The crooked sign of the municipal library swayed slightly in the wind, creaking with a faint sound.
Jason stopped on the sidewalk, watching the façade attentively, like someone analyzing a building before stepping into a labyrinth. Earlier, because he was too focused on a walker, he had left his guard open for another one that appeared silently and almost bit Maggie. He wasn't going to make the same mistake again....
Maggie stood beside him, her eyes sweeping over the dusty windows, searching for any sign of movement.
The place seemed… far too quiet.
Jason let go of her hand and tightened his grip on the metal bar he was carrying, steadying his hold before starting up the steps.
Maggie followed without hesitation, feeling a faint sting of disappointment at losing the warmth of his hand. Even so, she knew that, in that situation, walking hand in hand could be dangerous—one second of delayed reaction could cost them dearly. With her free hand, she grabbed the machete as a precaution, avoiding using the shotgun. A shot would draw too much attention… and the last thing they needed was to attract even more walkers.
The double glass doors were cracked along one side, but still standing. There were dirty finger marks and dried stains, as if someone had tried to force them open weeks ago and then given up.
Jason pushed slowly, and the door creaked softly—an echoing sound that carried into the building.
Maggie immediately held her breath, gripping the machete in her hand. She expected to hear groans, shuffling footsteps, anything—but nothing came.
Jason went in first.
Maggie went in right after him.
The library was dim. Sunlight filtered through dust-covered windows, forming pale beams of light that cut through the air like slow blades. Tiny specks shimmered within those beams—dust suspended, untouched for days, maybe weeks.
Some books were scattered across the floor, as if someone had run through in a hurry and knocked everything down on purpose… or out of desperation.
But still…
It was absurdly organized for the end of the world.
The shelves were aligned. The section signs still fixed along the aisles. Tables in the center, chairs pushed in properly, as if the last reader had stood up and gone home believing they would be back the next day....
Jason stood still for a moment, looking around carefully, thinking about what he should prioritize learning at that moment. Medicine came immediately to mind. Even though it was only the public library of a small town, there would still be useful books—enough to go from a complete ignorant to someone with solid knowledge on the subject. Though, he wasn't that ignorant, since he already knew everything about "first aid"....
Either way, if he could reach the level of knowledge of someone who had graduated in medicine, that would be ideal. But he knew he would have to rely on his own "cheat" for that to happen. He doubted a public library would have everything a full medical program offered, but with his memory and absurd learning capacity, maybe he could shorten a path that normally took years into just a few hours of reading public books....
Noticing his contemplation, Maggie glanced at him and walked slowly between the tables, observing the empty counters, the old computer at the front desk, the shelves with faded children's posters, and a bulletin board with community notices no one would ever read again.
"Compared to a market and a pharmacy…" she commented, looking around. "A library has to be the last place anyone would think to loot nowadays. Still, it's kind of strange to see a place this organized...."
Pulled out of his thoughts, Jason let out a short sound through his nose, almost a laugh.
"Yeah...." he replied, agreeing. "People look for food, medicine, weapons… and they forget that a library is vital nowadays, when civilization is in ruins—we don't have doctors, engineers, electricians... We don't have anything. The more knowledge someone has about something, the better their chances of survival overall, but nobody thinks logically about that...."
Maggie heard that and sighed, as if she was trying not to laugh at how seriously he was talking about "libraries" in the middle of the apocalypse. She looked over the neat shelves and the fallen books, then looked back at Jason with a slightly teasing, slightly affectionate expression that seemed to become more natural the more time she spent near him.
Then she rolled her eyes.
"Alright, professor... But let's be honest: no one's a genius like you, able to remember everything they read after seeing it once."
Jason just shrugged.
"Still… genius and effort are linked..." he continued, calm as ever, as if it were the most normal topic in the world. "A lazy genius can be easily surpassed by someone hardworking. That applies nowadays too. The problem is… everyone's already putting in a Herculean effort just to survive. So… you can't blame anyone for not thinking about coming after knowledge to improve things...."
Maggie sighed and slowly shook her head.
