The gate clanged shut behind me, and I stepped into the end of the world.
The street outside the compound was unrecognizable. Abandoned cars sat at odd angles, doors hanging open, engines still running in some cases. A bicycle lay twisted in the gutter. Shattered glass glittered on the asphalt like fallen stars.
And blood.
So much blood.
Dark stains spread across the concrete, trailing into doorways and disappearing around corners. Bodies lay scattered—some still, some twitching, some already risen and wandering.
Ghost padded beside me, her ears flat, her tail low.
Death everywhere, she observed through our bond. More death than Ghost has ever sensed.
"Get used to it," I murmured. "This is the world now."
I walked forward, my Death Aura expanding to its full range. Within a hundred meters, I counted seventeen zombies—some wandering aimlessly, some crouched over bodies, some simply standing and staring at nothing.
And beyond my range? Hundreds more. Thousands more.
An army waiting to be claimed.
------------------------------
The first body I passed belonged to a young man in a delivery uniform. His throat had been torn out, and his eyes stared sightlessly at the morning sky.
But he wasn't dead.
Not anymore.
As I watched, his fingers twitched. His chest heaved in a grotesque parody of breathing. And slowly, with the jerky movements of a puppet on tangled strings, he began to rise.
I stopped and observed.
The resurrection process was fascinating from this close. The virus—whatever it was—had completely rewritten his biology. His heart wasn't beating, yet his muscles still functioned. His brain was dead, yet something was driving his body forward.
A hunger that transcended life and death.
The delivery driver was on his feet now, swaying slightly. His head turned, nostrils flaring—or rather, going through the motion of flaring, since he no longer needed to breathe.
He sensed me.
His clouded eyes fixed on my position. A low groan escaped his ruined throat.
And he lurched toward me.
Master? Ghost's concern flickered through our bond.
Watch, I told her. Learn.
I didn't move. I didn't run. I simply reached out with my Death Aura and pushed.
The zombie stopped mid-step.
For a moment, we stood there—dead thing and living thing, predator and prey, except the roles were reversed.
I felt the hunger clawing at his dead mind. The primal urge to feed. But beneath that, I felt something else: emptiness. A void where consciousness had been. A space waiting to be filled.
Mine, I commanded.
The connection snapped into place like a key turning in a lock.
The zombie's clouded eyes cleared slightly—not to life, but to awareness. He straightened, his jerky movements becoming more fluid. And when he looked at me now, there was no hunger.
Only obedience.
"Follow," I said aloud.
He fell into step behind me without hesitation.
Ghost stared at the zombie, then at me.
Master... controls the dead things?
"Yes," I said. "I do."
------------------------------
The next hour was methodical harvesting.
I moved through the streets of my neighborhood, collecting zombies like a farmer gathering crops. Each one required the same process—reach out with my Death Aura, find the void where their mind had been, fill it with my will.
Some resisted. The fresher ones, the ones who had been stronger in life, pushed back against my control. But none of them resisted for long.
By the time the sun had fully risen, I had claimed twenty-three.
They followed me in a loose formation—men, women, young, old. A grandmother in a housedress. A teenager in gym clothes. A police officer still clutching his service weapon.
My first horde.
Ghost walked at my side, alternating between watching the zombies and watching me.
Master is different, she observed.
"Different how?"
Before, Master felt like life. Now Master feels like... in between. Not alive. Not dead. Something else.
She wasn't wrong.
With each zombie I claimed, I felt myself changing. My Death Aura grew stronger, its range expanding by imperceptible degrees. My senses sharpened—I could feel the zombies at the edge of my range like distant stars, waiting to be pulled into my orbit.
And something deeper was shifting too. Something in my soul.
The price of power, I thought. Always a price.
But it was a price I was willing to pay.
------------------------------
Near the intersection of Main and Third, I found survivors.
A group of five huddled inside a convenience store, the glass front shattered, the door barricaded with shelving units. Through my Death Aura, I could sense their terror—hearts pounding, breath coming fast, the bright flare of life in a sea of death.
One of them spotted me through the broken window.
"Hey! HEY! Help us! Please!"
A man in his thirties, wearing a business suit that was now torn and bloodied. He was pressing his hand against a wound on his arm—bite marks, clearly visible even from this distance.
Infected, my power whispered. Six hours until turn. Maybe less.
The bite was fresh—ragged tooth marks in a semi-circle, blood still seeping through his fingers. My Death Aura read the viral load spreading through his bloodstream like ink in water. There was no stopping it. No cure. Only the inevitable countdown.
"We're trapped!" the man shouted. "There's a group of them on the other side of the building. We can't get out!"
