Hugo sat back against the wall, staring at the lifeless zombie sprawled across the stairwell nding. His bat still stu its skull, useless for now. He shook his head with a smirk.

  "Alright, maybe not the best idea," he muttered to himself, rolling his shoulders. Despite the setback, he felt good. No—he felt invincible. Fully geared, armored, and with a solid uanding of how to fight these things, Hugo knew he had an edge now. He was ready to take bae ground.

  But first, a nap.

  The idea of resting befoing i strategic. Like a video game where you saved before heading into a boss fight. If things went wrong, he could always try again. His body was tired, but strangely, his mind was rag. Sleep didn’t e as easily as he expected. The adrenaliill buzzed in his veins, keeping him on edge even in the safety of his apartment.

  Lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, he let his thoughts wander. He hadn’t sidered it much before, but the thought of dying again uled him. The resets were real, sure, but what if there was a limit? What if one day he just didn’t wake up? That thought lodged itself in his brain like a splinter, refusing to let him drift off.

  Eventually, exhaustion won out, and he slipped into a restless sleep.

  A sound woke him—something outside his window. He sat up instantly, every nerve in his body o.

  Shuffling noises, but different from the usual undead. Lower to the ground. Sniffing.

  He cautiously moved toward the window, peering through the gap in the curtain. At first, he thought his eyes were pying tricks on him. A dog. But something was wrong with it.

  Its fur atchy, its mouth too wide open, tongue lolling as if it were overheating. Its chest rose aoo rapidly, as though breathing wasn’t natural anymore. And then it turs head abruptly, revealing milky white, lifeless eyes.

  Hugo’s stomach dropped.

  "Oh, shit..."

  The virus had mutated.

  If it could i animals now, things were about to get a whole lot worse.

  His mind scrambled for an expnation. He remembered the st time he had seen the news, before everything colpsed. Reports were still ing in, theories boung betweeworks. At first, the outbreak was thought to be some kind of rabies variant—highly aggressive, fast-spreading, but limited to humans. The world was still ughing nervously about it, paring it to old zombie movies.

  Then came the leaks. A whistleblower, a stist from a high-security biob in Europe, had e forward, g the virus was man-made. An experimental pathogen designed for... what? Hugo never found out. By then, the world was already unraveling. The news stopped, the works fell silent, and the only thi was the chaos outside.

  But ohing had beeain—back then, the virus wasn’t supposed to jump species.

  Three weeks. That’s all it had taken to mutate. That was terrifyingly fast.

  His mind fshed back to the first days, the ones before everything fell apart.

  Hugo had been at work when it started. The lunch rush was just settling down, and the smell of sizzli and garlic filled the kit. The restaurant TV was on in the background, pying a news anchor rep on growing civil u. More lockdowns were being suggested. More caution. But people were already getting tired of caution.

  His coworker, Jeremy, had been the first to point out that something was really off. “Dude, check this out.”

  Hugo had turned, wiping his hands on his apron, and looked at the s. The news feed had cut to live footage—people running, screaming, an aerial shot of a city street clogged with cars and bodies. Police were trying to form a barricade, but something was wrong. The rioters weren’t just fighting. They were attag. Biting.

  Then, the camera zoomed in.

  A man—blood c his mouth—lunging at an officer and dragging him to the ground.

  Hugo had felt the first pang of real fear then.

  Within hours, the restaurant had closed. The streets outside had started emptying, people rushing to stockpile supplies or hunker down. The first firmed cases of whatever this was had popped up iy by nightfall.

  Within two days, the hospital was overrun.

  By the end of the week, society had colpsed.

  Hugo snapped back to the present, his breath slow and steady as he forced himself to focus. That was then. This was now.

  And now, things had gotten even worse.

  The zombie-dog outside she air, its head tilting as if listening for something. Hugo held his breath, gripping the handle of his knife. If it could smell him, would it react the same way as the others? Were animal zombies faster? Smarter?

  He had no idea. And he really didn’t want to find out the hard way.

  Hugo took a deep breath and forced himself to focus. He o get back to what he could trol. The nails in his bat had been a terrible idea, and now was the time to fix that mistake. He pried eae out carefully, wing at the effort. The bat was solid, still a good on, but now at least it wouldn’t get stu skulls.

  With his bat fixed, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and carefully made his way downstairs. The lower floors were darker, the power long since dead, leaving only dim light filtering through cracks in boarded-up windows. The corridor was cluttered with overturned furniture, abandoned belongings, and dried streaks of blood.