"That's true…" she murmured softly. "People just want to eat and sleep without dying. Before I met you and got infected by your optimism, I was like that too—I only thought about surviving with Daddy, Beth, Patricia, Otis, and even Jimmy...."
Jason raised an eyebrow.
"You got infected by my optimism? Well, look at that—Maggie Greene being influenced by someone...."
Maggie felt her face heat up… and she hated it just as much as she liked it.
"Influenced?" she repeated, actually thinking about it, answering sincerely. "Since all this started... I only thought about not letting anyone on the farm die. That's it. I didn't think about the future. Or hope. Not because I didn't want to… but because it seemed like a stupid thing to have. And then you show up… with that face like you still think the world can be fixed with a bunch of old paper. So yes, I got infected. Because when I look at you… I feel like things are going to work out and I can be happy in a way I wasn't even when the world wasn't like this...."
Hearing those sincere words, Jason walked calmly toward her. His hands found her waist naturally, fingers fitting against the subtle curve beneath her shirt, pulling her gently closer. The smile that formed on his lips was small, but his honey-colored eyes shone with something warm and sincere.
"I feel the same, Maggie...." he said softly, his voice husky in a way that made her stomach twist. "You make me believe we can still have something good. That we can build something… even here, even now."
He tilted his face, his nose brushing hers for a second before capturing her lips in a kiss that started soft but quickly gained intensity. It was as if the body knew what the mind was still trying to understand. Her hands rose to his shoulders, gripping the fabric of his new shirt, and the kiss carried everything neither of them had put into words until then.
When they pulled apart, the air between them felt more electric. Maggie took a deep breath, her green eyes shining with a mix of desire and something deeper. She took a step back—just enough to catch her breath—but kept her hands on his chest, like she didn't want to lose contact.
"Jason…" she laughed softly, the sound rough and nervous, shaking her head as if trying to convince herself of something. "You have to go read those books before we… completely forget what we came here to do."
Her tone was suggestive, almost teasing. Her eyes dropped for a second to his lips before returning to his eyes.
"Because if you keep looking at me like that… I swear I'm not letting you leave this library today."
Jason smirked, his thumb tracing a slow circle at her waist before letting her go, reluctant.
"Alright..." he murmured, voice low and loaded. "But only because you asked."
He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, lingering a second longer than necessary, before moving away toward the reference shelves.
"I'm going to read a few books quickly and take some home. Don't worry—it won't take longer than the whole morning, and then we can head back to the Farm...."
Maggie nodded, still feeling the warmth of his touch on her skin, her heart beating far too hard to be only adrenaline. She leaned against a nearby table, crossing her arms, watching as he disappeared between the shelves.
Jason didn't waste time.
As soon as he vanished between the shelves, he went straight to where the heaviest titles were—the part of the library that looked less visited even before the world ended. Reference. Health. Science. Non-fiction. In just a few minutes, he was already pulling book after book, stacking them in his arms like he was collecting cans of food at the market: basic anatomy, physiology, simplified pharmacology, infectious diseases, a nursing manual, even thicker volumes that looked like university material.
When he came back, Maggie had to fight the urge to laugh—not because it was funny, but because it was simply impossible.
He placed the stack on a long table like he was dumping firewood.
One stack.
Then another.
And another.
By the end, there were enough books to make it look like he was going to spend an entire week there.
Maggie widened her eyes.
"Jason…" she blurted, almost in shock. "Did you… take the whole section?"
Jason pulled out a chair and sat calmly, aligning the books as he said, "Almost. I grabbed thirty books that I think are a good start to learn about medicine..."
Maggie looked at him like he'd lost his mind.
"That… that's going to take all day."
Jason picked up the first volume, opened it to a random page, and answered without looking up:
"Actually, it'll take me about twenty minutes to read all of this...."
Maggie froze.
"…What?"
Jason turned a page.
"Because I'm a genius, it's easy. Of course, that's the vague answer. The more detailed answer is that I just need to take a single look at the page to memorize it and turn it, so, I mean, the biggest time wasted would be flipping the pages...."
Maggie let out a low, incredulous sound, as if she'd choked on her own air.
"Are you serious?"
Jason finally looked up, that familiar calm shine in his eyes.
