A World At Its End

"Who are you?" Drake murmured, shock gripping him. He turned around to see where the voice was coming from but saw no one.

"I'm supposed to be dead; I was shot in the heart, I saw myself die!"

"Is this hell? I can only think that with everything happening outside," he panted, freaking out.

His attention now turned away from the glass window, his back turned against it.

"Welcome back to life, Drake Miller. The order of things has changed. The world has evolved, so have you," the robotic voice sounded in his ear.

"Who are you? Please, I need to know," Drake said, raising his voice in panic.

As he spoke, he still could hear cries of people in the distance, the growls of zombies overshadowing the sound of the pattering rain.

"Not who, but what. I'm the Skill Invoker System," the voice said, and Drake's heart throbbed in confusion.

"System, what's a system?" Drake said.

"Consider it to be the new set of rules governing you and your new abilities in this changed world," the voice said.

"I don't understand—"

Swap!!

The robotic voice suddenly ceased.

Drake still had hundreds of questions to ask.

"Wait, please!"

Drake tried to call back the voice, but instead of hearing the voice, he heard a low and fear-provoking growl of an undead man.

The glass behind him shattered, and the moonlight flowed in.

Before Drake could turn around quickly, he saw a set of decaying arms wrap around his neck from behind.

"Fuck!" He groaned.

The stink from the blood all over the zombie's hand made him want to puke.

He struggled to set himself free from the grasp of the undead, about to choke to death, but all efforts were rather futile.

"I must not die again," Drake choked out of his mouth.

Suddenly, he could not explain the surge of energy that coursed through his entire body in a split of second.

Crack!

He aimed for the zombie's chest, with an instinctive thud, he plunged his hand into the zombie's ribcage and pulled its heart out.

"Urgggh!" The zombie moaned as it landed heavily on the floor.

Drake turned around, shocked.

"Whoa!" He muttered as he panted, staring at the zombie's lifeless body on the floor, outside the broken window.

"How did I just do that?"

He wondered, still panting.

He glanced down at his own hand and saw his hand dripping with blood, the zombie's decaying heart, resting on his palm.

"Shit!"

He freaked out, flinging the heart off his hand quickly.

"I have to figure out a way out of this area taken over by zombies. I'm sure once I get out of town, this nightmare will be over," he murmured.

He hurriedly climbed out of the window onto the rooftop of the penthouse.

The light from the moon coupled with the dim street lights aided his sight.

The moment Drake Miller made it to the edge of the rooftop, his mouth fell open at the view.

From the rooftop, he could see even to the edge of the town.

"They are everywhere, the undead."

It seemed like a great earthquake had occurred. Large cracks on the land, swallowing 60% of all buildings in the town. People running helter-skelter, trying to outrun the undead as well as avoid mutated creatures.

"Oh my—" he muttered absentmindedly, looking at the awful sight.

"Destruction had befallen our world. I can survive this with my newly acquired abilities, but what about the people out there?" He murmured to himself, sadness creeping in.

Cars were embedded in the cracks; some were broken and had been flung upside down.

"Will they all die?" He asked, a question that remained unanswered.

Growl!

He turned around at the sudden sound behind him, and before he could counter, he was pushed by a zombie off the 600 ft penthouse.

Drake screamed endlessly as his body tore through the air down the length of the penthouse.

As he fell, he caught sight of the zombie that pushed him, the zombie whose heart he just plunged out moments ago.

Crash!!

Drake crash-landed on the roof of a car, a shrill sound echoing in the night.

"Urrhh!" He groaned in pain.

But like magic, he felt the pain dissipating from his body in a minute. All the pain was just gone.

He rolled down to the floor from the remains of the car.

"What tha—hell?"

"My body was strong enough to crush the car from its roof to floor level? It requires non-human strength to crush a whole car to dust."

"What had my body turned into?"

Drake mumbled to himself.

"How did my body do such damage and still survived it?" He mumbled as he stood, glancing back up at the zombie, roaring on the top of the roof.

"Strength! The system made mention of a 20% upgrade of my strength. Could this be why I've done these unbelievable things?"

Attention now focused on the zombie at the roof.

"After pulling out its heart, it came back to life? How do I stop them then?" Confusion clouding him.

As Drake stood there, confused, looking at the zombie, he heard a sound resembling a booting computer.

"Well Done, Drake Miller. You have successfully learned a new skill," the female robotic voice said.

NOTIFICATION: SKILL UNLOCKED

STRENGTH: 10%

SPEED: 30%

DEATH CHEAT: 3 LIFE PACKS

SKILL: BODY SHIELD [UNLOCKED]

SKILL INFORMATION: Body Shield can only be used twice a day. That is why you suffered great damage but survived it and kept your life.

GOAL 1: SURVIVE!

GOAL 2: Nearby is a couple in danger, surrounded by a zombie horde. You must save them from being thrown into the pit.

