1 Empyrean System Now Online

Rowan was walking up to the podium to finally graduate and move on from what had been very enjoyable college years. Rowan was only eighteen this year, a fact that gathered most people's attention on him as the youngest person in the room at all times. A car accident that left him the sole survivor had orphaned Rowan, but he had displayed his vast intelligence at such a young age that despite the sudden loss, he grew up rapidly.

His parents had life insurance that Rowan used to invest in stocks, which soon turned him from a smart child to a rich one. He opened a bar and several other businesses while at the same time attending college after testing out of highschool the first chance he got. He paid for college out of pocket and the pursuit of being a surgeon and had earned himself quite the reputation.

People noticed his age, of course, but others in the field had seen anomalies like him prior to this. His nickname came from how little he liked to speak when he was focusing on a task. It had earned Rowan the nickname of the silent surgeon. Surgery was not a solo act, though, so the people that worked with him also had to hold themselves to a much higher standard. As to help his focus, most parties opted to follow the path of silence and instead watched his surgery so closely that they could provide him with whatever he needed based on what part of the surgery he was at. Now outside of the halls of a hospital, he was rather sociable and well received by his peers, who often made fun of his young age.

The truth of it, though, was that becoming a surgeon was just part of a long list of accomplishments for Rowan, who was truthfully doing most of this due to his own personal boredom. Rowan smiled at the dean, an older pot bellied man who always seemed to laugh too much at something not funny or smile too wide but nice all the same. Rowan shook his hand and accepted the diploma for med school in its fancy case and was going to head down the steps when a young woman screamed. It caused everyone to instantly turn in her direction.

It had been raining every day for the past two weeks and they had set up the graduation to be in a massive auditorium, so the sound of her voice carried despite her being in the back of the room. A man had fallen and begun to convulse on the floor with such a vigor that it caused the surrounding floor to shake. Rowan narrowed his eyes as he stepped down the stairs and approached the scene. Multiple people tried to inspect the man to find what was wrong, but before long his skin started to rapidly pale and he went still, which relieved the five people it took to hold him down with suspicion that this was just an intense seizure.

Someone had already called nine one one based on the sirens that could already be heard, but no one except for Rowan noticed the twitch of his fingers despite the man being pronounced dead by one of the many capable doctors. Rowan never even had a chance to warn anyone as the man stretched out his neck and took a bite from the back of someone's ankle before rolling over onto the person and taking another sickening bite from the person's throat. Rowan heard someone retch while a scream of fear shook the room and people started to run.

Rowan let the people pass him by while he studied whatever the man had become with fascination. The cops and two EMTs came through the auditorium doors not even a second later when a wave of people tried to rush past each other with their loved ones. A person fell and was trampled by the stampede while all the while the pale man continued his meal in sickening silence.

Rowan saw enough to realize that the person that was being eaten was, in fact, the first woman who had screamed for attention to help the man. Rowan circled around the man and made his way to the first responders. "The man has attacked the woman after falling from a seizure. I suggest that the two of you stay back and let the police officer handle the situation. They looked from him to the diploma in his hand for a split second and without as much as a question, took a step back and looked on as the officer did the opposite as he approached the feeding man. He took a big step toward the man while calling out.

"Sir! This is the police immediately stop what you are doing, interlace your fingers behind your head and lay flat on the ground." The man looked up slowly, with a hollow look in his glassy gray eyes that lacked the spark that life gave them. He sat up slowly while his eyes never left the cop. He abruptly stood up with blood dripping from his face still when Rowan noticed the woman on the ground start to twitch and quickly called out to the officer, "Sir! Whatever the man had, he's given to the woman she is getting back up!"

Rowan had watched movies of course, but he was ultimately a man of science and scientifically zombies were not real except in the case of a parasite controlling the host. Rowan shook away the Idea as soon as it came, there was no recorded parasite capable of doing that to something the size of the man. He was on the larger side with a protruding stomach and had to weigh at the least three hundred pounds. He shambled up to his feet while Rowan kept his eyes peeled on what was happening as the cop yelled for the man to follow instructions as he got to his feet.

Rowan knew that what happened next was important as he waited to see the Zombie move. The woman slowly started to get on her feet as well. Blood was still spurting from her ankle while her entire cheek was missing, and a large section of her throat. Rowan looked to his left and noticed that the person who had been trampled had stayed still and not exhibited the same side effects as the man and woman. Rowan's eyes never left the two while the big man slowly shambled forward one step at a time towards the police officer. The cop was sweating visibly while he swapped from his firearm to his taser.

He fired the taser in the same breath and the needles thudded into the big man and the electricity caused him to convulse and fall to the ground while the woman just looked on. The second officer moved in to cuff the big man while the other officer had swapped taser heads and was aiming at the woman now. He spoke loudly into the radio on his shoulder. " We've got two drug-addled individuals requesting backup."

He re-clipped the radio right as his partner cuffed the large man. The woman was then tased and cuffed when Rowan heard more screams coming from behind him and the clatter of footsteps on the pavement. Rowan grabbed the female EMT to his left and pulled her out of the way of the doors just as they burst open. Her male counterpart on the other hand was not so lucky as someone barreled into the door and slammed it into his back and made his fate no different from the trampled woman, as the same people that had fled the auditorium crowded back into it among sobs and crying.

