Hope and Uneasiness

Chapter- 1: Hope & Uneasiness

Alone, weak, destroyed, and corrupted.

I can feel it, do you too?

Wake up, Ash! Wake up…

You hear a voice, but was it you?

If not, then who was it?

You get up from the ground with a pain in your head, like something was stabbed in your head.

You look around you, hoping to find a clue of what happened to you.

What you saw was worse than you could imagine.

Blood everywhere, body parts that have been bitten, slashed with horrifying cuts on them lying on the ground.

You try to take your sight away from the grossly bitten parts on the ground, but it’s a futile attempt, you can never forget it.

You try to remember,

where am I?

Why am I here?

Who did that?

Why is there blood everywhere?

But your mind fails you, you have no answer to it.

The only thing you remember is your name, Ash.

With only one path in front of you, you start walking, the street is full of blood.

With every step you see, you hear, you try to remember, why you are here. Are you here because of your sins?

You walk the bloody path with the look of hopelessness.

You are afraid, you couldn’t help it, you fell on the ground, saying, “is it a hallucination or my mind playing games with me”

You stay on the ground for a while, asking yourself the same questions…

Some time has passed…

You stand back up and continue to walk that path…

You reach the center of the city, where there are huge buildings around you, most are destroyed…

It feels like you are all alone,

No being in existence…

Then, you felt like there is something strange,

You felt as if suddenly something popped up behind you out of nowhere…

You slowly turn around; you see a hand on your shoulder…

You freak out and jump to the side.

You see a body standing in front of you,

A zombie?!

An undead?!

You don’t know, all you can tell by seeing it is...

This creature is not alive, it doesn’t have a soul, it’s like a puppet...

You are more terrified, why aren’t there any humans?

Why is there a creature like this here?

Am I in hell?

Or did the Apocalypse fall upon us?

The creature suddenly attacked you,

And without even thinking, you punched it with all your strength.

The creature was blown away,

Its head got smashed from the sheer force of your punch.

You are confused,

Was I always this strong?

what am I?

Why do I have so much strength?

Suddenly, you felt a sharp pain in your head,

You heard a voice,

Ash!

Sto... Now!

Don’t wast... time on weight lifting!

At least, spen... With your family!

You couldn’t hear the whole thing perfectly,

But you got some of your answers, with the addition of some new questions...

You ask yourself,

So, I used to do weight lifting, is my strength the result of that?

But even that isn’t enough to make me this strong, so who am I?

I had a family?

Then what happened to them?

Where are they?

Why am I all alone?

Was I abandoned?

Or

did they die?

These thoughts continued to haunt you the entire day,

The night started, you took shelter in an abandoned building, you still didn’t feel any hunger, this wasn’t normal,

You are more scared now,

Why am I not hungry?

Am I even human?

Or

is it that I have a high amount of stamina?

But, after getting back just a bit of your memory, you felt an urge,

An urge to keep living,

An urge to find the family,

An urge to know who you are.

With these newfound urges and desire,

your strength increased,

you are ready to face the dangers lurking outside.

The Dawn has finally arrived, sunlight piercing through every hole in the building,

Your fear hasn’t disappeared completely,

You stealthily went near the broken window, you checked the situation outside,

There wasn’t any being out there, neither dead nor alive.

You calmed down and started reviewing your strength just in case,

You punched the thick wall in front of you with all your might,

And guess what, your hand pierced through the wall, like a pen piercing through a paper.

All you could think of is...

It's not just your strength, even the speed of your punch, the sharpness created with your jab, everything related to you is too mysterious,

How can one be this powerful?

even a drill can’t force its way through the wall with this speed.

You are amazed by your newfound power,

and suddenly you hear a loud noise outside, it was a sound you remember,

A sound you grew up hearing to,

You went out to check what it is,

As this could be helpful for you, this might be a clue to find your family...

