DISCLAIMER: (please note that this DISCLAIMER applies throughout this work; I'm too lazy, and it screws the word count a tad too much) Original material(s) belong(s) to their owner(s), and thus I gain no monetary profit (the other profit being the intangible thing called "fun"). What I DO own is this story itself. On another note, do I really, really have to spell out "FAN fiction" to you? Clear? Yes? Good.

Changelog:

April 17th, 2017:
- Finished, self beta-ed.

There was a creak of a rusty door's hinges moving. From the sound of it, one could tell that it took quite the effort to open the rusting door. Said door seemed to be barely opened—if at all, in the past years. How many years, it was hard to say—there was barely any marks of pristine steel, and when there were, the marks were so small they were barely visible. Whoever was last here didn't take a good care of the heavy steel door, if the peeled paint was any indication—the rust on it didn't help, either. But one could not blame them; doors tend to be overlooked when you had other, more important things—one of them being your own life, to worry about. However, the door openers—a young man wielding an axe-like object with a woman around his age wielding the same thing, barely noticed. They were here for much more important things than "door watching", and they couldn't afford to waste much time.

Why they were here, in the middle of a treacherous wilderness, with no visible supplies, you say? Well, my dear, they were looking for something, of course! That something is a record of what the world was like a year or two before they were born, or maybe what went wrong for the world to become the way it is today. It was a task entrusted to them by their chief, as the chief was unable (more unwilling) to sacrifice manpower to search for something that might not even be there.

However, everyone was desperate. Consumable food and water were getting hard to find, diseases were everywhere with little to no known cure, the death toll was getting higher and higher every single day, kids were forced to forgo higher education than basic math and literature in favor of learning how to fight—how to kill.

Kids weren't supposed to learn how to kill at such a young age; they were supposed to learn, to be curious brats, to have fun—not learning how to survive.

Hence why they were on a mission to search for the ways to finish off the treat of the Undying, once and for all. It wasn't the first expedition—oh no, it was the umpteenth one. Many towns had risked their people to search for a better way to combat the Undying—those who just refused to stay dead. For some Undying, they would be finally laid to rest after being decapitated, some still attacked without dying and only stopped after being buried under tons of concrete—though that might be because they couldn't move at all even if they were still alive. Some seem to be capable of cognitive thinking, some are even more beastly than wild animals. Some retain their human appearance, some deformed so bad they're not recognizable anymore.

They—the Undying, are just not constant enough for people to learn anything.

With the population shrinking every season (they had difficulties keeping track of "day of the year" since around forty seasons[1] ago) one way or another, remnants of humanity had to find a more permanent solution—how the Undying came to be, and how to deal with them. And the remains of the past can tell them better than the current collective knowledge of the Undying can—or so the chiefs believed. The young man—Alfred, remembered that the first expedition had started around fourteen seasons[2] ago. They hadn't made much progress, but it was that first expedition that connected the pockets of civilization across the continent (they had no way of knowing the fate of the rest of the world), so that expedition weren't wasted.

However, most of the rest were.

Before Alfred was even more lost in thought, he noticed the yellowing pages of a rather thick book, leather bound, seemingly in better condition than other books he had ever seen in places like this. With a wave, he wordlessly signaled his partner—Vilda, that he had found something. The woman nodded and crept around. It was standard procedure: one would loot (or whatever) while the other would guard the both of them. It was not foolproof, but it had worked better than anything else so far.

He gently flipped it open.

This is the diary/journal of Agent Giorgio Bruno—well, maybe ex-agent by now. Heavens, it feels like a dream. Well, more a nightmare, really. But still, point is, it feels like it was a long time ago when it first started. If you're reading this, then I hope you won't repeat the mistake we did. We seriously didn't know how it came to be like this. That day was the day when the world as we knew it was over…

The next thing Alfred remembered was that they were dashing as fast as they could, hearts feeling giddy for the first time in forever. They found it! The key to their salvation, the key to their continued survival—and now, it was time to let the chief know, implement it, and finally, finally returning humanity to its former glory. Alfred felt Vilda's soundless laughter beside him, and his answering grin. The silence between the two didn't bother them at all, not when they were so used to it. They had to—talking in the field was suicide when some Undying (more often than not) are attracted to sound.

Without even noticing the sweat dripping, they reached their small, nameless town. The population was barely in triple digits, and there were close calls—in terms of basic needs or combat, but they had managed so far. Vilda, the more eager of the two, immediately signaled in their local "pass code" to the gatekeepers, dashing in without respite when the fence gates were opened even only a crack. Alfred could only shake his head fondly, watching as his partner tugged at their chief's arm.

As he handed over the book, Alfred dimly noted how his chief didn't even look surprised. Instead, he looked smug—too smug in his personal opinion.

I kept the book in my small pack—how did he know about it when it's not even certain it's The One?

There was a saying that people's regret came too late. Now, if only someone remembered about that little piece of wisdom…

[1] 10 years.

[2] 7 years

A/N: It's me again.. This prologue was somehow unprecedented; it just flows out of my mind into the keyboard while I was working on the actual first chapter. I'm thinking about writing the a in-story "day" per chapter. This fandom(?) seriously needs more love... As usual, this story is posted in both FFNet and AO3 (because my some of my friends somehow can't access FFNet, and I want them to enjoy it, too).

By the way, this is the result of the actual prompt/challenge from DA's takarafrost (we knew each other IRL). As this is a multi-chapter story, the prompt itself is a spoiler, so I'm not saying it here (takarafrost, please don't spoil it either, thank you).

Thanks (apply for the story unless specifically mentioned):
- The creator(s) of Time Crisis, especially Time Crisis 4. (TC5 kinda sucks for me... No offense, though; it just didn't quite reach my expectations)
- Elemental-Zer0 (for being a great TC author; sorry I didn't review your story as often as I should have, by the way)
- takarafrost for giving the challenge in the first place
- Ndemic Creations for making Plague Inc. (that game kinda inspires one thing or another in this story)
- Creators of the movie Train to Busan. I never actually watched the movie itself, but the trailer and detailed plot summary (my habit: I enjoy a movie more when I'm spoiled all the way to the ending) gave me quite the chill, so I can't bear to watch it, but some aspects definitely inspires one thing or another in this story.

Oh, one last thing: I have a bad habit of forgetting about a WIP multi-chapter stories, and while I can't promise I would be able to update fast, do remind me once in a while... Thanks.

Cheers,
C. Rinkuki Takato