On a cold night in Shibuya, Tokyo. I stood on the roof of a tall commercial building looking down on the bustling city, "am I actually going to jump?" I questioned,

My bare feet pressed on the edge of the roof as I gazed at cars passing me by. My name is Shindo Haruki, I'm 20 years old. And today was going to be my last day alive. I looked up at the cloudy skies as rain began to fall, here I was one step to my demise. Eventually the hours I spent gazing at the streets, I stopped. I got down from the rooftop and put my shoes back on before walking towards the sidewalk.

I wasn't particularly athletic, I wasn't always the tallest or the smartest. I thought after high school something would've changed, maybe I would've found who I was. That didn't work out enough for me, now. I'm just a shitty convenience store employee. I checked my watch, my morning shift was about to begin. I audibly groaned, but I figured if I wasn't going to jump off of that roof then I should at least make money for food.

I walked into the convenience store which was only half a block away from the building I almost jumped from. Normally, I work the night shifts from three in the morning to nine in the morning. I put my coat in the backroom, for the most part it was empty back there. It had a mop, a bucket, a safe, a ladder to the roof, and a mini fridge that was scattered with minimal snacks. I sighed and walked back out, the night shift never had a lot of customers so I mainly just got to sat back and watch television. I liked that part about the job.

I sat behind the counter, in front of me was a small television that our boss gave us because he wanted to encourage a better attitude workplace. I channel surfed through the television, passing through, trying to find anything that interested me.

The door swung open, it was a group of rowdy young adults. Probably not much older than me, they were obviously drunk except for one. They walked around the store babbling and goofing off for about 30 minutes, they finally got all of their items and approached the register ready to be rung up. I stood up from watching television and started swiping their items. Unknowingly, I left the television on, "We've yet to see a disease like this in years" it said. I turned the television off and the awkward silence grew between me and this group, until.

"You believe in that?" The sober one asked, 

"Believe what?" I asked while still swiping the items.

"They're saying this disease is turning people into flesh-eating idiots." He replied while lighting a cigarette. Another in the group blurted out, "Like zombies?"

I finally finished scanning the items, and I handed the bags to them. The sober one took a long drag of his cigarette. "Something like that."

The group finally left, I sat back down and turned on my television again. This disease intrigued me, how possible could a zombie outbreak be? The news showed parts of other countries in panic. I yawned, "There's no way it'll reach Japan" 

"They should have enough time to shut it down before it goes major."

I stood up, walked into the back room and grabbed some snacks that were left in the fridge. I walked back out and sat down again. I yawned again, I didn't sleep so good before coming into work and it was catching up to me. I leaned under the desk and cracked open a canned energy drink, I gulped it down while eating my chips and watching the news.

I fell asleep, a deep sleep. How ironic..

I was awoken by panicked screams, this jolted me awake. I checked my watch and it was just now four-thirty in the morning. The screams came from a girl who was in the store, holding the door closed covered in blood. I stared at her for a split second before she said, "Can you help?"

I rubbed my eyes, "What's going on?"

"Those things are trying to kill me!"

"Those things?" I thought, when I peaked at the glass door. It was a mob of people, they were covered in blood as well. however, their skin was pale and their eyes looked lifeless. They also had black veins that ran through their entire body. I stammered my next words out, "Zombies." I thought as quickly as I could, I ran to the back room and grabbed the mop, I placed the mop in between the glass door handles. The undead continued to push on the door.

"Thank you." She let out a relieving sigh.

I stared at the door, I wasn't acknowledging a word she was saying. I couldn't stop thinking of how bad I wanted to jump earlier. I wanted to open that door and let those things consume me.

The girl thanked me again, I looked at her finally acknowledging she was in the store.

"Is it bad out there?" I asked,

"Not as bad as some other parts, this was the only place I saw open." She replied.

I finally noticed her features, she had pink hair and brown eyes, she had braces but her teeth were pretty, in my opinion. She was dressed in a pink night-gown, sporting a red purse. I looked down to see what kind of shoes she was wearing. She wasn't wearing any.

"I'm Hana Mura," she said. "I work at the love hotel in Shibuya." she added.

I stammered my next sentence out. "I'm Shindo Haruki, I work here."
She looked around frantically.

