Day 3 broke with a silence so profound it felt heavy.
The howling gale that had battered the skyscraper for forty-eight hours had finally died down. The sun rose over the frozen city, a pale, heatless disc hanging in a sky of crystal blue.
[Outdoor Temp: -64°C]
Alex stood by the living room window, sipping a protein shake. The light refracted through the ice encasing "The Gecko" on the balcony, casting a prismatic rainbow across Alex's floor.
"Beautiful," Alex murmured. "Deadly, but beautiful."
He turned to the hallway door. The monitor showed a static image of white fog. The camera lens had frosted over during the night. He was blind.
"I need eyes," Alex said, crushing the empty shake carton. "If I go out there blind, I'm begging for a bullet."
He sat down on the sofa and opened the System Interface.
[Current EP: 330]
He tabbed over to the [Shop - Tech/Utility] section. He didn't need guns yet. He needed intel.
· Thermal Goggles: 100 EP · Geiger Counter: 50 EP · Drone Cold-Resistance Mod (Tier 1): 50 EP [Includes Micro-Nuclear Battery - Infinite Runtime in -100°C]
"Purchase Mod," Alex commanded.
[Transaction Complete. -50 EP.]
A small, silver chip materialized on the table next to his civilian "Sky-Eye" drone—a toy he used to use for photography. Alex snapped the chip into the drone's expansion slot. Hummm. The drone's rotors spun up, emitting a high-pitched whine. The plastic casing seemed to shimmer, coated in a faint, translucent energy field provided by the System.
"Let's go fishing."
Alex put on his VR headset. He walked to the defensive gun port, unlocked it, and pushed the drone through.
Whirrrrrr.
The drone shot into the hallway.
Through the VR headset, Alex saw the aftermath of his chemical warfare.
It was an ice cave. The moisture from the tear gas and the humidity from the bodies had flash-frozen instantly when the window shattered. The walls were coated in thick, white rime ice.
And then, there were the statues.
Neighbor 602 lay curled in a fetal position near the elevator, his skin a translucent blue. Neighbor 2304—the man who had killed Madam Li's dog—was frozen upright. He was leaning against the wall, one hand clawing at his throat, the hammer still gripped in his other hand. His open eyes were covered in a film of frost, staring eternally at the ceiling.
"Justice is served cold," Alex commented dryly.
He flew the drone past them. Near the door, embedded in a puddle of frozen slush, something glittered. The Patek Philippe watch. It was frozen solid, trapped in the ice like a prehistoric insect in amber.
"I'll pick that up later," Alex noted. "Gold doesn't rust."
He piloted the drone toward the shattered window at the end of the hall. He hovered there for a second, looking out at the city. It was a graveyard. Cars were buried under ten feet of snow. The streets were empty. No movement. No smoke. Just death.
He turned the drone around and headed for the stairwell.
[Floor 23... Empty.] [Floor 22... Empty.]
As the drone descended, the temperature readout on his HUD began to rise. -60°C... -50°C... -30°C.
The building's core still held some residual heat, and with the lower floors being more sheltered from the wind, they were survivable. Barely.
The stairwell was littered with trash. Suitcases abandoned in panic. A single, frozen shoe. And blood. Dark, frozen streaks of maroon painted the concrete steps, leading downward.
"They didn't just leave," Alex analyzed. "They fought."
[Floor 15... Noise Detected.]
The drone's microphone picked up a low hum. Voices.
Alex dropped the altitude, moving stealthily. He reached the 10th Floor.
The fire door to the 10th-floor hallway was blocked. A barricade had been erected. Sofas, vending machines, and heavy oak doors ripped from apartments were piled high. Behind the gaps, Alex could see the flickering orange glow of a fire.
He maneuvered the drone through a gap near the ceiling, squeezing past a ventilation duct.
The 10th-floor lobby had been turned into a refugee camp. About twenty people were huddled there. They had torn up the carpets to insulate the walls. A fire burned in a metal trash can in the center, fueled by books and floorboards.
The smell—even though the drone couldn't transmit it—must have been horrific. Unwashed bodies, smoke, and fear.
But they weren't chaotic. They were listening.
Standing on a crate near the fire was Johnson.
The "Rich Kid" looked like a wraith. His face was wrapped in bandages, leaving only his eyes and mouth visible. His right hand—the burned one—was heavily taped up. He held a architectural blueprint in his good hand.
