The world ended in thirteen minutes.
It started at 7:42 AM, when the sky went red.
Zeke Blade was halfway through pulling on his jacket when he noticed the glow spilling through the blinds of his small apartment. Not sunlight. Not fire. A deep, simmering crimson that washed over the city like blood in water. He froze, one arm still tangled in the sleeve, his chest tightening with a sudden, nameless dread.
Outside, shouts erupted. He hurried to the window and yanked the blinds aside.
The streets below were chaos. Commuters stood frozen, staring up at the sky. The air rippled with a haze, thick as smoke, shimmering with unnatural heat. People dropped where they stood, clutching their heads, screaming as if something was clawing into their skulls.
Then came the whispers.
Not carried by the air, but pressed straight into his mind. Low, distorted, impossible voices.
"…Candidate… devour… ascend…"
Zeke staggered back from the glass, his pulse thundering. "What the hell…?"
A man outside collapsed against a car, twitching violently. His bones cracked—too loud, too sharp—and then, impossibly, he rose. His eyes were milky white, his jaw slack, his skin sagging gray. He turned toward the nearest screaming woman and sank his teeth into her throat.
Zeke's stomach lurched. His neighbor—Mrs. Jensen, a frail old woman who used to water her plants at dawn—stumbled into view. She dropped her watering can, convulsed, and then dragged herself upright again with the same milky eyes.
More bodies fell. More corpses rose.
The screams of the living blurred with the guttural moans of the dead.
Zeke didn't think. He grabbed his backpack from the table, barely zipped, and bolted.
The hallway outside his apartment echoed with the same nightmare. A man clawed at his own face, shrieking until he dropped, twitching, only to rise seconds later. Zeke shoved past, sprinting for the stairwell.
Every instinct screamed at him to run. Not to fight. Not yet.
The stairwell was a crush of bodies. Some alive, some not. A woman shrieked as her friend sank teeth into her arm, dragging her down the steps. Zeke vaulted the railing, landing two floors below with a jolt that rattled his knees. He forced himself up, adrenaline surging, and burst into the street.
It was worse outside.
Cars swerved and crashed, horns blaring uselessly. People sprinted in every direction, only to be dragged down by the things that used to be their neighbors, their coworkers, their friends.
The red haze shimmered above it all, heavy and suffocating.
Zeke ran.
He didn't stop to help the man begging from under a pile of corpses. Didn't look back at the family pounding on their locked car as the windows shattered. His lungs burned, his legs screamed, but he didn't slow. Survival was the only thought, the only clarity left in the madness.
He cut through alleys, past dumpsters overturned and streets slick with blood. Each corner he turned brought more of them—shambling, staggering, eyes locked on him like he was fresh prey. He didn't fight. Not yet. He dodged, ducked, sprinted until his chest felt like it would cave.
Finally, he ducked into a narrow alley. A fire escape ladder hung low. He leapt, catching the rung, and pulled himself up with trembling arms. He climbed until he was three stories above the ground, then dropped heavily onto the rooftop.
The city stretched out before him, crimson light bleeding over glass towers and choked streets. Smoke curled from wrecks below. The screams didn't stop. They wouldn't stop.
For a moment, he just stood there, his breath ragged, his body trembling.
Then the voice came again.
System initializing…
Candidate confirmed: Zeke Blade.
Apocalypse Sovereign System online.
Zeke froze. The world seemed to still, just for him.
Symbols and numbers flared across his vision, searing into his mind like words carved in fire.
Level: 1
HP: 100 | Strength: 10 | Agility: 10 | Vitality: 10 | Intelligence: 10 | Dominance: 10
Apocalypse Points: 0
Skill unlocked: Devour.
Shop available.
His stomach dropped. His hands trembled as he whispered the words he was seeing, just to confirm he wasn't losing his mind. "…Zeke Blade…"
The System didn't answer. It didn't need to. The glowing text remained, burned into his skull.
A sound snapped him back.
Scraping claws against the rooftop.
He spun. One of them had climbed after him, dragging itself over the edge. Its jaw hung open, teeth black with blood, fingers curling like hooked claws.
Zeke stumbled back, eyes darting for anything—anything he could use. His backpack. He ripped it open, dumping its contents. Textbooks. A half-empty water bottle. A screwdriver.
His hand closed around the screwdriver's handle. Not much, but it was steel. It would have to do.
The corpse lunged.
It was faster than he expected. It crashed into him, teeth snapping for his throat. He barely managed to shove it aside, the two of them rolling across the rooftop. The thing's breath was rancid, hot against his face.
Zeke roared, slamming the screwdriver into its chest. Once. Twice. Over and over. The flesh tore, bones cracked—but it didn't stop. It clawed at him, raking his shoulder, teeth snapping closer with each thrash.
Panic surged like ice in his veins. He shifted his weight, forced his knee onto its chest, and drove the screwdriver upward—straight into its skull.
The body jerked, then went still.
Zeke gasped, chest heaving. His arms shook with the effort, blood running down his wrist from where the screwdriver had cut his palm.
Then he saw it.
The faint black glow in the corpse's chest.
The System's voice was calm, unyielding:
Death Core detected. Devour?
Zeke stared. His mind screamed at him to run, to leave it. But something deeper stirred, something primal. The word left his lips before he even realized it.
"Yes."
The orb dissolved, rushing into him as smoke. It hit like fire. His back arched, breath tearing from his lungs as the power flooded him, stretching his muscles, sharpening his senses. Every nerve lit up, burning, then cooling into something stronger.
Devour complete. +3 points. +10 EXP.
When it was over, he collapsed onto his side, gasping. His veins still thrummed, his heartbeat heavy and sharp in his ears. His body felt… different. Not just stronger. More alive.
He forced himself to sit up, blood still dripping from his hands.
The System whispered again:
Shop available.
The catalog unfolded before him, shimmering in his vision.
Loaf of bread – 1 point
Bottle of clean water – 1 point
Kitchen knife – 2 points
9mm pistol (with one magazine) – 10 points
Zeke's jaw tightened. He had 3 points. Enough for water, food… or a blade.
His hand clenched. He didn't hesitate. "Kitchen knife."
The weight slid into his hand, real and solid. A knife, clean and sharp, unmarred by the chaos of the world around him.
He looked at it, then at the corpse still lying at his feet.
The rules were clear now.
Kill. Devour. Grow. Survive.
Zeke rose to his feet, knife gleaming in his grip. The red haze still shimmered across the city, the screams still echoing through the streets below.
But he wasn't the same man who had woken in his apartment thirteen minutes ago.
The world had ended.
And he intended to outlive it.