A lone figure stood in the middle of the street. Blood and snow covered every inch of the intersection, much like blood and snow covered everywhere else. The wind howled over the sound of the fires burning in the nearby shopping district, and the snow softly landed without a sound all around the figure. Blood dripped down it's face and onto the ground, but it didn't seem to care or even notice. The figure growled and groaned as it twitched and convulsed.

The figure fell onto the ground as a gunshot rang out, echoing further into the city. Pieces of brain and fragments of skull lay near the head of the slumped body as a thick red mixture of fluids gushed out of the exit wound. About 50 feet away, a man in a hooded sweatshirt lowered his rifle. He knew the shot would attract more of the shamblers, but getting close enough to kill the zombie with his bare hands would be more dangerous than fighting 50 more of them with his automatic rifle.

This man was Marlton Johnson, a young, self-proclaimed genius stuck in a situation that even he couldn't think his way out of. He had spent his entire life before the outbreak zooming through school and getting through college even faster and easier. While there was some arrogance behind his self proclamation of intelligence, he was still one of the brighter minds of his generation.

After the initial outbreak, when things were still mostly under control by the governments of the world, he spent most of his time working with many other intelligent minds at an outpost in Nevada testing a strange element under the disguise of it all being nuclear warhead testing. What the scientists were actually doing was much more dangerous. Element 115. Also known as Divinium, named after it's divine powers. The element existed on the outside of time itself - or at least, that's what the scientists seemed to think. It could be used for teleportation, and could be used to power entire countries with only trace amounts.

It had been discovered by the germans in The Great War in 1918, but hadn't been tested on until Group 935, a Nazi Research group had gotten a hold of it during WW2. Scientists there used it for evil. They made handheld mass-killing weapons that were hundreds of years before their time in a panicked and frantic attempt to win the war. They even used it to reanimate dead cells.

Group 935 had discovered that 115 can easily reanimate the corpses of the fallen Nazi soldiers, however what came back alive wasn't quite the same as the person who died. Their minds seemed to devolve back to primal instincts, with one thing in mind: Eating a good meal. What was that meal? Well, that meal was almost all of the G935 scientists at their facility in Germany, and most of the people in the surrounding villages.

That outbreak was contained, of course, and it went unknown to almost everyone on Earth with the exception of the German government, and it seemed as though it was all over.

It wasn't. Outbreaks occurred in a lot of places over the coming years, a theater in Berlin that was being used as a G935 outpost, a Russian cosmodrome, Area 51, and the pentagon itself. All of these places had one thing in common. Element 115 was being tested there. All of these outbreaks were contained, and the general populace had no clue any of this had even happened.

Then the unexpected happened. A swift explosion swallowed the whole planet in flames. It was a blast only Divinium could make. It is still unknown which country caused the explosion. (Though there aren't many suspects, as only a select few countries even knew of Divinium's existence.) Whether or not it was an accident is still unknown.

With Element 115 now spread everywhere with the explosion, dead bodies rose all across the globe, creating an unstoppable wave of undead that spread through every country, every city, and every village. At this point, Marlton had teamed up with three other survivors. A young lady named Abigail Briarton (Though she liked to be called Misty for unknown reasons) an old homeless, african-american man only known by Russman, and a suspicious, seemingly insane, middle-aged man named Samuel Stuhlinger. The group met up in a small town somewhere in Oregon, and driven by two German voices that were seemingly deities, they powered an electric tower in the favor of one of the voices, but against the wishes of the other. These omniscient voices were two Germans named Edward Richtofen and Ludvig Maxis, two ex-935 scientists that had somehow gained access to another form of life. These two scientists hated each other with a passion and each had their own goals that went against each other.

They had powered the tower in Oregon in Maxis' favor, letting Element 115 energy flow through the entire power grid of the United States. Killing zombies the entire way, the crew of misfits had done something big. They would never really know just how important their missions were.

The two voices had been hunting for years for a group of survivors to do their bidding, going through hundreds and hundreds of groups and gangs of survivors, and both of them wanted our crew of survivors to fight for them, and they had a choice. Like I said, they chose to light the tower in Maxis' favor, as Maxis seemed like the lesser of two evils.

After the lighting of the first tower, they were teleported by one of the omnipresent beings to a skyscraper in China, one of the last few standing after the explosion leveled most of everything. There was another tower there that the two voices needed lit in their favor. The tower was a radio tower that extended far above the rest of the skyscraper, placed on the rooftop. Marlton and the others decided to fight, once again, in Maxis' favor. After a series of guesswork and luck, they figured out a way to light the tower with 115 once again, fighting waves of zombies and deformed creatures along the way.

