After thinking it over again and again, Evan Ran clenched his teeth, grabbed several packs of instant noodles and a can of cola, and taped them tightly together.
With the weight of the soda added, he could probably make the throw across the gap between the two apartment buildings.
He remembered an old joke: even someone with no arm strength could throw a grenade thirty meters. Evan had trained his arms for years. He refused to believe his throwing arm was weaker than that.
After a few warm-up stretches, he stood by the window.
A little run-up.
Focus.
Throw!
The improvised care package shot through the air like a small cannonball, spinning toward the opposite building.
A loud thump echoed across the gap.
He watched in disbelief as the bundle nailed the long-legged girl directly in the forehead.
She dropped backward like a plank of wood.
"Oh no... seriously?"
"Did I just knock her out? Or kill her?"
Evan's face twitched with guilt. He had killed people in the apocalypse before, but those were desperate fights for survival.
This girl, though... she had done nothing wrong. She was just hungry and scared.
He felt a pinch of regret settle in his chest.
"Maybe she will wake up in a bit," he muttered, trying to comfort himself.
In this situation, even if he wanted to help her, he had no way to get across. Running around at night on a street full of zombies was instant suicide.
And even if he survived the trip, he might not make it back. He still had hundreds of gigabytes of priceless digital resources downloading. In a world where most artists were going to turn into zombies, those files were practically rare artifacts.
After playing a few bot matches in complete silence, Evan eventually went to bed. Most people on the first night of the apocalypse would not be able to sleep at all.
Evan slept like someone who had already lived through this hell once.
At six in the morning, he snapped awake. Instinct. Training. Trauma.
Only after confirming his surroundings did he relax.
"It really wasn't a dream," he whispered. "I did come back."
Then he remembered something.
"Right... what happened to the girl I knocked out?"
He grabbed his telescope and peered across to the opposite building.
The lights were still on.
Which meant Lina had not woken up yet.
His guilt increased by another notch.
"If only I had already finished downloading everything," he murmured. "I would consider going over there now."
As if the universe were mocking him, a crisp notification chimed.
A download had completed.
Evan stared at the screen.
"Okay, that is the worst timing ever."
"Fine. I guess setting up dramatic lines really does jinx things."
His eyes narrowed with resolution. He had lived like a coward for his entire first life. Careful, cautious, surviving by avoiding every risk.
And he still died.
This time, maybe a little boldness would go a long way.
And who knew? Maybe before dying again, he could even get a girlfriend. A big maybe, but worth trying.
Still, if he was going to cross over to Lina's building, he would need proper preparation.
He filled a hiking backpack with instant noodles, cola, and bottled water. He grabbed his external hard drive and fully loaded tablet. Those were too precious to leave behind.
Then came the makeshift armor.
He wrapped magazines around his forearms with tape. A stack of one-centimeter thick pages could block zombie bites surprisingly well without limiting movement.
Next, weapons.
His apartment did not have anything fancy. Just a short-handled hammer and a cast-iron frying pan. They would have to do.
Finally, he grabbed a small battery-powered alarm clock.
A priceless tool in the apocalypse.
Once everything was ready, Evan moved the cabinet blocking his door and peeked through the peephole.
Empty hallway.
He opened the door slowly.
There was one rule that every survivor learned quickly: never use the elevator.
If the doors opened on a floor full of zombies, you were dead. No escape, no second chance.
But that did not mean the elevator was useless.
Evan pressed the button for the first floor, placed the alarm clock inside, and set it for five minutes.
When it rang, every zombie in the lobby would rush toward the sound. While they were distracted, he could slip out of the stairwell and escape safely.
"Five minutes," Evan muttered. "I need to make it down before the alarm goes off."
Too slow, and he would get caught between incoming zombies and the ones gathering downstairs.
Too fast, and he would risk running blind and missing threats in the stairwell.
He took a deep breath.
"Time to go."
He pushed open the stairwell door.
It was dim, cold, and eerily silent. Even during the day, stairwells felt like tombs.
He was currently on the eleventh floor. If he needed to cover ten floors in five minutes, that meant half a minute per floor. Reasonable.
Assuming nothing jumped out at him.
Pan in one hand, hammer in the other, he began his descent.
Every time he reached a landing or a turning point, he slowed down and moved carefully. It cost him a few seconds each time but kept him alive.
Soon, he reached the third floor.
He checked his phone. Only three minutes had passed.
Plenty of time.
Then, just as he lowered his phone, the window at the landing flashed with movement. A mutilated face appeared behind the glass.
Evan froze.
But the creature behind the window did not seem to notice him.
He swallowed, put his phone away, and continued down.
At the next turn, his frying pan accidentally scraped the wall with a metallic thud.
A tiny sound.
But tiny sounds meant nothing to human ears and everything to zombies.
"Oh no..." Evan felt his stomach drop.
A roar erupted behind the metal door of the third-floor landing.
The zombie burst through, charging straight at him.
Evan reacted instantly. He swung his hammer at the creature's forehead. The blow landed solidly, but this zombie had turned recently and still had a strong, intact skull.
The only result was a deep dent in its forehead.
The pain enraged it even more. It lunged forward, spitting dark blood.
Evan dodged sideways. One year of experience had sharpened his instincts. A basic zombie like this was no match for a hardened survivor.
The creature slammed face-first into the wall.
Evan stepped on its back to pin it down and brought his hammer down again and again on the back of its skull.
Bone cracked.
Blood sprayed.
The zombie went limp.
He had killed it in under five seconds.
But he had no time to celebrate. Thudding and scraping sounds echoed from above. The fight had drawn other zombies.
No turning back now.
Evan took a deep breath and continued downward at full speed.
Within moments, he reached the first-floor landing.
Through the small window of the stairwell door, he could see seven or eight zombies wandering the lobby.
He could not rush out. Not yet.
He just needed the alarm to ring.
Just a few more seconds.
If the plan worked, the zombies would move away from the door.
And if it failed…
He tightened his grip on his hammer and frying pan.
He would have to fight his way through.