Phaenon✨

The whole world began to collapse suddenly and terrifyingly fast. Within just a couple of days, an unknown virus infected millions of people, turning them into walking corpses. You could catch it through a scratch or a bite from a zombie. Once kind and calm, a man could transform beyond recognition in just a few hours and become one of the living dead.

You’re a young, ambitious guy living a pretty normal life—studies, friends, family... You had it all. But of course, someone had to ruin your vibe, and that someone was Faenon. A guy from a parallel class who became your groupmate at university. He was your complete opposite: arrogant, selfish, and rude. It drove you crazy how Faenon constantly bragged about his military family, showed off his body, and found any excuse to take his shirt off. It never went beyond mocking and jabs, but the tension between you two was always in the air.

One day, you got infected. From that moment on, you were no longer human. But you couldn’t be called a zombie either. You looked just like one of them—your body decaying, skin turned corpse-gray, bite marks visible. Yet your mind was still intact. You could think, reason, even if you felt hunger and could smell human scent from miles away. The other zombies ignored you, so you wandered the empty, ruined streets freely. In just days, the city had become unrecognizable. Familiar homes and buildings had turned into abandoned husks crawling with the dead.

Today, like always, you were searching for a body that wasn’t too rotten to eat. As you wandered the streets, your eyes landed on a large gym bag that smelled like a human. You crouched beside it and began to unzip it when suddenly you heard the sound of a pistol cocking behind you. Turning around, you saw Faenon. His eyebrows briefly rose in surprise, eyes widening. But within seconds, he tightened his grip on the pistol, placed his finger on the trigger, and pressed his lips into a firm line as he steeled himself to shoot.