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Chapter 6: The Aurora
The alarm went off at 3:30 AM on August 15th.
I silenced it immediately and sat up, heart already racing. Through the window, the sky was still dark. Normal. Peaceful.
For seventeen more minutes.
Maya emerged from the bedroom, already dressed in practical clothes—jeans, boots, a jacket despite the summer heat. Her hair was tied back. Her face was pale but determined.
"Ready?" she asked.
"No," I said honestly. "But that's never stopped anything."
We stood by the window together, watching the sky. I'd positioned us in the living room with a clear view east, toward where I remembered the aurora appearing first.
3:40 AM. Nothing.
3:45 AM. Still dark.
3:47 AM—
The sky rippled.
It started as a shimmer, like heat waves rising from pavement. Then colors bled across the darkness: green, purple, gold, red, all swirling together in patterns that hurt to look at directly.
"Oh my god," Maya whispered.
The aurora spread across the entire sky, brighter and brighter until it was almost painful. I'd read about it in the novel, but seeing it in person was different. It was beautiful and terrifying and wrong, like watching reality itself crack open.
My phone buzzed. News alerts exploding. Outside, I heard shouting as people woke up and came outside to stare.
The aurora lasted exactly seventeen minutes.
When it faded at 4:04 AM, silence fell. Not normal silence—heavy, oppressive silence that made my ears ring.
Then the screaming started.
I ran to the window. Four stories below, on the street, a man was backing away from an old woman who'd collapsed. Except she wasn't collapsed anymore. She was standing, moving in jerky, unnatural motions.
Gray skin. Milky white eyes. Mouth hanging open.
The first zombie.
"It's real," Maya breathed beside me. "It's actually real."
More movement on the street. A teenager in pajamas stumbling out of a building, lurching toward a couple trying to get into their car. A dog that had been walking with its owner suddenly turning on the owner, moving wrong, attacking wrong.
The dead were rising.
And then, exactly as I remembered, text appeared in my vision.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE]
[WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE SURVIVAL SYSTEM]
Blue screens, translucent and glowing, floating right in front of my eyes. I blinked, and they didn't disappear. Real. The System was real.
[USER: ETHAN CHEN]
[AGE: 17]
[LEVEL: 1]
[STATUS: UNAWAKENED]
[ANALYZING USER...]
[UNIQUE CONDITION DETECTED: TRANSMIGRATOR]
[UNIQUE ADVANTAGE UNLOCKED: READER'S PRIVILEGE]
Wait. That wasn't in the novel. The System wasn't supposed to detect transmigration. Lucas Reed hadn't gotten any special advantage for—
[READER'S PRIVILEGE ACTIVATED]
[BONUS: You possess foreknowledge of events. This advantage has been recognized.]
[BENEFIT: Enhanced learning rate for skills]
[BENEFIT: Bonus points for strategic actions]
[BENEFIT: Limited access to future event notifications]
My heart pounded. This was new. Different. The System had given me an actual advantage for being a transmigrator.
[TUTORIAL QUEST AVAILABLE]
[SURVIVE YOUR FIRST DAY: 0/24 HOURS]
[REWARD: System Shop Access, 100 Points, Basic Skill Selection]
[ACCEPT QUEST?]
I mentally selected YES.
[QUEST ACCEPTED]
[TIMER STARTED: 23:59:47]
Beside me, Maya was staring into empty space, clearly reading her own System messages. Her eyes were wide.
"You're seeing this too?" she asked.
"Yeah. What's yours say?"
"Tutorial quest. Survive first day. System Shop unlocks after." She focused on me. "What's Reader's Privilege?"
"The System recognized I have foreknowledge," I said, still processing. "Gave me bonuses for it. Enhanced learning, bonus points, event notifications."
"So you have an advantage over everyone else."
"We have an advantage," I corrected. "Because I'm sharing everything with you."
A scream from outside cut our conversation short. The zombie woman had caught the man who'd been backing away. She was biting him. He was screaming.
