Beyond the Wall, even silence has teeth.
Snow fell in thick sheets. The cave's blue fire flickered weakly, as if afraid of the cold itself.
Roy sat with his knees up, massive and shivering despite his size. He was still trying to convince himself that this was real life and not some cursed fever dream.
"Alright, Roy," he muttered, "you're a giant nurse from Mumbai, stuck in an ice zombie apocalypse. Totally normal."
He sighed. "If HR could see me now, they'd promote me just out of pity."
Then — crunch.
Footsteps.
Not from him.
Roy's heart jumped. He turned toward the cave mouth.
A shape was moving through the snow — slow, dragging, crooked.
At first, he thought it was a lost human.
Then he saw its eyes — pale blue, glowing like frozen fire.
> "...Nope."
It was a White. Its skin was tight, gray-blue. Its mouth opened with a sound like dry ice cracking.
Roy's mind raced. "What do I do? I don't even have pants, let alone weapons!"
The White lunged. Roy reacted purely on instinct — and panic.
He swung his arm.
BOOM!
The undead creature flew out of the cave, smashed into a snowdrift, and didn't get back up.
Roy blinked. "Okay... that worked surprisingly well."
Then he heard more footsteps.
Three... four... maybe six.
"Ah, crap."
The other Whites came over the ridge — silent, relentless, hungry.
Roy took a step back. "Oh come on, guys, I just woke up! Can we not do the zombie party right now?"
He clenched his massive fists, blue light flickering again in his palms.
He didn't know how the magic worked — but his body did.
He slammed his hands together — a shockwave of frost exploded outward, blasting snow and ice like a storm.
The Whites staggered, some shattering, others crawling through the snow.
Roy ran.
Yes, ran — a twenty-foot-tall giant sprinting through the blizzard, shouting, "I did not sign up for cardio!"
After what felt like forever, he saw smoke — thin trails rising from a valley.
A village.
Massive shapes moved there — other giants, wrapped in furs and armor made of tree bark and bone.
Roy stumbled down the slope, waving his hands.
"Hey! Big people! Giant folks! Incoming problem! Like—dead problem!"
The giants turned, startled. One older male with a beard of ice bark frowned.
"Who are you, boy? You smell strange."
Roy bent down, gasping. "Hi! I'm Roy! Not from around here! Also, zombies—uh, Whites—coming this way!"
The elder's eyes widened. "Whites?"
He turned, shouting something in the giant tongue. The whole village roared into motion — grabbing tree-trunk clubs, boulders, and torches.
Roy stared in awe.
"Okay… this is officially the wildest nursing shift I've ever had."
The elder clapped him on the shoulder — hard enough to nearly break it.
"If you can fight, fight. If not, run."
Roy swallowed hard, then grinned.
"Buddy, I've been running from responsibilities all my life.
Maybe it's time to fight something instead."
He turned toward the storm.
The blue fire lit again in his hands.
And as the Whites came crawling through the dark, Roy, the reincarnated nurse-giant, stood his ground beside his new kin.
> "Let's see what happens when the undead meet modern panic energy."