"What..... the HECK!! is this?" That was the only sentence that came out of Rix's mouth as he crawled out of the hole.
The scene unfolding in front of him was beyond anything he could have ever imagined. Never in his entire life had he thought a nightmare like this could be real.
Almost half of Ashford College had been ground into dust under the falling meteorites.
The buildings he had walked past every morning were now just jagged piles of brick and twisted metal.
Rix staggered forward, his body was very weak and his head still bleeding. He didn't know where to go.
As he moved through the haze, he suddenly heard a cry coming from nearby.
Since he had no idea where else to go, he decided to see who was pleading for help.
There, under a pile of debris, he saw a young boy.
The walls had collapsed over him, burying everything except his head and hands. His face was pale, his voice trembling.
Upon closer inspection, Rix realized it was none other than his classmate, Noel. The class topper
Noel's body trembled under the weight of the debris, but his eyes locked onto Rix.
"Ple… please… help… me," he cried at first, voice weak, desperate.
But the second he recognized it was Rix, Noel's attitude shifted.
Even though he was the class topper, he wasn't the typical kind; he was the calculative, manipulative type.
"Y... ou... you... are Rix, right? He... help... me now... come take... this out... if you help... me get up, I will also help you," Noel suggested.
"Help with what?" Rix was surprised by the sudden change in tone. At first, he was pleading, but now he sounded like he was making a demand.
"I... I will... he... help... you in exams... I will show you my... my answers... I will make you pass... no... no, I'll make you a topper if you want... so help me now..."
"_"
'What the hell is with this motherfucker?' Rix thought, stunned for a moment at the words coming out of Noel's mouth.
Inside, Noel was laughing to himself. 'Hahaha, you are enticed, right? Now help me! Fast… get me out of this…'
Rix stood there, staring blankly at Noel's pale face.
He didn't move from his spot, standing still like a statue.
The thing was, Rix was only cold-hearted on the outside; deep down, he was warm and caring toward his loved ones.
But ONLY his loved ones.
Noel wasn't one of them.
Rix barely had the strength to stand, let alone save someone else.
But still… he tried.
He stretched his arms out toward Noel. Even as he reached out, his hands were trembling, showing just how unstable he really was.
"Hold onto my hand tight... come on..." Rix said, grabbing Noel's hand.
"Haa... yes... okay," Noel nodded, gripping him back.
"1... 2... 3... HAAAA!" Rix yelled with all his might, using every last bit of strength left in his broken body.
But no matter how many times he tried, Rix couldn't budge the heavy debris. He couldn't get Noel out of that cramped space.
At last, Rix stumbled backward and collapsed onto the ground.
"Ahh… fuck…" he cursed, clutching his head.
'Should I just leave him here?'Rix thought to himself. As he sat there pondering, suddenly an idea came to his mind.
He looked up and asked, "Noel... how much longer can you hold on? If you can stay steady for a few minutes, I'll rush off and find some other students. We can get a group together and pull you out of this hell. Can you hold on that long?"
Noel's eyes lit up with sudden hope. "Ahh… y‑yes… maybe.. I can hold on for five to ten minutes. My leg is stuck and bleeding heavily… but yes, I can last a few minutes."
No one in Noel's entire life had ever spoken to him like that or genuinely cared enough to help him. But inside, his calculative mind was still spinning.
'Whatever,' Noel thought to himself. 'I just need to get the hell out of here.'
"Good! I'll go superfast and call other people for rescue," Rix said with a reassuring smile. He jumped from his spot and sprinted forward with whatever stamina he had left.
But as he ran, his thoughts took a sharp turn.
'Fuck that!! HELL NO am I going back to help,' Rix thought. 'I don't even know when the next ball is going to land on my head. I need to get out of this college as soon as possible. Home... my home... I need to get there now.'
Even though he had no idea if his house was still standing, it was the only thing on his mind.
That was Rix!!
He would say one thing and do the complete opposite
His goal was now fixed: reach the main entrance gate of the college!!
Back there, under the debris....
Noel waited.
A faint smile had formed on his lips earlier, thinking he had successfully convinced Rix.
It was incredibly ironic. Behind him, a man lay trapped in the dirt, convinced he had manipulated someone far beyond his own understanding. Noel sat there in the silence, waiting for a rescue that was never going to come...
---------------------------------
As Rix ran through the rubble and broken ground, he saw bodies scattered everywhere. Some were his own classmates, while others were students he didn't even recognize.
As he pushed forward, he noticed more bodies this time, teachers. People who used to stand in front of classrooms.
As he rushed toward the entrance gate, he spotted a small group of teachers working together to help a crowd of injured students. Among them, a familiar figure caught his eye.
It was Professor Harin.
Professor Harin noticed Rix running past and immediately called out to him.
