The sound of an old, rattling fan echoed in the small, two-bedroom apartment. Darren lay on his back in bed, staring at the cracked ceiling, arms folded behind his head. Dust floated through thin beams of morning light bleeding through the blinds.
Another day. Another routine.
His stomach growled.
Finally, he sat up, feet hitting the cold floor. The hardwood creaked—just like always. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and trudged to the narrow kitchen. The fridge hummed its low, dying tune as he opened it to reveal half a loaf of bread, three eggs, and some questionable butter.
He sighed. "Breakfast of champions."
As he pulled out the eggs, a voice called from behind.
"Don't eat all of them."
Zuri stood at the hallway's edge, wearing her high school hoodie and fixing her hair in the reflection of the microwave door.
"I'm not," Darren muttered. "You're acting like I'm about to fry a dozen."
"You've done worse, you broke Peter Parker," she mumbled with a smirk as she grabbed a granola bar from the counter.
They moved around each other like clockwork—each step memorized from years of growing up in a cramped space with little room and even less food.
Darren frowned, slightly offended that she'd said it out loud. "You get enough sleep?" he asked as he cracked an egg into the pan.
She shrugged. "Kinda."
"You were tossing all night again."
"I said I'm fine," she snapped, then softened as she caught his glare. Zuri was seventeen—still in high school, still figuring herself out, still angry about the world. About their dad. About how everything seemed so unfair.
He understood it too well.
Their mom burst out of the bathroom, hair barely brushed as she pulled on her nursing scrubs. Her tired eyes told him it wasn't even 8 a.m. yet.
"Darren," she said, grabbing her purse hurriedly, "I left twenty on the counter. We're low on food, drinks, and detergent."
He nodded. "Got it."
She leaned over and quickly kissed Zuri on the head. "Be good, okay?"
Zuri rolled her eyes but smiled. "I always am."
"I'm serious. If you mess up, they'll call me at work—"
"I know, Mom," she interjected as she slung her backpack over her shoulder.
The apartment buzzed with its quiet urgency—just like every morning.
Before they stepped out the door, their mom turned to Darren. "You good?"
"Yeah. Just tired."
She placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "We're all tired. But we keep going, right?"
He smiled faintly, though the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "Right."
And just like that, the apartment fell back into its familiar silence.
---
An hour later, Darren sat at the small table by the window, sketching in his worn-out notebook. Sketches of zombie traps, barricade layouts, and weapon mods cluttered the pages. Beside him, a stack of dog-eared survival books and comic issues about apocalypse tales—like The Walking Dead—sat scattered, and the distant sound of a zombie apocalypse game murmured from his computer in the background.
He'd been obsessed with this stuff for years.
Zombie movies, survival games, manhwa—anything that let him believe that being prepared meant you could control fate. In those stories, the sudden, unsettling silence was always the first warning.
And now?
Now it was too quiet.
No sirens. No honking. No chatter from the street—only the same ceaseless hum of the refrigerator.
And then—
> [SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
Darren's pen slipped from his fingers.
"What the hell—?"
The words floated in his vision—not scrawled on the wall or on his screen, but seemingly suspended in the air:
> [STORE SYSTEM ONLINE]
[CURRENCY EARNED BY KILLING INFECTED.]
[ACCESS TO STORE GRANTED.]
[19:00 MINUTES UNTIL OUTBREAK.]
He stood abruptly, heart hammering as if trying to escape his chest.
"What the hell is this?"
He spun around. There were no cameras, no speakers, no flashing screens nearby. Panicking slightly, he rushed to his laptop and turned it on—only to find it dead. He reached for his phone. Dead.
> [18:46]
Panic surged. Was he dreaming? He pinched himself hard. No, he was still here. Still real.
Then a new window materialized before his eyes—a glowing interface visible only to him. It was a menu listing items: weapons, food, medicine, and even something labeled "Antivirus" for $1000. Below this, the price list for zombies appeared:
Normal Infected: $5
Mutant Speed Type: $25
Intelligent Type: $50
Strength Type: $200
Attack Type: $200
Darren read it twice, his mouth suddenly dry. "What the hell is happening…? Am I dreaming? Is this another one of my weird nightmares?" He shook his head. No—this was too real.
