If laziness was a stat, Lu Chunxia would have maxed it out years ago.
It was a Thursday evening, which meant the sprawling Lu household was relatively quiet.
Her brother, Lu Zhang, was off at university pretending to study, leaving Chunxia the uncontested ruler of the living room couch.
She was buried under a mountain of plush blankets, only her nose and fingers exposed to the slightly chilly air conditioning. A half-eaten bag of spicy chips sat precariously on her chest, rising and falling with her shallow breaths.
She was currently deep in the scroll-hole of a social media feed, her thumb moving with practiced, minimal effort. Huge, noise-canceling headphones cupped her ears, blasting high-energy anime opening tracks that completely severed her connection to the outside world.
This was her domain.
Comfort, snacks, and mindless entertainment.
'Just five more minutes,' she thought, a lie she told herself every hour. 'Then I'll get up. Maybe. Probably not.'
The video she was watching, a cat comically failing a jump, suddenly froze. A jagged line of green and black static tore across the screen, accompanied by a screeching audio tear that punched through her music.
"Ugh," Chunxia groaned aloud, her voice slightly raspy. She tapped the screen aggressively. "Piece of junk. Dad said this model was top tier."
The screen flickered, the static growing worse. It wasn't just the video loading; the entire interface was seizing up.
While she wrestled with technology, the house behind her was waking up to a nightmare.
In the kitchen, her mother had been chopping vegetables for dinner. Her father had come in from the garden, complaining of a sudden, intense headache. He'd leaned against the counter, sweating profusely despite the chill night air. When her mother turned to check on him, asking if he needed medicine, he had lunged.
A heavy thud vibrated through the floorboards. A choked, gurgling scream echoing from the kitchen. A porcelain bowl shattered against tile.
Lu Chunxia noticed none of this. The headphones she wore were designed for professional-grade sound isolation, and her focus on her phone was absolute.
"What's wrong with this thing?"
She muttered, her voice muffled by the cushions. The static intensified, expanding until the entire display was a flickering mess of gray noise. Behind her, the sounds of a struggle, the wet squelch of tearing flesh and the muffled gurgles of her mother, reached a crescendo before falling into a terrifying silence.
Chunxia sighed, finally pulling the headphones down to rest around her neck. The sudden silence of the house was heavy, broken only by a strange, rhythmic sound coming from the kitchen. It sounded like something heavy being dragged across the linoleum floor, followed by a wet, crunching noise.
'Is Dad trying to fix that broken sink again?'
She wondered, her laziness briefly overridden by a mild curiosity and the need for assistance with her malfunctioning device. She rolled off the couch with a grunt, her feet hitting the floor with a soft thud as she shuffled toward the kitchen, her eyes still glued to the static on her phone screen hoping it would spontaneously resolve.
"Dad? My phone is acting up. Did the Wi-Fi go... out..."
She entered the kitchen, but her words died in her throat as the metallic scent of blood hit her nostrils.
The sight before her was a horrific deviation from her expected reality. Her father was hunched over a motionless form on the floor. His clothes were stained in deep crimson, and his back moved with a jerky, spasmodic motion as he tore into the corpse at his feet.
Her mother lay beneath him, her eyes wide and glassy, reflecting the ceiling lights in a final, static gaze.
"Mom?" Chunxia's voice was a barely audible whisper.
The creature that was once her father paused. It turned its head with a sharp, sickening crack of vertebrae. Its eyes were no longer brown; they were clouded over with a milky, white film. Strands of torn tissue hung from its unhinged jaw.
"AHHHHHH!"
Chunxia's scream was a primal reaction, a sharp contrast to her usual lethargic demeanor. The zombie let out a guttural roar and lunged.
Despite her lack of athletic training, the sheer influx of adrenaline forced Chunxia into motion. She scrambled backward, her slippers skidding on the floor. The zombie was fast, driven by a singular, mindless objective. She turned and ran, her mind racing to process the horrific scenario that had suddenly become her life.
