Doomsday: Ultimate Survivor

Chapter 7-1 Breakdown

Eric picked himself up from the ground and was about to strike again, but the man lay motionless, face down on the floor. Blood slowly flowed out from beneath his body…

What the hell? Was my kick that powerful?

While Eric thought, he did not let down his guard.

One minute... two minutes... It wasn’t until three minutes had passed and the pool of blood grew larger that Eric was sure that the man was no longer able to resist.

He approached cautiously, kicked him with his foot, and turned him over. It turned out it was the dagger in his hand that had been thrust into his chest, perhaps as he fell. It seemed he had drawn his last breath. And all for no real reason.

There was a strong smell of blood in the air. Eric had killed a living person! It was not a zombie, but a human being! Yet he remained relatively calm, even more so than after he killed his first zombie.

Eric clenched his teeth and shouted to Andy. “What are you waiting for? Pack it up and let’s go! We don’t know if the smell of blood will attract zombies! Be quick!”

The two of them packed everything up in a flash. They were ready to leave when Eric suddenly stopped and turned back.

“Come on, Eric, the zombies are coming!” Andy cried.

Eric strode over to the man’s body, pulled out the dagger with his hand, wiped it on the man’s pants, and threw it in his backpack before shouting, “Go!”

The dagger was very sharp and decent quality. Since the man was dead, why not take it? Eric’s mind was firmly in survivor mode: one should gather all the useful tools and resources available.

As Eric predicted, the zombies had a very good sense of smell, especially when it came to blood; it was almost an instinct.

After killing the man, the smell of his blood filled the air and more than 30 zombies in the surrounding area descended on the supermarket. Eric and Andy sprinted to the car and managed to flee just in time.

“Luckily we can run fast. Within minutes there were zombies everywhere,” Andy panted.

“It seems that the smell of blood is what zombies are sensitive to. We can’t come to this place any time soon,” Eric replied.

After returning to their basement retreat and making sure the door was locked, the two men collapsed onto the spring beds. Today they had escaped twice. Although they had not reached their physical limits, it had been highly stressful.

On top of that, they killed someone! Although it was the man's fault, it was impossible for them not to feel culpable.

Eric lit a cigarette, took a quick puff and asked, “Andy, do you feel guilty about what happened?”

“Yes!”

“But we couldn’t help it, could we? We were just going to take some food and go, but that guy was determined to kill us, we had to defend ourselves.”

“I understand but… we killed someone…” Andy was still bitter about it.

“Don’t be silly. Would you prefer that he killed us?” Eric rolled over and sat up. “The rules from the past no longer apply. The only rule in this world is to survive!”

What was the meaning of life? This problem was an eternal one, but it became abundantly clear without life’s normal distractions that above all, life was about survival!

Now, there was no law or government, only humans and all the creatures infected with U-Virus. Relationships were not so strong nowadays. Humans would kill each other over anything just to survive.

But Andy couldn’t help feeling terrible. He put his hands over his face and his shoulders began to twitch. At first, he sobbed, and then he began to wail. Yes, Andy’s nervous mood had not stopped since he saw the zombie dog. Now at long last things were calm, but his inner fear and revulsion of killing made his emotions reach a climax. He finally broke down and cried.

Some ask why such extreme ‘end of the world’ environments might create a lot of killers or perverse people. It was easy to see how, based on the experience of Eric and Adam so far. Without the rule of law, societal norms quickly change.