OUR WORLD: BEFORE THE DAWN

Luca Weisman first found the game while surfing the internet on his computer. Twenty years had passed since the meteor crash, and the Earth had been in such chaos since then that no one bothered to develop games anymore. Just two months ago, the leader of the East Block personally announced the release of a game developed to relieve people's stress.

The game was called "OUR WORLD: BEFORE THE DAWN," and it was a role-playing game set in the real world before the meteor crash.

The meteor crash was named "M90-2024" by scientists, and the meteorite fragments were called "Dawn Fragments" because the meteor hit the Earth's surface at dawn twenty years ago.

Just a week after the meteor crash, researchers began to examine the crater formed by the meteor when it hit the Earth's surface, and that was the beginning of the real disaster that occurred on the previously peaceful Earth.

Twelve researchers conducted research around the crater area at the time, and they brought the "Dawn Fragments" back to the laboratory for further study. The unexpected happened then, and it was when the researchers started to act strangely.

It started when those people started to complain that they felt too tired and lethargic after returning from the crater area. They started to have difficulty breathing, and that was followed by some changes in their bodies. At first, their skin started to wrinkle for unknown reasons, and then it got worse when their skin looked like it was starting to rot as if they were corpses.

That was already terrifying, but unfortunately, the strange things didn't stop there. Their nails lengthened and turned black, and they became sharp and pointed like eagle claws.

The next change that was very obvious was how their irises which were previously black, brown, blue, and green suddenly turned white, and like a blank sheet of paper, the people's minds also seemed to become blank after the change.

Those people could no longer speak and could only growl as if they turned into animals and didn't understand human language. The most terrifying thing was how they seemed to have forgotten who they were, and they started to bite their colleagues in the laboratory. They seemed to be starving and only knew how to eat, and that was the beginning of the "Dawn Virus" disaster.

Humans infected with the virus became zombies that looked like hungry walking corpses, and twenty years after the accident, more than half of the human population on Earth became zombies.

It felt like the world stopped moving after the tragedy. The survivors felt endless terror, fear of becoming the next walking corpses that were no different from monsters. The world was filled with pessimism, and Luca thought that the East Block higher-ups had deliberately developed the game to boost people's spirit amidst chaos.

"But, time can't be turned back. It's impossible to return to the world before dawn," he muttered to himself after deleting his game account.

He didn't care about the player who asked him to stay, feeling too tired because the player had been clingy toward him for the past two months since he started playing the game out of boredom. Now he felt relieved after getting rid of the leech.

He then turned off his computer, and in the process, his eyes caught a photo frame next to the computer. In the frame was a photo of three people. A black-haired man was hugging the shoulders of a red-haired woman, and in the woman's arms was a black-haired boy.

Luca moved his hand towards the photo frame before bringing it closer to his face, observing it silently before using his other hand to touch the two figures on it.

"That noob said that scientists would be able to find a vaccine for the virus, not knowing how the two of you had worked hard for twelve years since the outbreak, but you two ended up being killed by those disgusting zombies," he muttered to himself, and his grip on the photo frame tightened due to the sudden anger that rose in his heart.

The little boy in the photo frame was himself when he was only four years old. Back then, everything was very different from now. He was not alone then, and he had a perfect life with his parents. The three of them could even smile brightly at the camera, of course not expecting that a disaster would befall the world just a few days after they took the photo.

The anger in his heart grew even more as the memory came back to his mind, his hand that was still holding the photo frame trembling slightly.

"My parents shouldn't have died, and those damned creatures should be sent to Hell! I hate zombies so much, and I want them to disappear from this world completely!"

At the same time, but in a different place, a blond young man sitting in front of a computer suddenly sneezed. His nose felt itchy, and he even had to use his index finger to rub his itchy nose.

"It seems like someone is talking about me behind my back, and it's not polite at all," his deep voice broke the silence in the dark room where he was alone, sounding annoyed because of his own theory.

The room was indeed dark, with only the light coming from the monitor brightening it up a little. For a moment, he felt uncomfortable with his nose, but his eyes continued to stare at the monitor in front of him. His character was not alone in the game a moment ago. He and his partner managed to win a prize after completing a mission, but then he was suddenly abandoned in the middle of a sunflower field.

For a moment, he looked disappointed after being left behind by his partner, but then a smirk appeared on his face as he muttered, "You can run, but you can't hide. I'll find you soon, my lovely Wolfie."