Chapter 2: 0.5: Maybe die as a salted fish?

In a large room…

 

Bags of junk food lay scattered all around the room. Dirty sofa, oily gaming devices, bags of trash piled in a corner and, a man that hasn't taken a bath in a month sat on the floor with his eyes glued on his computer. He had long hair that reached his neck, a grown beard, acne, and pimples all over his head. If he had cleaned himself up, he would have been pretty decent looking but what a pity…

 

Episode airs in 00:47:09:768

 

“But 47 minutes is too long… What am I supposed to do?”

 

Complaining about the 47 minute wait time for the episode to air, he rolled around on his sofa in frustration only to fall onto the floor. His head hit the floor with a resounding thud and he nearly blacked out. Standing up dizzily, he looked around his dirty room, he felt as if something had slapped him awake. As if possessed, his lazy personality suddenly faded away and he decided to clean up. 

 

…

 

“Much cleaner. Now I just gotta mop and take a bath then I should be all set.”

 

…

 

“Fwoosh! Haha! I’m back. Feel all refreshed. That took an hour, so the episode should be out right?!”

 

He zoomed to the sofa and took a look at his computer. 

 

Welcome back, Azriel

 

November 26 2044, 10:23 P.M.

 

COTE Season 5 Episode 1 now playing

 

“Hell yeah!”

 

*Meow*

 

“Oh Mi-Hu, you back?”

 

Seeing Mi-Hu all bloodied, Azriel let out a sigh and took her to bathe. It was a common occurrence and Azriel was very used to seeing it. Bringing her to the shower, he gently rinsed away the dried blood and flesh. Azriel then washed her with cat shampoo and viola, she’s all clean. Mi-Hu dried herself with a towel while Azriel left for the kitchen.

 

In the kitchen, Azriel opened the fridge and took out a piece of salmon and pan fried it. He then took out a plate from the cupboard, placed the salmon on it, and set the plate on the table. Mi-Hu came out and jumped onto the table and started eating the fish. 

 

“Man, every week. Can’t you chill out and relax? You always come home bloodied. Thank goodness I learned first aid from the vet after the 3rd time you did this. I bet I could be a professional cat vet after taking care of you so long. Tsk, tsk tsk.”

 

Mi-Hu rolled her eyes and went back to eating. 

 

Azriel first met Mi-Hu when he was planning to retire. As he walked towards his new home, a ‘basement house’ that he bought on EBay for several hundred thousand dollars, Azriel saw Mi-Hu in a dumpster so he picked her up. He always wanted a cat but kept forgetting to get one so when he saw Mi-Hu, he instantly took her in. When Azriel cleaned her, he was moved by her beauty. After cleaning her, he went to the vet to get her checked out for diseases and vaccination, he found that Mi-Hu was a weird cat. 

 

That cat didn’t fear anything. She took on every challenge with courage. When the doctor inserted the needle, the cat just looked at it with interest and then went back to sleep. She came back every 3 days with injuries everywhere. It took Azriel a few days of silent stalking to find out that Mi-Hu has been picking fights with groups of stray cats by herself. It was almost like a martial artist challenging others to prove that they are the best. 

 

That was not that weird in Azriel’s opinion but what was much more weird was that that cat seemed to be super intelligent. It easily understands human language and what the human wants, it shows clear emotions, and knows how to ask for what she wants.

 

Azriel shook his head and watched anime as he ate a granola bar.

 

…

 

Beep beep, beep beep.

 

“Hmmm? Ah, I must have fallen asleep. I really should control myself. If this continues, I bet I won’t live past 60.”

 

Azriel looked at his alarm clock. November 27, 2044 10:00 A.M. He looked around the room and found Mi-Hu sleeping on her bed. Feeling hungry, Azriel went to cook breakfast for himself and setted the table. He turned on the news. 

 

Breaking news! 

 

Doctors have found that cancer patients have shot up and there are hundreds of thousands of patients lining up for chemo. The cause is unknown and doctors and scientists have both agreed that there might be some unknown virus that is causing this. It is advised that you should prepare food and water so you don’t have to go out and be infected. 

 

We have already sent samples to be tested and results should be coming in soon. 

 

…

 

Great news! We got our test results. Terrible news! According to the data, scientists found a new virus that they believe caused this cancer outbreak. This virus causes your cells to madly duplicate. The scientists also have found out that this virus is very complex and it might take years with dedicated work to even start deciphering it. 

 

“Wut da fuk?”

 

Swallowing the food in his mouth, Azriel ran outside to hurriedly buy non-perishable food. He unlocked his bike and zoomed to the nearest supermarket. 

 

You are reading story Former Neet VS Apocalyptic World at novel35.com

Upon arriving, there was a chaotic mess. People were pushing each other, carts were filled with canned goods and other items. Heck, someone even stabbed another person. They didn’t even pay before they left. Seeing this, Azriel was sure he was going to get butchered if he tried to compete with them so he went to the area where they sold knives and grabbed a bunch. He then went out to find a good target to rob. 

 

Azriel wasn’t a good person. He always thought for himself and put himself first. His mom advises him to do good things and bring good karma to himself but he never believes in that crap. By doing good, his mom was scammed out of several million dollars and killed herself because of debt. His father was a son of a bitch and never cared for his family. 

 

At work, when the superintendent threatened to fire everyone if the person who made the mistake didn’t want to admit it, Azriel snitched and everyone in the department blamed him because the person that made the mistake was a social demon and made the entire department his friend except Azriel. And so after the incident, Azriel was forced to resign because of harassment. But through some unconventional and illegal means, he was able to earn several million dollars leading him to the life he is living today.

 

Azriel stood in front of a large cargo van and waited for the person to come out with the goods. It didn’t take him long to see a family of 3 with loaded shopping carts.