'Stay calm, Chunxia. This isn't real. This is a dream.'
She sprinted around the kitchen island, the zombie crashing into the stools behind her. It was relentless.
She realized that she couldn't outrun it indefinitely in the confined space. As she circled back toward the kitchen entrance, she saw the large refrigerator.
An idea formed, born from years of watching anime and action shows.
She vaulted over the kitchen counter, her movements surprisingly nimble under the threat of death. She landed on the other side and immediately gripped the handle of the refrigerator door. The zombie scrambled towards her, shattered fingernails scratching the floor as it came for her headfirst.
"Come on, you dead fuck!" She taunted, her voice trembling with a mix of terror and hysterical energy.
As the zombie lunged off towards her, she yanked the refrigerator door wide open. The creature's momentum carried it forward, its head entering the cold interior of the fridge among the cartons of milk and leftovers.
Chunxia didn't hesitate. She slammed the heavy, insulated door shut with all her weight.
CRUNCH!
The door didn't close fully, wedged against the zombie's neck and skull. The creature thrashed, its gray hands clawing at the refrigerator's stainless steel surface.
"Die! Die! Die!"
Chunxia screamed, channeling the sudden, adrenaline driven energy within her. She pulled the door open slightly and slammed it again.
THUD!
And again.
SQUELCH!
She continued the brutal cycle, the heavy door acting as a makeshift guillotine. The sounds of breaking bone and mashing brain matter filled the kitchen.
After the sixth slam, the zombie's body went limp, its legs twitching one last time before it became a seemingly boneless heap on the floor.
Chunxia stood there, panting heavily, her hands still gripped onto the refrigerator handle. Her knuckles were white, and her breathing was ragged. She looked down at the ruin of what was once her father, then at her mother's body.
'Why... am I not waking up?'
The reality of the apocalypse finally began to sink in.
[Ding!]
[Level 2 Zombie killed!]
[Level Up!]
A translucent screen appeared in front of her eyes, hovering in the air.
'A system...' Chunxia thought, a numb feeling spreading through her chest. She had survived the first encounter, but the cost was the total destruction of her world. She sat on the kitchen floor, surrounded by the smell of blood and spoiled milk, staring at the notification.
'I just killed my father.'
After a few minutes, the sound of the doorbell rang out. It was a familiar, cheerful chime that felt entirely out of place in the blood-stained kitchen.
Chunxia froze in place, looking at the pool of black blood pooling at her feet from her father's corpse.
She slowly stood up, grabbing a heavy rolling pin and a knife from the counter as makeshift weapons. She walked toward the front door, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked through the peephole.
It was Phoebe, her best friend from school. She was standing on the porch, her head bowed slightly.
Relief flooded Chunxia.
"Phoebe! Oh thank god, you're here!"
Chunxia fumbled with the locks, her hands shaking. She threw the door open, ready to pull her friend inside and share the nightmare.
"Phoebe, something happened to my parents, there's this system and-"
Chunxia stopped mid-sentence.
Phoebe hadn't moved. She slowly raised her head. Her face was pale, and her eyes were fixed on Chunxia with an empty, vacant stare. There was no recognition in them, only a hollow, bottomless hunger. Her gaze was entirely devoid of the warmth and intelligence that usually characterized her friend.
'Something is off.'
Chunxia realized, her grip tightening on the large knife behind her back.
"Phoebe?"
Before she could react further, the girl who had been her best friend for years bared her teeth and lunged at her throat.
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[Name: Lu Chunxia]
[Level: 2]
[Strength: 3]
[Speed: 4]
[Intelligence: 6]
[Endurance: 3]
[Stat Points: 5]
[Mana Pool: 60/60]
[Skills: Inspect Lv 1]
[New Fact discovered!]
[Most zombies are the humans who could not withstand the initial influx of mana.]