Zombie System: Ruling The Apocalypse

002 - A Green

The world swam into focus, not with the gentle awakening of a new day, but with a jarring jolt. 

 Jonathan found himself sprawled on the grimy asphalt, a dull ache radiating through his body. Around him, the city was a tapestry of chaos, rendered in shades of green and grotesque. 

 Disfigured figures shuffled and groaned, their forms twisted into nightmarish parodies of humanity. Yet, an odd sense of detachment settled over him. 

 He wasn't worried. The usual human instinct for panic was curiously absent, replaced by a dull thrumming in his temples.

 He pushed himself up, each movement accompanied by a symphony of clicks and groans. His limbs felt stiff, unyielding as if made of ancient wood. A faint cracking sound echoed with every flex of his muscles. His mind, usually a bustling hub of thoughts, was now a placid, numb expanse. A quiet emptiness resided where his memories should have been.

 Suddenly, a piercing screech tore through the air, followed by the sickening crunch of metal. A white van emblazoned with a faded corporate log veered wildly across the road before slamming into a utility pole with a deafening thud. 

 The van’s rear doors burst open and a flurry of figures spilled out. They were men, burly and grim-faced, clad in what looked like heavily armored military fatigues.

 “We're running out of ammo! We have to leave here now!” One of them shouted as he jumped out and began to fire from his assault rifle.

 Each wore a tactical vest bristling with pouches and holsters, and their helmets were equipped with night-vision goggles pushed up onto their foreheads. 

 They clutched assault rifles, their muzzles spitting fire as they immediately engaged the shuffling green figures that Jonathan had begun to perceive as his colleagues, as people.

 He instinctively ducked. He scrambled behind a derelict sedan, its windows shattered, its paint peeling like sunburnt skin. 

 From his vantage point, he watched the gruesome ballet unfold. The soldiers, precise and methodical, unleashed volleys of gunfire into the advancing greens. 

 As they went, one broke out of line and was snatched by the Greens. The other tried to save him by shooting at the Greens, but the ones who weren't shot tore out his vests and bit him in his chest. 

 The soldiers were dwindling. But for the Greens, for every one that fell, more seemed to rise, their guttural growls a chilling chorus to the staccato of gunfire.

 As they struggled to create a path, keeping a woman between the ring. She kept her head low, and one of the soldiers kept her under his arm. They created the path, only to be faced by a horde of Greens. 

 “We have to return to the van!” One of them shrieked. 

 They turned, and as the ones before turned, they gave their backs for grasp.

 The soldiers kept firing, and the Greens kept moving toward them. 

 Jonathan felt a strange mix of emotions. A flicker of something akin to recognition, a faint sense of camaraderie, stirred within him as he watched people like him being mowed down. 

 He wondered why they didn't stop. He wondered why they kept walking towards the ones who could potentially harm them. He found himself wishing that the Greens would take out the soldiers to the last one. 

 The soldiers tried to scramble back into the van, but only the one with the woman and the woman made it back. They got in and closed the door.

 The Greens, relentless in their pursuit, swarmed the van and surrounded it. Their clawed hands tore through the metal, roaring as they did.

 A sickening crunch, then the glint of shattered glass, as the greens finally breached a window. Muffled gunshots erupted from within the van, punctuated by the frenzied roars of the Greens. More fell to the ground, but more continued to surround the van.

 Soon, an unsettling silence descended upon the street, broken only by the guttural growls of the living Greens. No more gunshots.

 Jonathan, still hidden, slowly emerged from behind the car. The street was now a macabre tableau. The van, battered and besieged, was surrounded by a sea of Greens, growling and trying to scramble their way through the little opening that they had created in the van.

 He walked cautiously towards the van, drawn by an inexplicable curiosity. As he approached, the greens nearest the broken window seemed to recoil. They shuffled away, creating a clear path for him. Jonathan noted this with a detached sense of wonder. Why would they move for him?

 He peered through the jagged opening of the shattered window. Inside, illuminated by the dying light of the afternoon, he saw a solitary figure, a soldier, hunched over, turning right and left. 

 Beside him, a woman lay slumped against the far wall, her eyes wide and unseeing. A strange, insistent thought, a primal whisper, echoed in the hollow space of his mind: “EAT THEM!”

 But he suppressed it, a flicker of something close to self-control asserted itself.

 The soldier, seemingly alerted by Jonathan’s presence, slowly lifted his rifle, his eyes narrowed in target.

 Jonathan instinctively ducked. Avoiding getting shot. He knew guns, he knew what they do. Which was why he wondered why the Greens like him didn't. 

 The other Greens, clustered around the van, also recoiled, a collective ripple of movement, as if responding to an unspoken command.

 Jonathan watched them, a strange question forming in his numb mind: Why were they so dumb that they didn't duck in the first place? An answer popped into his head: They were following him.

 Slowly, cautiously, he raised his head again. The soldier, his face etched with desperation, lifted the rifle once more. Jonathan ducked. The rifle was lowered. Jonathan raised his head. This bizarre dance continued until Jonathan realized it. The soldier's caliber was empty. The weapon was useless.

 The soldier fumbled for a walkie-talkie, his voice strained and crackling. "Situation… we’re stranded… need evac…" His words dissolved into static, the walkie-talkie falling silent. The soldier stared at the useless device, his eyes widening in despair.

 Jonathan stared back. And just then, like a forgotten dream, surfacing in the murky depths of his mind, he remembered.

 The gas. The prison. Ali!

 Ali, kicking and intentionally sacrificing him, desperate for escape. And then… the bite. The searing pain, the spreading numbness.

 He moved closer to the shattered window, his reflection staring back at him from the distorted glass. 

 He saw his eyes, once a mundane brown, were now a startling, vibrant green. He lifted his arm, the tell-tale mark of the bite a discolored, puckered patch of flesh, surrounded by an angry halo of greenish discoloration.

 He was a zombie.

 “Oh my God!”

 The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow, yet it carried no shock, no horror. These were people, the soldiers, and the lady. But him? A zombie, a walking dead, a Green.

 His mind, previously a blank slate, was suddenly alive with a storm of questions.

 But how can I think? Am I still human? Can I talk? Why didn't my brain die? Why didn't I do what zombies do and try to?

 He wanted to know.