Chapter 1

I woke up, quite abruptly I might add, by rocketing up and swinging my arms at imaginary attackers in my half asleep state. After a few seconds of my swings not hitting anything, not being attacked, and not hearing anything except the sound of the wind rustling the tree branches overhead and the undergrowth around me I realized I wasn't under attack. 

Bleary eyed I still looked around me trying to figure out where I was, how I got here, and stopping to think for a moment who I actually am. I knew my name, Nathan Cole, but I didn't know how old I was. I couldn't remember growing up, my parents or family, what schools I went to, or even what my favorite foods and hobbies were. Everything about who I was seemed to be hidden from me almost. 

I knew I had a mother and father and their names were… right on the tip of my tongue. I was mentally aware there was information there to be accessed but when I focused on it I felt like I was trying to wrestle multiple greased up tiny people in a circus. Weird analogy, I wonder if that's one I used a lot or is it something my mind is coming up with now that I can't use my old frames of reference. Food for thought later I suppose.

While trying to access the information in my head I realized several other things about my situation that concerned me a bit more than just not having memories before waking up. I was naked as the day I was (I assume) born. I had a game like window hanging in the air blinking as though trying to get my attention. Lastly, when I had reached down to grab the backpack nearby feet instead of being able to automatically grab it and sling it over my shoulder my hand paused and a small countdown timer and wheel appeared and when it hit zero two additional windows opened, one showing what I assume is my personal inventory and one with a picture of the backpack showing what I assumed were the contents of the bag. 

Intrigued by the video game nature of this (weird how I know what video games are and how they work but yet I can't remember playing a single one) I reached out with my hand and found I could select individual items in the grids they sat in to get additional information on them, use them, or move them by grabbing and moving them to the squares inside my own inventory. This bag had a family size can of chili with beans, two 1 liter bottles of clean water, a hunting crossbow, 30 iron tipped bolts, and a small 5 inch folding knife.

I quickly moved the items to my inventory to see what would happen before hitting the close button on the screen. To my surprise, and delight, when the screen closed it now showed the backpack as "empty" when I looked at it but I could still interact with it as normal. Lifting the bag I could feel that there were items inside and when opening the bag I found a single pair of socks, underwear, sweat pants, long sleeve cotton shirt, as well as a small empty canteen and a small sealed plastic bag with a box of matches and some fire starting materials. 

I quickly got dressed, as the wind was nice but a little chilly on bare skin, while still keeping my eyes and ears open around me in case of danger or hopefully other people I might be able to turn to for help. My mind kept returning to the fact that I seemed able to "double dip" into containers for supplies. I was also amused that the items I had placed into my own inventory apparently had no weight as long as they were in the unlocked slots at least. There had been ten rows of ten slots and only the first two rows of ten had been clear, the next two rows had been gray but had a picture of a guy struggling bent over under a huge heavy pack on his back, and the bottom six rows simply had a large gray padlock symbol on them.

I was thinking about how I could get an item out of my pack when the crossbow instantly appeared in my hands the moment I thought about bringing it out. Amazed at how good such a system would be for dangerous situations, and at the quality of the crossbow, I next focused on reloading it. There were two ways I could reload it I quickly found. The first was to manually pull back the string and lock it into place and then make a bolt appear in my hand before carefully loading it into the correct spot. The second way was to simply think "reload" and the system took over rapidly and efficiently reloading the crossbow, taking the exact same amount of time but also slowing down my movement speed to a crawl while I did it. Some kind of game balance thing I would assume.

After putting away the crossbow I finally focused on the blinking screen and started to get many answers and background on what the hell was going on.

"Welcome Nathan Cole, you have been chosen by several deities in the multiverse to be their champion in "The Apocalypse Games", the game show/reality TV that the most powerful beings known to exist love to watch and bet on. Due to your past experiences, which have been locked to help you focus on surviving and thriving, you have been selected as a member of the survival games. This simply means you are sent to various worlds, facing apocalyptic scenarios such as zombies, dungeon invasions, alien invasions, and system integration apocalypse scenarios. All of these types of worlds have their own challenges and benefits but you are placed into them for 1 year as the standard time frame. Survival till the end means you win, gaining you the most basic reward of rewards however there are a number of additional ways you can earn above and beyond just the basics.

Most players, if focused on survival, can easily survive the 1 year time limit, over 90% of players in fact, there are however a number of additional quests, challenges, and ways you can gain additional points allowing you to accrue additional rewards when the time limit runs out. These additional options for rewards are critical for the average player to become the above average, the legendary, or even step onto the path to Godhood. 