You saw a human standing outside, he had an object in his hand, it was neither a sharp object that could pierce through once skin nor a blunt object that could be used to smash something,

This object felt familiar, you tried to stealthily go near that man and see that object up-close,

It's hard to describe it, it has a small tunnel in front of it, from which something comes out,

You stood there for a while, and decided to steal it, and see what it is for yourself,

But you didn’t want to kill this man, as he was the first living breathing being you saw, since waking up in this unknown land,

You jumped at him from behind, making him fall to the ground, you grabbed the object in his hand, and tried running away...

That person shouted at you,

Mother F**ker give back my gun!

Don't you dare run away, I, Joseph, will find you one day, and when I do, you are gonna F**king regret it!

You heard those words loud and clear,

From those words, what you found out was, this small object is called a gun, and that person you attacked just now is called Joseph.

You asked yourself,

Should I run away or should I go back and ask for forgiveness?

Will he forgive me or not?

You decided to go back and confront him,

He was confused and asked you,

Why are you back?

You asked him for forgiveness and returned that thing called a gun to him...

He understood that you meant no harm, and you both started talking to each other,

This is how the conversation started,

Ash- I'm truly sorry, I didn’t mean any harm, it just felt like, I had some connection with this object you call a gun...

Joseph- what do you mean by an object, do you not know what a gun is? Hey bro, which world were you living in? It's 2050 now, the first gun ever recorded was in 1364, and by 2020 the guns became so normal that even a small kid could say what it is, and you are telling me that you don’t know what a gun is?

Ash- calm down, it’s not my fault that I don’t know about this stuff alright, you can’t just start giving me a lecture on this object... I mean gun.  the thing is, I lost all my memories, I woke up in this unknown land yesterday, and all I knew was my name. Though sometimes bits of my memory come back, but all I know till now is, I once had a family and my name is Ash.

Joseph- oh, hello Ash, nice way of introducing yourself...

Ash- don't you dare get on my nerves; I hate it...

Joseph- I... was just joking, nothing serious...

Ash- it is serious for me, now, tell me, do you know why there aren’t any humans here, and why those strange creatures are roaming around...?

Joseph- those creatures are the humans you were searching for, though in a different form, hehe...

Ash- are you f**king kidding me?

Joseph- not really, most humans died and turned into undead, we call them zombies, this all started a year ago,

It was 13th of June, 2049... on that fateful day, the skies turned black, a hole appeared above us, with a warning from a god,

You, puny humans, you dared to destroy the nature I created, brought species which I loved to extinction, you have hatred for all kinds including your own, you don’t have faith in your own blood, you act tough in front of weak, and become a coward in front of strong, you kill the weak and worship the strong, you forget about me in your good times, during your success, but, you blame me for your failures, you are a being which is better dead than alive!

Then, many such holes appeared all around the world, a crimson rain started pouring down the holes, those who got soaked in it started to change, they were the first, the pure undead (the 1st Gen).

And they have a unique power, those who get bitten by them will turn into undead, but the purity decreases depending on which generation it is...

If a 1st Gen bites a human, then the human turns into the 2nd Gen, and those bitten by the 2nd Gen turns into 3rd Gen, and the list goes on...

But these creatures were made different than humans, they will never harm their kind, they forever follow the command given to them by the demon, they are the perfect creation,

Seeing that, the human scientists couldn’t hold themselves back and started experimenting on some of these creatures, and like always, though they found a lot about these creatures, they made a big mistake, they used a human’s brain to create undead and ended up creating something, which, shouldn’t exist. These beings were neither created by Gods nor by Demons, these beings were created by the scum, known as Humans...

They had a common goal to that of an Undead and had a brain of a human, this intelligent being was the first of its kind, which soon created many of their kind and started calling themselves as Sub-Demons, as they were born from the power of the demons, and got the brain of a human.

Ash- Alright, I get it, now stop blabbering...

Joseph- what did you understand?

Ash- that, this is Apocalypse.., and this could be the end of humanity.

Joseph- no, you fool, this is the beginning of a New Era, and we humans, using these sub-demons, will evolve, we will reach godhood, we will become the greatest race...

