Chapter 2: And the Dead Shall Rise

Damien was adamant about bringing everyone with us. Even those who were clearly dead and so they were forced to carry the bodies of their deceased classmates. I, for one, was against this, so I moved to help the girl who was blinded. The scent of death was overwhelming for my overly sensitive nose, even at this stage of decomposition. That’s why I didn’t want to help any classmate who were already dead.

“Let me help you,” I said, putting the girl’s arm around my shoulder and holding her up by the waist.

“T-Thank you,” she said, her voice still trembling from the shock of the situation. “Who are you?”

I thought she would recognize me by my voice, but she didn’t.

“It’s me, Liam. I sit beside you during homeroom class.”

“It is! I mean, you are,” her face lit up briefly but she quickly regained her composure. “Ahem, I mean thank you for helping me,” she bowed. “Can you tell me what happened?” she urged. “Damien was talking a while ago, but before that, I heard my friend Katie scream.”

Katie was the girl who had just been killed by the blood moth. Though telling her that would cause her to panic, so I decided to hide the truth.

“She was just shaken up by the earthquake. Damien is taking care of her now, so you don’t have to worry.”

“O-ok, thanks for telling me.”

Damien took the lead, guiding us outside the classroom and down the hall. I held Sarah’s hand as we navigated out of the classroom with the rest of the students.

The group moved slowly as they lugged around the injured and dead, but no one complained. Even though they knew the grim truth, maybe it hadn’t sunk in for them yet.

The girl I was helping, Sarah, was trembling. She kept trying to take deep breaths to calm herself, but nothing seemed to help.

“I’m scared,” she finally whispered. “I want to go home to my mom. I want to call my dad.”

“That’s normal. It will be fine. Keep going and you’ll see your family again real soon.”

“Thank you~”

She smiled, looking a bit more cheerful.

“I wonder what you look like right now?”

“Hmm?”

“Never mind, it’s nothing.”

This girl struck me as a bit strange. Even though she was blinded and stuck in this seemingly hopeless situation, she seemed a bit ditzy. Even now, while we were in this predicament. Soon, we reached the entrance of the class right next to ours. Not a single person had survived.

The bodies inside the room were strange. They looked more like dried-out husks than human bodies. Not a drop of blood was left inside them. It made me a bit suspicious until I saw something that made me realize what had happened.

There were fang marks on the necks of each husk. They looked like vampire bites, but from the circumference of the holes on the necks, I figured something else had gotten to them. Something bigger. It had to be the blood moths.

This theory was proven true immediately as two blood moths emerged from behind a desk. They made a loud screech before flying toward us at full speed. Their giant wings created a loud whooshing sound as they approached.

Damien stood in front of us and aimed his palm toward the beasts. Immediately, a fireball shot from his palm, striking down one of the blood moths. The other was still flying towards us at full speed but just before it reached us, it was severed in half.

Purple blood rained down, and in its wake was a black-haired boy holding a katana in his right hand. The boy stared coldly at the severed half of the blood moth wriggling helplessly.

’Another system user?’ I mused to myself.

This boy was somewhat infamous around school. His name was Jason. He was the loner type. Someone like me. He didn’t have any friends, and most of the time he would be by himself. He always got into fights with upperclassmen, students who were bigger than him, but he always managed to put them down, leaving them covered in their own blood.

For that reason, most people feared him and tried their best to stay out of his way. But now things seemed different. There was a small group of students huddled behind him, looking at him as if he were their savior.

There were about 10 of them in total. All of them looked healthy. Jason was a different man from Damien it seemed. Though the people standing behind Jason seemed terrified, you could still see the adoration in their gazes.

Jason sheathed his katana while staring coldly at Damien without saying a word. Damien, on the other hand, was beaming with joy. He was happy that there were still survivors. A broad smile spread across his face as he rushed towards Jason and patted him on the back.

“Jason! Good job taking care of everyone.”

Jason ignored him completely, he seemed more interested in something else.

“That thing you did earlier with the fireball; did you awaken a system too?” Jason asked.

Damien nodded.

“It showed up to me out of nowhere right before… right before everything happened. This strange power, it’s what allowed me to help every one of my classmates.”

Jason remained silent, and I got the feeling he was doing so intentionally.

“We were heading to the auditorium since it’s the safest place in the building. We can barricade ourselves inside until help arrives,” Damien explained.

Jason nodded and agreed so we continued on, merging the two groups. Though I couldn’t help but notice the scent of death lingering around us. Corpses don’t decompose that quickly, so it was highly unlikely that it was the students who had just died. This rotten smell wafted throughout the entire school, making me want to throw up. It was times like these that I dreaded having such a sensitive nose, but it was one of the perks of being a werewolf.

The classrooms we passed along the way were all the same, littered with the dead. Damien and Jason worked exceptionally well together in disposing of any blood moths we came across. The two dispatched entire swarms while protecting the group. Interestingly, they both seemed to grow more powerful with every blood moth they killed.

Jason wielded his sword with brutal efficiency, while Damien threw fireballs as if launching a cannon. They were a sight to behold that even my homeroom teacher was looking at them like saviors.

They also rescued any survivors we encountered, regardless of whether they were alive or not. But as we neared the auditorium, exhaustion started to set in. Both were now breathing heavily and had to stop to catch their breath.

As we waited for them to regain their stamina, I felt a slight tug on my shirt. It was Sarah.

“D-Do you smell that?” she asked, looking a bit embarrassed.. “It smells like something is rotten.”

How did she…? Maybe her nose is developing since she lost her sight.

Just then, a horrifying scream pierced from behind us. We turned around to see a gut-wrenching sight: a classmate whom I had previously thought was dead was tearing the flesh off another classmate as she screamed and tried to fight him off.

All around us, the dead began to stir. Their empty eyes conveyed no trace of humanity. Like mindless drones they tore through flesh with a neediness to them. Blood and death cries transformed the once hopeful scene into one of carnage.

“Zombies?!”

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