzhang’s cry, or rather, he was overwhelmed with the instinct to kill, the outside world a thousand miles away from him. He smashed into the zombie’s skull like his life depended on it even though it had already fallen over, unmoving, the pipe coming down in a manic, brutal rhythm.

“I said enough! Lin Jue!”

Lin Jue was suddenly hugged from behind and in his fear, he thought that he was being attacked by another zombie. He struggled a bit and with the help of a rush of adrenaline, he was somehow able to flip Song Hanzhang over. They both toppled down, the metal pipe falling with them with a clang. Song Hanzhang, who had been forced into becoming a meat cushion, let out a muffled oof. Lin Jue finally woke up and hurriedly rolled over. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Are you alright?”

Song Hanzhang took off his glasses, revealing a small red mark on his nose from the pressure. He pressed his nose bridge in exasperation. “Have you woken up yet?”

Lin Jue nodded dumbly, his mind suddenly going back to the zombie. It was now more than dead, smashed onto the ground in a meaty pile, its death not much more pleasant than the administrator’s.

Lin Jue still felt nauseous, but he didn’t feel the irrepressible urge to vomit anymore. Even though his hands were still numb and sore, he was able to think calmly about how many times he had smashed down when he had gone ‘berserk’, and how many times he had missed his mark. If each hit landed on the skull, it should have been able to break in around three to five hits, right?

Still sitting on the ground, Lin Jue held his head. He was on the verge of a breakdown. Already, he was getting used to this game of death. Even though he had never even killed a chicken before today, he had killed two zombies in the span of twenty minutes, both of which ended up with shattered skulls and splattered brains. This was naked and bloody murder, and there were countless more zombies waiting for him in this school like an endless nightmare. All of his once familiar schoolmates and teacher had been turned into zombies in a single night and if he didn’t kill them, he would die, but if he continued killing, he would surely go mad…

This feeling, it was so despicable, so despicable! Why did he have to kill? Why did it have to be him? He didn’t want to do this!

A soft sigh sounded in his ears. Song Hanzhang sat down next to him, held his shoulders, and forced him to look into his eyes, his clear, black eyes. “I will only say this once, so listen up. We didn’t voluntarily end up in this situation, we were forced. Our enemies now are those who were once our classmates and teachers, but they have already lost their self-awareness. They are no longer humans; they are only monsters wearing the skin of what is familiar to us, and they are your enemies. If this familiar husk makes you feel even the slightest bit of hesitation, you will die.”

Song Hanzhang looked at Lin Jue, his eyes shining with an unidentifiable emotion.

“You have two choices: one, to die in their mouths and become one of them. If this happens, I will abandon you without hesitation and kill you. Two, to survive together. Kill them, survive until daylight, and leave this game back to our previous, calm lives. Even though the process will be painful and dangerous, if you do nothing but pray for a miracle, you might as well just go get bitten to save you from the trouble.”

Song Hanzhang drew in a deep breath and stared at him intensely. “Okay, you can choose now.”

Lin Jue’s fingers were shaking; his every joint, his every nerve was shaking. His heart felt like it was ready to jump out from his throat, but a multiple choice question had been forced into his empty brain.

There wasn’t much of a choice, to be honest. The instant he had picked up the chair and slammed it at the zombie in the dormitories, he had already made up his mind, and all the hesitations and doubts afterwards were just unwilling hypocrisies.

Lin Jue squeezed his hands, his face void of a smile, but no longer on the verge of breaking apart.

“Live. Both of us will keep living on!”

Song Hanzhang nodded, satisfied, and patted his shoulder. “Now that you’ve made a decision, stop hesitating. Don’t let me see that sorry state again. It’s not truly killing, it’s not such a big deal. Now breathe.”

Lin Jue obediently took in a deep breath and let it go slowly, as if letting go of his previous panic with it.

“Have you recovered your strength? We should go to Time Plaza now.” Song Hanzhang picked up the fallen pipe and passed it to Lin Jue. The pipe showed an obvious bend to its side from the impacts, but it still looked usable.

Lin Jue finally felt like his racing heart was calming down a little and like his sore arms had regained a little strength. Most importantly, he was finally feeling brave enough to accept the truth.

Even though it was disgusting to kill zombies, even though it constantly made him feel as if he was killing a real person, if he didn’t do it, he would die.

He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He just wanted to live. That was all.

“Let’s go,” Song Hanzhang said and walked towards the gates of the dormitory area. Exiting from the western gates of the northern dormitories would lead them to the education block which wasn’t far from Time Plaza. However, Time Plaza was surrounded by seven buildings labelled A-G, and there were sky bridges between each building. It was the area filled with the most students. In other words, it was the area filled with the most zombies.

Was he not afraid? Lin Jue looked at Song Hanzhang’s straight back and couldn’t help but be baffled. How, just how could he be so calm? Shouldn’t he be afraid to witness those changes too?

Lin Jue was confused, but also thankful at Song Hanzhang’s calmness and fearlessness. Without him, he would probably be even more panicked than he was now… or even worse, he wouldn’t even have the chance to be panicked.

Song-xuezhang1, he should be someone I can trust, right? Lin Jue thought.

“We’ve arrived. You can see the gates directly from here, but the situation’s not very much in our favor…” Song Hanzhang pushed up his glasses a little and looked towards the western gates.

Lin Jue followed him and watched the gates from a distance. They were still tens of meters from the gates upwind, so the ten or so zombies surrounding them had yet to smell their scent and were only circling around, making meaningless roars and growls. Their shadows were elongated by the streetlamp light, drawing a terrifying boundary between light and dark.

The wind carried over the rustling of trees and flapping of clothes.

“Who’s there?!” Song Hanzhang suddenly turned around and growled, his hands on the kitchen knife as he glared at the nearby bush hostilely.

***

1 Xuezhang is how people refer to others in higher years than them in China, similar to Japan’s senpai, or ‘senior’ in English.

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