I woke up on a roof. My head was killing me and the ground was all gritty. I sat up and looked around. No one else. Just me, on some random building in what looked like a dead city. The sun was going down, painting everything orange and red. Down below, the streets were packed. And I mean packed. With zombies. Just shambling around everywhere. It was silent except for this low, creepy moaning sound that came from everywhere at once.
I should have been freaking out. But honestly? I just felt tired. And kinda annoyed.
Then, like a pop-up ad from hell, a blue screen just appeared in front of my face.
[SYSTEM INITIATED]
[HOST DETECTED: SENYA]
[TEMPLATE ASSIMILATION...
TEMPLATE SELECTED: KOKUSHIBO]
[ INTEGRATING…]
And then it was gone. I blinked. My sleep-deprived brain took a second to process. Kokushibo? Wait, like... the Upper Moon One? The six-eyed dude from Demon Slayer? No way. That was insane.
I walked to the edge and looked down at the zombie parade. Then I looked up at the moon. It was full and really bright. It was kinda the only nice thing in this whole mess.
A weird sense of déjà vu washed over me. It felt familiar, this moon. Comforting, even.
"It's still the same," I said to no one, my voice quiet. "The moon is beautiful as ever."
As soon as I said it, another little screen popped up. [USE TEMPLATE? YES/NO]
I sighed. Becoming a demon wasn't exactly on my bucket list, but the alternative was becoming zombie chow. "Whatever. Yes."
And then... whoa.
Okay, so this is gonna sound stupid, but it felt like all my stats got maxed out at once. You know in games when you suddenly get a god-mode power-up and your character just flexes and energy waves shoot out? It was like that, but for real. My normal, kinda-scrawny body felt... solid. Like I was made out of rock. I could feel power buzzing in my veins, like I could punch a hole through the building I was standing on. So this is the power of an Upper Moon.
My clothes changed too. Suddenly I'm wearing a fancy dark purple robe and samurai pants. Weirdest outfit of my life.
But the weirdest part was the memories. Not my memories. I suddenly knew how to do all this sword stuff. I knew techniques called Moon Breathing. I could feel centuries of fighting experience just downloaded into my brain. It was a serious headache for a second. I knew his skills, his techniques, his battle instincts... but thankfully, not his crippling envy or his family drama.
Then I looked at my hand. I was holding a sword. And this sword... man, it was messed up. The handle looked like it was made of skin, and the blade was this weird red color with veins in it. It looked less like metal and more like something that grew out of a monster. It was the flesh katana, just like in the show. Seriously cool and seriously creepy at the same time.
I sheathed it and looked around. My vision was... different. I had more of it. I could see basically everything without turning my head. It was super disorienting. I spotted some zombies on the next building over, just hanging out.
My hand went to the sword and I did this little half-draw, a tiny little swing.
A bunch of invisible crescent moon things shot across the gap. The zombies on the other roof just... fell apart. Into chunks. Then the top part of the building they were on started sliding off and crashed down into the street. It was super loud.
I just stood there. "Huh," I said. So that was Moon Breathing. Okay then.
I decided to get off the roof. I took a step and then I was just... gone. Moving faster than I could think.
---
Third POV
It was bad. Really, really bad. The six of them were totally screwed. They were stuck in the middle of Miller Avenue, a big wide road that was now the worst place in the world. Behind them, a huge crowd of zombies was shambling closer. In front of them, another group had spotted them and was starting to move in too. They were completely trapped.
Leo gripped his tire iron so hard his hand hurt. His heart was beating crazy fast. Next to him, Sarah was crying softly, holding a little kitchen knife. Jake had a rusty pipe and was muttering "oh man" over and over.
Chloe could barely hold her fire axe, and Mike was swinging his crowbar like he was trying to scare them away. Ben just looked around, his hunting knife seeming super small.
"The alley!" Jake yelled, pointing to a dark opening between buildings.
"No way," Ben said, his voice tight. "That's a death trap."
"But we're gonna die out here!" Chloe screamed.
They were right. The zombies were getting closer from both sides. The smell was awful, like rotten meat and garbage. The moaning was so loud it filled up Leo's whole head. They all backed into a circle, back to back, ready to make their last stand. It was pathetic.
Mike swung his crowbar and smashed the head of a lady zombie in a gross business suit. She fell down, but two more took her place right away.
"I'm out of ammo!" Jake shouted, and he threw his empty gun at a fat zombie. It just bounced off.
"This axe is too heavy!" Chloe sobbed, almost dropping it.
A zombie in a dirty t-shirt reached for Leo. Its fingers were black and gross. Leo raised his tire iron, but he was so scared he couldn't move. He closed his eyes. This was it. He was gonna get eaten.