"Maggie… I would never lie to you..."
And then, without giving her a chance to argue, he started reading. To speed up his reading, instead of going line by line, he simply gave a focused glance over the entire page, instantly memorizing its contents completely, and his ability to process information rapidly digested all the data.
His hand turned pages almost silently.
Maggie watched for a few seconds, like she expected him to stop and say it was a joke.
But he didn't stop.
He was really reading.
She exhaled slowly.
"Damn..." she whispered.
And then gave up trying to understand for now.
Maggie set the machete on the table beside the bag of medicine and walked to a nearby shelf, running her fingers along the old spines until she found something she recognized. A book she'd read in her adolescence, back when the biggest problem in the world was her father telling her to go to bed early and not letting her go out as much as she wanted.
She pulled the book out, returned to the table, and sat down, opening it to try and read to pass the time—but her eyes drifted back to Jason every two minutes.
Jason had already finished the first book. He closed it calmly, grabbed the second, and was already moving on....
Maggie stared, genuinely impressed. It looked like something out of a movie. She never imagined she'd see someone flipping through books and memorizing everything at that speed, like the pages were just images being recorded inside his head.
But at the same time… it raised an unavoidable question.
If Jason was capable of this, why had he never used that "genius" before the world went to hell?
He was clearly someone out of the ordinary. A talented psychologist, even without official training. She had noticed that during the week she'd spent with him. Talking to Jason was… easy. He knew how to listen, how to respond, how to read people. Even her father, who was naturally closed off, had begun to enjoy talking to him, like Jason had some rare way of reaching people without forcing anything.
So why?
If he was that smart… why hadn't he stood out more? Why hadn't he learned other fields? Why hadn't he graduated earlier, done something great, left his name marked before the world ended? She was sure he could have done it easily.
The answer that formed in her mind was simple… and strangely coherent.
Maybe he had never wanted to.
Maybe he just wanted a quiet life before.
And standing out too much would mean drawing too much attention—attention that drags expectations, demands, eyes… and takes away the one thing some people value most: peace.
Then she realized that maybe that genius wasn't something he had always shown off with pride… but something he had been hiding his whole life.
While she was lost in thought, Jason finished the second book and picked up the third right after.
Now, reading more books, he began to realize that the pages weren't just pages. They seemed like "keys"—each new concept, each anatomical explanation, each description of a symptom or procedure… everything fit into something greater inside him, like pieces finding their place in a perfect mechanism. His [Perfect Mastery] activated like an invisible system, filling gaps and answering questions before they even fully formed. It was a strange and terrifyingly clear sensation, as if he already had limitless encyclopedic knowledge hidden within his own mind… and the books were merely triggers, unlocking sections of that knowledge one after another. And the more he used that ability… the stronger that impression became.
The only thing he still couldn't define was where the physical mastery came from.
He didn't know whether that bodily "instinct" was an effect of [Perfect Mastery], or if it was a consequence of the other blessing, [Perfect Body], because the knowledge didn't stay only in his mind. It adjusted to his body automatically, just like it had the other times. When he read a procedure, he didn't just learn the theory. His brain immediately understood the movement, the angle of the hand, the necessary strength, the exact timing… as if he had already done it countless times.
Still, he believed it was his [Perfect Mastery] that was truly responsible for it, after all, that ability had always been directly tied to absolute mastery of skills.
Either way, his two traits were "perfect" for surviving in that world.
He quickly finished reading those thirty books and went looking for others, planning to spend the entire morning learning everything he could....
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(A/N: First of all, don't worry. In the next chapters, the limitations of Jason's ability will be revealed more clearly.
Yes, he will be OP by The Walking Dead standards, since the world of the series is extremely grounded, but there is nothing truly supernatural about it.
What seems supernatural is only the internal process. The way Jason interprets, organizes, and applies [Perfect Mastery] is abstract. That's how he perceives the ability and processes its use in his own mind.
Everything will make sense as the story moves forward...
I hope you're enjoying the story. Advanced chapters have been posted on my Patreon, and releases there will be more regular.
My Patreon: patreon.com/Adam_Kadmon
Thank you so much for your support — you make all of this worthwhile.)