The only mandatory quest you receive is to survive until the time runs out. All other quests are optional and will be generated around the world you are in as you discover new information about the world or assigned by the audience in order to try and guide you, the player, into expanding their domains. Good Gods may ask you to render aid to civilians who were attacked by raiders or to defend a settlement at risk of being overrun by zombies. Evil Gods may ask you to start a raider gang and plunder from other survivors or to become a murder hobo worthy of their rewards. Neutral Gods may ask you to create a trading zone that makes a certain number of trades per month or that asks you to play as a solo player only focused on their own survival. There are no punishments for ignoring or declining quests, only rewards for finishing them.

Challenges are a list of feats that you, the player, can attempt to complete for instant rewards and can vary greatly in difficulty. You can view the Challenge list, the ones that are not hidden, by opening the relevant menu in the System overlay. 1 Star Challenges can typically be challenged and completed by any player with a little thought or strategy and generally require no special skills or gear to complete. 2 Star Challenges can be completed by the average player. 3 Star Challenges should be undertaken with a group of well prepared players. 4 Star Challenges are for only the strongest survivors to even consider. 5 Star and Hidden Challenges are near impossible… but will make you famous and garner more support from the Gods should you, somehow, be able to complete them.

Lastly is the point system which differs slightly from world to world. In your current world you gain points from killing zombies, building and defending safe zones, recruiting survivors to your safe zones, earning chips from trading, and crafting items for use by yourself and others. 

At the end of each apocalyptic world that you survive your points will be tallied and you will be ranked against all other players who were also spawned into this world with you. First place has life changing prizes that can make your future survival guaranteed in much harsher worlds while 2nd-10th places are also a huge boost in your favor. All ranks below the top ten will get additional rewards as well no matter how low in the ranking you might be the rewards will just be greatly reduced.

You and two hundred million other players from your world have been assigned to a zombie apocalypse world and told to survive for the next 12 months. All of those players were given a simple backpack with a written note explaining what they need to know but only YOU have been granted a system to aid your survival. This world has several special features that you need to be aware of and plan for over the next year so please take heed of the following:

During the daytime zombies are far more sedate and their senses are very poor. When the sun goes down the zombies become more active, aggressive, and gain better senses with which to find people making noise and using lights.

Every 30 days portals will open, ground level only, that will teleport in additional populations of zombies based on a number of factors. The skies will turn purple the morning this is set to happen and it is recommended all players stay quietly out of sight until the portal process is finished within 24 hours. Lootables will be reset and able to be searched for loot again every 30 days.

Your System gives you access to a comprehensive system that allows you to level up, gain skills and perks to make you stronger, have a gamified system for your health and welfare, craft, deconstruct the world around you, build the world around you easily, and view stats of anything that you look at while also allowing you to effectively "double dip" the world around you. There are also special loot containers, traders, safe zones, and other System enabled player only interactables that you will be the only person on the planet who can use them… with some special exceptions that you will discover later to your benefit.

For example, you start with 100 HP which acts as a damage shield before you physically start taking any damage. If you are attacked and your leg gets bitten by a zombie, you will lose HP equal to that bite but your leg will not take any physical damage as long as your HP is still above at 1 or above.

Another example is that you are able to loot containers in the world around you using the System, with loot going into your inventory automatically, and then loot it again by physically going through the container like any other player. This allows you to potentially gain twice as much loot while also giving you the advantage of the system loot tables. Looting kitchens tends to give more food type items, looting garages tends to give more tools and vehicle based items, looting book cases gives a special chance for stat, perk, or talent point books.

Good luck player, use your system well, entertain the Gods, and most importantly… SURVIVE!"

Once I finished reading the entire system message it simply disappeared leaving me to look around this new world I was in as I considered the information I had been given. 200 million people, just like me, but without the System I had, needed to survive for 1 year in order to win the "game". My system gives me some serious benefits that others do not have and I am betting I know far more about our situation from my welcome message than they got from their note in the starter backpack. I grinned as I stood up straight, stretching the tightness from my muscles, taking in a deep breath of the cool morning air while the bright shining sun filled the sky around me. 

Looking around I see that I am standing on the top of a small hill and that to my East there is what appears to be either a large town or a small city. I can vaguely make out humanoid shapes shuffling about in ones or twos here and there in that direction and know that even if I can't remember who I was, this somehow feels right. Maybe my world had a zombie apocalypse or I just really liked the books, movies, and games about them since I seemed to have a lot of different knowledge about zombies and how I might be able to best abuse this System to my advantage.

Looking towards the East, I knew that not only would I survive but somehow I also knew, deep in my bones, that I was going to thrive in this world. System or not.

"System, show me my status and what special options I have access to as a player in this world."