This time, after lighting the tower, they were not teleported, because both of the voices were losing their power over this existence, and Maxis needed them to light one more tower to gain total control. Not only control over this existence, but all other existences. He'd basically be a god. He told the group they needed to get to a small mining town in Egypt, and the group accepted their mission, as they thought they could still save civilization.

The group travelled through Afghanistan, Iran, and then Iraq, taking them months. The entire time the group did their best to avoid confronting the undead, but sometimes shit hit the fan. When they arrived at the mining town, it looked as if it had been hit with a massive earthquake. There was a massive canyon outside of the village that looked as if it went straight down to hell. The village was buried underground in caverns as it forcibly slid under the Earth's crust.

The tower stood outside on a field outside the town, but the means to transfer energy to the tower was inside the town... Underground in the caverns. The crew, led on by Maxis, ignored Richtofen's desperate attempts to get the group to rethink their decision to help his nemesis. Marlton discovered the way, and using his own genius they found a way to light the tower.

They thought they would be able to fix everything, but unfortunately for them, Maxis turned on them. He promised that he would end everyone's misery in due time, and destroy the entire Earth, and in an act of anger, Maxis banished Richtofen to not only be mortal, but to be a zombie. This zombie, with Richtofen's mind and soul was quickly and mercifully put to rest by Russman.

Maxis would no longer communicate with the group, and the promise of Earth's destruction shook the group to the core. The crew started arguing every hour of every day. Samuel argued about how they should have followed the other voice instead, and Russman sided with him. Misty and Marlton were both called idiots for leading the group into this situation, as they were the ones that trusted Maxis. After arguing and fighting for days, the group split. In a fit of anger, Stuhlinger stormed off in the night and Russman left the next day to go find him. He never came back.

It had been about one year since then.

Marlton walked up to the zombie he had just shot, checking the body for supplies. He found a few small pistol rounds in the pocket, so it was easy to assume the zombie was a fallen survivor. It was unfortunate to find a dead survivor, as that meant there was one less alive person on the planet, and it seemed as though there weren't many left now-a-days. He checked to see if there was a handgun on him, as he had the bullets, and there was nothing but an empty holster. The young genius had lost his handgun getting away from a mutated zombie the night before, and he was desperate to find a new one.

Marlton and Misty had agreed that walking back to China was in their best interest, as their short stay at the Chinese skyscraper was their most comfortable stay since the outbreak had started. Supplies were plentiful in that specific city, and zombies, while common, seemed to be less common than other places. Beijing, or the burning wreck that used to be Beijing was his current home.

The young man stood up in a hurry, hearing a quick movement behind him, he raised his M16 in the direction of the sound. Whether it was a zombie, or an armed survivor hunting for supplies, it didn't matter. They both presented the same amount of danger.

There, in the street behind him, stood Misty. "Whoa there Marly," She joked with a smile, "You getting sick of me or something? No need to point a gun at me." She jogged up to Marlton with a smile.

"What are you doing out of the safehouse?" Marlton asked quickly. "We need someone there making sure no one loots it, you understand that, right?" He clearly was not happy.

"You were taking a long time looking for supplies; you haven't said anything on your radio in hours! I was getting worried!" She reasoned with him, standing closer. She was shorter than Marlton, but not by much.

"I haven't been able to talk on the radio, there were zombies all over me, but some gunfire from the south drew them away." He explained, "And you don't need to go looking for me every time I leave the safehouse. I can take care of myself, Misty." He lectured the girl in a stern voice.

"I was just worried, no need to be an ass." She grumbled, crossing her arms and looking away. Marlton sighed, not wanting to argue any more than necessary.

"I appreciate the worry, Misty, I worry about you too." Marlton, fixed his glasses, his messy black hair and beard were splotched with blood, not any of it was his. He pulled Misty into a quick hug.

"I know I shouldn't worry, I just... I just don't want to lose you..." Misty said quietly. She was usually a brash, tough farm-girl, but after almost losing Marlton during a bandit ambush on the way back to Beijing, she realized just how much she wanted him in her life. The two were usually flirty, but things never really went anywhere, and she had realized then that she really, truly needed him.

"I wouldn't want to lose you either." Marlton stated, pulling away from the hug, and looking down the street to see if there were any undead.

"So... What have you found today?" Misty asked, as she usually did when Marlton hunted for supplies.

"Some handgun ammo..." Marlton said, almost as if he was guilty.

"That's it?!" Abigail said with surprise. "We only have enough food and water to last a few weeks! We need to start finding shit soon!"

"I found a few crates of bottled water, and maybe some food but it's in the back of a crashed bandit truck." Marlton said, scratching the back of his head nervously.

"Why didn't you take a little bit of it? Hell, I'd come and help you carry some of it if you needed me!" She said desperate for more food around the safehouse.