 

“Fuck, hurry it up and shove these things inside! I don’t want us to get infected…”

 

The man was cursing and rushing his family when he saw Azriel. He suddenly grew quiet and his family turned to see Azriel standing there with 2 butcher knives and some kitchen knives on his belt smiling at them. The family froze then smiled a smile that wasn’t smiling. However, they continued on to load the canned goods into the car. 

 

“Now ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for doing this to you but I gotta do what I need to do to live. Oh but fret not, I’ll give you these knives so you can do the same. Now hurry it up and load the goods or else you will get stabbed.” 

 

The family could only helplessly nod. In a few minutes, the van was packed full of food and miscellaneous items. Azriel nodded in satisfaction and boarded the van and drove away. When the van was far enough, he tossed his knives to the family and shouted, “These knives cost me a lot! Take care and see you never, suckas!”

 

When Azriel reached his basement house, he hurriedly unloaded the goods. This took him a few hours and he sighed in relief. Azriel shut and locked the doors. In his room, he saw Mi-Hu sitting on the couch and continued on watching the news. 

 

“Mi-Hu oh Mi-Hu. You shouldn’t go out these days you know? Only God knows whether or not we’d be safe.”

 

Mi-Hu nodded and pointed towards the kitchen. Azriel smacked his head and cursed himself for his forgetfulness. He quickly cooked Mi-Hu’s fish and himself some breakfast. They then both sat down and continued on watching the news. 

 

It has been a few hours since we last reported on this pandemic. Chemotherapy seems to have no effect on this type of cancer and all our treatments are rendered useless. The WHO has declared this to be a world emergency and has allowed human experiments. In these experiments, we have found that each patient has grown several inches in height and became healthier. Could this pandemic instead be a miracle that can help cure sickness? More research is needed to further confirm that theory. We’ll see you next time on WTF News.

 

“Glad this is not of my concern. I have enough provisions for the both of us for a few years. Hopefully, everything will be resolved by then.”

 

Azriel stroked Mi-Hu’s head and she purred. He then sighed and went onto MeTube. MeTube was flooded with news on the pandemic and interviews with politicians, doctors, and scientists. He ignored those and went on to watch some gaming videos. Azriel and Mi-hu spend their day like this. 

 

…

 

November 28th 2044, 10:00 A.M.

 

Welcome back onto WTF News. Reporting back on the pandemic, researchers have found that due to the multiplying of the cells, for some unknown reason, it is causing brain death. Over one million people have already died and more and more people are getting affected. However, the good news is that this virus doesn’t last long when it doesn’t connect to a host. Researchers have found that the virus will die after 38 hours if left alone out in the open. That’s all we have for today on WTF News.

 

…

 

November 30th 2044, 6:39 A.M

 

Wheeeeeeew… Boooom! Rumble… Rumble…

 

Azriel's basement suddenly started to shake. Shocked, Azriel jumped out of bed wide awake and Mi-Hu was also looking confused. Because this sound sounded like a missile or a nuclear bomb, Azriel didn’t dare go out and opened the news to check out what happened. 

 

Welcome back to WTF News, today we are bringing you news about the virus. 

 

The news lady then disappeared and a scene of a group of researchers was crowding a patient taking blood samples and injecting things into him. One of them looked at the heart monitor and shook his head indicating that the patient had died. They then dissected him to see if there were any changes to his organ. After 3 hours, the patient’s hand started to twitch and he came back to life. The researchers were confused but then something shocking happened. 

 

The patient stood up, with his organs dangling, gripped the throat of one of the researchers and bit him on the neck. That researcher immediately died. The other researchers ran and the bodyguards outside shot their guns at the patient. The bullets hit the head and the heart but the patient was still going. If only after a bitter fight did the zombified patient finally die. 

 

As you can see, this virus seems to have started creating zombies. The SDF have sent squads after squads but these zombies are starting to get exceptionally tough. After a day of fighting, the total casualty worldwide was 1 billion. The world leaders have agreed to nuke some place with the most zombies. We are just getting reports back on the results of the nuke. It seems that the nuke killed a lot of zombies but the radiation is having no effects on them. 

 

“Jesus fucking Christ… What in the world?”

 

Meow meow meow? 

 

Azriel looked at Mi-Hu with disdain. Mi-Hu got angry and jumped on Azriel’s face. The 2 struggled and after a while, they both broke apart panting. They then went back to the news.

 

It is recommended for people to move to a nuclear shelter as the world leaders have decided to spend their entire missile arsenal to bomb the infected place. If you are infected, please don’t bring the rest of the world down.

 

“Bullshit. You think these people are going to listen? There is always that one guy who pretends he is not infected and then kills the entire group. Standard procedure.”

 

Azriel had guessed right. After a few days, a nuclear shelter was fully infested with zombies because there was that one guy who believed his immune system was strong enough to counter the virus. 

 

Azriel was stuck in his basement house. After a few years, when the food ran out, he needed to go out and get more food. However, with zombies everywhere, he can’t win a fight, over run, nor outlast them. He might as well sit here and wait for death after food is consumed right? Dying as a salted fish doesn't seem bad. At least there wouldn't be that much regret. If he did try to live on, he was just a pathetic weakingly who couldn’t even lift much weight meaning he'd get killed by the zombies pretty easily right? As Azriel looked over his room, his eyes landed on some body training items left in the corner. 

 

‘No! I can’t let my life be in vain! Isn’t this type of situation something I have daydreamed about for a few years of my life in high school? Now that this happened, how could I ever give up without fighting against one of those shitty meat heads?’

 

The longer he stared at them, the more he remembered his past. With determination burning in his eyes, Azriel decided he would train himself for a year and see the situation from that point on.