1 The Day Where It All Began

Mr. Jigg's - Saint Avenue Branch, Trinity City

5 minutes before the Red Apocalypse

It was a pleasantly warm day in Trinity City, the sun was shining at it's peak and people from all walks of life were walking all over the place trying to get to their destination and minding their own business.

At a fast food restaurant, customers could be seen leaving and entering the place. Inside, the place was packed with families and friends chatting and eating in leisure. In one particular corner of the restaurant were four young men sitting in a table that was beside a clear glass window, three of which had grave expressions on their faces as if the end times were nearing while one was busy sipping on a cola.

"What are we gonna do..." One of the four men, who looked tall yet scrawny, said as he had his head held by his hands in desperation. His name was Tristan, but his friends call him either Tris or Stick. He was slowest of the four and always had below average grades. But he was extremely ignorant, or he chose to be ignorant to say the least. Call him an idiot all you want, he will accept it with pride and look the other way. But now, he was facing a crisis he couldn't ignore.

"We could... no, that wouldn't work." In an attempt to try to give a solution to their current problems, a plump, brown-skinned man who sat opposite to Tristan spoke up but stopped mid-sentence as he realized the idea that he was about to give, after carefully thinking about it, was practically useless. This was Dylan, a long time friend of Tristan.

The one that sat beside Tristan was Gabriel, a Korean American who was the richest among the four. He gave a deep sigh in defeat as he shrugged his shoulders and leaned back on his seat, his head leaning up and stared at the ceiling, "My parents are going to kill me if they found out that I'm going to fail this semester." His parents ran a business outsourcing company in London and were very successful entrepreneurs in their field. They weren't very strict compared to other families with a successful business background, but his parents held high hopes in their son, and Gabriel tried his very best to live up to their expectations. Unfortunately for him, he was slow compared to his other classmates. He felt extremely guilty knowing that he was going to fail to deliver his parent's hopes and dreams for him.

"Hey Wyatt, quit holding out on us and help out over here." Gabriel said as he turned his attention to the man sitting opposite to him.

Sitting beside Dylan was a young man who looked unfettered, as if the problems that his friends were currently facing had nothing to do with him. In fact, it really did have nothing to do with him. Wyatt just shrugged his shoulders as he said, "Hey, I already gave you guys three ideas. Not my fault they didn't get approved by the research coordinators."

The situation was like this: Their class was grouped where there were only three members in one group and were given a two semesters to do a thesis on a specific topic and defend it at the end of the second semester. The first semester focuses more on the documentation of their thesis while the second semester deals with the development and practicalities of the topic that they chose. Right now, they were still in the first semester, but the break was already around the corner and Tristan, Dylan, and Gabriel still haven't found a topic for their thesis yet.

What about Wyatt? Well, luckily for him, he managed to group himself with two of his classmates: one of which was the class president who had really good social skills, and the other was a technomancer, a god when it comes to programming and other technology related stuff. Wyatt focused on the documentation, which was easy enough. He felt like he had just used up all of his luck to group himself with the class president and the programmer.

It was smooth sailing for Wyatt, but his friends were still stuck in the middle of a storm.

"Well, if things don't go well, you could make a living out of selling your proposed systems. The premise of the topics you proposed weren't that bad really. It's just that the bars were set really high this time and you can't jump over it at the moment." Wyatt said in an effort to comfort them.

For some people, maybe four months is enough time to find a client, start on the development of the system and the documentation of it but for people like Tristan, Dylan, and Gabriel, it was a really hard and daunting task for them.

"Yeah, but with that idea, we still have to make a platform where our systems are going to be in. Also, there's the problem of how to make our platform recognized. We can't just say, 'We can help you make your system. Qualifications? Oh, we just flunked our IT course.'" Gabriel said.

"Then don't say you flunked the course, dumbass."

"Hey guys... look."

Just as Gabriel and Wyatt were about to start arguing, Tristan tried catching their attention as he stared outside the window. The two stopped and the group of four now had their eyes glued to outside the restaurant, their eyes staring at the sky to be more precise.

It wasn't just them. Pretty much every person in Trinity City – no, in the entire world – looked up to the sky with the color red reflecting their eyes. People who were in the middle of doing things immediately stopped to look at the sky. Some of the bystanders even took out their phones to record this strange phenomenon.

The sky wasn't the usual blue anymore and the white clouds have turned darker. The sun was no longer a bright white but instead, turned into a blood red color which blanketed the entire sky in a menacing crimson.

No one knew what this meant.

Then... it happened.

It came out of nowhere without anyone noticing it at all. In the middle of the streets, hundreds of swirling vortices appeared. Then someone came out of these vortices.

No... some–thing.

It had rotten skin, disheveled hair, ragged clothes, white eyes, missing chunks of flesh, and was twitching like a mad man as it walked out limply.

It was impossible for something like this to appear here. This... thing only existed in sci-fi stories. But here it was, right in front of them.

Then that thing snapped its neck to the civilian bystanders.

Living people. Beings with juicy and delicious flesh.

It screamed at the top of its lungs as it lunged at a man who was paralyzed by fear, and tore off pieces of flesh from it face as the man screamed and struggled to escape.

After that, more and more of these things came out of the vortices, and claimed the lives of hundreds the moment they arrived.

Trinity city was infested by an army of undead zombies.