"Wait! A new goal? I thought I was just supposed to be surviving?" Drake asked, confusion and worry etched on his face.

"But how do I even save the couple when a zombie cannot be killed? You may be forgetting that these zombies are different from the ones in a movie which can be killed," Drake murmured.

"Everything in this world can be killed, including you. What you should do is find out how," the system said.

Swap!!

The voice of the system was out again, leaving Drake frustrated.

He turned around, spinning round in a circle to see if there were any couples around suffering from a zombie attack, but he saw no one.

"It seems like all the people had somehow found shelter from the zombies in the night. Everywhere is quiet. No one is moving in the streets," he murmured.

Suddenly, a loud cry of a lady tore through the night. Drake's eyes widened.

The voice sounded familiar, and it was coming from behind the building. Whoever screamed seemed to be trapped.

Instincts kicked in, and he ran to the back of the building, and behold...there were 3 groups of half-decayed men, pushing a car off the edge of the enormous crack caused by the earthquake which had swallowed half of a 700 feet skyscraper already.

It was obvious that these couples were in that car.

"These zombies look different than all the others. They look more like humans, with few decaying parts. They must have just been turned," Drake muttered, surveying the situation.

"What do I do?" He murmured, still staring, trying to assess the risks of jumping into the midst of 3 zombies, knowing he did not even succeed in killing one.

"Hey guys, I think you should stop trying to push them into that pit!" Drake shouted across, standing firm in a distance.

His heart was throbbing as he was unsure if he was making the right choice.

The zombies stopped pushing the car, turned their attention from it, and focused it on Drake.

As they gave way from the car, Drake could now see the couple who were trapped in the car.

"Regina and Leo? You've got to be kidding me, System."

Drake murmured underneath his breath as his eyes came in contact with Regina who was still screaming in distress along with Leo.

The zombies had left the car hanging and dangling on the edge of the pit. In a state where a little push, even from a breeze could make it tumble down the pit.

"This is the new goal? Saving the two idiots who stole all my money and killed me?" Drake murmured, hoping the system would respond.

The zombies growled one more time, and in Drake's state of fear, they rushed after him.

"You should have stayed away, and let us make them a satisfactory meal tonight," one of the zombies voiced out to Drake.

"You are not eating anyone, not tonight," Drake blurted.

Drake was reluctant, seeing that it was Regina and her husband he needed to save. 

A deep pain cut into his heart as memories of his death flashed in his head.

As the zombies lunged at him, fear gripped him but he maintained an outward composure.

Crack, Crack... Crack.

In a matter of 3 minutes of the struggle with the zombies, Drake stood, his head bowed, three temporarily dead zombies laying in a circle around him.

Their hearts, dripping blood from his hands.

As Drake dropped the hearts to the floor, he raised his head, and his eyes met with Regina, and her mouth widened.

Leo was stunned. Two things left them in that frozen state; How is Drake Miller still alive? How did he kill those 3 zombies they've been battling with like it was nothing?

Crick!!

The car slowly glided against the ground as it dived off the edge of the pit on its way to hit the bottom of the approximately 350ft hole.

"Ahhhhh!!!" Regina and Leo screamed.

With an extraordinary speed that surpassed human ability, moving with the speed of a car, Drake Miller closed the distance.

And with his super strength, he grabbed onto the strongest metal in front of the car, constituting the car frame.

"Argh!" Drake groaned at the immeasurable pain causing through his arm, but he held on to the car.

With a screeching sound, he managed to pull the car from the darkness of the pit back to the light from the moon.

All the while, Regina and Leo were still screaming like helpless chickens.

As he pulled them back to land, with his strength, once more, he broke the door, and Regina and Leo crawled out, broken and injured but able to stand on their feet.

"You were dead! How did you come back to life, and how did you do all you just did to save us?" Regina said, and Drake remained quiet.

His heart shattered when he realized it was even his car they took. But he remained quiet.

"How did you single-handedly pull us out of that hole with just an arm?"

"I don't know how you did it, but please, I beg you to help us get out of this place alive; I don't want to die," Regina said, tears welling in her eyes.

Leo, still full of pride, still had his head bowed as he spoke, "Listen to her, I will return your money, the properties, the companies, and everything I took away from you."

After uttering those words, he looked up for a fleeting moment and saw a calm smile on Drake's face.

"Didn't you hear him, Drake, please, I beg of you. You're our only chance of survival," Regina said.

"We'll give you back everything we took, please," Regina added.

"As you can see, money, companies, and properties are of no value to anyone in this new world," Drake said to them with a calm voice.

"What are you saying? I'm begging you, don't leave me, I need you," Regina said, suppressing the tears welling in her eyes from running.

"No, you don't. What you need is money. You got the money; let's see how it saves you in this new world," Drake said with a calm smile.

"I no longer need the money back; I already have what it takes to survive the apocalypse."

With those words, Drake turned his back on them and vanished into the night with his unbelievable car speed, leaving their jaws dropping in awe.