2025-07-08 22:15:25Aisha handed Shihab a half-eaten chocolate bar her last one with a stubborn frown when he tried to refuse.
"You need energy more than we do," she said, pressing it into his calloused hands. "You’re the one searching all day." Rima nodded, curled up against his side like a kitten. "And you’ll find them. You’re strong. Strong people don’t need to steal." Shihab’s throat tightened. He unwrapped the bar slowly, the chocolate smudged on the foil. "I hope you’re right," he murmured. "You know we are," Aisha declared, kicking a pebble across the floor. "Right, Rima?" "Right!" The little girl grinned, her missing front tooth making the word whistle. For the first time in days, Shihab laughed. The sound felt foreign in his chest. Three days later, the city’s ruins smelled of wet ash and rust. Shihab found an abandoned office building, the windows were broken and half of the building was destroyed. He went inside out of curiosity. He walked around and carefully searched for any sign of life, then he heard a voice. "Shihab? Is that you?" He spun, weapon raised, only to freeze. A lanky figure with a familiar big head stepped into the light, his younger brother Ayham’s best friend since middle school. The guy’s leather jacket was streaked with blood, but not his own. "Tariq?" Shihab lowered the gun, heart hammering. "You scared me." Tariq’s face twisted. He glanced over his shoulder before dragging Shihab behind an unstable wall. "Sorry, But I've got to tell you something important… your brother, he disappeared the night the zombies showed up. Later I found out he joined Qasim’s crew." The name hit like a slap. Qasim is the leader of the Black Vipers, a gang that ran arms deals before the apocalypse made business booming. Shihab grabbed Tariq’s collar. "Why?" "I don't know. Your mom…" Tariq swallowed. "She begged him to stay. But Qasim offered him protection, guns, and said he’d pay him well. I Don't know how Ayham got caught up in their business, I told him not to do it but he didn't listen." A gunshot echoed in the distance, cutting him off. "Look, he changed his number after. No one’s heard from him since the Vipers’ hideout got overrun last week." Overrun. The word buzzed in Shihab’s skull. He released Tariq, hands shaking. "Where?" "Old textile factory by the river, but" Tariq flinched as another shot rang out. "It’s crawling with zombies now. And if your brother is alive…" He didn’t finish. They both knew what Qasim demanded in exchange for his protection. Shihab stared at the broken glass under his boots. Zombies, apocalypse and now gangs. His mother and younger brothers were missing, his brother was caught up in gang war. Things just couldn't get worse for his family. Tariq pressed a crumpled photo into his hand, Ayham at a rooftop party, grinning, Qasim’s arm around his shoulders like a vice. "If you find him… tell him I’m sorry." Then he vanished into the rubble. Shihab pocketed the photo. Somewhere, his family waited for him, and he swore he would find them. "Strong people don’t need to steal." Aisha's words echoed in his mind. strength, he realized, came in forms he hadn’t yet dared to wield. The blue light of the system flickered to life before Shihab's eyes as he crouched in the ruins. Dust particles floated through the air, catching the eerie glow as words materialized: [NEW TASK OFFERED Objective: Survive 72 hours in current zone. Reward: Verified location of your family. Failure penalty: Location data will be permanently erased.] Shihab's breath caught in his throat. His fingers trembled as they hovered over the virtual accept button. Three days. In this hellscape. Bur on the other hand he doesn't have to steal. No betraying his morals. Just pure, brutal survival. He swallowed hard, tasting blood from his split lip. Somewhere outside, a chorus of guttural moans signaled another roaming pack of infected. With a deep breath, he pressed ACCEPT. The system pulsed once, then displayed a new message: "COUNTDOWN INITIATED: 71:59:59 Recommended survival strategy: Move northeast to high-ground positions." As the numbers began ticking down in the corner of his vision, Shihab tightened the straps on his backpack. The weight of his rifle suddenly felt heavier. Somewhere out there, his family was waiting. And now he had a deadline.