Then he heard a weird sound. It wasn't loud. It was like a bunch of fast thwip sounds, like someone cutting through a bunch of raw meat really quickly. Then there was a bunch of wet, sloppy thuds.
He opened his eyes.
The zombie that was about to grab him was now in two pieces. A clean cut went from its shoulder to its hip, and the top half just slid off and landed on the pavement with a sick plop. Its legs stood there for a second before collapsing.
He looked around. The fat zombie was missing its head and an arm. All around their group, zombies were just... falling apart. Arms were getting chopped off. Heads were splitting in half. Bodies were getting cut into pieces. There was no reason for it, no person doing it. It was like an invisible blender was turned on. The moaning stopped and was replaced by the gross sound of zombie parts hitting the ground.
Then a feeling hit them. It was super weird. The air suddenly got heavy, like it was hard to breathe. It also got cold, a deep creepy cold that went right into their bones. But the worst part was the fear. A total, complete terror that froze them solid. Leo couldn't move a muscle. He couldn't even look away. His whole body was screaming at him to not move, to not even breathe.
He looked at his friends. They were frozen too. Mike was stuck in the middle of swinging his crowbar. Sarah had her eyes wide open, a tear running down her dirty cheek. Jake's mouth was hanging open in a silent scream. Chloe was shaking. Ben was just staring. Nobody could move a single inch.
Then they saw him.
He was walking down the middle of the road from the far end. He was really, really tall. And he was dressed in this old-fashioned Japanese outfit. A dark purple robe with little patterns on it, and black pants. His long hair was black but the ends were blood red. He walked super slow and calm, like he was just out for a stroll in the park and there weren't zombies everywhere.
But his face. His face was messed up. He had six eyes. Six glowing, gold eyes with slits for pupils, all over his face. They just stared straight ahead, not looking at the zombies, not looking at the people. He didn't seem to care about anything.
In his hand, he held a sword in its sheath. But the sword was creepy. The handle looked like it was made of skin. The bit of blade you could see was a weird red color and had veins on it, like it was alive.
Leo's brain was going a million miles an hour. What is he? Is he a zombie? No, he can't be. He's something else. Something way, way worse. Just don't move. Maybe he won't see us. Please don't see us.
The thing just kept walking. And as he walked, any zombie that got near him, like within a big circle around him, just got cut to pieces. He didn't even take his sword out. He didn't make a sound. He just walked, and zombies silently fell apart into chunks. A head would roll off. A body would slide into three pieces. It was so easy for him. It was the most terrifying thing any of them had ever seen.
He got closer and closer. The heavy feeling got worse. Leo felt like he was gonna puke. He could see the guy better now. He could see the details on his robe. He could see the red tips of his hair. He could see that his six eyes didn't blink.
The guy walked right past their group. He didn't look at them. He didn't turn his head. He didn't even slow down. It was like they weren't even there. Like they were just rocks on the side of the road. To him, they were nothing.
Leo watched him walk by. He saw his back. He saw the long red-and-black hair. He just kept walking down the road, not hurrying at all. The invisible slicing thing kept happening around him, clearing a path through all the zombies. He turned a corner way down the street and disappeared behind a broken-down bus.
The second he was gone, the weird feeling stopped. The heavy air went away. The creepy cold vanished. They could move again.
Leo's legs gave out and he fell on the ground. He threw up right there on the asphalt. He didn't even care. Everyone else collapsed too. Sarah was curled up in a ball, crying hard. Mike was on his hands and knees, breathing like he just ran a marathon. Jake was just staring at the spot where the guy had disappeared, saying "no way" over and over.
They were alive. The zombies that were gonna eat them were now just a disgusting mess of body parts all around them. They were safe.
But as Leo sat on the cold, hard road, shaking and covered in puke, he knew something was different. The world hadn't just gotten a little safer. It had gotten a whole lot scarier. Because now they knew there was something else out there. And it was way, way worse than the zombies.
For a minute, nobody on the road could move. They just sat or knelt on the gross asphalt, surrounded by chopped-up zombies, trying to remember how to breathe. The smell was awful, like a butcher shop that had been closed for a year.
Mike was the first one to get up. His legs were shaking so bad it was almost funny. He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out all scratchy.
"Okay... okay, everyone. Get up. We gotta go. Now."
Nobody moved. Sarah was still crying. Leo felt like he might puke again.
Mike tried to sound tougher. "Come on! We can't stay here. What if... what if that thing comes back? You wanna end up like them?" He pointed a shaky finger at a zombie head that was just lying there, looking surprised.
The thought of the six-eyed zombie coming back was like a bucket of cold water. Leo slowly got to his feet, his whole body feeling like jelly. Jake and Ben stood up too. Chloe finally dropped her heavy axe with a clatter and just left it there.