Then, amidst his racing thoughts, came the sound.
A soft, distant moan—faint, yet unnerving—as if something not meant to breathe was gasping hungrily. Darren stepped to the window and pulled back the curtain.
Outside, a man limped across the street with his jaw hanging loosely, one eye missing. His skin was ashen, blood staining his shirt in macabre splatters. Behind him, more shapes staggered into view—four, then ten, then fifteen—each emitting the same low, guttural moan, each moving with a slow, uncoordinated gait. They were all wrong.
> [17:22 MINUTES UNTIL OUTBREAK]
It was happening.
Darren backed away from the window, heart pounding like a war drum. The moans—once distant—grew louder and more insistent, each second chipping away at the ordinary day he'd known.
He slumped onto the couch, trying to process what he'd seen. His mind, restless and heavy, began to drift back to the past—the cracks in his life that had started long before today.
---
Their father had left when Darren was ten.
No warning. No goodbye.
Just silence.
One morning, he was gone—wallet emptied, drawers cleared, and voicemail full of dead ends. The man who once promised to protect them had folded under life's own pressure and vanished without a trace.
Darren remembered sitting on the steps outside their old house, hugging Zuri as she cried. He didn't cry then—he only sat there, quiet, angry, and confused, wondering what made a man abandon a woman like their mom—a woman who worked double shifts, who nursed strangers at midnight, who somehow made leftover rice and eggs feel like a feast when there was nothing else.
Zuri had stopped being a child at that moment. She'd asked the hard questions, learned not to trust so easily.
And Darren?
He became obsessed with control. Preparation became his shield—maybe it started with games, with stories—but something about surviving a post-apocalyptic world clicked. In those worlds, it just became a way he can cope.
---
> [15:57 MINUTES UNTIL OUTBREAK]
The interface reappeared, floating before him like a spectral command center. It listed a weapon catalog, food supplies, vehicles, antibiotics—and two locked sections: one titled "Upgrade / Repair" for $100 to unlock and another, grayed out, labeled "Settle & Expand" for $150.
"Settle and expand?" Darren muttered, eyes narrowing. "Like... build a base?"
It made sense—if this were a game. But this wasn't a game, he told himself, though fear prickled along his skin. He clenched his fists at his side.
His balance showed $0.00.
"Right… gotta earn it," he whispered, more to himself than to the silent room.
---
The apartment slowly fell silent again. But it was no longer peaceful—it was the quiet before a scream. Darren's gaze drifted to a framed photo on the wall: his mom's arm wrapped around a much younger Zuri, and him standing awkwardly, trying hard to look proud. He missed that time, missed the family before everything fractured.
Zuri had once teased him about his zombie obsessiveness.
"You think the world's gonna end?" she had asked once, mocking yet curious.
"No," he'd replied, "I think it already has—just slowly."
She'd rolled her eyes. "You need to touch grass."
Maybe she was right.
But now, as the world outside was catching up to his worst nightmares, everything felt different.
> [14:22 MINUTES UNTIL OUTBREAK]
Darren began to pace. Thoughts battered him—images of their mom at the hospital during endless night shifts, and Zuri, at school, probably complaining about cafeteria food or bored through chemistry class. Neither had any idea what was coming.
No warning. No time.
He stared at his trembling hands. "I have to protect them," he murmured, voice cracking with both determination and terror.
Then, with a cold surge of adrenaline, he realized he had to act. He bolted towards his room, rummaging frantically. With everything else out of reach, he grabbed the only weapon he could find—a battered baseball bat, the one he'd used to knock around a stray baseball as a kid.
Clutching it tightly, his mind raced: "I've gotta move. I've gotta get Zuri. She's at school—goddammit—shit!"
He paused at the doorway, his breath ragged as he prepared to step into a suddenly hostile world.
The countdown continued, every moment bringing him closer to a world he'd only ever imagined in his darkest, wildest dreams.
---
End of Chapter 1
I recommend you not be a bum like Darren still living with your parents because obviously his mom needs help, but that's why I made him flawed for a reason.