Nightfall soon came, and the small pantry slowly dimmed black.

There was no electricity connecting to the light bulb, so Lucien was left alone with his thoughts in the darkness.

He shivered as the bitter air entered through the cracks of his thin hospital gown, like a ghost that entered whenever it pleased.

He thought sleep would elude him due to the freezing temperature, but his body proved him wrong.

Lucien found himself giving in to the snowy lullaby, and drifted off to unconsciousness.

Within this hazy dream, this time, what he saw was a staggering tall man, holding onto a black cat.

When he realized that the cat he was holding onto was Shadow, Lucien immediately broke into tears.

He lovingly petted his cat, to which the other person willingly handed her over.

Only then did Lucien look up and saw that the person who was carrying his cat was actually his in-game friend, KillSwitch.

He saw the man who he met almost daily, appearing unwittingly in his dreams.

Lucien felt emotional for some unknown reason, and unconsciously began to stare at KillSwitch.

What he discovered was that the KillSwitch in his dreams appeared unbelievably accurate to the game.

From his long, black lustrous hair, to his slightly thick eyebrows, and finally to his phoenix, chartreuse-colored eyes.

His friend in the dream striked as being quite sultry and charming.

Lucien gaze dropped to KillSwitch's fingers, the fourth had a shiny ring and an emerald gemstone adorned in its center.

Just like it's owner, the green beautifully harmonized with his eyes.

KillSwitch caught Lucien observing the ring on his finger, and lit up with a smile.

He reached out for Lucien's soft hands before placing it near his chin, then planting a tender kiss.

Lucien jolted from the sudden display of affection, his face and the tips of his ears tinged red.

KillSwitch simply patted his cute little wife's fluffy hair, and said to him.

"Congratulations on your first place ranking baby."

The sound of party horns soon came from the hallway, and Lucien's parents walked forward with his mom holding a chocolate cake.

"Congratulations my son, we're so proud of you!"

His dad came over, while putting his arm around his son's shoulder.

"Come, come, blow the candle!"

His mom eagerly encouraged, her slightly wrinkled, but cheerful face beamed with enthusiasm.

Lucien felt his heart starting to become full and warm, and as he blowed the flame, he opened his eyes and awoke to reality.

**-

Lucien sighed, dreams were really just that, a fantasy.

He knew that such things would never happen in real life, his father was highly business-minded and would never celebrate such a worthless thing like ranking first in a video game that had no real consequences in the real world.

But as for KillSwitch?

Lucien paused, then recalled the sweet and endearing moments he had with him and finally proceeded to bury his face with his hands.

.....

...........

Lucien suddenly had an epiphany, and started worrying about his in-game husband that he left for six months.

He thought of all kinds of scenarios that KillSwitch would've done while he was gone.

.....

Lucien felt a strong sense of melancholy and heartache when he thought of the last scenario.

But an even greater worry emerged in his heart.

Lucien slapped himself once.

Lucien chose to belive himself, and be optimistic about the situation so he could keep his sanity and not fall into the wrong headspace.

Oddly enough, this sweet dream gave him the courage to move forward and build a better future for himself.

He was faced with challenges, from getting beaten down by gangsters, to falling into a coma, and almost getting killed in the military base.

But just one small dream pushed him to continue forward. He continued on with his plans.

In truth, he felt a little under the weather today, but with more than enough rest, what was supposed to be a troublesome high fever turned into a simple cough and sneezing.

He could start this day off fresh.

Lucien opened the shutters after listening carefully and confirming that there were no more zombies nearby.

The time looked about nine to ten AM, and the fog was less denser than yesterday.

It was the perfect day to scavenge for materials.

Lucien thoroughly reflected back to when he was dashing through the rain trying to look for shelter.

Amidst the havoc, he remembered a long alleyway of shops lined up together located just seven minutes away from the small pantry.

He was quick on his feet, and went towards the direction he remembered going while keeping atleast ten meters of distance away from the zombies.

But just when he started to see the outline of the stalls, a crowd of zombies abruptly appeared at his 10 o'clock.

Lucien was startled, but didn't stay standing for too long, and ran in the opposite direction while looking for things he could use.

He was sprinting even faster than yesterday, surviving a zombie apocalypse was actually a great workout.

Lucien came across a big mall and a vast parking space. 

The mall had an unknown number of zombies within, but Lucien was sure that it was jam-packed inside.

So he didn't second guess, and went straight towards the cars in the parking spot, and scanned as many cars as possible.

All while trying to avoid the loitering zombies and the huge zombie horde trailing a few meters away from him.

The rush of adrenaline made Lucien realize the major difference from playing a zombie apocalypse game to actually experiencing it.

After looking through how many cars, he successfully found one with it's door opened and the key still inside the slot.

Lucien felt like a parched fugitive in the dessert stumbling upon an oasis.

He twisted the car key and it fortunately worked. He saw the gas level still around seventy percent.

Lucien had a sinister plan in his mind. He glanced over to the zombies and sneered.

He stepped on the accelerator and after maneuvering it out of the parking lot, he made the car go faster, suddenly doing a u-turn at the entrance and rammed the speeding vehicle through the zombie horde!

Lucien chuckled and a sadistic expression made it's way to his twisted face.

