Phase 1 : Loading Apocalypse

May 27th, 2094, Pearl Island...

It was a hot and humid night on the island. Several youngsters were drinking ice water outside a net cafe while complaining. Many others were logged into their game capsules like any other night, escaping into an alternate universe known as virtual reality games.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock... An unknown timer from a distance started its final countdown..... A pitch-black screen appeared above the sky yet it was invisible to the naked eyes of the millions of people below. If they can see it, they would see these words on the screen. Familiar, yet inexplicable in this situation. Command: World Reset. Settings: Completed. Update and restart in 10…9...8...7...6…5...4…3…2…

And then, the clock strikes midnight. The beginning. Loading ...

A gale of wind swept through the island. A storm started brewing in the darkened sky. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. The night was no longer peaceful. Uneasiness crept into the hearts of those loiterers as the weather took a 180 degree turn for the worst.

In a small studio apartment away from the crowded city district, Ally was watching the abrupt change of the weather outside the windows of her apartment. She had just left her game capsule a while ago. Bzzz! It was pitch black all of a sudden in the city. Something that had not happened before in the last 30 years since the first AI residence was promoted at the island. Then it was followed by an inexplicably foul stench. It was the smell of rancid meat, rotten food, bloody gore... something that will make even the hungriest of men lose his appetite!

Then amidst the chaos, a booming voice could be heard thundering throughout the night into everyone's mind: THE TIME HAS COME, PEOPLE. APOCALYPSE. IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, PICK UP YOUR WEAPON AND FIGHT! IT IS SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST FROM NOW ON! FIGHT, FIGHT AND GROW STRONGER. ONLY THEN, WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO SURVIVE.... AND BE PART OF.... UTOPIA!

As the last of vestiges of that voice disappear from everyone's mind, the pitch-black night was again lighted up. The sudden burst of light momentarily blinded the young girl, causing some disorientation.

She started to look around her. Outside the window, the storm that was brewing was gradually losing its momentum but in reality, that was just the beginning of a new kind of chaos and terror. Ally knitted her eyebrows and called out for her pet cat, H2O. That little fluffy creature had jumped off from her hands the moment the foul stench reached her nose. She could imagine how bad it was for the little mongrel's sensitive nose if even herself retched from catching a whiff of that smell.

As she looked around, she suddenly noticed some changes in her surroundings. She knelt down and picked up a crude wooden sword that was lying on the floor next to her feet. She was sure it wasn't there before. Inspecting the item, she realized that it is something she had seen and used countless times in VRMMO RPGs... She was still processing her thoughts when out of the blue, a loud Bang! followed by a high-pitched scream cut through her thoughts.

Her knitted brows raised higher and unexpectedly, she finds herself almost smiling to an amusing hypothesis that she had formed after analysing the situation. It was laughable, truly. Could something so unimaginable really happen? She took the sword in her hands and rushed to the balcony where the racket was coming from. What she saw confirmed her thoughts.

A rotten corpse attacking her neighbour.... How could she not recognize them? She was just fighting them in the game less than an hour ago! But... HELL must have broken loose. Because...ZOMBIES... had appeared somewhere outside of the virtual universe! Right into the world they are living in!