Human Cruelty

"Help me, please!" echoed the desperate voice of a man in the distance.

Ethan looked on indifferently as a young couple was being chased by a group of zombies.

By chance, they noticed him and pleaded for help when they saw him easily dodging the zombies in his path. Ethan observed them for a moment, as if determining something, but upon sensing the urgency and panic in their pleading voices, he decided to pay them no further attention and continued on.

He had no time to waste on such pathetic beings who simply begged for help without taking action to defend themselves.

They just ran and relied on the first person they encountered, how disgusting...

"No... Wait, please wait!" the man shouted with all his strength as he ran, never letting go of his beloved's hand.

Thud!

A dull impact resounded in the air.

Crack!

"Ow!"

Suddenly, the woman stumbled, accompanied by the sound of her face hitting the ground. Blood began to flow from her nose, painting a gruesome picture on the floor.

"Dar... darling, get up, quickly!" the man urged desperately, his eyes filled with terror as he saw several zombies closing in on his girlfriend. Unfortunately, the woman, dazed and confused, remained fixated on her bloodied hand, unable to contain the crimson flow from her broken nose.

It seemed as if her mind had shattered into pieces just like her nose, or... perhaps it had always been that way. Her will had broken the instant she fell and saw the blood gushing from her face.

The situation might have been too overwhelming for her young mind, which had never experienced any kind of adversity in her life.

"Let's go!"

With one last desperate attempt, the man tried to pull his beloved's hand, but this caused his focus to be completely absorbed by her, unable to perceive a bloodied figure approaching stealthily from behind him.

"Groooooowwwwl!"

"N-n-noooo!"

"Aaaaah! It hurts so much! P-please, no more!"

"Grrraaaaahhh!"

A zombie bit the back of his head and mercilessly tore off a large portion of his scalp. The man tried to defend himself, but more zombies arrived and cornered him.

"...Ah."

The woman stopped gazing at her trembling, bloodied hand and slowly turned her gaze toward her boyfriend, causing her eyes to fill with tears and her lips to tremble as she tried to say something.

Crunch! Crunch!

Unfortunately, that was all she could do before a gaping mouth with teeth covered in chunks of flesh plunged into her neck and ruthlessly tore her apart.

"Darling..."

His gaze, already blurry and unfocused, desperately searched for his beloved, only to discover that she no longer breathed, her body torn apart by the ravenous zombies.

In the reflection of the lifeless woman's eyes, the man's heart-wrenching expression of sadness was mirrored, with crimson tears streaking down his cheeks.

Crunch! Crunch!

Powerless, he could only watch as his world crumbled and faded away, while the decayed teeth of the monsters sank into his flesh.

"S-sto..." his pleading voice slowly faded.

Finally, the light in his eyes dimmed and was consumed by madness and an insatiable thirst for blood.

"Raaaaarrrrrggghhh!"

His body began convulsing, the surrounding zombies retreated, and with a roar that seemed to emanate from sinners being tortured in hell, another monster was created in this forsaken world, forgotten by God!

In the distance, Ethan frowned upon hearing the loud roar. For a moment, he felt an aura he had only experienced in demons.

But it was so fleeting that he stopped paying attention the next second.

As he hurriedly advanced, his eyes captured the scene of several people emerging from shops and restaurants, mercilessly pursued by hungry zombies. As if he were a knight on his mighty steed, everyone turned to him, desperately clamoring for his help.

But, of course, that wasn't going to happen. He was in a hurry to reach his brother and had no time to save useless humans.

Although his memories were somewhat diluted by the passage of time, he vaguely remembered the path he had taken a hundred years ago. He knew that his destination was the staircase leading to the different floors of this building.

His eyes curiously landed on the once elegant and sophisticated hotel, now immersed in chaos and despair.

Where majestic restaurants and bars once stood, only rubble and remnants of tragedy remained. The once gleaming glass walls were now marked by cracks and blood stains.

Those small statues that adorned the place, evoking the essence of the mythical city of Atlantis, lay broken and blood-stained.