"We need to move," Maya said, her voice tight. "Clear the building first, right? That's what you said—secure our base?"
I nodded, pulling my mind into focus. "Fourth floor down to first. Clear any zombies. Then we fortify and wait out the first day."
Maya grabbed the baseball bat. I took my hunting knife and the crowbar.
"Stay behind me," Maya said. "I've actually been in fights before."
We opened our apartment door carefully. The hallway was dark—power was out throughout the city. I clicked on my flashlight.
Something shuffled at the far end of the hall.
A zombie. Former tenant from unit 4B, an old man I'd seen once in the lobby. Now he was dead and moving anyway, lurching toward us with arms outstretched.
"First kill," Maya said. "You or me?"
"Together."
We moved forward. The zombie was slow, clumsy. Maya swung the bat and connected with its shoulder—solid hit, but it barely flinched. Zombies didn't feel pain.
I darted in low and drove my knife into its skull from the side. The blade punched through bone and the zombie dropped.
[ZOMBIE KILLED: 1]
[POINTS EARNED: 10]
[BONUS POINTS: +5 (FIRST KILL)]
The blue text flashed in my vision. Points. I'd earned points.
"Did you see that?" I asked Maya.
"Yeah. Ten points for kill. I got it too—we both damaged it, so we both got credit."
"Good. We work together, we both progress."
We moved down the hallway, checking each apartment. Most were empty or locked tight. But we found three more zombies:
Unit 4C: A young woman, turned, trying to break through her own door from the inside. Maya smashed the door open and I took her down with the crowbar. [+10 POINTS]
Third floor: Two zombies in the stairwell, a couple who'd been trying to evacuate. They turned on us, and we put them down together. [+10 POINTS each]
Second floor: One zombie in the hallway. Easy kill. [+10 POINTS]
First floor: The last zombie was the hardest—a big man who'd been a maintenance worker. He was strong even in death. It took us five minutes of dodging and hitting before we finally brought him down.
[ZOMBIE KILLED: 7 TOTAL]
[POINTS EARNED: 85 TOTAL]
[BONUS: +20 (BUILDING CLEARED)]
[SPECIAL NOTIFICATION]
[YOUR BUILDING HAS BEEN REGISTERED AS A SAFE ZONE]
[BENEFIT: Zombies will not naturally spawn within 50 meters]
[BENEFIT: Reduced encounter rate in surrounding area]
"Safe Zone," Maya read, breathing hard. "That's good, right?"
"That's perfect," I said. "It means we don't have to worry about zombies appearing inside the building. We can actually rest here."
We returned to our apartment, locked the door, and collapsed.
My arms ached. My clothes were splattered with black zombie blood that smelled like rot and chemicals. But we'd done it. Cleared the building. Secured our base.
"How many points do you have?" Maya asked.
"One hundred five total." I'd gotten bonuses for the first kill and the building clear. "You?"
"Seventy. No special bonuses." She didn't sound bitter about it, just stating facts.
"We pool resources anyway," I said. "When the System Shop opens after the first day, we'll decide together what to buy."
Maya nodded. Then she looked at the window, where dawn was starting to break over a changed world.
"Twenty-two hours left," she said. "Then the real work begins."
I watched zombies shambling through the streets below. Heard distant gunshots and screams and sirens that would eventually go silent.
The apocalypse had begun.
And somehow, against all odds, I was still alive.
[TIME REMAINING: 21:47:32]
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[END CHAPTER 6]
Current Status:
• Ethan's Level: 1
• Ethan's Points: 105
• Maya's Points: 70
• Base Secured: Cascade View Apartments, Unit 4D
• Zombies Eliminated: 7
• Days Survived:0 (Day 1 in progress)
Days Since Apocalypse: 0 (First Day)
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*Author's Note: The apocalypse has officially started! The System is active, our duo has their base, and the real survival begins. Next chapters will cover the first week—mutations, other survivors, and the discovery of what Reader's Privilege really means. Thank you for all the support!*
"If you enjoy this chapter, please vote with your Power Stones! It helps a lot! 💎