Chapter 2

"Let me in! I'll pick it myself!"

Auntie Martha's bloated, massive frame squeezed heavily into the narrow gap like a battering ram, her foot in floral cotton slippers wedging itself firmly against the doorframe.

I broke out in a cold sweat.

To hide the mutation, I had intentionally put on heavy-duty work gloves. But if I let her force her way inside and see my half-ashy face, it would be all over!

"Stop pushing! This is my house, get out!" I lowered my rough, mutated voice, desperately trying to shut the door.

"You've got some nerve! A spineless coward who can even stomach being cuckolded dares to push me?!" Instead of retreating, she erupted with sheer brute force.

Her two thick hands clamped onto my arm like a vise, sharp nails wildly scratching as she tried to drag me away.

Riiip!

In the chaos, she violently snatched my work glove and yanked backward.

The glove came off.

The pale, sickly glow of the hallway sensor light instantly illuminated my grotesque left hand—drained of blood and covered in black, swollen veins.

Worst of all were the fingernails, mutated into sharp, black, bone-like talons. They radiated a spine-chilling aura in the air.

The shoving abruptly stopped.

The arrogance on Auntie Martha's face instantly froze. Her pupils violently contracted as she stared fixedly at my hand. A second later, she let out an ear-piercing, bloodcurdling scream:

"AHHHHHH——!! MONSTER! You've been bitten! You're one of those flesh-eating monsters!"

She stumbled backward as if electrocuted, pointing fiercely at my face while screaming herself hoarse. "Everyone, come out! Ray on the twelfth floor is infected! David! David, bring people up here and kill him right now! He's going to eat us!!"

That voice nearly shattered the dead silence of the entire building.

"David." "Kill him." Those words pierced through my reason like needles.

Extreme panic completely drowned me.

I couldn't let her keep screaming! If the others rushed up here with steel pipes, I was dead meat!

"Shut up!!"

Acting purely on instinct, my left hand violently shot through the gap in the door, shoving hard against her shoulder.

I solely wanted to push her away so I could engage the deadbolts!

But I forgot that I was rapidly turning into an inhuman monster.

SNAP!

A sickening, bone-crunching sound echoed out.

I felt absolutely zero resistance. With just that casual push, Auntie Martha's 180-pound heavy frame was lifted entirely off the ground, like a kite with a snapped string!

CRASH——!

She flew backward a full ten feet, her back slamming so brutally against the white wall opposite my door that the old flaking paint rained down like snow.

She slid to the floor, her right shoulder grotesquely caved in, in so much pain she couldn't even manage a whimper.

I stood frozen behind my door, staring at my ashen left hand, my mind completely blank.

Did... did I do this? I actually sent a heavy woman flying with a single-handed shove?!

However, I wasn't given any time to stand there in shock.

Martha's previous wails, which had practically vibrated through the floorboards, had already drawn out a grim reaper lurking in the darkness.

"Roar..."

Accompanied by a heavy, guttural growl, a dark shadow lunged fiercely from the stairwell landing between the twelfth and thirteenth floors.

It was a zombie covered head-to-toe in blood! It cleared the hallway in an incredibly frantic, savage posture, pouncing directly onto Auntie Martha, who was just barely catching her breath.

"Help—"

Martha's eyes widened in sheer terror, but the moment just a single syllable of her cry for help escaped, the zombie viciously ripped her throat out with its teeth.

Squelch.

Thick, crimson blood sprayed across the wall.

"Auntie Martha!"

Twenty-some years of deep-rooted human morality and instinct caused me to blurt out her name in the heat of the moment. I even took a subconscious half-step forward, reaching out my hand to save her.

But it was far too late.

A terrifying, bloody hole had been torn in her neck. Her body convulsed violently twice before her gaze completely glassed over. She was dead.

Hearing my voice, the zombie—which had been viciously feasting on the corpse—suddenly stopped its movements.

It jerked its head up. That horrifying face, hanging with shreds of flesh, turned toward me. Murky, white-filmed eyes locked onto mine.

My body went completely rigid. My heart felt like it stopped. My palms clenched the handle of the machete in a death grip, preparing for a fight to the death.

But then, something bizarre happened.

The zombie twitched its mangled nose, intensely sniffing the air twice.

It looked at my gray, ashen skin. It looked at my mutated, black talons.

And then, the manic frenzy in its eyes miraculously subsided.

It didn't even bare its teeth at me. It simply gave me a cold, indifferent glance, turned its head back around, and resumed devouring Auntie Martha's corpse.

It... treated me as one of its own? Even though I still retained my human consciousness?!

The realization plunged me into an ice cellar.

Gritting my teeth, I backed up continuously and slammed the heavy security door shut with a loud BANG.

Click. Click. Click.

Like a madman, I engaged every single deadbolt, then slid down the door panel, collapsing on the floor, completely drained of energy.

"I killed someone... I got Auntie Martha killed..."

The bone-chilling sounds of chewing drifted in from outside the door.

I trembled violently, pulling my hands agonizingly through my hair.

Even though the zombie was the one that bit her to death, if I hadn't used that monstrous strength to send her flying, she probably could have run back into her own apartment.

I was a murderer!

Extreme guilt and remorse gnawed at my heart like venomous snakes, and tears uncontrollably spilled from my eyes.

But just a few seconds later, another sharp voice abruptly rang out in my mind:

"No! It's not my fault! She forced her way in! She was a bloodsucking leech trying to rob me of my supplies!"

I jerked my head up, my breathing slowly growing heavy and ragged. "If she hadn't bitten the hand that fed her, if she hadn't started screaming in the hallway trying to draw David up here to kill me, why would I have pushed her? If she had succeeded in getting those men up here, my door would have been pried open. The one dying out there being ripped to shreds right now would be ME!"

In this cruel apocalypse, she wanted to step on me to survive. Why the hell shouldn't I fight back?!

I slowly lowered my head, staring blankly at my mutated left hand.

The tactile sensation of shoving her was still fresh in my palm.

That sudden burst of monstrous strength... that fleeting sensation of easily holding another's fate in my hands...

For so long, I had been oppressed like a dog by my bosses; cuckolded by Jessica, the woman I deeply loved; shoved into a horde of zombies by my so-called "best bro" Brad; and even a shameless old hag like Martha dared to block my door in broad daylight, point her finger at my nose, and curse at me.

I played the nice guy for over twenty years, and all I got in return was betrayal, humiliation, and nearly losing my life!

But now?

I gently flexed my ashen fingers, admiring the sharp, bone-like barbs.

My knuckles popped crisply. That surging power—enough to tear steel apart with my bare hands—was still pumping wildly through my veins.

I actually felt... a tiny sliver of... dark satisfaction.

It was the ultimate, thrilling catharsis of flipping over people who used to ride on my head and act like tyrants—something I had never experienced in my two decades of life!

I was no longer that weak, single loser whom anyone could squeeze and flatten at will.

Whoever wanted me dead, I could end them first!

"Heh... hehe..."

A sickly, twisted smile surfaced on the corner of my lips. But in the next second, when I saw my reflection clearly in the mirror finish of the door, that smile instantly froze.

I drew in a sharp, horrified breath of cold air.

The face in the mirror was covered in a deathly, ashy pallor. There was no longer a single trace of reverence for human life in its eyes—only fanatical violence and brutality.

I frantically touched my own face, a deep, pervasive terror enveloping me once more.

Turning into a monster... gaining power... that wasn't what was scary.

What truly made my blood run cold was the realization that... regarding the fact that I was slowly mutating into a cruel, bloodthirsty, and remorseless monster...

Deep down in my soul, I actually didn't mind it all that much!