"H..hey, Rix! Please, come over here and help these kids!"
'Fuck!!' Rix thought. He ignored his teacher completely, keeping his eyes forward as if he hadn't heard a word.
The surroundings were a mess. Smoke hung in the air, mixed with a sharp, burning smell that made it hard to breathe properly. The whole place looked like a battlefield… except there was no war, no enemy soldiers...
it was a fight against a natural disaster.
But was it even a natural disaster?
Gemini said
Professor Harin spotted Rix running through the debris and called out to him.
"H..hey, Rix! Please, come over here and help these kids!"
Fuck!! Rix thought. He ignored his teacher completely, keeping his eyes forward as if he hadn't heard a word.
The background was choked with thick smoke and a pungent, metallic smell. The entire campus looked like a battlefield, except this wasn't a war between men—it was a fight against a natural disaster.
But was it even a natural disaster?
Could thousands of meteorites slamming into the Earth simultaneously really be considered natural?
Rix felt like something was fishy. It felt more like an artificially manufactured catastrophe.
But who could have done it?
Who even had the power to cause such large-scale destruction?
As these questions raced through Rix's mind, he came to an abrupt halt near the parking lot.
It was a total mess; the cars had been crushed into a pulp by the sheer might of the meteorites.
Rix's eyes darted across the wreckage of the cycle stand. His heart sank when he didn't see his bicycle where it should have been.
Where is my cycle? he thought, scanning the ground.
He squinted through the haze, and as his eyes drifted, he spotted it lying a few meters away from the stand.
The force of a nearby meteorite blast must have sent it flying through the air.
Rix ran toward the bike and lifted it, quickly inspecting the frame.
There wasn't much major damage, just a few small bends here and there.
but when he looked down at the chain, he cursed. It was misaligned and had completely slipped off the gears.
"Ahh, shit!!" Rix hissed. He needed to fix the chain before he could even think about riding out of there.
He knelt down, his fingers fumbling with the greasy metal. But as he was working, a shrill, piercing sound tore through the air behind him.
Rix spun around, and what he saw was utterly unimaginable.
One of the dead bodies, which had been crushed under a massive piece of the building, began to move.
Its head gave a slight, jerky twitch. Then, slowly...slowly, its arms bent at unnatural angles as the body crawled out from the debris and forced itself upright.
Thick, yellow foam bubbled out of its mouth. The corpse began to drag itself toward Rix, emitting a series of unnatural, disgusting sounds.
"Akkk... harggk... koorrhh!!!"
Before he could even react to that, another sound came from his left.
Rix turned quickly.
Another body was moving.
Its limbs twisted with cracks, and deep fissures formed across its skull as it began to shuffle toward him.
Rix stood there, trembling violently as the reality of the nightmare set in.
"Wh... what... the... hell... Z... zombies...??"
He couldn't even look at his bike; he was terrified on the spot. The scenes he had only ever seen in movies were becoming a reality.
Slowly, other dead bodies surrounding Rix started to wake up.
His mind was in total chaos as he struggled with what to do.
'Should I run now, or should I repair the chain and then go?'
There were approximately ten zombies surrounding him, all closing in from different directions.
"Fuck!" he cursed. He decided to repair the cycle as fast as he could.
The zombies were about fifty meters back, so he still had some time.
The zombies kept approaching:
40 meters.
Sweat started dripping profusely from his forehead.
30 meters.
Rix's hands trembled so much he wasn't even able to place the chain properly. A simple task that would normally take him seconds now felt like it was taking hours.
"Damn... c'mon... fast..."
20 meters.
He could hear the sound of their shuffling footsteps clearly in his ears now. He was almost done.
10 meters.
He stood up, sensing the immediate danger.
His instincts told him that if he got even a single bite from those things, he would definitely turn into one of them.
And Rix's instincts had never been wrong.
5 meters.
Rix threw one leg over the frame and hopped onto the seat.
2 meters.
He started to pedal.
1 meter.
0.5 meters.
As he started to move, a hand clamped onto the side of his hoodie.
When Rix turned around, he was staring right at one of the zombies. It looked at him and unhinged its jaw.
"Kaghhhh!"
"Ahh, go away, you ugly bastard!" Rix shouted, kicking out with his leg and slamming his boot into the zombie's face.
He expected the zombie to fly backward, but it was sturdier than he imagined. It only stumbled back a few steps.
However, that was enough as the zombie lost its grip on his hoodie.
In that split second, Rix pedaled with everything he had toward the gate, leaving the group of zombies to follow in his wake. He was faster than them.
As he reached the gate, he rode hard toward his home.
Still unaware if his home even existed anymore.
And so he rode, leaving behind the ruins of Ashford College and the horror of the dead rising....