"...he thinks he's a god up there," Johnson's voice was raspy, filled with a venomous hate that transcended hunger. "He thinks he can look down on us. Freezing us. Gassing us."
The survivors muttered angrily. They were gaunt, their eyes hollow. They were desperate, and desperate people need a devil to blame. Johnson had given them Alex.
"We can't go up the stairs," Johnson said, pointing to the blueprint. "He blew the window. The 24th floor is a death zone. But..."
He tapped the paper.
"The ventilation shafts. The main trunk line runs from the basement straight to the roof. It passes right behind his kitchen wall."
Alex's eyes narrowed behind his VR headset. Smart.
"We don't need to break in," Johnson hissed. "We just need to pour gasoline down the shaft from the roof, or climb up from here and plant a bomb. We blow his wall. We take his heat."
"But Johnson," a weak voice spoke up from the back. "We don't have explosives. And we are starving. I can't climb. I haven't eaten in two days."
Johnson looked at the dissenter. He didn't get angry. He smiled. It was a smile that made Alex's skin crawl.
"Don't worry," Johnson said softly. "I found a supply."
He gestured to the corner of the room, into the shadows where the firelight barely reached.
"Dave found something... special."
Alex zoomed the drone's camera lens. In the corner, a man was crouching over a dark bundle. The man—Dave—was huge. He used to be the building's gym trainer. But now, his skin looked... wrong. It was grey, rough like granite. His veins bulged against his skin, pulsing with a dark, purplish fluid.
Dave was eating. He held a frozen arm—a human arm—in his hands. He was gnawing on the bone, his jaw unhinging slightly wider than a normal human's should.
Crunch. Snap.
The sound echoed in the quiet room. The other survivors looked away, shivering, but they didn't stop him. They were terrified of him.
Alex's System interface flashed red.
[WARNING: Abnormal Bio-Signature Detected.] [Target: Dave (Neighbor 1004)] [Species: Human (Mutating)] [Classification: Ghoul (Stage 1)] [Cause: Cannibalism + Virus Activation]
Alex felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. The "Global Freeze" wasn't just weather. The virus that came with the cold... it reacted to certain behaviors. Cannibalism accelerated the mutation.
Dave stopped eating. He sensed something. He snapped his head up, looking directly at the gap where the drone was hovering. His eyes were no longer white and brown. They were glowing with a faint, crimson luminescence.
"Meat..." Dave growled. His voice sounded like grinding stones.
Johnson looked at Dave, then followed his gaze to the drone. "He's watching us!" Johnson screamed. "Kill it!"
Dave didn't need to be told twice. He grabbed a piece of debris—a heavy brick—and hurled it with impossible speed.
WHIZ.
Alex yanked the controller back. The brick missed the drone by an inch, shattering against the ceiling.
"Pull back!" Alex ordered himself.
He jammed the throttle. The drone buzzed backward, retreating through the gap just as Dave lunged at the barricade, his claws—claws?—tearing through the wood like paper.
Alex flew the drone up the stairwell, pushing the battery to its limit. He didn't stop until the drone was back on the 24th floor, hovering in the freezing hallway.
He took off the VR headset. His heart was pounding.
"Ghouls," Alex whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Day 3, and we already have Ghouls."
Johnson was planning to blow up his wall. And he had a monster as a pet.
Alex looked at his comfortable apartment. It suddenly felt like a trap. "I can't wait for them to come to me," Alex said, his eyes hardening. "If that thing evolves to Stage 2, it will tear through my steel door."
He stood up and walked to his weapon storage. He picked up the fire axe he had bought earlier. Then he put it down. "Too close."
He opened the System Shop. [EP: 280]
He needed a ranged weapon. A real one.
"System," Alex said. "Show me the Firearms section."
[Locked. Requires Shop Level 2.] [Shop Level 2 Requirement: Harvest 1000 Total EP.] [Current Total: 870/1000]
He was short 130 points. He needed to make Johnson—and his new pet—feel fear. Real fear.
"I need 130 points," Alex muttered. "Time to interact with the neighbors one last time."
He walked to the intercom. He pressed the [All-Building Broadcast] button—a feature he had rewired into the main system during the renovation.
"Attention, residents of Building 4," Alex's voice echoed through every floor, from the penthouse to the basement.
"I have a warning. There is a monster on the 10th floor. And if you don't kill it... it will eat you all."