***Hello, this story was and still is written for my friends so some scenes and conversations might not be fully understandable by other people although these are relatively rare. The setting is in the Philippines, where I'm from, and as far as I know I've managed to follow the zombie concepts set in Walking Dead. Posting for the benefit of my friends, but I do hope other people will like it as well.***

DISCLAIMER: I've spell-checked but not proofread this and succeeding chapters so I apologize in advance for some error. I'm busy with my college life. :P I'll be more meticulous about it when there's more readers than just my close friends. :D Anyway, here you go!

Chapter 1:

Open windows blew wisps of air into an otherwise breathless corner of the hallway. The soft buzzing of wasps and bees echoed beneath untouched plastic chairs—chairs which in themselves felt foreign in a world filled with the humdrum roar of chattering students and keyboards. All around, only the occasional tone of a computer booting up or the haunting music from an external hard drive being disconnected broke the monotony.

From the confines of a silent corner of the third floor of the University of the Philippines' Department of Computer Science, Ric started playing a soft acoustic melody on his guitar. Charlie joined in and slowly the pace began to quicken. Two pairs of hands plucked and strummed as they played fervently, as if possessed by an unseen spirit. On one side, Ric's fingers formed wave after wave of fluid motion matched by graceful music and on the other Charlie's fingers moved like embers bursting into flame, crackling and swaying as further inspiration came. Here then entered the wind from Robert's humming even as he played upon the desks and chairs like drums, setting up an earthen harmony for Mayca to sing along with.

Silent in his seat across the group, the view outside had distracted Wesley from being entranced as the others were. He sat still, gazing outside the open window. There was something that struck him as peculiar from the nearly constructed building next door. A man dressed in what was unmistakably a construction worker's uniform, walked lazily around an unfinished storey. It was strange not because he was there when no one else seemed to be, but because his gait seemed uncannily familiar to Wesley. Yet, it annoyed him that he could not find the proper word to describe it. Years spent reading and writing literary pieces and he could not find the right word to describe a man's gait? It was frustrating.

"Wes, you okay? You seem a bit lost there." said Robert. Ric and Charlie played on but Robert looked at Wesley more with curiosity than worry. Wesley seemed not to hear as he remained intent on watching the man. He searched his mind for the elusive word that grated on his nerves and watched on as the man continued walking aimlessly around the vacant floor. His head was bowed down as if depressed, miserable... but it still wasn't quite that. He appeared about as mindless as he was lifeless, almost like a—

It was then that it struck him. The man shambled, like a zombie in one of George Romero's Blank of the Living Dead movies. A sudden shiver went up through Wesley's spine. It was never the fact that he has watched so many horror movies that made him scared of them. Neither was it the gigabytes of zombie graphic novels and games. It wasn't that simple of a fear. It was the lucid dreams; the dreams that felt so real and looked so real that there have been countless times that he had found himself cornered by a zombie horde and unable to wake up.

"Wes, what's up? What are you lookin' at out there? Dude, if there's a really beautiful girl out there right now taking her clothes off for some reason, you better say something quick." said Ric who had stopped playing his guitar. Wesley looked at his friends long enough to see Robert facepalm, Charlie chuckle and Mayca throw Charlie a look that made him shrink in his seat.

"It's nothing. There's just this weird man in that other building. He's been walking aimlessly around the fourth floor for a while now. Not that it matters anyway, I guess I'm just wondering if he's ever going to come around to falling off the side of that building. That'd be a sight, won't it?" Wesley spoke with his usual cheer of morbid humour but he fidgeted in his seat, unnerved by an odd feeling that he was being watched.

!

A gut wrenching wail pierced the air, summoning more and more banshees until the silence that once was had turned violently into chaos. Wesley, Eric, Robert, Mayca and Charlie stood up in unison, startled by this sudden intruder. Almost instinctively, Wesley looked again outside the window. The man was still there but he had stopped walking. Instead he stared directly at the Computer Science building no doubt having heard the sudden commotion himself. Wesley waited for his next move, squinting to see better. The man clumsily took a step forward and then another and another, quickly gaining pace until he ran out of ground. Wesley watched as he plummeted, devoid of fear and apprehension, and hit the ground with a loud and wet thud. A mangled corpse lay spread eagled on the parking lot; its arms grotesquely twisted around its body and one of its legs bent in places it could never have bent before.