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Chapter 73 A Devil's Bargain
The satellite phone's chirp was a sound that always sent a jolt through Shihab, a tether to the most precious part of his heart that was far away. He answered it in the quiet of his quarters, his voice softening instantly. "Ayham?""Hey, brother," Ayham's voice came through, clearer and stronger than it had been in months. The background noise was the gentle crash of waves, a sound unimaginable in the dust of the city. "Just checking in. How's the empire building?"A genuine smile spread across Shihab's face. For the next half-hour, he talked. He didn't give a leader's report; he gave a brother's story. He told him about the wall, stone by backbreaking stone. He described Ibtihal and her tech, the clash and eventual fusion. He talked about the near-disaster at the landfill, leaving out no detail of his own foolishness, and the humbling rescue. He told him about Zayn and Layan, about Dr. Sami and the clay filters, about the football games in the dust. He painted a picture not just of s
Chapter 72 A Real Team
The journey back from the landfill was a somber affair, but the silence was soon broken by Karam. Leaning against the seat in the truck, he let out an exaggerated sigh.“You know,” he began, his voice carrying through the cabin, “I’ve seen some crazy plans. The bus jump. The fire extinguisher on the roof. But trying to bury a thousand zombies under a mountain of garbage by yourself? That’s a new level of… let’s call it ‘creative problem-solving.’”A low chuckle rippled through the others. Ibtihal, her face still smudged with gunpowder residue, shook her head with a wry smile. “Statistically, it was an intriguing model. The funneling theory was sound. The failure point was the reliance on a single-point detonation trigger without a redundant backup. A rookie mistake, really.”“A rookie mistake from our fearless leader,” Jalal added, his tone dry but not unkind. “Next time you decide to single-handedly re-engineer the local topography, maybe run the wiring diagram by the class first?”S
Chapter 71 Saving The Hero
The pre-dawn air was cold and still, thick with the smell of damp earth and decay from the landfill bowl below. Shihab moved like a specter, placing Ibtihal’s acoustic emitters along the access road. Each one was set to activate in a staggered sequence, creating a piercing, irresistible siren song that would lead the dead on a forced march into his trap. In the narrow throat of the central trench, he and Jawad had spent the previous night secretly laying the electrostatic nets, their wires hidden under filth, connected to a single remote trigger in Shihab’s hand.He stood now on the northern rim, looking down at the silent pit. The zip-line was anchored behind him, its cable a faint glint in the gloom, leading to the safety of the opposite ridge where Jawad was supposedly positioned with a rifle. Shihab’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of fear and grim determination.“It’s time,” he whispered to himself, and pressed the first button on his makeshift controller.
Chapter 70 A Crazy Plan.
The decision was made, the contract rejected. Yet, like a ghost, it lingered. It haunted Shihab in the quiet moments. As he walked the rising wall at dawn, the rhythmic clink of trowels on stone seemed to whisper a thousand, a thousand, a thousand. When he reviewed their ledgers with Ibtihal in the evenings, the columns of scarcity screamed for a solution the gold mine promised.He began a silent, obsessive study. He pored over their inventory lists—ammunition counts, fuel reserves, medical supplies dwindling faster than they could scavenge. He listened intently to the reports from the port traders, men who sailed between fledgling sanctuaries on Al Noor Island and elsewhere. They spoke of a new economy emerging from the ruins, one running on bullets, antibiotics, fuel, and precious metals. A single gold coin, one trader claimed with a glint in his eye, could buy a crate of penicillin or a ton of seed grain from the agricultural communes springing up in the south.He watched the child
Chapter 69 The Tough Choice
The afternoon sun was warm, and the shouts of laughter were a medicine more potent than anything in the hospital. Shihab was in the middle of the dusty field that served as their football pitch, expertly dodging Zayn’s attempt to tackle him before passing the ball to a squealing Layan. The weight of command, the endless logistics of the wall, the silent pressure of a hundred lives depending on him—it all melted away in the simple, joyful chaos of the game. For a few precious minutes, he was just a big brother playing with the kids.Then, the world fractured at the edges. A familiar, cold blue light flickered, intruding upon the golden sunlight. The laughter, the shouts, the thud of the ball—all of it receded into a muffled hum as the translucent screen materialized directly in his line of sight.[New Contractual Proposal Generated]Objective: Eliminate one thousand (1000) zombies. Hostiles must be terminated within a 72-hour window following contract acceptance. Area of engagement is
Chapter 68 The Safe Zone
The northern reservoir mission had been more than a success; it had been a fusion. The clean water flowing into the hideout's storage tanks symbolized something purer than hydration, it was the lifeblood of a newly unified community. No longer the "Peace Seekers" and "Team X," they were now one entity, with a shared purpose that demanded a monumental new task: not just defending a hideout, but securing a future.Standing on the roof of their headquarters, now buzzing with coordinated activity, Shihab addressed the assembled group. Over a hundred faces looked back at him, seasoned fighters, brilliant engineers, hardened scavengers, and hopeful newcomers. The scale of what he was about to propose was written in the weary but determined lines of their faces."We have water," Shihab began, his voice carrying easily in the quiet morning air. "We have food growing. We have skills, and now, we have true strength in numbers. But we are still just an island in a sea of chaos. The hordes grow,
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