"Do you have a phone?" she asked, "I need to make sure my family is okay."

I nodded, I helped her over the counter and gave her the emergency phone. I waited patiently for her to get off of the phone, however, no one picked up. She almost broke down into tears right there.

She plopped on the hard ground, she shuffled through items under the counter until she found a bottle of wine.

"Is that really a good idea?" I asked,

"I won't drink it all, but If we're going to be stuck here for a while.." She said.

She was right, who knows how long we'd be here. I sat down next to her and we took turns sipping the wine.

"So, Shindo. Tell me about you." She said.

I didn't really know what else to say, "I'm 20 years old."

"That's it? Let's take turns talking about our lives!" She was pretty optimistic that we were going to make it out of this alive, but as the sounds outside grew louder. I wasn't sure.

"How'd you get into love hotels?" I asked, the question was on my mind since she said it.

"I guess I stumbled into it, I'm young and I needed money." Hana said.

I stammered again, I didn't want to upset her. "Well, If you had the opportunity. What would you do?"

"Hmm" she put her hand on her chin. "I guess I would be a model."

"I always wanted to be a model," she recalled.

"How about you? I'm sure working convenience wasn't your plan." She asked, gulping down more of the wine.

I wanted to tell her the truth, how much I hated life and if I had the option. I'd kill myself. I didn't want to lie to her, even though she was a complete stranger.

"I'd want to be a corporate boss." I said.

"Ooh" she said, "a businessman."

I blushed.

We sat there continuing drinking the wine bottle until it was practically empty, I checked my watch again and it was only six in the morning. The noises outside made it impossible to rest, we were constantly on edge. A loud engine roared outside, it was a large garbage truck. I looked outside and caught a glimpse, it was the sober guy from earlier. He wasn't with the same rowdy individuals. There were only two people beside him, they cleared out the mob of zombies with some bats and tried to open the door.

Hana began panicking, I tried to keep her calm. I came out from behind the counter and put my hands up, me and the sober guy recognized each other. I took the mop down and I let him and his friends in.

"It's bad out there, everywhere you turn there's a zombie." The guy said. One of his friends was visibly injured; they had a fresh laceration that traced down their entire right arm.

"We won't make it huddled up here, grab what you can. We'll head out soon." The guy commanded both of his friends. One girl and one guy walked around the store grabbing what they needed.

"If I were you, I'd leave here too." He said to me, I looked at him blankly, he pointed at the door and it was almost gone off of the hinges, he was right. We wouldn't make it grouped up here.

"I never got your name." He said while lighting another cigarette. Hana popped up from behind the counter, The guy from earlier noticed she was covered in blood. He held his bat and pointed it at Hana.

"You!"

"You there!"

"Are you bitten? scratched?" He yelled, this caused Hana to frantically panic.

"She's not." I assured.

"She could be lying." He said.

"I'm not!" Hana yelled.

"Then why are you covered in blood?" He screamed.

"Because," she said.
"I had to kill my client."

"Client?" He asked. It clicked in his head. There was another zombie at the door, a new mob had started because of the screams. This time they broke the door off the hinges. Everyone looked at me in panic, like I knew what to do. Then I realized.

"Quick, come to the back room!" I screamed. "There's a ladder to the roof."

Frantically, we all ran into the back room and climbed up the roof one by one. I was the last one to go up, I was kicking zombies. That amazed me, hours ago I was going to do anything in my power to leave this world. Here I am fighting zombies trying to survive. Is this for Hana? I kicked the last zombie down but lost my shoe in the process, the guy pulled me up.

"We're going to have to climb to the next building over." He said. I looked down at the garbage truck they had stolen.

"Can't we use that?" I pointed out.

"No gas, I don't think you want to go on foot with these zombies." He said.

He climbed up the side of the building next to the store, his friends went next, then Hana, then me. We climbed to the top of the roof from the side of the building using windows.
This building was much taller than the store. In order to get to the next building you'd need a ladder to go across rooftops.

"What now?" Hana asked.

The man stared blankly.

"Hello, Mr. Leader" she mocked, "What are we going to do now?"

"Will you shut up, just let me think." The man said.