"Because... It's..." Marlton let out, awkwardly. "It's surrounded by a crowd of at least 200 undead... They must have been attracted to the sound of the crash."

"Oh... Well we can find a way! It's gonna get dark soon so we should head back, but tomorrow I want you to show me this zombie crowd of yours." Abigail said without skipping a beat. She would get those supplies at any cost. She had bullets, and so did Marlton, and she had gone a while since she had killed some zombies, so her trigger finger was itching.

"Yeah, I can do that. Shall we go home?" Marlton asked, as he checked his rifle for any dirt. He hated having a dirty weapon. He also planned on washing all the blood off of him the moment he got home. He HATED germs, and blood, despite Marlton spilling a lot of it in his time, made Marlton a bit queasy.

"Yeah, let's get going, Marly." She said, holding a shotgun, her dark hair blowing slightly in the wind. Abigail could no longer wear her favorite shirt, as it was cold this time of year in Beijing, and her old outfit just didn't keep her warm, as it was very... Open. She wore a small red coat that she had looted a few months prior, and she no longer took the time every morning to put her hair into a pony tail. She had taken a liking to just leaving her hair out and natural. She thought she looked rather good like that, and so did Marlton.

Marlton also could no longer wear his usual outfit. He wore a black hoodie over his button-up shirt. He, fearing contamination, had washed the hoodie about five times before he even thought about wearing it.

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It took the two about twenty minutes to get back to their safehouse, and it was largely uneventful, as most of the zombies in that part of town had been attracted to the gunshots earlier that day. Sure, some probably came back because of Marlton's shot, but he and Misty were out of there long before any zombies would show up.

The safehouse was a small basement that was below a gas station. The gas station itself had been looted clean long before Marlton and Abigail had shown up, but a survivor before them had suited up the basement as a survival bunker. There were several bunk beds down there, a generator that ran on solar power that was hooked up to a solar plate on the roof of the gas station, there were hundreds of books and magazines, a kitchen, two bathrooms. The place was heaven, and they had, at first, wondered why the person who lived there had killed himself. However, after discovering his journal, they realized that he had a very good reason for blowing his brains out in the kitchen. His name was Daniel, and Marlton and Abigail buried him out back.

Marlton leaned back in his chair, once again he was relieved to be back. Surviving wasn't easy. You had to fight for every second of your life, every day.

"So what are you feeling like eating today? Beans... Or beans?" Misty joked, sitting down next to him with a smile.

"That's a meaningless question Misty, as there is only one answer." He said dryly, staring at the ceiling.

"Jeez, you really need to grow a funny bone." Misty rolled her eyes.

"That was my attempt at humor..." Marlton smiled to himself, successfully messing with Misty, even if it was unfunny.

The two never liked to think about it, but Maxis' promise didn't sit right with them. He said he would destroy the Earth, but it's been a year, and they haven't heard a single word from him. Did he lose his power? Was he just waiting to destroy the Earth, and none of this even matters?

Marlton shook the bad thoughts from his head, and leaning in to kiss Misty, even though he found kisses germ-y and disgusting, he always felt better when close to Misty.

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Daniel's Journal Page 1

It's been a few weeks since the explosion. I've lost everything, then fought to get everything back. Honestly, fuck these creatures and fuck the crazy people I've ran into over the past week. I always knew that crummy basement could be used for something. It smells like shit, but it's safe. It's times like these that I wish I was back home, and that I never moved here to this shitty city. I should be back in London right now with Christine and mom. What the fuck am I saying? They're probably fucking dead.

The Chinese military, or whatever's left of it after the explosion, rolled in yesterday to check for survivors. I was gonna leave the gas station to go get help from them, but I saw Mr. Chin from down the street (Who I had no idea was still alive, as most everybody died in the explosion) go up to them and they didn't exactly treat him nicely.

They roughed Mr. Chin up really badly, then stuck him in the back of an armored truck, there were a ton of other survivors in the back of the truck. I recognized a few of them! I'm glad to see some people I know are still alive. Feng and Hai were in there. Though it doesn't look like a good thing. Everyone in there looked miserable and beat to shit. It's almost as if the Chinese officials were taking them all to a prison... I'd rather be in this shitty place and be on my own. Even if there are a ton of those creatures outside. I have enough food in the back room to last a single person like a fucking lifetime, but it probably won't last half as long for a fatass like me.

Don't know how long I'll be in here. I think I made the right choice not going with those military wanks. I think I'll just wait out shit here, and once those monsters in the street clear out, I'll get out of the city, things can't be this bad in the country-side! Less population before the monsters, less monsters now! Maybe I can find a few other survivors to get all comfy with!

Though I'm not letting anyone in this basement, I need all that food for myself.

- Daniel Anderson