Sekou woke up the next morning and went about his usual routine.
Look at a picture of his daughter.
Bathe.
Change.
Breakfast.
But there was a slight delay in the middle.
He had to find a way to carry the gun secretly without anyone finding out.
And he also didn't feel it would be safe to just leave it in his room.
But the other option required a proper inconspicuous bag.
Sekou searched elsewhere and found an empty guitar case.
He placed the gun that barely fit inside and zipped up the black bag.
Then he slung it over his shoulder and walked to the cafeteria.
Surprisingly, it was silent today.
Well, except for the heart-wrenching sobs of mothers and women alike.
Plus the sniffling of some men.
Everything was quiet.
Their expressions were completely that of resignation.
Not resignation to the situation.
Meaning they did not have the mentality of waiting for their deaths with open arms.
No. It was resignation to the principal.
It seemed like that madman had hidden too deeply.
He was so smart that he could hide life-saving weapons under everyone's nose and leave the base unscathed.
Honestly, some people didn't believe that he would actually leave the base.
But true to his word—he appeared outside the gate that secluded the base.
He was still as amiable as ever and shouted goodbye to all of us.
He waved his hands excitedly while the majority of the people cursed him.
These people didn't do it out of anger, but more out of the selfish desire to pour out their frustrations on a target.
They were depressed, and the madman still seemed so happy—so they wanted to tear into him.
The principal didn't lose his excited expression and just casually told them the location of the weapon.
The survivors didn't even listen to the rest of his words.
They scrambled to check the location.
Some people were already tearing into each other, and the stampede caused a lot of deaths.
Of course, there were some suspicious traces of people taking advantage of the situation to kill someone they hated.
But it was still a loss of life.
And those heavy losses occurred for no reason.
They searched frantically and found nothing.
That's when someone came to tell them that the principal had warned them it would only arrive on the day of the horde.
One hour before the arrival of the horde.
The crowd was disbelieving.
They didn't want to have to struggle that day, so they broke the entire area apart.
It was quite easy because the location happened to be a garden.
That's right, there was a large garden—as big as a football field—inside the base.
No one had ever noticed it until the principal mentioned it.
Not one of them looked like they had stumbled into the garden of red roses.
Sekou found these roses to be very creepy.
That was because they had more thorns than any other roses he had seen.
These thorns looked so sharp and deadly at a glance.
To prove it, someone got tired of scratching the soil and tried to uproot the roses.
The person grabbed it carelessly, and those thorns pierced through his palm cleanly.
He shrieked as he snatched his hand away.
The clean hand was now like a cloth that had been shredded by sharp claws.
There were lines of wounds crisscrossing his flesh.
These wounds were so deep that they created a tiny slit where the environment behind his hand could be seen.
The victim wailed as blood gushed out and splattered on the roses.
The roses, which were already a dark red, looked even more bloody.
It was like someone had dipped a white rose into fresh blood.
That blood never dried or got old, but was always vibrant—as if there was a sacrifice to the roses every second.
Eventually, someone couldn't stand the wailing and helped him to the clinic.
But the victim had already served as an example.
The survivors tried to avoid touching the creepy roses as much as possible.
And after all that effort, they found nothing.
So now here they were, seated at a great distance from each other, waiting for the due time on the day of the wave.
At this point, there wasn't a single person outside the garden.
Except for three people.
The principal.
Luo Feng.
And Nia.
....
Luo Feng finished the bottle of water in one gulp.
Nia hurriedly stuffed the last piece of food into her little mouth and wiped her hands.
Then Luo Feng took the sensible little girl into his arms.
He hopped onto the motorcycle he had kept outside the building.
Nia sat in front of him.
Luo Feng placed his hands on the handles and drove off.
He wasn't afraid of the noise because he had searched the area countless times.
But he found nothing.
There was no sign of the horde—or even a group of them.
Heck, the strays he saw were so few that he finished them all off within one hour on the first day.
After that, he searched around for any signs but found nothing.
So Luo Feng decided to head back to the base.
He didn't know why he couldn't find the tracks of a horde.
This led him into a spiral of confusion and doubt.
Might the principal be lying?
But that madman wasn't someone to lie.
Luo Feng had only met him personally once.
But the principal was someone that gave off that kind of feeling.
He was a fanatic and a crazy person.
But the principal was also very truthful.
And surprisingly sincere.
So there was no way he would have been lying.
But thinking in the direction that he did lie...
Then Luo Feng felt there was no need to.
He didn't see the principal attaining any benefits from it.
Especially considering the fact that he resolutely left the base after announcing the arrival of the horde.
So there was no way he could benefit from a situation inside the base when he wasn't even in it.
Then, if that's true, the possibility of him telling the truth was even more confusing.
A zombie horde occurs when some zombies who liked to stumble about
are attracted to a particular place or area.
The zombies gather together and begin to move.
Then they get the scent of humans and swarm a base.
Logically, there would be some noise from such a large group of zombies.
Or there would be a slight earthquake from the sound of their heavy steps.
Especially the zombies in this world that were more physically inclined.
And those physically inclined zombies were nowhere to be seen.
Luo Feng felt solemn as he saw that the mission to save the base was still active.
Nia, feeling his tension, was also worried.
She kept blinking repeatedly, trying to stop the tears.
They reached the base in silence.
Just as Luo Feng wanted to push the gate open—he felt the air shift.
Dense lines, as thick as a single noodle, spread rapidly across the gate.
It was blood red and pulsing.
Luo Feng didn't want to touch it at first.
Just then, Nia rushed up and gave the gate a kick.
She was bounced back and almost rolled away if not for Luo Feng's quick reflexes.
He examined the little girl, but her eyes were always on the gate.
Luo Feng realized that she was unharmed aside from some scratches and a sore ankle.
He walked over to the gate and threw a punch.
The gate was like a thick wall of concrete.
It didn't budge, even with his impressive strength.
Just then—the sounds of zombies echoed inside the base.
...
Sekou was still trying to get away from the crowd so as to aim properly.
He sat at the edge of the crowd and pulled out his gun the moment the weapons miraculously appeared.
It was a blue, human-controlled robot.
It was so that the chosen people could cover their entire body with the blue shiny metal and fight with a gun.
The air was silent for just a split second.
The crowd was waiting for someone to make the first move.
After all, it would give them a legitimate excuse to kill the person who jumped out, thereby reducing the competition.
But their plan failed because it wasn't just one person who jumped out.
It was random people with bloodshot eyes and fierce expressions.
They were attacked immediately, but moved like they felt no pain.
They shoved aside the group of people who pounced on them and ran forward.
Finally, one of them grabbed a weapon.
That was the push the crowd needed.
The situation turned into an all-out massacre.
There was no cooperation.
Only a single thought.
Kill everyone who wasn't you.
Slowly, the whisper spread in their heads, and all morality and hesitation was thrown away.
Mothers killed their children.
Husbands killed their wives.
Siblings killed each other.
No one was spared.
Even Sekou.
But unlike the others, his reason for killing was simpler.
Since everyone else was an enemy—then they needed to be killed.
Only then could he safely reach his daughter.
In the midst of this chaos—zombies crowded out of the soil.
Their decayed and rotten bodies lunged at the humans.
Now it was complete chaos.
There was only one word to describe it.
The roses, which had been dyed red since their creation,
had been fed their vibrant sacrifice of fresh blood once again.
This time the blood flowed down so much that the roses were beautiful yet deadly at the same time.
Admist the cries of the dead,
The whispers of darkness into the hearts of men,
And the piling of corpses on its roots;
The deep red on the rose glistened under the sunlight—in joy.