The night was pitch black, the only sound cutting through the silence was the roar of a black jeep's engine tearing down the empty streets like a beast off its leash.
One hand gripped the steering wheel, the other dangled lazily out the window holding a lit cigarette, smoke curling into the wind.
Tony hummed to himself, still riding the high from the last kill.
In the passenger seat, Rei sat stiff, clutching the AK-47 awkwardly across her lap like a virgin handed a dildo for the first time, clueless, nervous, yet morbidly intrigued.
Her knuckles were pale from how tightly she gripped the gun, eyes wide, chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked breaths.
"Be ready, chica. We're goin' in," Tony muttered, killing the engine and stepping out in front of the same shitty convenience store he'd visited earlier to buy smokes.
"Wait, Takashi, are we seriously going to rob this place?" Rei asked, her voice shaky as she watched him pop the magazine out of his SIG Sauer P230, casually checking the bullets like he was about to play poker instead of possibly kill something again.
Her mind was still trying to catch up with the raw savagery she'd seen from him earlier.
He didn't just kill the zombie, he tortured it.
And now, this?
"What? Robbing?" Tony snorted, shooting her a sideways smirk. "That's what savages do, cariño. We're taking this place over."
He pushed the door open, stepping out like he owned the whole damn street.
Rei followed behind, uncertain if Takashi had just lost his mind completely.
First, he tortured a zombie like it was personal.
Now, he's breaking into a convenience store like it's Grand Theft Auto.
What terrified her more than anything was the fact that... she followed him.
She didn't resist. She wanted to see where this went.
The store was dead quiet.
No cashier behind the counter.
Same flickering fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like nothing had changed.
The glass doors were half open, swaying slowly with a soft, eerie creak.
Not a soul in sight.
Tony strode in, baseball bat strapped across his back, jacket swaying with each heavy step like a kingpin walking into his turf.
Rei trailed close behind, gripping the AK tight, her eyes darting around like she expected something to jump out of every shadow.
The shelves were still stocked.
No one had touched the chips, the beer, the instant noodles, like the world hadn't caught on yet that it was ending.
A can of soda still sat fizzing on the counter.
Behind the register, a bloody handprint was smeared across the touchscreen like someone tried to claw their way out.
Something was off.
Tony caught it too.
He paused.
A trail of blood led from behind the counter toward the back storage room.
His body tensed instantly, every instinct snapping into place.
His eyes narrowed like a predator catching the scent of prey.
He adjusted his grip on the bat, stained with dry blood and bits of skull from the last kill, then took one step forward and kicked the back door wide open.
With a low breath, Tony stepped forward.
Then...
BANG!
He kicked the storage room door wide open.
CRASH.
From the blackness, a zombie lunged like a rabid fucking animal.
Its jaw was half gone, just meat and shredded gum hanging loose.
Eyes wild, teeth snapping like cracked glass.
Fast.
Hungry.
Desperate.
But Tony was faster.
He ducked low and slammed the bat upward like a home run swing straight from hell.
The wood cracked across the undead's face, knocking its filthy body back with a wet, guttural snarl.
But he didn't stop.
WHACK!
Bat came down again.
CRACK!
And again.
CRUNCH!
By the fourth hit, its skull wasn't even a skull anymore, just splattered brain matter and broken bone across the tile.
Tony exhaled slow, chest steady.
Blood dripped from the bat like syrup.
He wiped the blood from his sleeve, turned to Rei, who hadn't moved an inch and nodded once.
"Store's clear. Grab a bag. We're taking everything."
They got to work fast.
Tony moved like he'd done this before, sweeping the shelves clean: energy drinks, canned food, batteries, meds, lighters, condoms (because why the fuck not), and even a crowbar from the emergency kit rack.
All of it dumped into duffel bags he found near the back.
He grabbed a stack of bills from the till, even though he knew cash probably wouldn't mean shit in a few days.
Old habits die hard.
They repeated it until their black jeeps were packed tight—half-loaded with stolen supplies, crates stacked on top of each other, filled with food, water, medicine, and all the daily shit people would kill for in the apocalypse.
As for the second half? Oh, he already had a plan for that.
Daily essentials were only part of the game. What really mattered… was firepower.
Guns. Ammo. Blades. Explosives.
The kind of shit that made people kneel, made gangs fall, made you king.
He didn't have them yet, but that didn't mean he wouldn't.
Because in this world, the only law that mattered was strength.
And if he had to rip it out of someone's cold, dead hands to take it?
Then so be it.
Afterward, he looked at the surveillance monitor.
All the camera feeds were glitching, except one.
Outside.
A group of people stumbling in the street.
Slow. Twisted.
Not fully turned.
But on the edge.
Infected.
Tony frowned.
"Do you see it, Rei? They're already spreading. There's no turning back now."
Rei looked at him humorlessly. "So what now, Takashi? We rob a bank next? Maybe shoot a news reporter for fun?"
After all, it hadn't exactly been easy for her to swallow all this.
Especially not for someone like her, someone who'd grown up in a clean, orderly household, raised under the roof of a high-ranking police chief.
Her life had always been about rules, order, and morality.
And now, here she was, watching her own boyfriend torture zombies and rob convenience stores just because he guessed the world was ending.
Worse than all of that?
He was enjoying it.
Laughing like a maniac, not even hiding how much fun he was having.
Talking about world domination like it was some weekend hobby.
And then he said it, calm, like it was nothing:
"No, we're going to burn this place." Tony grinned, that devilish smirk stretched across his face.
Rei's eyes went wide.
"What? Why?!" she snapped, stunned at how casual he sounded.
Sure, the world was collapsing around them, but that didn't mean they had to destroy everything.
The supplies they couldn't carry, someone else might need them.
There was still a chance those resources could help people survive. There was still some order left.
But Tony just chuckled, already lighting the match in his mind.
"Because this place is too close to my house, cariño," he said, voice low and smooth like he was just talking about redecorating. "And I don't want any motherfuckers crawling around here later thinking they got a shot."
Without hesitation, Tony grabbed a bottle of lighter fluid from a shelf and stormed into the back warehouse, popped the cap with his thumb, and poured it straight onto the zombie's face.
With a wicked grin, he whispered,
"Time to light up, motherfucker."
FWOOM
The undead bastard went up like a bonfire.
Tony stepped back, unfazed by the smell of cooking flesh.
Rei stared at him like he was the second coming of the devil.
"You're crazy, Takashi." She whispered.
Tony cracked his neck. "No. I'm the sanest motherfucker in this world, Rei."
He pointed to the blaze behind him. "The world needs a wake-up call. Something loud. Something violent. Now, they'll hear it. The police. The government. Every last dumb bastard still pretending this shit ain't real."
Rei didn't say a word.
She just sighed and followed him as he walked out of the store.
The automatic doors slid shut behind them with a cold hiss.
Behind them, fire consumed the store, roaring into the sky like a hellgate had cracked open.
Neither of them looked back.
The world was dying.
And Tony?
Tony Montana was just getting fucking started.