"We... we need to tell the camp," Mike said, trying to act like he was in charge. "We have to report this. We don't know if that was a new kind of zombie, a mutation, or some kind of zombie experimentation. But it's bad. Really bad."
Leo looked at his friend. Mike was trying to look brave, puffing out his chest, but Leo could see his hands. They were shaking, bad. He was just as scared as the rest of them. Leo just nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, let's go."
They all started walking, fast, away from the disgusting mess on the road.
---
Well, that was a bust.
I walked away from that road, my sandals not making a sound. I thought maybe those people I saved would be someone important. You know, like from a movie. Maybe that guy was like a main character from The Walking Dead or something. But nope. I didn't recognize any of them. Their faces were just... normal scared people faces. Nothing special.
Too bad. I guess this isn't a zombie world I know from my old life. Maybe the next group of people I find will be someone I recognize. Then I might know what kind of story I'm stuck in. That would be helpful.
But first, I gotta figure out my own stuff. I remember from the anime—he can't handle the sun. That's a problem. When morning comes, I'm gonna have to change back to being regular old me. And regular me is just a guy. A guy who can get bitten and eaten.
So my plan is this: I need to find some people I know from a movie. I need to find food and supplies. And I need to get a gun. Yeah, a gun. For the daytime, when I'm weak. I should also find a base to stay in, somewhere dark for when I'm a demon.
While I was thinking all this, I was just walking down the street. My body was on autopilot. Any zombie that got close just kinda fell apart. I didn't even have to think about it. My sword would just move a little, and thwip, zombie slices. It was pretty convenient.
Then I heard a car.
It was a big, noisy pickup truck, all dirty and banged up. It screeched to a stop right behind me. Four guys jumped out. They looked rough, with dirty clothes and mean faces. They were all holding guns.
"Hey, you!" one of them yelled, a big guy with a bald head. He pointed his rifle at me. "Whatcha got in you, huh? Hand it over, or you're gonna find out what your insides look like!" He started laughing, and his buddies laughed too. They sounded stupid.
I just stood there... annoyed. This NPC's interrupting my walk.
The bald guy got annoyed that I wasn't answering. "You listening to me, or did you already wet your pants?" he said, walking closer. His friends kept laughing.
He reached out with his dirty hand to grab my shoulder.
He never made it.
One second his hand was there. The next second, it was on the ground. It happened so fast there wasn't even any blood at first.
Then the pain hit him. He looked at his arm, now with a clean cut at the wrist, and started screaming. "MY HAND! MY HAND! AAAAAH!"
His friends stopped laughing. Their faces went white. They all pointed their guns at me, their hands shaking.
"W-what the hell?" one of them stammered.
That's when I turned my head and looked at them. I saw all six of my golden eyes reflected in their stupid, scared faces.
One of them freaked out. "FUCK! HIS EYES! HE'S NOT HUMAN! IT'S A FUCKING ZOMBIE!"
"SHOOT IT!" another one screamed.
They started shooting. BANG! BANG! BANG!
It was so slow. I could see the bullets coming. I just moved my head a little, and the bullets missed. I took a step to the side, and more bullets hit the wall behind me. I didn't even have to try.
The guys saw that none of their bullets were hitting me. They totally panicked.
"OH GOD, IT'S NOT WORKING!" one yelled.
"LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!"
They turned to run back to their truck. They never made it.
I didn't even really try. I just swung my sword. It was so easy. The first guy, the one who was still holding his bleeding wrist, just fell into several pieces. The second guy got cut in half. The third guy turned to run and I sliced the truck in half, right behind the driver's door. The top part of the truck slid off with a giant grinding noise. The guy inside was... well, he was in no shape to drive anymore.
The last guy was trying to climb into the back of the now-cut-in-half truck. He was crying and begging. I just swung my sword once more. Then he stopped begging.
It was quiet again. Just the sound of a little fire starting in the truck's engine.
Then I heard a tiny gasp.
I looked at the truck. There was someone in the passenger seat. A woman. Her hands and feet were tied up with rope. Her face was all bruised and she had tape over her mouth. Her eyes were wide, wider than I thought human eyes could go. She was staring at me, and then at the pieces of the armed men all over the road. She was shaking like a leaf. She looked more terrified than those people from the road earlier.
I just looked back at her with my six eyes for a second. Then I turned around and started walking away. She wasn't my problem. I had to find a place to sleep before the sun came up.
I left her there, tied up in the broken truck. Not my business. I had my own problems to deal with.
// How is the chapter? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. I hope it's good enough to continue this new story, otherwise I might end up dropping this project and the ideas I have for it. //