[00] "Prologue"

In the daily hustle and bustle of the cities, the world went on as it always had.

The streets were filled with hurried people, their faces illuminated by their phone screens and their minds occupied with daily concerns.

The constant hum of cars, crisscrossing conversations and the relentless pace of modern life composed a symphony of normalcy.

Coffee shops were filled with customers enjoying their morning coffee, parks hosted joggers and strollers, and children played carefree games under the watchful eye of their parents.

However, in the midst of this apparent normality, something sinister was about to begin.

In the news, which until then had only talked about politics, economics and entertainment, there were more and more disturbing reports of people in different parts of Asia suddenly falling ill and becoming critically ill.

Hospitals were overcrowded and baffled doctors struggled to understand the nature of this mysterious disease.

Theories were multiplying by the minute - a new virus? A mutated strain of some ancient disease? No one knew for sure, but fear was beginning to take hold.

The first documented case of this infection, although initially unnoticed, would be remembered as the beginning of the tragedy.

Dr. Kenji Tanaka, a brilliant and respected scientist, was involved in a secret project funded by one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.

Together with his team, Kenji was working in a subway laboratory in an Asian country, researching the potential application of a modified virus to cure genetic diseases.

He was a man of science, driven by the noble ambition to improve human life, never imagining that he was about to unleash a nightmare.

That afternoon, Kenji was reviewing the results of the latest experiments. The virus, designed to correct genetic mutations, had shown promising progress in cell cultures.

However, something went terribly wrong, while handling a sample, Kenji accidentally pricked himself with a contaminated needle, his colleagues rushed to him, but he, with feigned calmness, minimized the incident and continued working, not suspecting that inside him an irreversible transformation was beginning that would cause the destruction of modern society.

That night, while Kenji slept in his small apartment, he was invaded by an intense fever and terrifying hallucinations, his body writhing in convulsions and with a strong cough, which expelled a virus that with the breeze of the wind went out the window and spread throughout the world.

At dawn the next day, something in him had changed, his vacant gaze and pale skin were only the prelude to a deeper horror.

Moved by a primitive instinct, Kenji left his home and began to roam the streets, attacking anyone who crossed his path, his victims, infected by his bite, fell into a similar state of madness and decomposition, spreading the virus at an alarming rate causing them to become zombies.

In that country, the normality that was known quickly disintegrated, replaced by a reality where survival had become the only concern.

The streets, once full of life, were now dangerous territories, and humanity, faced with an enemy of its own making, struggled not to become extinct in a nightmare of its own invention.

News of the event in this Asian country was hidden from the rest of the world, but how long could that last?