Day Five of the Apocalypse.

More than half the zombies had evolved into Tier 1. The number of Tier 2s was climbing fast.

Their destructive power had skyrocketed. Standard dorm doors—once enough to keep the monsters out—were now little more than cardboard. For the survivors, the world had grown even smaller, even crueler.

On the surface, it looked like the odds of getting a crystal core had gone up. In reality, it had only gotten harder.

Any random horde now had a majority of Tier 1 zombies. Most survivor teams couldn't handle that kind of firepower.

And then came the real gut punch.

On Day Five, the cell signal died.

No warning. No explanation. Just gone.

No one knew if it was just Starlight City or the whole damn country. But here, at least, the silence was absolute.

No more news. No more texts. No more calls to check if your mom was still alive or if your best friend had made it out. Even the illusion of connection was gone.

Despair, already thick in the air, turned suffocating.

Food shortages worsened. And with the signal gone, the last threads of order began to snap. The darker parts of human nature—fear, greed, hunger—started to bloom like mold in a sealed room.

Some people, too scared to fight zombies, started eyeing the living instead.

Others, newly empowered by crystal cores, began to feel invincible. And when power grows, so does desire.

Inside the main dining hall.

The moment the signal vanished, the tension inside the dining hall finally boiled over.

Students snapped.

They were done sipping watery soup and choking down thin gruel. They wanted real food. They wanted to eat until they were full.

They stormed the kitchen, fists flying, voices raised. Fights broke out over cans of beans and half-loaves of bread.

In that moment, titles meant nothing. Teachers, campus police, even the Dean of Students—no one held authority anymore.

The dining hall descended into chaos.

The Dean stood off to the side, watching the scene unfold with a heavy sigh. He knew exactly where this was heading.

Extinction.

And he also knew there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Outside, the zombies still swarmed. Stronger than ever. Hungrier than ever. And with each passing hour, the odds of escape shrank.

If no rescue came, the dining hall would become their tomb.

All the Dean could do now was pray.

Elsewhere on campus…

The number of zombie-hunting teams had dropped from over a dozen to just four.

The rest? Wiped out yesterday.

The survivors were the strongest of the strong.

One team was the Exercise Science crew Ethan had run into the day before. Their numbers had grown from twenty-something to over thirty. Nearly twenty of them were now Tier 1 Awakened.

Another team came from the Taekwondo club—twenty-plus fighters, most of them already Tier 1.

The third was a surprise: a group led entirely by girls. They had the largest numbers—close to eighty—and a solid chunk of them had reached Tier 1 as well.

The last team was Sean's.

The Bates West crew.

Sean and his guys had been among the first—besides Ethan's group—to learn about crystal cores. They were also some of the first to actually kill zombies.

Back when Ethan had brought them to the convenience store, they'd eaten their fill. Afterward, Sean, Big Mike, and a few others with weapons and guts had gone back out to hunt.

That first run, they'd taken down two mutated zombies. Sean and Big Mike had both hit Tier 1.

The next day, when the authorities finally announced the truth about crystal cores, the rest of Bates West latched onto Sean like he was their last lifeline. And just like that, his team was born.

Now, all four teams were crouched in corners, weapons ready, waiting for zombies to come to them.

They'd learned the hard way: roaming around was suicide.

Now, they waited in silence, letting the monsters come to them.

Elsewhere…

Inside Patterson Hall, the grind continued.

Ethan, Chris, and Henry held the stairwell like a fortress, cutting down zombies with brutal efficiency. With the three of them stationed at the choke point, even Tier 2 zombies didn't stand a chance of breaking through.

Meanwhile, Grace and the other girls had become surprisingly adept at corpse duty. What had once made them gag now barely earned a flinch. They moved with practiced rhythm, dragging bodies into empty dorm rooms like it was just another Tuesday.

None of them had ever imagined they'd be doing something like this. Not in their worst nightmares.

But now? They didn't just endure it—they embraced it.

Because, as Grace had said, this was their shot.

Ethan, Chris, and Henry were monsters in their own right—just not the undead kind. The girls had watched them tear through zombies like they were made of paper. Even the terrifying ones, the ones that used to send people screaming, barely slowed them down.

With guys like that, who needed luck?

In just a few hours, they'd already racked up over two hundred kills.

And among those corpses, more than a few had crystal cores.

What the girls didn't know was that over half of the bodies they'd been hauling were carrying those precious cores. Ethan hadn't said a word.

"Hmm? Big one incoming," Ethan said suddenly, eyes narrowing.

"Tier 2?" Chris asked, already shifting his grip on the barbell bar.

"Yep."

"Let's wreck it."

A heavyset female zombie shoved her way through the crowd, her bloated frame barreling toward them like a freight train.

She didn't make it two steps up the stairs.

Three barbell bars came down in perfect sync, smashing into her skull with a sickening crunch.

Thud.

Her head split like a melon. She dropped without a sound.

Ethan dragged the body up and knelt beside it, fingers moving with practiced ease. A moment later, he pulled a crystal core from her cracked skull—larger than the usual ones, glowing faintly.

He wiped it on his shirt and popped it into his mouth without hesitation.

They'd already agreed: Ethan would take priority on all Tier 2 cores until they stopped working on him. Only then would Chris and Henry start getting them. No need to ask.

The girls watched, wide-eyed. It was the first time they'd seen him extract a core.

They'd seen him kill dozens of zombies, but never once had he taken anything from the bodies—until now.

And this one… this one was different.

The core was noticeably larger than the ones they'd seen online. Their eyes darted between each other, realization dawning.

"A Tier 2 crystal core…" one of them whispered.

As the energy surged through Ethan's body, he felt it settle deep in his muscles, fusing with his bones. He clenched his fists, testing the new strength.

He was pushing 800 pounds of raw force now.

"Nice," he muttered with a grin, then turned back to the stairs. More zombies were coming.

They kept at it until just past 1 p.m., when exhaustion finally caught up with them. Muscles burned. Stomachs growled.

"Alright, stop moving bodies. Block the stairs and take a break," Ethan said.

"Got it."

The girls dropped what they were doing without complaint.

Soon, the stairwell was jammed with corpses again, forming a grotesque barricade. Ethan, Chris, and Henry slumped to the floor, breathing hard.

"Man… these barbell bars hit like a truck, but damn, they're heavy," Henry panted, wiping sweat from his brow.

"Tell me about it. My arms feel like noodles," Chris groaned.

"You'll get used to it," Ethan said with a chuckle. He looked barely winded.

That was the difference Tier 2 made.

Chris leaned over and whispered, "Ethan, think we can ask them to bring us something to eat? I'm starving."

They hadn't eaten since yesterday afternoon. If they'd been resting, maybe they could've gone longer. But they'd been fighting nonstop. Their bodies were screaming for fuel.

Ethan nodded, then turned to the girls. "You got any food? Can you bring us something?"

One of the girls opened her mouth to say no, but Grace quickly stepped in, pulling her back with a smile. "We do. We'll go grab it for you."

Without waiting for a reply, she herded the others upstairs.

Chris watched them go, then smirked. "That Grace chick's sharp."

Ethan nodded. "Yeah. She knows how to read the room."

…

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