Dead World: Against Time

(Zzaassh!)

After splitting the monster in two with my sword, the creature dissolved into a black mist, leaving a trail of ash that smelled of rotten meat.

[<Ding!>]

At that very instant, a familiar notification appeared before my eyes.

[<You have obtained 150 EXP>]

[<Your level has gone up>]

[<You have obtained the title of Zombie Slayer>]

"Hmph..."

It was just a sigh, a routine thought. Just another day in this broken world.

"Pathetic."

My voice sounded like a harsh whisper in the silence of the destroyed street. The monster hadn't been a challenge, just another aberration in a sea of aberrations. The buildings around me were just skeletons of metal and concrete, and the sky had a reddish hue that I didn't remember seeing in the life I had lost.

"...."

I adjusted the grip on my sword, its familiar cold weight in my hand. The system had called it a "zombie," but it was nothing more than an empty shell, driven by a hunger that had devoured what was once a human being.

"Really... pathetic."

The title of "zombie slayer" was as ridiculous as everything else in this hell.

"...But I'm the most pathetic one."

The thought was a poison I knew well.

"...."

My hand tightened around the hilt of my sword, feeling the familiar cold of the metal.

"How was I supposed to know this was going to happen...?"

My gaze was lost on the reddish horizon. For an instant, the past superimposed itself on the present, and the rubble of the city transformed into a painful memory.

"...."

I grieved. I grieved for what I had been, for what I had done. Because deep down, I knew the truth. The world hadn't gone to hell because of a natural disaster or the act of a vengeful god. The world had gone to hell because of me.

I was a socially withdrawn girl who never fit in. While the others talked about boys, clothes, and parties, I sat alone, absorbed in the worlds I created in my mind. I found solace in fantasy and the occult, an escape from a reality that rejected me. The books on spells and rituals, which I secretly bought from second-hand stores, were my only company. I spent entire afternoons trying conjurations that promised fortune or power, black magic rituals that, in retrospect, were obvious scams. My life was a constant attempt to be part of something bigger, of a world that didn't marginalize me, a world I felt I deserved.

"........."

I got lost in my own bubble, so absorbed in my fantasy that I didn't realize the mistake I was about to make.

<Beep-beep!>

But one day, while I was following my usual routine of reading a magic grimoire I had bought online, a strange message appeared on my screen.

"What is this?"

It wasn't an email or a social media notification; it was just there.

<You are destined for more, much more than this sad existence.>

The text began in that way and continued, revealing secrets that only I knew. It spoke of my deepest fears, my failures in school, and the rituals I had attempted in my room by candlelight.

It seemed to know everything about me.

It proclaimed itself a supernatural being, an entity willing to reveal the truth of everything and the meaning of life.

"Could it be true...?"

My heart, so yearning for magic and fantasy, accepted the offer with a naivete that now embarrassed me.

"First, show me that what you say is true."

But a small part of me, still skeptical, asked for a test.

<Look at the sky.>

In response to my request demanding proof, that was the answer it instantly gave me.

"....."

In response, at that moment I ran out into the garden.

"It's real!!"

And I saw it. The sun was shining with a blinding light, but a silent downpour began to fall from the cloudless sky. It was a rain that didn't get things wet, it just fell. And in the midst of it all, a rainbow appeared. It wasn't a rainbow of vibrant colors, but one of predominantly cold, diluted, almost imperceptible tones that formed in the sky like a ghostly halo.

Looking back, that rainbow could have been the first clue that something was wrong, but...

"I accept!!"

...At that moment, I didn't realize it.

And blinded by the illusion of being something more, something important, I decided to cooperate with the entity. Its messages, which before seemed like a joke or a trick, were now my only hope. I obeyed every instruction, from the simplest to the strangest, with the blind faith of someone drowning and clinging to any plank. Gathering all the materials: the splinters of burnt wood, the ground glass, and the most peculiar objects it asked for.

<It's time.>

Thus came the moment marked by its message. On a night of a full moon, a few minutes before a lunar eclipse, I ventured deep into the forest. The darkness was total, except for the ghostly moonlight that filtered through the treetops. The air was heavy, with a cold that clung to my bones, and with trembling but determined hands, I drew the figure on the black dirt.

The circle I traced wasn't perfect; it was a mix of incomplete symbols and sinuous lines that twisted among themselves like vines. I made it with burnt wood ash powder and fragments of ground glass that shone with a strange light under the moon. The edges of the figure were not defined, dissolving into the darkness of the forest floor.

At the cardinal points, I placed the materials that symbolized contradiction: to the north, a compass with a broken needle that spun uncontrollably; to the south, the feather of a bird that never flies; to the east, a handful of beach sand, a symbolic emptiness in the middle of the forest; and to the west, the empty shell of a snail, an abandoned home.

In the center, I added the most personal objects: a small clay statuette in the shape of a heart, split in half and joined with acacia thorns; a small glass jar with my own condensed breath from a cold night, mixed with dirt; and a tree root in the shape of an impossible knot.

"....."

And so, the lunar eclipse began. The moon, which until a moment ago had been a pale lighthouse, was slowly devoured by a shadow.

At that instant, with the figure almost invisible, I recited the words. My voice, at first a whisper, grew stronger with each phrase.

"Order is a Lie.

Form is the Mask.

What Was, Never Was.

What Will Not Be, Already Is.

Wake up, Chaos.

The Door Is Not.

The Door Is.

Come."