The EMT got ready to go help one of several injured people that she could see with her bag when Rowan caught her hand. "I would advise against that for the moment. There is something else going on here. She was about to speak when a rather burly man shattered a chair and began to put the legs in the door handles as other people hurried to help him. Someone in the crowd shouted "THERE'S GODDAMN ZOMBIES EVERYWHERE!"

A wave of force slammed into the doors at the same instant, and Rowan looked through the window and saw hundreds of pale beings struggling against the door. He got some distance from the door while the police tried to calm the people present. The remaining EMT tried her partner first, but after realizing he was gone, she pulled a sheet from her bag and laid it over the man and began to tend to the minor wounds on the surrounding people.

The different graduates tended to their families, but Rowan just studied the people around him and the two originals that were already in the auditorium. Rowan moved behind the EMT and grabbed a scalpel from her bag while she was helping someone, and tucked it into his pocket. He saw several teeth marks on some people or scratches as it looked, but none of the people that left the auditorium came back unscathed.

Rowan found a spot under the bleachers to organize his thoughts. The 1st point was that there was some type of outbreak that animated the dead and made them ravenous for human flesh. He may as well call them zombies as much as he did not want to. It would simply make it easier. His mind adapted to the idea and then he peered through the cracks of the bleachers at all the wounded. If he followed the same line of logic that led him to admitting the zombies, then another issue would arise, which was the fact that everyone here was already infected other than the two cops and the female EMT.

Going forward to survive, he would need to keep the infected, and those he thought may be infected far away from him. He needed to make subtle contact with the only individuals that were clean before all hell broke loose. He left his hiding spot and made his way to the first officer that was talking to a woman with a kid in her arms. Rowan noticed the lack of injury on the child but not the mother, and in his mind a check mark appeared next to the child's image.

After the woman was done, Rowan noticed her complexion growing more pale now, noticeably. He cut in before the next person could get in a word. "Meet me towards the left bleachers in five minutes. Your life probably depends on it." The other two were rather uninhibited, which allowed him to deliver the same statement and then flash over to the bleachers in a section that was devoid of most people.

The police left them all with the message that their backup would be there shortly, but in reality, it should have already been there and he knew that something had gone wrong. They all made their way to Rowan. The moment they were all gathered and before anyone could speak, he spoke up. "The people here, as the young lady may have noticed, are all infected with the same thing as the two that were already in here. It seems like whatever this is can be passed from infected through non infected by means of bite or even scratch.

The only individual among the ones that have come back, there is a single individual showing zero signs of infection." Rowan pointed at the child that had fallen asleep in his mother's arms as she laid back against a wall, taking ragged breaths. "If I'm right, the rest of them will all become zombies, just like the two that you have already secured. It is only a matter of time. The four people were all swept up in the commotion and they looked towards Rowan ignoring his age, they knew him by reputation alone, in his boredom he had excelled in several fields making major headlines, they fell into his steps based on his stardom alone.

He turned to the two officers. "I assume your backup is not coming and you have not heard back from the precinct?" The one officer looked hesitant but the officer that tased the man nodded his head quickly, "It has been radio silence but it wasn't before we got here, but I will say that we received several calls at once. We were just the closest to this one. I would imagine this is happening in other places as well. There may not be any backup to send."

Rowan nodded his head. "If we are going to survive as hard as it may sound, I need you all to treat these things as the same zombies from movies. I will handle the two from earlier. When all hell breaks loose after the first person falls, it will give us a timetable on how long it takes before the wounded succumb. Now please prepare live ammunition, and not to sound like a broken record. Treat these things the same as the monsters from movies and aim for the head. Mrs. EMT, your job will be more hazardous and at the same time emotionally daunting, you need to convince that mother that her child is no longer safe with her, and then retreat to the bleacher directly under where we are currently standing. Officers, the two of you will be waiting to cover their retreat back to back already under the bleachers. There are only two entrances, so when they come for you, use that to funnel them towards you all. Use one shot if possible."

They all nodded while the EMT looked nervous. So, as the police left to get in position, Rowan stopped her. "I'm sorry. I never asked your name due to what's happening." Rowan began to walk her towards the mother that was now no different in complexion then the fully turned zombies that had begun to writhe on the ground, Rowan knew they were running low on time as most of the auditorium had gone silent as each individual seemed to be struggling with an internal pain.

"My name is Camille. It's my second month on the job." Rowan nodded at her, "I don't know about the state of people beyond here but if this is the new status quo then it can be confirmed that today was the last day of your job Camille, I'm Rowan," She nodded and some of the tension seemed to ease. They both bent down in front of the mother and child while Rowan located the two original zombies.

"From this moment forward, it's highly likely that only the strong and the ruthless will survive. I hope that includes you." Rowan left her where she was at and removed the scalpel from his pocket as he approached the cuffed female zombie, unaware of the stare of the big zombie as he flexed his arms against the cuffs that bound him. Rowan moved quick and sliced into the back of the neck and severed the woman's brain stem while at the same time a bright purple roach climbed out of the cut as the woman went still but died shortly after leaving behind a tiny pebble that Rowan pocketed while internally he thought to himself that the original hypothesis of a parasite may have been correct. Right as he was going to check on the rest of the situation, a line of text appeared in his sight

[Mana gained from foe, Empyrean System now online.]