Ash- and how will you achieve that, do you have a plan?

Joseph- yes, I do, I just need to kill and consume the flesh of a living human, the sub-demons said, if a person, consumes the flesh of 5 living breathing humans, then, he’ll evolve into a sub- demon, and I've already killed 4 humans, including my mother, father, wife, and cute little daughter.., hehehe...

Ash- what do you mean? How could you do that? Are you insane?

Joseph- you wanted to meet your family, right? You were searching for them and yourself, were you not?

Ash- yes, I was, why do you ask?

Joseph- I can help you find them, what do you say?

Ash- really?! I'll be grateful to you for my entire life, I'm willing to do anything you ask of me, even if it costs me my life.

Joseph- I'm sure they’re dead, and even if they’re not, they’ll still die very soon, so why don’t you go meet them in the afterlife?

Ash- I don’t like your jokes, so stop with those, or I might end your life, here and now.

Joseph- I've been urging to feast upon that delicious flesh of humans for a while now, but I couldn’t do that in the survivor's camp, or they would have killed me, and finally, I found you, my final sacrifice...

Ash- stop with your jokes, and tell me about the survival camp...

Joseph- I am not joking, and I don’t want to waste my time telling you all this, at the end of the day, you are fated to be my final meal before my evolution.

{Joseph points the gun against you, with a scary smile}

Ash- thanks for the info, my friend, I'll be sure to never forget you.

BOOM!

Ash smashed his face on the wall of the building’s wall, blood spilled everywhere, but he doesn’t regret it, as he had made up his mind to find his family, he didn’t accept it when Joseph told him that his family might already be dead.

Ash searched through Joseph’s clothes; he didn’t find any information related to the survivor’s camp...

He couldn’t help it, he didn’t know how to read or write, this entire thing was confusing for him. he decided, not to wait and to start the search for the survivors, as that was the only clue for him to find his family now...

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Common Questions...,

Who was Ash?

Why was Ash here?

Why did Joseph not kill Ash beforehand?

How did Ash turn from someone with a good heart to someone cold-hearted?

Who was it at the beginning of the chapter? Was it his family member, was it he himself, or was it Yami?

Characters Revealed till now...

Yami – One of the Gods of this world, The God of Darkness and Despair.

Ash – All we know about him is that he has lost all his memories, he thinks that he is a human, but his strength says otherwise, he doesn’t know anything about the modern weapon and all, he has some basic knowledge on the function of human bodies and has some basic info on those large structures call buildings, he doesn’t know why that is, he has only one goal for now, and that is to find his family, as he wants to search for his true self, he wants to discover who he is...

Joseph – He is the first human Ash has seen since entering this unknown land, and to be clear, Joseph was actually a human, cause, unlike humans, most other species would never dare to hurt their own kind, at least their own blood, but this cannibal ate his daughter, wife, and parents...

Race Undiscovered till now...

Humans – the scum of the society, the most innocent and cruel creatures in existence. The god of Sub-Demons, The Creator of Sub-Demons.

Gods – The creator of all creatures, except for the undead and Sub-Demons, it created and abandoned many creatures to see their evolution, and when the creatures started to become disbelievers, he got angry and allowed the demons to interfere with the world of Humans.

Demons – the beings of chaos, the creators of Undead, unlike humans who cause chaos everywhere including in their own race, the demons are different, they follow the rules perfectly, and enjoy the despair and anxiety and many of these feelings of other races, they are a uniform race which protects their own kin, and kill all the other races. Unlike humans who have advanced in science, the Demons have advanced in the usage of Magic and curse.

Undead – These are the Creations of Demons, though they don’t have intelligence, they are the perfect beings ever created till that point in time, as... soon, the ultimate creature, the perfect being, the absolute race the Sub-Demons came into existence.

Sub-Demons – What else to say about these beings, they’re just perfect, unlike their creators, they are the polar opposite of humans.

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