1 Survive.

Plenty of horror stories foretold the arrival of the apocalypse. Some thought it would be aliens, some thought it would be some sort of religious reckoning, and some thought it would be climate change bringing destruction upon Earth's ecosystems. Very few might have actually believed that it would be zombies that would come in the end. Although one of the most popular horror tropes, it always seemed less likely than all the other apocalypse possibilities. It was probably even less likely that people believed that climate change would help create these zombies.

With the melting of the ice in the Arctic, one of scientists' greatest fears arose when deadly viruses were released one after the other. Pestilence wrought havoc in the world with half of the world's population falling to disease in the matter of weeks. Without knowing who could be carrying a deadly disease, the world's remaining population refused to leave their homes unless by absolute necessity. By the time a worldwide quarantine was enforced, most had already begun to isolate themselves from even their closest friends.

Unlike the COVID-19 crisis of 2020, where the media reported minimal coverage of the virus and kept many of the population believing that the situation was slowly being resolved, the masses could see friends and family pass away in front of their eyes one after the other. In the span of weeks, streets were empty and witnessed but one or two people pass by on foot every few days. Their anxious glances could be seen above thick face masks, searching the streets for other people, afraid of coming into contact with anyone but their own family. In the most extreme cases, the paranoia of dying would even lead some to forget their blood ties and throw out their own family onto the streets.

They would never survive for long.

Eventually, what virologists term as antigenic shifts occurred. Antigenic shifts are basically the process in which viruses combine to form new subtypes. Although they typically occur at intervals of ten years or more, antigenic shifts occurred one after the other after the initial few weeks of the viruses pandemic. No scientist could explain how it happened, but once it did the world population was effectively halved once again. Leaving the population at around a quarter of its original size, the virus that resulted from the repeated antigenic shifts killed the rest of the viruses plaguing the world.

It was much less a cause of celebration than many would expect. The virus that resulted was, in the end, something powerful enough to kill all the other viruses that had terrorized the planet. Although it could not infect people through the air like some of the viruses could, or through surface-to-surface contact like others, it infected fresh corpses. In the end, these corpses would become the zombies that would plague the Earth from then onwards. With whatever chemical reaction it induced in the brains of people in the short twenty to forty seconds after death, they would become zombies and begin their rabies-like state. Their bite, besides death, is the only known source of infection.

The shock and lack of understanding in the virus' evolution led few to realize that the famous zombie trope had become a reality. Left to a mere five percent of the initial population, fear and paranoia dominated the minds of anyone left alive. The remaining population looked for solutions in their governments, yet the figures of power who remained from the initial outbreaks of the viruses hid from the pandemonium and protected themselves and their families in whatever remote area or resort they had.

Media quickly became a thing of the past as almost every media station was overrun by the undead. Technology still functioned as normal, but electricity was no longer readily available as power plants went down and no one was willing to risk their lives to manage them.

Without anyone to lead them, ransacking and murder slowly became the new norm among humans. It was do or die. There was no immediate banding together to survive as the fear and paranoia of the initial virus pandemics remained. Many groups remained family-size. Yet, this only led to more casualties.

Zombies dominated the streets and buildings were no longer safe as one could be lurking right around the corner. Although their sense of smell and hearing were limited, their sight could spot someone from ten city blocks away. If one set their sight on you, it could easily attract an entire horde.

Forests and other natural environments were equally dangerous, if not more so. Although the initial pandemics did not spare animals, the zombie virus spread to those that remained. For now, it seems to have only affected mammals, but forests were potent breeding grounds for infection.

Whether humanity can survive this ordeal remains a question. After all, from the onset of the first virus to the normalization of plunder and murder and chaos, only six months passed.

Six months led to the diminishment of the human population to only five percent of its original size.

Six months wrought havoc and ruptured a wound that will never be wholly mended.

Even with the advantage of technology, people have been brought back to the past where luxuries and comfort are nothing but pipe dreams. Now, those who remain have but one motive.

To survive.