As I recited the last word, an invisible wave of energy seemed to emanate from the circle. High above, the stars in the sky began to flicker, like faulty lights, and became disorganized in the firmament. The outlines of the nearby trees seemed to undulate, losing their solid shape for an instant. The sound of the forest, the creaks of the branches and the whispers of the leaves, disappeared completely, and then came back with a deafening roar that did not come from any direction, but resonated from the ground and the air. The objects in the circle, the compass and the feather, briefly levitated, trembling in the air, before falling to the ground as if gravity had completely failed.

As for me, I felt confused and wasn't even able to grasp everything around me with clarity at that moment, incapable of even uttering anything while the litany dissolved into the silence of the forest.

"...."

The stars, which had become disorganized, returned to their places, and the air around me felt heavy, as if the atmospheric pressure had multiplied.

(Hum...!)

"Gui...lty..."

"....belo...ved... co...nde...mned! ...your... belo...ved..."

"Err...or! Err...or!"

"...now... it's... la...te..."

Out of nowhere, a low and growing hum began to resonate, a sound that did not seem to come from anywhere, but was formed from the very fabric of reality, a chorus of a thousand distorted voices that seemed to sing the litany in an unintelligible choir.

(Whoooosh-Swoooosh)

Right in the center of the circle of ash and glass, the air began to swirl. Not like a normal gust of wind, but like a perfectly circular whirlwind that rose from the ground, lifting the dry leaves and dust in an ascending spiral.

"O...ne... of two!... invoked!"

"It... has... co...me... clo...ser!... It's... co...ming!..."

The whirlwind of air became denser, whispering with a thousand distorted voices that seemed to sing the litany in an unintelligible choir.

"H-hiiii...!"

From the center of that ethereal vortex, a figure began to emerge. It didn't materialize all at once; it seemed as if the air itself was condensing, forming flesh and fabric. First, a silhouette was glimpsed, and then the details began to define themselves.

"Mmmm~?"

It was a girl, of about twelve or thirteen years of apparent age, with a slight body that seemed to float instead of stepping on the ground.

"Where am I~?"

With fluffy and long pink hair that seemed to move as if it were alive, along with her eyes that glowed like auroras, alternating between all kinds of colors, she held a stuffed doll in her hand as she asked.

In my opinion, the girl looked so innocent, with her pink hair and her soft stuffed doll.

"We are on Earth. I have invoked you."

I thought I had invoked a kind of spirit or elemental being, something gentle and pure.

"I see."

....But that illusion immediately burst when, right after, responding with a melodious voice and without any warning, she hopped with small steps toward a nearby caterpillar that was crawling on a branch.

"Look, I've never seen one of these!"

She said with a childlike emotion like that of a child discovering a new toy.

"Let's see what happens~!"

(Craac-Tshlaak!)

....And without changing her expression, with her fragile-looking hand, she held the caterpillar, looked at it for one more second and, to my horror, bit her finger.

"A-ah... Kyyyaaaahhh!!"

"Drink a lot, okay...?"

She tore it off with a casual bite, as if she felt nothing.

(Crsst! Chirr... Kriiiik-Klonk!)

The blood, with a strangely metallic gleam, dripped onto the insect. The caterpillar writhed and swelled. Its eyes turned black and its legs multiplied, its jaws became sharp, its body became viscous and grotesque, until a monstrous figure almost 2 meters tall rose where the insect had been.

"....."

My heart stopped. Panic took hold of me, and I was paralyzed with fear.

"Oh, right! My name is Seraphina. It's a pleasure to meet you."

And so, the girl turned towards me, with a trace of blood at the corner of her lips. With an impeccable bow that completely contrasted with the scene I had just witnessed, she introduced herself.

(Tsss... click!)

And then I saw it.

(Squelch-Crrrrt!)

The finger she had bitten off began to move across the ground, climbing through the grass and branches until it reunited with her hand as the bone and skin joined in an unnatural way, as if they had never been separated.

"Eh~?! Are you leaving already...?"

My entire body reacted. A scream of terror was choked in my throat. I ran. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, without looking back, with fear and horror etched into my soul. At my feet, I noticed that the ground where her blood had fallen was also beginning to move, to mutate and twist grotesquely.

After that event, I fled to my room and, filled with fear, isolated myself with the only hope that if I hid enough, what I had witnessed would eventually disappear.

But it wasn't so.

Suddenly, a pandemic broke out. A mysterious virus, supposedly created by a scientific organization, escaped from a lab.

"..."

In the blink of an eye, people turned into undead mutants, into creatures driven by hunger, and the world I knew collapsed, as the chaos I had witnessed spread everywhere.

[<The cataclysmic event has begun. The door to Chaos was opened by your hand, the same hand that played with a thousand-year-old taboo. The world, as you knew it, is a memory. All your fault.>]

It was then that the system appeared. A translucent screen materialized before my eyes, with a message that plunged me into despair.

The system's words were a dagger as I understood the scale of the horror of what I had done, the weight of my naivete. At that moment, tears streamed down, and I gave up. Everything was lost.

But the system wasn't finished.

[<Order is crumbling, but it can still be saved.>]

The message changed, revealing an objective.

[<Mission: Prevent the birth of the Demon King.>]

After that message, a clock appeared in the corner of my vision, with hands that had already begun to turn.

It was that moment when panic, despair, and regret transformed into a purpose.

I could no longer hide.

At that moment began my quest, my race against time to become stronger.