The others were peering through the window now—two women, an older man, a child clutching a stuffed rabbit. They looked at me with desperate hope. The child couldn't have been more than six years old. His eyes were red from crying, but he'd gone silent now, clutching that rabbit like it was the only solid thing left in the world.
The hope died when they saw the zombies following me.
One of the women screamed. The child started crying again.
"Oh god," one of the women gasped. "He's—he's one of them. He's leading them—"
"I'm not one of them," I called back. "And these ones won't hurt you."
To demonstrate, I raised my hand. The twenty-three zombies behind me stopped moving instantly, standing motionless like soldiers at attention.
The survivors stared.
"How..." the businessman started.
"It doesn't matter how." I approached the store, my horde parting to let me through. "What matters is whether you want to survive."
The older man pushed forward, his eyes sharp despite his fear. "What are you?"
"Someone who can help. But I don't have time for explanations." I gestured toward the businessman's arm. "That bite—he's infected. In a few hours, he'll turn. Kill him now, or he'll kill the rest of you."
The color drained from the businessman's face. "What? No—I feel fine—the bite isn't that deep—"
"You feel fine because the virus hasn't fully taken hold yet. Give it time." I turned to the older man. "You have a choice. Leave with me now—all of you who aren't bitten—or stay here and die. I won't ask twice."
The child started crying.
One of the women—the child's mother, judging by how she pulled him close—stared at me with hatred and fear and desperate hope all mingled together.
"Where would you take us?"
"Somewhere safe. Relatively speaking."
"And him?" She nodded toward the businessman. "You're just going to leave him to die?"
He's already dead, I thought. He just doesn't know it yet.
"He's welcome to come," I said. "But you should know that in approximately six hours, he'll try to eat all of you. Plan accordingly."
The businessman's legs buckled. He slumped against the wall, staring at his bitten arm like it belonged to someone else.
"This can't be happening," he whispered. "This can't be real..."
"Marcus," one of the women said softly, kneeling beside him. "Marcus, I'm so sorry."
He looked up at her, tears streaming down his face. "I was just trying to get home. Just trying to get back to Rachel. How am I supposed to—how can I—"
His voice broke.
The older man made a decision. "We're coming with you. All of us." He looked at the businessman. "Even him. We're not leaving anyone behind."
I shrugged. "Your choice. But don't say I didn't warn you."
I commanded my zombies to clear a path through the building's back entrance—the "group" the survivors had mentioned turned out to be only four zombies, which I claimed easily.
Twenty-seven now.
The survivors emerged slowly, staying as far from my horde as possible. The mother shielded her child with her body. The older man kept one hand on a fire extinguisher he'd grabbed as a weapon.
"Follow me," I said. "Stay close. Don't run unless I tell you to run."
We began the walk back to the compound.
------------------------------
The journey took thirty minutes—a distance that would have been five minutes before the world ended.
The streets were a maze of obstacles. Abandoned vehicles. Bodies. Small fires that had spread from crashed cars. And zombies, of course—dozens of them, wandering or feeding or simply standing in place.
The survivors flinched every time we passed one. But my horde kept them at bay, and my commands turned away any that wandered too close.
"Who are you?" the older man asked as we walked. "How are you doing this?"
"My name is Wei. And I don't know how I'm doing this." Partial truth. "I just know that I can."
"Can you save us? Really save us, I mean. Not just from today, but from... all of this?"
I didn't answer immediately.
Could I save them? In my original timeline, most survivors had died within the first month. The ones who lasted longer did so through luck, ruthlessness, or powers of their own.
But this time was different. This time, I had ten thousand years of experience. I had knowledge of what was coming. And I had an army that would only grow stronger.
"I can't save everyone," I said finally. "But I can try to save some. If you're willing to follow me."
The older man studied my face. "And what do you expect in return?"
"Loyalty. Obedience. Your skills, whatever they are." I met his gaze. "I'm not a charity. I'm building something. If you want to be part of it, you'll work for your survival."
"And if we don't want to join your... whatever you're building?"
"Then I'll take you somewhere relatively safe and leave you there. What happens after that is your responsibility."
He was quiet for a moment.
"My name is Harold," he said. "Harold Chen. I was an electrician before... before all this. If you're serious about building something, you'll need someone who can keep the lights on."
I nodded. "That could be useful."
We walked in silence after that.
The compound came into view just as the sun cleared the rooftops—gray and blocky and fortified, a fortress in a city of chaos.
Max Yang was waiting at the gate.
She saw the survivors first—the five frightened people stumbling toward safety.
Then she saw the zombies.
Twenty-seven of them, standing in neat formation behind me, motionless and silent.
Her face went through several expressions in rapid succession: shock, confusion, fear, and finally something like resignation.
"Wei," she said slowly. "What the hell is that?"
I smiled.
"This," I said, "is the beginning."