1 What Happened? (。_。)（⊙ｏ⊙）

It was 11:59 pm on a random day when the world faced its demise. The universe shook only for a fraction of a second, but it brought something terrible for earthlings.

Harmful radiations penetrated the earth's atmosphere before anyone could decipher what was going on.

The weak perished and the strong survived, but at what cost?

Now, the ones whom they used to call their friends and families were their enemies, either kill or be killed!

The world now worked on only one principle, the survival of the fittest…

_______

In a brightly lit room, Anu was busy studying for her final exam, which was announced with no prior notice. "In the relational model of databases, a primary key is a specific choice of a minimal set of attributes that uniquely specify a tuple in a relation."

Here, the brightly lit room was nothing but an unused bathroom in her house that had a yellow bulb as its source of light.

Since it was already nearing midnight, she could not switch on the lights in the house, as it would disturb the people who were trying to sleep. But instead of sleeping, they were having a barbecue party on the front door balcony.

"...Hey, bring me that barbecue sauce bottle!" occasionally she could hear their voices that were partially blocked by the bathroom door.

The two-bedroom apartment she was living in was left to her by her late parents. Currently housing her two uncles and their families, who were her legal guardians for the next two months.

The pandemic caused them to lose their jobs, and they found her as a source of income during the lockdown. When she refused to entertain them, they created a scene in front of the entire colony.

In the end, when Anu let them in her house and made them all stay in the second bedroom, they immediately agreed to her decision as if they were grateful, but when one day she returned from the market, she found that her room was taken over by her cousins.

After a lot of coaxing and pleading from her aunts, she agreed to their whims. Allowing her cousins to study in her room. "I can only allow them to study in my room because you said that they cannot concentrate on studies elsewhere."

Her uncles' families were getting bolder day by day. One day, when Anu felt it was too much, she tried to drive them away.

At first, they made many excuses, and then slowly showed their real colours. They abused her and when she screamed; she was gagged and beaten. Anu had the will to live, but she was alone against six people.

After many failed attempts, she lay low. Her movements were watched keenly, like assigning her fixed phone time and always monitoring what Anu was saying on the phone call and whether she would call for help from someone.

Thanks to that, at least she could give her online exams. Sitting in the bathroom with all her books, Anu was sweating buckets. Unlike normal bathrooms, the one in her house did not have that small window for ventilation, it was blocked by bricks and cement so that she cannot escape.

Suddenly, Anu heard loud sounds coming from the living room. 'What the hell are they doing out there!'

Wondering what they were doing to create such a commotion, she leaned on the door to listen but wasn't able to because there was a lot of noise and screaming.

The noise subsided in a minute, and the house was silent again.

As she tried to concentrate on the residual voices, the rumbling of her stomach disturbed her.

Rubbing her tummy, she realized that she had not eaten for two days. After half an hour, she confirmed that there was no movement outside, Anu cautiously stepped out of the bathroom of her former room.

Looking at the empty room and switching on lights Anu froze in her place, took two steps back and held the door, ready to shut it any time.

It was then, she smelled blood. A very heavy and rotting smell of blood, moving ahead she reached the door. Clenching the doorknob, she opened it slowly to not make any noise behaving like a thief in her own house.

Opening it in a slit, she peeked towards the living room where everyone was supposed to be.

After looking at the sight in front of her, Anu was unable to stand as her legs grew weak and her back was once again wet with sweat. 'W-what is that!'

Chills ran down her spine as the adrenaline kicked in, Anu held her breath, silently twisted the doorknob and closed the door of the main bedroom without creating any noise.

She retreated into the bathroom, locking it. She slid down the tiled walls of the bathroom, unaware of the purple mist that was lingering at her toes.

Anu, frightened after witnessing her second aunt chew and bite at her son, her eyes lost focus and she fell into a deep sleep.

Her skin turned red in no time as her body temperature soared rapidly to the point where it was impossible to survive for a normal human being.