Rebirth in the Midst of Death

Desolation and decay. In the city, lush weeds emerged from the hardened cement, and the ground was littered with bones.

Clark dragged his heavy legs, running with great effort. His lungs burned with pain, each breath pulling at the broken ribs, and behind him, a horde of roaring zombies, grotesque in appearance, pursued him. He dared not stop; if he did, these zombies would tear him to shreds and feast on his flesh.

December 2035. The apocalypse had struck three years ago, plunging the entire world into hell.

As Clark neared the makeshift safe house, his once-despairing face seemed to glimpse a glimmer of hope.

"Bang! Open up! Hurry, open up!" Clark frantically pounded on the thick iron door, with the zombies trailing him at a distance of less than a hundred meters, their putrid stench overwhelming.

"I've got the medicine! Open the door, Monica!"

Inside the safe house were his fiancée and her family.

"Swoosh." The window opened, but the iron door remained shut. An eye peered through the narrow iron window, filled with concern. Clark recognized it as Monica's.

"Monica! It's me! Open the door!" Clark cried out, his chest wound throbbing, blood oozing, and the pursuing zombies growing increasingly agitated, their pace quickening.

Upon hearing his voice, the eye inside the iron window shifted its gaze to the medicine in his hand. It was the medicine Clark had risked his life to find, to lower Monica's brother's fever.

"Clark, I'll open the door for you now."

The urgency in the voice on the other side calmed Clark's frantic heart. the only refuge in the perilous fringes of the city, a safe house he had built with his own hands.

"Pass the medicine through first, and I'll lower the iron bolt."

Clark, feeling drained, hastily shoved the medicine box through the narrow window, though a sense of unease gnawed at him. Why didn't they just open the door? The hand inside the window snatched the medicine box with lightning speed but still didn't open the door.

"Monica?" Clark's voice, filled with incredulity, echoed in the dark night. His heart sank, and his body grew cold. Why... hadn't they opened the door yet? He could already hear the zombies behind him drawing near.

"Clark, I can see your chest wound," Monica's voice paused, no longer conveying the previous concern but now disturbingly calm, as if speaking to a stranger. 

"You might be infected. I won't let you in."

Clark couldn't believe his ears; the words struck him like lightning. The pain from the flesh being torn from his body by the zombies behind him was overshadowed. He desperately questioned the person inside the window.

"Why? Why would you betray me!?" Clark's hand pressed against the door, leaving a crimson handprint. His eyes filled with tears, and he felt his intestines being pulled out as an overwhelming weakness washed over him.

Inside the window, Monica's gaze remained calm, tinged with mockery. 

"Because you're useless. I don't want to starve and live in fear every day. He's powerful, an awakened one. And you, you're just an ordinary person."

The zombies behind him ruthlessly tore at Clark's head, breaking his spine with a sickening crack, their putrid and sharp rotting fingers digging into his eye sockets.

"Daughter, why are you wasting time talking to this useless person? Let him die farther away from our door."

Inside the house, the warm light continued to glow. Monica's mother casually took the blood-stained medicine box and looked outside with indifference. The three of them stood side by side until Clark's body was devoured entirely, then they left in peace.

...

LJ City, inside a decorated wedding room.

"Clark, why don't you call a few of your comrades for money? What are you waiting for?" Clark's fiancée, Monica, spoke.

Clark struggled as if drowning, suddenly waking up, gasping for air. The vision of his death and the person before him overlapped. Was that just a dream? His head throbbed, and he could still faintly feel the pain of his flesh being torn away. The pain felt real, as if in the previous second, he had hurriedly looked at his phone.

Clark looked shocked, feeling parched. No... this wasn't a dream! He had been reborn.

He had returned three years, to the day he had proposed to Monica, three days before the apocalypse.

"Clark, let me tell you. If you want to marry my daughter, you must add an extra 200,000 Dollar to the dowry. Monica's brother, Bill, is about to get married, and you can't contribute nothing as his brother-in-law, can you?" Monica's mother gestured to her son, signaling him to ask for money.

"Brother-in-law, didn't you just retire with your comrades?" Bill lounged on the sofa, appearing impatient:"I heard there's good money for retiring nowadays, just borrow some money. You shouldn't have any problem asking."

Amidst the incessant chatter of the three, no one noticed the murderous intent that filled Clark's lowered gaze. In his previous life, he had hastily married Monica to fulfill his mother's wish. Despite its haste, he believed he had done everything he should have—buying a car, purchasing a house, and contributing to the dowry. He even shamelessly borrowed money from his comrades to make up the dowry.

However, on the eve of the wedding, the apocalypse struck. Clark, with his military background, struggled to survive alongside Monica's family. Until the very last day, when he was being devoured alive, he was still fighting desperately for what he thought was his family.

That door had severed his lifeline, but it had also shattered his misguided kindness and notions of righteousness.Piercing mockery pulled him back to reality. 

"Broke guy, if you don't have money, don't pretend. My sister married you because she thought highly of you, and there were plenty of suitors!"

"Boom!" Clark unleashed a powerful kick, striking Bill squarely in the abdomen, sending him flying three meters away. Bill turned crimson, vomiting bile and curling up in the corner, disbelieving.

Monica, in shock, watched Clark withdraw his foot, a chill running down her spine. It was the first time she had seen Clark resort to violence, and she couldn't believe how ruthless he had been.

"Murder! He's killing someone!" Monica's mother screamed loudly after snapping back to her senses, pounding her thighs with her hands.

"You damned scum! How dare you hit my son! You pauper, hitting people when you're broke! I'll have you arrested! This wedding is off!" Monica's mother continued to berate Clark, her tone venomous.

"Shut up, you old hag!" Clark approached Monica's mother, his eyes filled with disdain. He remembered those cold, emotionless eyes.