Day One of the Apocalypse (2)

Seeing Adrian, Ariana's shock was immediately replaced with heaps of concern as his unmoving body scared her greatly.

However, this only lasted for a moment before his body convulsed, and he rose upwards.

—

After waking up from that horrifying experience, I opened my eyes to a scene of mass confusion and hysteria.

The ground had cracks all over, and rubble from buildings had fallen onto the people below. A statue in the centre of the plaza was barely staying up.

People were beside their loved ones as they cried in grief over deaths. It seemed Ariana was doing the same as her tears had already dropped down onto my face. The knowledge of her tears on my skin annoyed me greatly.

She hugged me tightly, and through her shaking body, I understood that I needed to show care to her.

Although this was the case, I hypothesise that whatever happened caused an immense change to the Earth. I also suspect that the society I was familiar with may not be intact for much longer.

Hugging Ariana back, I then calm her down from her hysteria as she can only get used when she has emotional clarity.

In the midst of all this, a line of red appears in my mind's eye. It was the same as that message from before as the sun turned that silvery-blue colour.

[ With one minute before the first test, you have received the ability to view your status page ]

Reading those words took all of my attention out of the rest of the world. When I returned to the outside of my mind, the other survivors seemed to be in a daze. It was as though their souls had left their bodies momentarily. Although their eyes were dead, they were very much alive, their bodies' autonomous functions continued.

Nonetheless, I noticed a similarity between the survivors and the dead. All of the survivors were more youthful, some people reaching into what looked to be their late forties and early fifties. Other than that, most everyone else of a higher age was dead.

The reason I say mostly was that I saw a child's body.

"Ariana, we need to get to a safe place. My apartment is too far away, so we need to get to that restaurant." I told Ariana what we needed to do with a clear voice after she returned to reality. It appears that some people around us heard me.

"Okay, I agree," Ariana replied as she, without question, expressed her extreme trust in my judgement.

—

Adrian jogged while holding Ariana's hand towards the restaurant, and as he did so, others followed as they realised his words earlier were true.

The reasons why he chose the restaurant were because it had food and water. As well as a single entrance and small windows, it seemed like a good place to temporarily stay in case anything happened.

The cafe was in a large plaza, and many people were repeating the same thing as Adrian. The plaza had been stuffed to the brim with people earlier, and almost a quarter of them were not alive after a quick estimation.

—

Standing inside the restaurant that was still cool from earlier, I noticed a former employee with us. Meanwhile, some people attempted to drag their lovers' corpses inside as they refused to believe they were dead.

"If you want to come inside, you need to leave their bodies behind!" I shouted out to the people, and some of them collapsed, while others continued without paying any heed to my words.

Turning my head to the young man who wore a uniform for the restaurant, I told him to lock the door.

The immediate threat to our survival was invisible. I did not know what could happen, as did the people with me.

'I guess I'll check my Status Page.'

Red characters appeared within my mind forming many words.

[ Adrian Hale - Human

Class - None

Level - 0

Stats:

(For comparison, the average stats of humans are 10.00032)

< Strength - 13 > < Vitality - 12 > < Magic - 0 > < Stamina - 12 > < Agility - 13 > < Mana Q - 146 > < Mana A - 0 > < Perception - 17 >

Strength represents how much power your body can generate.

Vitality represents how resilient your body is to damage and how quickly it recovers.

Magic represents your talent at using elements.

Stamina represents your body's energy levels and how long it can perform tasks well.

Agility represents the speed at which your body moves both internally and externally. For example, with higher agility is a faster reaction time.

Mana Q represents how much Mana is within your body. Mana A represents your base affinity with it and your control. ]

—

Adrian found it difficult to control his rage after seeing his Mana affinity stat. That was due to the unwillingness to be below anybody or be inferior as he believed he was above others. Shortly after this, he realised it was like a game.

However, he felt confused at a large number of numbers in his Mana Q stat. Surely if his base affinity with Mana is low, there'd be less of it within him. Right? Why was it the inverse?

Of course, the rest of his stats were acceptable. Adrian took good care of his body as though it was a palace and a maintained a lean physique year-round through a relatively complicated routine that he developed.

His perception was his highest stat, this was because as a Narcissist it was necessary to understand others emotions as he couldn't feel empathy. At a funeral, he would have to act and put on a solemn expression in order to match the depressing atmosphere. Throughout Highschool, Adrian always had a mask over his face that he never once revealed through careful manoeuvring in society.

Observations were the way to see how to survive.

However, Adrian could not think for too long as shrill screams began to ring out from the plaza outside.

Suddenly, a sound rang out of bones cracking and snapping from outside the building.

Dead bodies contorted, and the skin on those bodies became a grey-green mix while blood poured out of the mouths of the bodies.

Within the first few seconds, those bodies stood as though they were never dead before they lunged at any living thing near them and bit huge chunks out of the bodies of any human that was unable to enter a safe place.

The moving corpse carried on after biting a human. That human began to distort as they similarly had their skin rapidly turn grey-green.

Seeing such a scene happen en masse, the survivors became terrified as they realised that beings that previously only existed in movies, had become real.

Zombies.

Hurriedly, the survivors in the restaurant boarded up the windows with tables and blocked the door.

Adrian looked around for a weapon and decided that he didn't want to use a knife. Instead, he smashed open the casing for a fire axe and grasped its handle in his hand.

Momentarily, Adrian put the issue of 0 Magical ability or Mana affinity behind him, which required extreme focus.

Narcissists' negative emotions are very intense. Feelings of insecurity, rage, anger, jealousy, envy, greed, pride, and anxiety, to name a few, used to overwhelm Adrian. With time, he became able to control these emotions from affecting him.

The Zombies turned their heads towards the Restaurant as they roared.

"Everyone grab some weapons!" Adrian shouted out, to which many survivors ran to the kitchen and grabbed knives while others picked up some cutlery off the floor.