CHAPTER 75: WAKING UP

"Argh..." Riku groaned as he felt his body trembling in pain. He fluttered his eyes open. At first, everything was a blur—swirling light, fractured shapes—but seconds later, the haze cleared, and reality came crashing in.

The Rezvani was wrecked.

Smoke hissed from the crumpled hood, curling upward through shattered glass. The dashboard was split, spiderweb cracks ran across the windshield, and the passenger side door had caved in where the truck had slammed them broadside. Blood dripped down his forehead, stinging his eye before sliding off his cheek.

Every breath burned his ribs. Every twitch of his fingers felt like lifting boulders. His seatbelt had locked him in place, digging deep into his chest. He forced a hand to the buckle, fingers trembling until it finally clicked free.

"Damn it..." His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.

Riku slumped forward, bracing on the steering wheel. The world outside wasn’t quiet, far from it. Groans rose like a storm. Snarls. The unmistakable dragging shuffle of countless feet.

Zombies.

The ammunition crates and the weapons were all over the place, scattered like spilled bones across the crushed interior. Magazines rattled under the pedals, rifles wedged between the console and the seats. The impact had turned the Rezvani’s cabin into a coffin stuffed with steel and gunpowder.

Riku blinked, dazed, trying to focus. His fingers brushed against the stock of a M4 wedged at his side. He clenched it weakly, dragging it free.

"Shit...I better store them inside my inventory," Riku said, extending his hand towards the crates and a magic circle appeared, sucking every item inside his inventory.

After that, he checked his wristwatch, it was already five-thirty in the afternoon. He was unconscious for like six hours. Then he remembered. His classmates, his little sister, the camp!

He looked for his walkie-talkie.

The device lay cracked on the floorboard. Its plastic casing was scuffed, the antenna bent at an angle. Riku snatched it up, his bloody fingers fumbling over the dial.

He pressed the button. "Hana? Suzune? Miko? Ichika? Do you copy?!"

Static.

He twisted the channel knob, desperation lacing every movement. "Anyone! Anyone—respond!"

More static, a hollow hiss that mocked him.

Riku’s jaw clenched. Six hours. That was more than enough time for those bastards to tear through the supermarket and drag his people away. The memory of Hana’s panicked cries replayed in his head, sharper than the pain in his ribs. Gunfire. Screams. Then silence.

"Shit..." he growled, slamming the walkie against the dash. "Those bastards...they must have taken them."

The sound carried.

THUD!

Riku flinched as the Rezvani jolted. Something had slammed into the passenger side. Then another impact rattled the rear door. The groans grew louder, overlapping into a hungry chorus that rattled his already-pounding head.

He turned his gaze to the cracked windshield.

Pale hands smeared across the glass, nails dragging streaks through the grime and blood. A face pressed against it—a zombie, skin sagging, teeth snapping against the laminate. Another climbed onto the hood, thumping with dead weight as it clawed at the fractured surface.

They were surrounding him.

Riku’s pulse spiked. He shoved the walkie into his vest and grabbed a M4 from the wreckage at his side. The rifle’s polymer stock was cracked, but the action still clicked sharp when he racked it.

The Rezvani groaned as more weight pressed against it. Shadows swayed outside the shattered side windows—dozens of them, maybe more, drawn by the crash and the stench of spilled blood.

"Not good..."

The driver’s door was jammed halfway, frame twisted from the crash. He shoved his shoulder against it once, twice, until the metal screamed and bent outward. The gap was barely wide enough, but it was all he had.

He squeezed through, boots hitting asphalt.

But the groans snapped him back.

The nearest zombie staggered around the hood, its jaw hanging by a strip of sinew, drool sliding down its chin. Its cloudy eyes fixed on him instantly. It hissed, lurching forward.

Riku snapped the M4 to his shoulder. BRRT! A burst spat fire, the rounds tearing through its skull and dropping it flat.

But the gunfire was a beacon. Groans doubled, tripled, and suddenly they were coming from every direction. From the alley, from shattered storefronts, from the broken husks of cars lining the street. Shadows spilled out of doorways, their snarls echoing.

"Perfect. Just perfect."

Riku gritted his teeth and pulled up his interface.

[Inventory]

Options shimmered before his bloodied vision. His thumb hovered over the M249.Heavy. Loud. A meat grinder in the right hands. But he only had so much strength left in his battered ribs. If he hauled it out here, he’d risk drawing more zombies. However, the only guns that would effectively clear an entire horde of zombies was the M249.

He decided.

He materialized the M249 into his hands with a shimmer of light, the heavy machine gun dropping solidly into his grip. Its weight almost buckled his arms at first—his ribs screamed in protest—but he gritted his teeth and braced the bipod against the crumpled hood of the Rezvani.

"Alright, you undead bastards... let’s dance."

He slammed the ammo belt into place, yanked the charging handle, and the beast was ready.

The first wave rounded the corner, twenty... no, thirty of them, their rotting forms stumbling into the intersection. Riku squeezed the trigger.

BRRRRRRRRRRRT!

The M249 roared, spitting fire and brass. The street erupted in a storm of lead, zombies tearing apart in sprays of gore and shredded flesh. Heads burst like melons, torsos snapped in half, limbs flew. The sheer volume of fire carved a trench straight through the horde.

More poured in from the alleys, clawing over the corpses of the fallen. Riku shifted his aim, sweeping the machine gun like a scythe. The ground became a carpet of twitching bodies, blood soaking into cracked asphalt.

He screamed through clenched teeth, every pull of the trigger rattling his cracked ribs, but he didn’t let go. He couldn’t. Not when Hana’s face burned in his mind.

The M249’s barrel smoked, glowing faintly red, the stench of gunpowder choking the air. Dozens of corpses littered the street now, the horde thinned but still snarling, still coming.

Riku lifted the smoking weapon, chest heaving. "I’ll cut you all down... every last one of you."