The rain started pouring down once again, this brought me back to earlier. Barefoot on a roof, rain slapping my face. But this time.. I'm surrounded by people that want to survive. Do I want to survive?

The man, still struggling with a plan, finally spoke up.

"We should go to a higher building, maybe there's a helicopter pad and we can signal for help." He said sternly.

I looked around our area, to our left was a building still under construction. I assume the man saw it but didn't want to say anything because it was unstable, however. Just a couple of buildings beyond the construction was a large building. I knew that building because, that's where I tried to kill myself.

"Over there." I said, pointing at the large building. "That building has a helipad on top."

"How are you so sure?" The man asked.

"I've been there a couple times." I replied, unsure what to say.

"We're going to have to step on this construction though." Hana added, "Is that safe?"

"Of course not, but if you want to survive then we have to." The man said, "Come on, let's go." He peered over the edge hearing the groaning of the undead, he walked to the opposite edge of the rooftop and jumped onto the construction of a skyscraper.

We all followed him, his friend, who was injured earlier, struggled and was scared to jump. We all tried our best to cheer her on but she was terrified. I offered my hand out and signaled with my hands telling her to jump. She launched and I grabbed her arm, she screamed in pain as I lifted her up on the construction site we were all on.
This unfinished building was incredibly unsafe, it was tall and made mostly of wood and concrete. It was unstable and we didn't want to do something that might cause us to fall in.

We steathily and carefully navigated the unfinished skyscraper, going up each level. We reached the top and there were pallets of wood we could use to build a makeshift ladder across to the other building. We all helped by using the various tools that the construction crew left up here, hammers, saws, nails, and planks were littered at the top.

When we reached the top, the guy commended me. "You're a hero you know, thanks for helping back there. I didn't think you had it in you."

We use those to build a makeshift ladder, sticking the planks and sticks together with super-glue and some of our shredded clothing. The ladder was long enough so we hauled it over the unfinished building until it reached the finished skyscraper.

Everyone was anxious, no one was sure if this would work. But if it did we'd survive, nobody wanted to go first but I offered myself.

"I'll go." I said heroically, but deep down I was scared. I crawled onto the ladder, and began crawling across the city to another skyscraper. It was surprisingly sturdy, I was shaking however. I was scared but this made me feel alive.

After me, Hana went, then the guy, and his other friend. The girl who was previously injured was hesitant to crawl the ladder. Once again we yelled at her to come across.
She began crawling the ladder.

"The middle isn't sturdy, you might shift a little bit but don't be scared!" The guy called out. "You might have to go a little faster once you're at the middle."

This scared the girl even more, she trembled as she got closer to the middle. We noticed zombies running behind her.

"Behind you!" The guy yelled out again. There were six zombies that managed to crawl on the ladder, it was inconsistent but they didn't fall all the way down. They mostly shook the ladder while attempting it. This scared the girl even more, she was finally at the middle and the ladder was shaking so much. She cried.

"You're doing good! Please keep going!" Hana yelled.

That was it.. The ladder snapped in half launching the poor girl down into the city. We watched her body drop as she yelled and cried, her body smashed into the ground instantly leaking blood everywhere. Everyone on the rooftop was sick.

"We have to keep going." The guy said, obviously gulping trying to not throw up.

That made me realize something, she wanted to live. She didn't want to die. I couldn't wrap my head around the thought of dying anymore. It was scary, maybe I took it for granted too many times. I can't imagine what she thought in her last moments. This new world is scary, I'm doing things I would have never done if I continued being the person I was. Before the zombies, I was a loser. I feel like a hero now. We stayed on the rooftop patienly waiting, we wondered if a helicopter would even see us. After hours, the sun creeked through the clouds and a helicopter hovered above, it dropped down a ladder for us to climb up, while we climbed, Hana said something.

"Thank god you knew about this helipad." She said, "Why were you visiting rooftops anyways?"

"I tried to kill myself on this roof." I said defeatedly.

"Well thank god you didn't. I would've been dead." Hana said, the guy and his friend agreed.

"Are you still suicidal? Or do you desire to live?" Hana asked me.

(ONE SHOT NOVEL)
AUTHOR: ORENJI YUKO