  He moved cautiously, ears straining for any sound. Then, he spotted movement—two zombies at the far end of the hallartially obscured by shadow. One was hunched nawing on something. The other stood motionless, as if waiting.

  Hugo’s pulse quied. He had the advantage of surprise, but he o be smart. Bait oake it out fast, then deal with the sed.

  He picked up a small from the floor and tossed it further down the hall. The g echoed through the silence. As expected, the hunched zombie jerked its head up and stumbled toward the sound.

  Hugo gripped his bat tightly, waiting as it shambled closer. Just as it passed the doorway, he swung hard, catg it across the side of the skull. The impact sent it reeling, but it didn’t go down. Snarling, it turoward him, arms outstretched. Hugo took another swing, this time with more force, and the sed hit sent it crashing into the floor, motionless.

  He barely had time to catch his breath before the sed zombie lunged from the darkness. It was faster than he expected. Hugo barely mao sidestep, raising his bat in defense as it cwed wildly at him. He stumbled baearly tripping over the first corpse.

  With no room to swing, he shifted his grip and drove the end of the bat straight into its face like a battering ram. The zombie staggered but kept ing, its jaing inches from his arm. Desperate, Hugo swung low, smashing its khe moment it buckled, he brought the bat down on its head with everything he had.

  The silehat followed was deafening. Hugo stood there, panting, his arms shaking from exertion.

  Two more down. But there were plenty more to go.

  He approached the apartment closest to the stairwell. The door was locked, just as he expected. He retrieved his screwdriver and pry bar, repeating the same method he had used before. It took a little effort, but with a few careful tugs and a solid push, the lock gave way.

  The apartment had once beloo a family. He could tell from the scattered remnants of a normal life—a toy car abandoned in the hallway, a framed photo left on a table, a child’s drawing pio the fridge. But there was no one here. The family had left, and they had taken anything valuable with them.

  The living room arsely furnished now, but the space was still lived-in, the kind of pce that had once been filled with warmth. A few open drawers and missironics told him they had left in a hurry, taking what they could carry.

  Hugo made his way to the kit first. He opehe ets, sing for anything useful. Most of the shelves were empty, but he mao find a few fotten s of food—a small victory. In the pantry, there was a bag of rice, half-full, and some salt. Not much, but he’d take what he could get.

  Moving into the bedrooms, he found the master bedroom stripped almost entirely bare. The closet en, a few scattered hangers left behind. The bed had been hastily pulled apart, as if someone had been searg for something in a rush.

  The child’s room was simir. The bed was unmade, and a few stuffed animals remaiheir owners long gone. A small bookshelf stood against the wall, filled with children's books. Hugo hesitated, then reached for one. He flipped through it absentmindedly before putting it baot useful, but a remihat someone had lived here. That people had dreams here, pns.

  Now, it was just another empty home.

  He exhaled, adjusting his backpack. At least he had found some food. He had what he came for.

  He made o sweep of the apartment before heading back to the hallway.

  After looting the st apartment, the sun had dipped lower, casting long shadows through the cracked windows. The building was getting darker, but Hugo decided to push his lud try one more door.

  He approached another apartment, this ohe stairwell. Like the others, it was locked, but he khe drill by now. He retrieved his screwdriver and pry bar, wedging them into the frame. A few precise tugs, and with a sharp crack, the lock gave way.

  The door creaked open, revealing a starkly different sight from the st home. This wasn’t a family’s residehe pce ractically empty, almost barren. The furniture arse—just a single camping chair, a mattress on the floor, and an old TV with a cracked s. Whoever lived here hadn’t had much to begin with.

  Hugo stepped inside cautiously. The walls were bare, no pictures, no decorations. A pile of empty food ers sat he mattress, and a few discarded beer s were lined against the wall. It was clear—the tenant had lived simply, maybe scraping by just before everything fell apart.

  He moved through the small apartment, cheg the kitette first. The fridge was empty, long since defrosted, but in one of the ets, he found a few s of cheap soup and an unopened bottle of water. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  The bedroom, if it could even be called that, had little more thatress. No dresser, just a pile of clothes in the er. Hugo rifled through them, but there was nothing useful. The only other thing of i was a fshlight, and a box of matches.

  He let out a quiet exhale. "Better than nothing."

  After one final sweep, he packed what he could carry and made his way back toward the door. The building was getting eerily quiet now, the kind of silehat made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  It was time to head back before he pushed his luck too far.