It was a day like any other as a certain young man sat in front of his PC playing games.
He had heard the news of a new mod being released for a game he had played a long time ago. Surprisingly, some super fan of the game made it his passion project to bring the game closer to modern standards and fix old bugs.
"Alright, finally." The young man nodded, satisfied as it finally finished downloading and he started it up.
'Burn the Dead 2'
The old title screen flashed, giving the youth a wave of nostalgia. It was now considered a classic co-op zombie shooter game made by a reclusive game company that apparently didn't believe in the number 3.
He enjoyed the game so much with the new graphics and mechanics overhaul that he didn't notice the time until much later.
"Oh shit! I'm going to be late for the bio test!"
He was already wearing his clothes for going out, so he had taken into account time lost on the game. Unfortunately, it seemed he was quite bad at math.
After a sprint from his house, he reached the bus stop and luckily got there just as a bus was pulling up. He quickly paid with his fare card and got a seat near the back exit, ready to run out as soon as his stop was reached.
But, until his stop was reached, he was watching an episode of 'Mysterious Rider X' on his phone. It was a new dark remake of a really old hero show.
"Red-X! Even though I am Half-Animach, I still choose humanity over the Animach race! They are too dangerous to be left alive!" Green-Y declared to his rival in this dramatic prelude to the series finale.
"Is that your final decision, Green-Y? Well, I'll have you know this is an Animach eat Human World! …there is only one truth here!"
"Hunt! Eat! Live!"
With those final words by Red-X, the two rivals ran at each other and the episode ended on a dramatic freeze frame mid combat.
"Damn, I'll save the final episode for a bigger screen." The young man said with excitement as he nervously kept checking the time as the bus seemed to slowly move to each stop.
"Better look over some notes… just in case. "Humans have around 86 billion neurons…", alright simple enough. Eh, no use in cramming this close. Let's see the new chapter of "The System Is Down!"
As the young man decided to use his time wisely to read a web novel, he could catch glimpses of people stumbling around on the streets outside. Perhaps in any other place this would be considered odd, but in this city it was not that strange for this amount of people to be acting up.
At around three stops before his stop, the front and back bus doors opened as usual. With his situational awareness, the young man noticed a disheveled and ragged man walk on to the bus from the back door. People usually did this to dodge having to pay the fares in the front.
Fortunately, the bus driver noticed this man in the bus' large rear view mirror. He was a veteran driver of over 20 years and only 10 days away from retirement, there was no way a random homeless man could escape his gaze.
"Hey, buddy! Pay up or get out!" The driver shouted angrily, there was traffic behind them so he had to drive to the next stop. But once they got there, he would not give the homeless man another foot in the free ride he already got!
"Uwahh…" The homeless man responded in a confused manner, though he did start to slowly limp forward.
"Great, he's either on something or he's going to die on this bus… tch! This is last report I'm writing for the city!" The bus driver grumbled as he had just wanted a quiet time till retirement, nonetheless he contacted the dispatcher on his radio.
"Raauggh!"
After years of living in the city, the young man had learned when to ignore and when not to ignore something. He had managed to ignore everything until this point. That is, up until the homeless looking man looked straight at him and growled at him.
"Whoa! Back off!" The young man frowned as the man approached him, his foul smelling breath was pungent enough to almost make the young man throw up.
"Grahhh!"
"Arrauughh!"
The vagrant man had suddenly lunged for the young man and his gnarled rotten teeth bit hard into the youth's shoulder.
The young man started to tremble painfully as he felt blood starting to seep down his body. But no matter how hard he punched the crazed man in the head, he would not let go.
"Oh god, looks like there's going to have to be two reports today. What a day! Come on, you can do it, barely two weeks left. Just hold it together!"
The bus driver took deep breaths as the sounds of screams echoed behind him.
The homeless man was making loud noises as he kept biting the young man. The young man was howling in pain and anger as he tried to get the man off.
On top of that, several other passengers were trying to pull him off. Throw in some ladies screaming in the background and you had the perfect recipe for a funny viral video.
The chaotic scene was brought to a sudden halt, literally. Someone had wandered in front of the bus all of a sudden.
"Damn it!"
SCCCCRRRHHH
THUD!
The bus came to a screeching halt as the driver slammed his foot down on the brakes. The sudden stop threw everyone in the bus rapidly forward, including the biting man.
From that point on, the young man's vision grew hazy and his hearing grew muffled. But he could faintly hear more screams as his attacker slowly staggered away towards some other passengers.
…
...
...…
'System'
'86 Billion Neurons'
'Hunt! Eat! Live!'
'Zombie'
When he finally opened his eyes, the being only knew himself by one name, "Thomas". With only a name and four phrases, he slowly lumbered off the plastic bus seat he had been slumped over.
'Hunt!'
Thomas slowly sat up from where he had been laying on. It was strange, the place was familiar and he knew where he was. Unfortunately, he was not able to do much else with that information.
"Raugh!"
A ghastly growl came out when he tried to speak but surprisingly, he didn't mind it at all. Instead, his attention was drawn to the sounds he heard outside.
Loud noises were going off everywhere, attracting his attention to the various Flesh bags running around in chaos. His kin were already starting to wake up around him, so he couldn't eat their bodies anymore.
Fortunately, Thomas spotted fresh meat that the other kin did not touch yet. He staggered towards the front of the "bus" and saw the head of the driver on the floor.
There was a bite mark on the shoulder of the body and a metal beam where their neck once was. It seemed like the bus had hit a construction vehicle in front of them.
Most of the body was already chewed on and did not have much meat left, but the head was lucky untouched. Thomas reached towards the collapsed skull and scooped up the innards before the others could get to it. He brought it to his mouth and started to eat hungrily.
<+1,000,000 Neurons>