Every zombie that got crushed by Lucien's car became a flat, bloody corpse pancake. 

Lucien laughed and felt like himself again, the incident at the military base made him forget about his true self.

Once he essentially "wiped out" the zombie masses, he checked the gas level before returning to his original route.

In a zombie apocalypse, the supreme lord and unrivalled one wasn't the person who had the most money, but the one with an abundance of resources.

Money was once the most valuable thing in our society, but in this new reality, you'd have to do whatever it takes to obtain resources.

That's right, Lucien hypothesised with his years of "experience" watching and researching zombie related topics, that if the cure wasn't found within a few years, the rule of the jungle would be the new system.

Lucien imagined a world where the strongest were the masters and those who were weak but wanted to survive had to do whatever the strongest person wanted.

Whether that be helping them kill zombies, or downright sleeping with them.

He also thought of base factions fighting with each other to become the ultimate base and make a functioning society for themselves.

But all that aside, his thoughts quickly returned to the current situation and he parked the car near the entrance of the alleyway.

He took the car key with him just in case someone wanted to steal it.

It was of course a bad thing, but a necessary evil. Sometimes, stealing is needed in order to survive, such as the case with Lucien.

Whether that be stealing someone's open car or groceries from a supermarket, it was basically a free-for-all as long as the owner wasn't there to beat you up for it.

Anyways, Lucien checked the store's windows one by one to see if they had any goods inside.

He picked up some weapons that he found lying around the floors or shelves from possibly slain survivors.

Lucien found a crowbar and a few knives until... 

He picked up the shining blade with the sleek, red handle and upon closer inspection, it really was a pocket knife, his signature weapon.

Lucien silently celebrated, and wanted to immediately test out his skills that he had been preparing for a millennia.

Lucien stepped outside and saw an innocent, wandering zombie, and locked his sights onto him.

With a slash that was like the wind, he gashed the pocket knife's blade towards the zombie's neck, and it made a clean, but graze cut.

It was like, he thought he would slice the zombies neck in one hack, but to his disappointment it only appeared as if he cut off a little bit of the meat....

The zombie growled, aggravated by Lucien's attack, he charged at him.

Lucien panicked, and rushed to flee away from the zombie.

Lucien ran until he couldn't spot the zombie anymore, and dropped down to his knees, trying to catch his breath.

Lucien saw himself as a pathetic joke.

Just then, a zombie popped out from the corner and met eyes with Lucien.

Before he could catch a break, Lucien had to be faced with another fright, and screamed at the zombie.

His yell startled the zombie, which made it spring back, giving Lucien enough time to sprint away again.

The horrifying face of the zombie with one eye bulging out and it's skull half-exposed, and the few bits of muscle peeking out gave Lucien the most shocking fright of his life.

Zombies in-game couldn't capture the realness of an undead, brain-eating, supernatural being.

Lucien reconsidered his plans on killing zombies again, and finally concluded that maybe hugging onto a golden thigh was much better than training hard enough to kill zombies just to one day make a mistake and miserably die.

In games, you could respawn, but unfortunately the same couldn't be said for real life.

His top ranking didn't mean anything in the face of those savages.

When he returned back to the entrance of the alleyway, he saw that his car wasn't there anymore.

Lucien wanted to yell in anguish, and even thought about making guesses as to where the thief could've gone, but gave up half way when he saw the sun slowly nearing to sunset.

He had no choice but to walk back.

And so, he started his pitiful journey back to the small pantry. 

His stomach gurgled every now and then, and the further he walked, the more he could hear his poor stomach complaining.

This went on for a few minutes, and he held his stomach with one hand, bearing the pain while using his every bit of strength to move one more step forward.

Until.. he couldn't take it anymore, and helplessly sat on the side of a random secluded building.

The stars and the blood red moon shone down upon him from the crack in the ceiling.

Lucien felt extremely weak, with all his energy spent, it tripled his hunger and his mind went into chaos.

He couldn't sleep no matter how hard he tried. It felt like he was just waiting around for his death.

For the clutches of the grim reaper he idolized so much would bring him to eternal sleep, and leave him to be forgotten in the passage of time.

That was, when an entirely illogical phenomenon occured.

A wandering old man happened to pass by, and what he saw was a pitiful youth leaning on the wall of a building.

He made his way to the poor youth.

The old man crouched down to his level, and saw Lucien's defeated face, with his brows furrying, deep in pain.

The old man picked up some white bread from his sleeve and bought it over to Lucien's mouth.

Lucien didn't react, and still had his eyes closed.

The old man clicked his tongue. 

He shaked his head disapprovingly and tried shaking Lucien's shoulder to wake him up.

Finally, Lucien slowly opened his mouth upon feeling the familiar texture of bread, and bit off a small part.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the old man reassuringly giving him a small smile, before turning to take his leave.

He saw the loaf of bread on his lap, and didn't hesitate to eat it and every single crumb.

Lucien felt that his stomach was significantly full, and his energy returned to normal, his mood improving notably.

But due to the bread making him feel very stuffed and satisfied, he couldn't help but become drowsy and fall asleep.

Perhaps he would forget this unforeseen act of kindness..... But the stars and moon claim testament to this strange interaction.