The imposing pillars that supported the structure bore bloodstained marks, like a grim testament to the horrors that had unfolded recently.

The grand and renowned Royal Towers had ceased to be a fantasy stage and had become a true hell on Earth.

Immersed in chaos, his ears were constantly assaulted by the harrowing screams of people being attacked and the sinister guttural moans of the zombies, creating a macabre cacophony that mingled with the shattering of broken glass and the crunching of shattered furniture.

Horrible scenes of children devouring their parents, and vice versa, were not lacking...

Families that were once united now pushed each other in search of survival.

Elderly people, unable to run due to their frail bodies, were condemned to stand motionless and face a bitter end at the hands of their own children or grandchildren turned zombies.

Best friends who once made a vow of loyalty until the end now betrayed each other in order to survive.

To Ethan, humans were even more wicked and cruel than demons. They were a species with beautiful masks that fell off the moment their lives were in danger, revealing their repugnant faces.

It was not worth trying to save any of these beings who lived by lies.

Swoosh!

Huff! Huff!

"These fucking monsters, how could I be so careless!"

Suddenly, a man with his left arm covered in blood ran past him. Ethan would have ignored him like the other humans, but something caught his attention: in his hand, he noticed something interesting. It was a weapon, resembling a pistol but with an extraordinarily unusual appearance.

"Uuuuaaaaahhh!"

"Arrggghh!"

Looking back to where the man came from, Ethan observed a massive horde of zombies, larger than any he had seen before.

However, he didn't care. What mattered was the man, or more precisely, the weapon he carried. It had made a strong impression on him in the past, so he knew it was an extremely powerful weapon.

Swoosh!

Without hesitation, Ethan ran towards him with all his strength. Several zombies tried to intercept him, but he easily dodged them. He even used some of them as platforms to jump off of and gain speed.

He finally reached the man's side, who was clearly slowly transforming into a zombie.

"W-what!?"

The man nearly shat himself, his face reflecting intense panic upon seeing Ethan appear beside him. In an instant, his instinctive reaction was to aim his weapon at him, ready to fire.

Crack!

However, before he could even react, his forearm twisted in an unnatural direction!

"Ahhh!"

The man screamed in pain, releasing his weapon that fell to the ground as he lacked the strength in his hand to hold it.

His arm was broken!

Ethan showed no mercy and, without hesitation, immobilized the man's arm. Then, he picked up the unusual pistol with his right hand.

He briefly examined it with a glimmer of interest in his obsidian-black pupils.

With a twisted smile on his lips, he firmly grabbed the man's neck and forcefully threw him against a huge statue of a muscular human with the lower half of a fish.

Ignoring the zombies gathering around him, he quickly ascended to the top of the statue.

"How did you get this weapon?" Ethan asked coldly.

"Ugh..."

Unfortunately, the man didn't respond as he felt as much pain in his broken arm as in the other one that had been bitten, and was now slowly being filled with red veins spreading across his body.

Sigh...

Crack!

"S-shit!"

Witnessing this, Ethan didn't hesitate to readjust his arm, causing the man to curse in pain. Yet, his expression softened a bit as he realized that the pain had subsided.

But as he looked at his other arm, sadness overcame him, and in a subdued tone, he said, "I won't tell you. If you had been a little kinder, maybe I would have."

"Although I'm not sure how you discovered its power since I used it when there was no one around. Nevertheless, you now have the weapon in your possession, so what does it matter where I obtained it?" he spoke again with desolation and a hint of hatred reflected in his eyes.

"Just let me die in peace while I kill as many of these fucking zombies as I can..."

His hatred was not directed at Ethan, but at the zombies that had gathered around the statue and were attempting to climb it, but were so clumsy that they only managed to climb a little before falling.

Ethan smirked and, with an enigmatic gaze in his eyes, lightly touched his shoulder.

"I understand... You thought I was asking you kindly, what a big mistake on my part. Allow me to make you understand better."

Thud!

The man looked at Ethan in bewilderment as his body fell into the horde of zombies below them!