Chapter 1: Ethan Friend Zone

“Sorry, Ethan. You’re a nice guy but… I think we should just remain friends.”

Anna’s words hit him harder than any punch could. His childhood friend, the girl he had grown up with and secretly loved for years, had rejected him once again.

After all his effort, after all his hopes, this was officially the thirtieth time she had turned him down.

Thirty!

Ethan stood frozen, his lips parting, but no words came out. His chest felt hollow.

She had said it so casually, like it didn’t even matter.

“Friends, huh,” he muttered, forcing a laugh that sounded far more broken than he intended.

“Yeah. Sure. Just friends.”

Anna shifted awkwardly as she made sure her eyes avoided his. “I hope you understand. You really are a good guy.”

“Yeah,” Ethan said again, his voice flat. “I get it.”

At that point, he couldn’t hold the pain anymore as he turned and walked away before she could see the anger boiling behind his eyes.

He noticed the chuckles from different sides as many laughed mockingly while he walked by.

They couldn’t be any more convinced that he had been rejected again, as the usual story of Anna constantly rejecting him was no new thing on campus.

He already even had the nickname “Ethan Friend Zone.” Always with the campus belle but never even getting a taste of her lips yet.

That was crazy.

By the time he reached his dorm room, his frustration was spilling over.

He slammed the door shut furiously, breathing hard, and in the next moment, his gaze landed on the paper on his desk, where he had scribbled new lines, ideas, and strategies to finally win Anna to himself.

With a sharp grab, he ripped it in half, then again and again, until scraps of paper rained onto the floor.

“Pathetic,” he spat. “All of it!”

He had spent days and nights going through YouTube videos and learning the best lines to hook hard girls like Anna. He had even dedicated hours with ChatGPT and sometimes DeepSeek just to get the best hit.

However, all of them had ended up in failure… rejections after rejections, and at this point, Ethan had made up his mind that he wouldn’t make any effort again.

“I’m sick and tired of all this! I want to die!”

He figured maybe he wasn’t handsome enough. Maybe it was because he was broke.

Or maybe he was just cursed.

Because it wasn’t just Anna… Every girl he had ever asked out had ended up rejecting him.

Every. Single. One.

He threw himself onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“That’s it. I’m done. No more confessions. No more trying. No more girls.” His voice cracked with bitter laughter. “I’ll die alone, and that’s fine…”

“Whatever!”

He grabbed the blanket and attempted to rest. After all, there was nothing he was supposed to be doing at this moment.

The students were having a joint party at the hall tonight, and it was only for the girlfriends and boyfriends.

He clearly didn’t have a place there, so he’d just sleep early today and get ready to leave first thing tomorrow morning for his hometown in Atlanta since it was already holiday.

“ARGHHHHHH!”

But then…

A scream pierced the air outside his window. A scream that could be clearly regarded as strange.

Ethan shot upright. “What the hell?”

Another scream followed. Then another. Dozens, overlapping in a chorus of panic.

Ethan froze as his eyes widened, his heart pounding.

He quickly ran to the window without a second thought, and what he saw—

What he saw made his blood freeze.

The campus lawn was chaos.

Students ran in every direction, the students from the party surely, shoving, falling, scrambling for safety.

Shadows dashed across the ground, and then Ethan had to look up.

There above, something was flying overhead. Something monstrous. Its wings stretched wide, black and ragged, its claws sharp as knives.

Before Ethan could process it, the creature swooped down.

“KEVIN!”

A girl screamed hard from nowhere, and then there was Kevin, the deputy school rep, who was running with every bit of strength he had. But his pace was surprisingly too slow, as the monster grabbed him and tore through his body like paper.

Blood sprayed across the grass, right there as Kevin was spotted dead at that instant.

Upon seeing this, students shrieked and scattered.

Ethan staggered back from the window, his stomach clenching in awe and fear.

But the nightmare wasn’t done.

The winged monsters chased after other students as they began to run helter-skelter while screams enveloped the entire campus.

It turned out that it wasn’t just one monster. There were dozens of them, too fast and too brutal, leaving no second wasted before pouncing on their prey.

No one was getting a chance to escape!

Ethan watched it all, frightened and dumbfounded.

He had just seen the most shocking event of his life, something no one would even dream of.

And it wasn’t even done yet.

He flinched as he noticed something move on the other side.

Turning quickly, he spotted Kevin’s body twitching.

“No… No way.”

Ethan’s eyes widened.

The corpse jerked unnaturally as his bones cracked and his limbs straightened. Slowly, Kevin stood again. This time his eyes blank, his jaw slack, his body swaying like a puppet with cut strings.

“Look! He… He’s still alive!” one of the students from a different dormitory building shouted.

“No…” Ethan whispered, his voice trembling. His chest tightened as dread slashed in.

“That’s not alive…”

At that moment, a group of students ran by, all running for their lives.

“Rarrrr…!”

Ethan watched as Kevin staggered towards them with a wild groan, jamming his teeth and stretching his arms towards them like he had a clear attacking intent.

It looked so obvious, and the students didn’t dare to halt. They all ran for their lives, switching directions as the flying monsters attacked.

Unfortunately, Kevin happened to get a hold on one of the girls, as he immediately pounced on her.

“Rarrrr…!”

“Help! Help me!”

“Somebody help!”

The girl screamed for help, but no one came around. The students were running everywhere, hustling for their own survival.

No one thought about helping at that point.

Not even Ethan, who was beginning to doubt that he was safe inside the dorm room. He was just there watching.

After pouncing on her, Kevin threw his face at her and sunk his teeth into her neck. The next thing Ethan saw was Kevin drawing her flesh with his teeth after giving a hard bite.

Blood spilled from her neck, and with several continuous bites, it was already getting ugly.

The next thing he noticed was that the girl was dead, but then just like it had happened to Kevin, she reanimated and started staggering around, giving the same wild groan as Kevin.

At some point, it wasn’t only them.

All the students that had been killed by the flying monsters had reanimated into something scary, staggering and gnashing their teeth with the strong urge to bite, tear, and gnaw flesh.

It was at that moment Ethan realized, his mouth agape.

“What the…” he whispered.

“Zombies?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep