It was a desolate, crumbling highway. The road leading into the city stretched far into the distance without a single car in sight, while the opposite lanes—those leading out of the city—were choked with an endless jam of vehicles. For just a few kilometers, tens of thousands of cars sat trapped, abandoned in chaos.
Under the scorching sun, Selene stood alone in the very center of the road heading into the city. Gazing at the steel-and-concrete skyline in the distance, she felt an uncanny sense of familiarity. "This is... the world of The Walking Dead."
A faint breeze blew past, carrying with it the thick stench of blood, mixed with the nauseating rot of decaying flesh.
"Good thing I was smart enough to bring a gas mask." Fighting the urge to vomit, Selene quickly donned her 3M respirator, feeling marginally better afterward. She couldn't help but let out a wry laugh. "Have I gone soft or something?"
Her top priority now was to find a safe place to hide for a few days. Once her storage space recovered, she could release her military robots, and exploration would become much safer.
After all, right now, she was just a temporarily powerless, "frail young woman."
Ahead lay a city—teeming with untold numbers of zombies. Selene's immediate task was to find a secure shelter.
Logically, leaving Atlanta would have been the right choice. But Selene chose instead to head deeper into the city.
Yes, moving into the city was a mistake—at least, from a rational standpoint. It was also a challenge she deliberately took on. Selene had a touch of OCD and had grown up in comfort all her life, rarely facing hardship. But now, she decided to use the zombies as an opportunity to toughen her nerves.
She remembered an old saying: "Having a sword and never using it are two entirely different things." Selene wholeheartedly agreed. She wanted to overcome her own disgust and fear. After all, the environments she'd face in the future could be far worse.
"A true warrior dares to face a bleak life head-on." Even if she now possessed a woman's body inside and out, it didn't stop Selene from wanting to conquer her weaknesses.
She walked toward the heart of the city. The streets were lined with wrecked cars, some aflame, others twisted from collisions. The roads were empty of the living—only a few wandering corpses staggered aimlessly. The restaurants, supermarkets, and bars nearby all had shattered windows and gaping doors.
The ground and window sills were littered with corpses—some whole, some in pieces. More grotesque still were several bodies missing their lower halves, entrails spilling out across the pavement. Thick pools of blood had long dried into a dark crust, guts stuck fast to the ground in a revolting mess.
Perhaps drawn by the scent of fresh flesh emanating from Selene, the few nearby zombies suddenly let out guttural growls and staggered toward her.
Her passive enhanced vision turned out to be a curse; every pore, every flake of rotting flesh on their bodies was painfully clear to her eyes. Even through her mask, Selene could almost smell the putrid stench approaching. "Tch, absolutely disgusting."
Suppressing her revulsion, Selene sidestepped the lunging zombie with fluid precision, her movements swift and efficient.
In the same motion, she drew a hand axe from her back and swung sideways.
Clang!
With a sharp, clean crack of bone, the zombie's head separated from its body. The blade cut through its neck as easily as slicing butter, the putrid corpse collapsing to the ground.
Repeating the motion, accompanied by the sound of whistling air and shattering skulls, the remaining zombies quickly followed their companion into oblivion.
Casually wiping the blood from her axe onto the ground, Selene felt no emotion other than mild disgust. Her face was calm, her pulse steady. None of the reactions a "normal person" might have—no racing heart, no trembling limbs—appeared.
"I really overprepared for this... I thought this would be some kind of high-difficulty world." Looking up at the cloudy sky, Selene sighed. "After all that prep, this low-tech apocalypse is basically a vacation."
As she ventured deeper into the city, the sky grew darker, and a light drizzle began to fall. Pulling a baseball cap over her head, Selene stopped before a nearby building. With a sharp thrust, her fingers sank into the concrete wall, and in a few agile leaps, she climbed effortlessly onto the rooftop.
It wasn't surprising—though her superpowers were sealed, the superhuman strength and tenacity inherited from the Kaslana bloodline hadn't gone anywhere.
From the nearby street came the blaring sound of car alarms, engines roaring, and the guttural howls of a horde of zombies. Following the noise, Selene looked across the district and spotted a muscular middle-aged white man on the rooftop of a department store. He had short-cropped hair, an unkempt beard, and wore a sleeveless vest exposing his arms. He was shouting desperately, handcuffed to a pipe.
Merle Dixon.
A tragic man. In The Walking Dead, he had first appeared as a racist and was handcuffed to a rooftop pipe by Rick. To escape being devoured by zombies, Merle cut off his own hand and fled the building. Later, during his attempted assassination of the Governor, he was overwhelmed, killed, and turned into a zombie—only to be put down by his younger brother, Daryl Dixon.
The story had just begun. This was the scene where Merle lost his hand. Realizing this, Selene retracted her gaze and began moving swiftly across rooftops, heading straight for the department store.
...
After T-Dog had accidentally dropped the key and locked the rooftop door, Merle completely broke down, screaming profanities.
"Damn it! You'll pay for this! Go to hell! Come back here! Don't you dare leave me!"
"You'll burn in hell! Die, you son of a bitch! You'll rot in the eighteenth level of hell!"
Eventually, Merle slumped against the pipe, his body trembling as madness crept into his voice. "Yeah, that's right, you heard me—fuck, got a problem with that?"
"If you're man enough, come at me! Otherwise, shut up and take it! You heard me, you pansy-ass officer! Obey orders, my ass..."
His eyes grew wild. When his gaze fell on a hacksaw lying nearby, something in his expression changed. Twisting his body, he unbuckled his belt, straining with every ounce of strength to hook the saw toward him, muttering deliriously, "Don't you worry about it, you idiot Jesus. I never prayed to you before, and I sure as hell won't now. I'll die before I beg you! You—"
At that moment, a shadow dropped lightly onto the roof. With effortless grace, Selene vaulted over the water pipes and landed in front of the chained Merle.
"Hey, mister. If you can keep quiet, I'll get those cuffs off," she said calmly.
Her voice made Merle freeze, eyes widening as if seeing an angel descend from heaven. "Oh, my beautiful—no, my angel! Please, get me out of here!"
Selene didn't waste time. With a quick tug, she snapped the handcuffs apart. Before Merle could even react, she grabbed him by the collar, leapt across the five-meter gap to the next rooftop, and landed smoothly amid his startled yell.
Releasing her grip, Selene tossed him aside. Merle rolled across the rooftop, gasping, before finally lying still, panting in disbelief.
"Oh! Thank you, beautiful lady!" he managed to say. Politeness wasn't usually in Merle's nature, but after seeing her snap metal and jump rooftops while carrying him effortlessly, fear and awe came naturally.
Selene gestured for him to approach. "Name?" she asked.
Although she already knew who he was, she decided to play along.
"Merle Dixon," he said, raising both hands to show he wasn't a threat.
Now that he had a moment to look at her properly, he was struck speechless. Wealth and power—those were the only impressions he could form.
Seeing his gesture, Selene introduced herself in return. "I'm Selene—Austrian, more or less. By the way, Mr. Dixon, I saw your companions drive off earlier. Why did they abandon you? You don't look injured or bitten."
The question hit a nerve. Merle's face twisted with fury. "Companions? Those bastards? They can all rot in hell—"
Selene cut him off before he could go on another rant. Narrowing her eyes slightly, she pointed toward the direction where the vehicles had gone. "Are you going back to find them?"
Ordinarily, Merle would've spat and sworn never to return. But the thought of his younger brother, Daryl, waiting for him back at camp gave him pause. His expression shifted, and after a bitter chuckle, he said, "Yeah, I'll go back. Gotta settle some scores first."
"Then, Miss Selene," he added, glancing at her, "are you coming with me to the camp?"
"Sure. Why not? I'm curious to see what kind of place you all call home."
Truthfully, Selene just wanted to see what a survivor camp looked like in a post-apocalyptic world—to witness humanity's true nature when stripped of civilization.
For instance, in the show, Rick and Shane started as opposites—Rick the emotional and righteous one, Shane the cold and pragmatic one. But over time, after Rick killed Shane, he gradually became more and more like him. Though Rick remained somewhat kind, there was a growing violence in his aura.
"Merle, lead the way," Selene said, tossing him a bag filled with guns.
Indeed, these were the weapons Rick had dropped earlier—Selene had found them beside the corpse of a horse while passing by and decided to pick them up.
Soon after, she located a relatively intact car, opened the back door, and motioned for Merle to take the wheel while she sat in the back seat.
Before long, the engine roared to life, and the two drove off.
It was an old police car, equipped with a radio that looked several decades out of date. Selene vaguely recalled that the show's setting took place sometime in the early 2000s.
During the ride, Merle continuously tried calling through the radio, hoping to find out if the camp had relocated.
...
At that moment, at the survivors' hilltop camp—
The entire group was still basking in the joy of reunion.
From their previous contact with the Atlanta group, they had assumed the situation there was hopeless, perhaps even suicidal. They had mentally prepared for the worst.
So when those who had gone to Atlanta actually returned, everyone's emotions went through a roller coaster of disbelief and elation.
However, two men in particular wore complicated expressions.
One was Rick's colleague and close friend—Shane. When Rick reappeared, no one could imagine the storm raging inside him.
The other was Merle's younger brother—Daryl. Upon learning that Merle hadn't come back, Daryl had been on the verge of charging into Atlanta himself, calming down only after being restrained by the others.
Just then, the radio suddenly crackled to life. "Zzzzt... anyone there?"
An older man with a wide-brimmed hat and graying beard—Dale—hurried over. "This is the survivor camp, we're... huh? Merle?! Oh, thank God, you're alive!"
"Daryl! Daryl, get over here—your brother's alive!" Dale shouted in astonishment and joy.