DING
The elevator to the 18th floor chimed softly as the doors slid open. Thalia stepped out cautiously, and immediately paused.
It was a cafeteria.
Bright lights flickered above, buzzing like a swarm of mechanical flies. Long steel tables were scattered with half-eaten meals, upturned chairs, and abandoned trays. The smell of dried blood and something worse, like rotting meat mixed with ammonia, hung thick in the air.
At the far end of the room, a small hoard of zombies had gathered, ten, maybe fifteen in total. Half still wore cafeteria uniforms, name tags barely hanging onto their stained shirts. Others were in business casual, ties half undone, skirts ripped, ID badges flapping from belts. Their eyes were cloudy, their movements twitchy and slow, but persistent.
Once good people. Now just flesh-hungry addicts.
Perched on a vending machine were a man and a woman. The man was swinging a mop down at the crowd below, jabbing wildly and yelling curses, but it was no use. The hoard simply reached and moaned, relentless and dumb.
The woman screamed every time one of them got too close.
No time to think.
Thalia grabbed two plastic lunch trays from a nearby table, slapped them together with a loud clang, and took off running, darting in and out between overturned chairs and scattered food carts.
"HEY! OVER HERE, YOU ROTTING SACKS OF SKIN!"
The clang echoed through the room.
One zombie turned.
Then another.
Then another.
Soon the entire hoard peeled away from the vending machine and began following her, shuffling with dead determination.
"Don't just stand there, GET TO THE DAMN ELEVATOR!" Thalia barked over her shoulder at the pair on the vending machine.
She whipped around the corner of a table, then hurled the trays behind her, one spinning like a frisbee and smacking a zombie in the face with a THONK. It barely slowed down.
"Of course not," she muttered.
She leapt head-first over the cafeteria counter and rolled into a perfect landing behind it, narrowly avoiding a toppled soup pot on the floor. Stainless steel drawers lined the wall. Cabinets. Storage units. She didn't know what she was looking for, just something.
She sprang to her feet and began yanking drawers open, her hands moving frantically.
Thalia yanked open a drawer and found it, a butcher's knife. Clean. Freshly sharpened. It glistened under the cafeteria lights like it had been waiting for her.
She froze.
"Am I really about to do this?"
Her eyes flicked up toward the hoard, now steadily closing in, their groans like nails dragging across concrete.
She gripped the knife tighter, gave it a little twirl to test the weight, and took a breath. Braced herself.
"They're not people anymore. They're not people anymore."
She repeated it like a mantra, over and over, until the words numbed her nerves.
The first zombie reached the counter, leaning over with its arms outstretched, hungry.
But Thalia was ready.
With a sharp inhale and a blur of motion, she slashed the butcher's knife across its throat. It cut deep, so deep that a massive gape opened, and blood erupted like a broken pipe. Warmth splashed across her. The zombie gurgled, still trying to lunge, but its head slumped forward. The gash had torn too deep and the spine couldn't hold.
With a sickening crunch, the neck bent awkwardly. Then came the wet rip of flesh tearing away. The head smacked onto the tiled floor with a splutch, rolling to a stop like a grotesque bowling ball. Blood gushed from the neck stump as the body twitched, dropped to its knees, and collapsed backward.
But then aother took its place. Then another. And another. They reached for her over the counter like impatient customers waiting for their lunch orders.
DING.
A tiny notification window pinged at the corner of her vision:
+15XP
NEW SKILL ACQUIRED: SUMMON UNDEAD (LVL 1)
Thalia suddenly swayed. Her hands trembled, she could barely hold onto the knife. The room began to spin.
She grabbed onto the edge of a nearby stove to steady herself, but her stomach twisted violently.
Her mouth watered. Then...
"Bleurghhh!"
She threw up onto the tiles, her whole body shaking with the effort. Vomit splattered across the floor and splashed her already blood-soaked shoes.
She coughed, spat out the last of it, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing blood across her face in the process.
Her breathing was ragged. Shallow.
She looked down at herself, blood-drenched. From the waist down, she looked like she'd been dipped in red paint. Her jeans, shirt, arms, everything.
Even watching herself almost die was nowhere near on par with decapitation. Especially by her own hand.
Then another window appeared:
ENEMY SLAIN
WOULD YOU LIKE TO RESURRECT?
COST: 5XP
"I still don't really know how this power works yet, all my memories from when I almost died are super hazy. So I still don't know if this is a good or bad thing yet, but if hitting yes stops situations like that day at the station from ever happening again, then lets see what lies beyond, because I'm tired of barely getting by in life, I'm tired of living in fear of blights! I'm tired of running. I want the strength to protect not just my family but everyone I see! Just like he does..."
She tapped YES.
Another screen:
CHOOSE WHICH CLASS YOU WOULD LIKE TO RESURRECT:
1. SKELETON – LV1
2. GHOST – LV1
3. HUMAN – LV1 (UNAVAILABLE DUE TO ZOMBIFIED STATUS EFFECT)
4. LOCKED
5. LOCKED
The zombies were halfway over the counter now. No time.
She hit the first available option, not even taking time to consider what the best strategy would be in the situation she was in.
SKELETON – LV1
For a moment, nothing.
Then a gust of wind stirred through the cafeteria. Not from the vents. It brushed past her skin and tugged at her hair like something otherworldly.
Then it faded.
The zombies didn't stop.
Thalia's eyes darted around.
"Did it work?"
One of the zombies reached for her, but before it could make contact, a skeletal hand slammed onto the counter in front of her.
Right where the headless zombie had fallen.
It rose, slowly. A clean skeleton, steam still wafting from the joints, its bones damp with fresh blood. It towered over the other zombies like a sentinel. No head. Just an armored ribcage and jagged vertebrae where a neck used to be.
A new HUD popped into her view:
---
NAME: HEADLESS SKELETON
TYPE: SKELETON
LEVEL: 1
SKILLS: NONE
-MORE-
---
The skeleton stood motionless.
Then its unseen gaze turned toward her. Even with no head or eyes it stared right at her, and she knew it was looking. She could feel it, sense it, like it was a part of her. There was a thread between them now, like a string tied from her ribs to its chest. And even without a mouth.
Without words.
It asked:
WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND, MY LADY?
"Let em' have it!" she shouted.
The Headless Knight obeyed.
It lunged forward and grabbed the nearest zombie by the hair, lifting it like a toy. With one smooth motion, it hurled the creature across the room. The zombie slammed into a metal table and exploded into a group of chairs, trays, and cutlery.
Thalia's jaw dropped.
She looked at her info screen again.
"This is at level one? But it was just so weak a second ago..."