"Dude, look.", said Wesley in a deep, foreboding voice. Ric and Mayca had already run towards a window overlooking the building's lobby, but Charlie and Robert heard Wesley and were now standing behind him.

Someone had seen the man fall from the building and had rushed in to help him. It was one of the department's professors perhaps trying to pass some time smoking in the parking lot when the construction worker took the plunge. He checked its pulse and immediately drew out his phone to call the police. The corpse, to everyone's surprise, suddenly jerked and twitched. It reached out and grabbed onto the professor's leg. Caught off guard, he stumbled onto the ground. From an area obstructed by trees, they three onlookers saw another construction crew zombie scamper towards the professor in an ungainly gait. The professor's agonized screams merely blended with the growing chaos.

"Damn, is that..." Robert said under his breath. "Are they shooting a zombie movie here on campus?"

"With the professors as actors? Maybe. That'd be cool." said Charlie. They were both huddled against the window, looking around. "I don't see any camera crews and other staff though. What do you think, Wes?"

Wesley was already busy trying to call En, but the networks were flooded.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Another scream echoed through the corridors, ending with a stomach turning gurgle that sounded all too familiar. Wesley looked up and saw the other guys looking as dumbfounded as he was. It wasn't looking good. Could it really be a zombie outbreak?

"Damn it. I can't reach En. She's at her apartment. Whatever this is, if it's really what we think it is—"

"A fucking zombie apocalypse." Interjected Robert.

"Yes, well, if it is a zombie apocalypse then we have to reach En. We can't just sit here and hope she's okay. We've talked about this before, geeks that we are, and staying on campus with thousands of students about to become the walking dead isn't our most intelligent choice." Wesley talked fast, faster than usual even. Lucid zombie dreams never failed to instil fear in him on those nights that they haunted him. If he was dreaming, he thought, he wanted to wake up more badly than ever before. What, after all, is more lucid than the marriage of nightmare and reality?

"Yep, and if it's just starting now's the best time for us to move. Find a place we can hide in." said Charlie, bore a misleading sense of calm but his clenched fists and his tightened jaws betrayed his thoughts. He rushed over to Mayca.

Wesley jumped up and down incessantly; the adrenaline rush was starting. "All right, first things first, we need things to defend ourselves with—"

"—I'm on it—" replied Robert even before Wesley could finish what he was saying. He was about to run but Wesley blocked his way.

"—but we shouldn't split up. That's the last thing we want to do right now. There is strength in numbers and we are going to be outnumbered enough as we are together. Alone, each of us is as good as dead." said Wesley as he walked over to Ric who was still peering down from a ledge that overlooked the lobby.

"Who made you the leader?" asked Mayca. She was clinging tightly onto Charlie's arms, her fingers almost boring into skin. She was as shocked as she was scared. All of them were.

"I'm not," Wesley replied "I just want to get to En as soon as possible and ideally, I want to do that with all of us still alive."

"NOOO!" exclaimed Ric. He paced frantically and began to furiously assault the wall. "No. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuuuuuck! This shit can't be happening... shit! This can't be happening!"

"Dude, what the fuck?" said Robert.

"I still don't have a girlfriend! I still haven't found my girl and right now all the pretty girls are turning into zombie food!" Ric's voice boomed as he gave in to frustration. "How the fuck is that fair? How the FUCK is that—"

"RAAAARRRGHH!" exploded a voice from behind them. In their fear no one had noticed that the fire exit was slightly ajar and now a dark skinned rather rotund woman had entered through it. She lunged at Ric in a clumsy half-run. Ric turned quickly and let instincts kick in as he used both arms to hold her at bay. She snapped at him, her bites not inches from his cheek. Her nicotine-stained teeth clicked loudly as she forcefully bit air. Pushing with her entire weight, she managed to push Ric towards the open window, pinning him against the ledge with his upper body dangerously hanging over it.

Wesley and Robert were quick to react. They yanked her by the waist and in one continuous motion shoved her back through the fire exit. She stumbled backwards and fell over the railings. Robert immediately grabbed the door handles and slammed the door shut.

Ric was sitting on the floor. His eyes were wide open, his face was pallid in shock and his hands trembled uncontrollably. He was heaving breaths of air as fast as he was breathing them out.

"Were you hurt?" Robert inquired, offering Ric a hand so he could get up.

"No... Oh... God. I think... I think I grabbed her boobs." He looked at each of his friends as if he was pleading for someone to help.