Warning Message

-In three minutes, the people around you will turn into zombies.

Xu Duoduo's first reaction to the text was to scoff. This was a recent internet meme; plenty of apocalypse bloggers had played out scenarios like this. She immediately replied: Are you Jiajia? Or Yaoyao? Are you messing with me? It's not even April Fool's Day.

The moment she sent the message, the light overhead flickered, making her heart lurch.

Sister Liu, her coworker beside her, couldn't help looking up too. "Huh, that's strange. How long has it been since we had a power outage in K City? What's going on?"

Xu Duoduo was a twenty-two-year-old intern at an internet company, and overtime was routine. It was six in the evening. Night fell early in the beginning of winter, and it was already pitch-black outside. Rain seemed to be on the way. Beyond the window, tree branches swayed, their shapes indistinct.

They looked like shadow monsters from a dark fairy tale, baring their claws, ready to drag people into the abyss.

Xu Duoduo considered herself fairly brave, but when Sister Liu turned toward her from the neighboring workstation, her ashen face and rigid pupils still gave Xu Duoduo a fright. Her gaze dropped, and she noticed that the edges of Sister Liu's fingernails were turning blue too.

Sister Liu seemed puzzled by Xu Duoduo's blank stare. She leaned closer and asked with concern, "Duoduo? What are you spacing out for? Careful, or the director will chew you out again."

The stench of rot that hit her nearly made Xu Duoduo throw up. She shot to her feet.

The other coworkers in the office looked up too, none of them knowing what was wrong with her.

Xu Duoduo swallowed nervously and began gathering her things to leave. "I'm not feeling well, so I'm heading home. Sister Liu, please ask the director for leave for me."

With that, she grabbed her bag and headed out. She really did look rather pale.

Behind her, Sister Liu still looked baffled. "How did you suddenly get sick when you were fine a moment ago? Young people these days are just spoiled. I got bitten by a dog yesterday, and didn't I come straight back to work after my rabies shot? Hey, watch out, or the director might get angry and fire you!"

By the time Xu Duoduo heard that last sentence, she had reached the office door. "Then let him fire me! I quit!"

Her heart was pounding.

After leaving the office, she checked her phone. Two minutes had passed since the message arrived. Luckily, the company wasn't on a high floor; its office was on the third. After a moment's thought, she hurried down the stairs.

She couldn't take the elevator when the power was unstable. If she got trapped inside, she would be done for.

She would be canned meat, still alive.

Xu Duoduo practically sprinted downstairs. Just as she reached the bottom of the building, a piercing scream rang out from above. The passersby around her swore in shock and looked up.

"Holy shit, that scared me!"

"What's going on? Don't tell me someone's about to jump off the building again because of work stress?"

"Ugh, that's terrifying. Come on, let's go!"

Xu Duoduo's hands shook at the sound of the scream. She checked her phone: exactly three minutes. She didn't dare look up and went straight to the gate, swiping her card to leave the software park.

Once she was out of the office complex, she scanned the code on a bike and rode home, not daring to linger.

She didn't dare take public transportation either.

No more texts arrived, and her phone signal kept cutting in and out.

Xu Duoduo wanted to message her friends and warn them to stay safe, but not a single message would go through. That was when she knew something really was going wrong with the world.

A storm was brewing.

She pedaled fast. Thankfully, everyone along the way seemed normal.

Twenty minutes later, she made it back to her residential complex and felt a little more at ease. She didn't waste any time, though. Before heading upstairs, she went into the largest supermarket by the entrance, grabbed a shopping cart, and started stocking up.

Milk, bread, instant noodles, chocolate, and all sorts of sugary, high-calorie drinks.

Xu Duoduo's mind was still in a daze, her nerves stretched taut. Every decision was instinctive, her actions guided by the urge to survive.

Once she had filled an entire cart, Aunt Wang, a shelf stocker nearby, suddenly asked with concern, "Young lady? What's wrong? You don't look too well! Feeling down? How come you're not working overtime today?"

Xu Duoduo often came here to buy things after getting off work at night, so the supermarket staff all recognized her.

"Oh, yeah. I'm feeling down, so I'm planning to have a big meal."

As though jolted awake, Xu Duoduo forced a smile and said to the stocker, "By the way, you offer delivery here, right? Could you deliver ten cases of bottled water for me? Just take them to the eighth floor of Building A. Putting them in the elevator is fine."

The stocker readily agreed, but asked in puzzlement, "What does a young lady like you need so much bottled water for? How long will it take you to use all that?"

As Xu Duoduo stuffed assorted cans of meat into her cart, she replied, "I don't want to keep coming back to buy more. My company fired me today. Starting tomorrow, I'll be busy looking for work, so I won't have time to come shopping."

The older woman sighed when she heard that. "Young people are under so much pressure these days. All right, all right. I'll write up an order in a minute, and you can come pay. But a young lady like you shouldn't keep eating all this junk food. Even if you're feeling down, you can't just binge like that. Think what it'll do to your stomach!"

The concern in her words made Xu Duoduo's heart ache. She had been adopted, and after the elderly couple who had taken her in passed away, their home had been demolished. She had moved here less than a year ago. Being shown such kindness by a stranger out of the blue was enough to make her tear up.

She opened her mouth again and again, but still couldn't bring herself to tell the woman about the zombies.

After all, she didn't have enough evidence to prove that the apocalypse and zombies really were coming.

So she silently followed the stocker to pay. The woman kindly packed everything neatly for her and even accompanied her all the way to the elevator.

Xu Duoduo took her emergency supplies and ten cases of bottled water upstairs. Before the elevator doors closed, she could still hear the security guard chatting with the stocker.

"Oh, making another delivery, Wang? How come this young lady bought so much?"

"Ah, she got fired and she's feeling down. Says she'll be looking for work starting tomorrow and doesn't want to keep buying bottled water. When young people get stressed, all they want to do is shop, shop, shop. Nothing like us older folks who grew up poor, eh?"

"Hahaha, that's true."

She couldn't hear anything after that. When she reached the eighth floor, Xu Duoduo quickly moved everything out, let the elevator doors close, then carried her purchases into her apartment. Only once she was back somewhere familiar did she feel a little safer.

She collapsed onto the sofa. The light overhead shone straight into her eyes, so she closed them to settle her nerves and catch her breath. She would sort the supplies piled by the door in a little while. But the moment she closed her eyes, something felt wrong.

It was as though she had suddenly begun hallucinating. With her eyes closed, she could see a Rubik's cube, one with a huge number of faces, countless surfaces packed tightly together.

It spun at breakneck speed.

Xu Duoduo gagged with a loud retch. The spinning had made her dizzy.