Waking Among the Dead

New chapter is live.

Settle in, take your time, and let's see what waits in the dark 🖤

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At that same moment, about six miles from the convoy, Daryl and Merle leaned shoulder to shoulder.

The radio sat dead at their feet.

Daryl took a deep drag from the half-burned cigarette and passed it to Merle.

Merle did not complain.

He caught it between cracked lips and finished it in two pulls.

"You think if Ward went looking for us too, the camp's already back to that democratic bullshit?" Merle muttered, keeping his voice low.

Daryl had no interest in answering.

Eyes closed, he hugged his crossbow and saved his strength.

"Hell, maybe they're arguing right now," Merle said when Daryl ignored him. He let out a dry laugh.

"Can you shut your damn mouth?" Daryl snapped, also keeping his voice down.

"Little brother..." Merle tipped his head back, the dead cigarette still hanging from his mouth. His voice changed, going distant. "You think Ward really comes back for me this time?"

Daryl's mouth twitched.

He did not answer.

In their current situation, he did not know.

Following Merle's gaze, Daryl looked up at the sky.

Blue. Clear. A strip of sunlight leaking through.

If the view pulled back from the two brothers, the first thing it would reveal was them pressed together, bodies trembling slightly.

They were on a high platform, the roof of a small building.

Walker growls filled the air below.

As the view drew farther away, it would reveal a horde large enough to turn any man's stomach, swaying beneath them.

Their motorcycles stood near the pumps not far away.

This place was a small gas station. The brothers were stranded on top of the 7-Eleven.

Only walkers came here now.

Cold.

Evan's finger twitched.

It felt as if he were lying in a pool of ice water.

A thread of sunlight slipped through the second-floor church window and fell across his eyes.

Under his closed lids, his eyes moved.

A few seconds later, he opened them.

The world sharpened slowly from blur to shape.

His breathing quickened. He exhaled a long, hot breath, and in the sunlight it turned white like mist.

The smell of antibiotics lingered under his nose.

Evan forced himself upright with everything he had and barely managed to lean against the stone wall.

"Fuck. Good thing no one saw that. That was embarrassing as hell..."

He dragged his broken right arm closer.

Time had not made the pain fade. If anything, it had grown worse.

Evan lifted his head with a grimace and took one breath before he could look around.

Walker corpses lay scattered everywhere, filling almost the entire second floor of the church.

His Stone Sledgehammer stood upside down among them, the long handle pointing straight up.

Planted in that mountain of dead, every inch of it crusted in dried blood, the hammer looked brutally imposing.

Evan shook his head and drove the last traces of wildness out of his mind.

"How long was I out?"

He looked toward the window.

The first light of morning was slowly moving across the floor.

Feeling the thin chill of the dawn air, he had a vague sense that he had been unconscious for at least a day and a night.

'System.'

A screen opened in front of him.

[Status]

[Name: Evan Ward]

[Level: Lv. 22]

[Unspent Skill Points: 7]

[Health: 119/122 (Base 100, Level Bonus 22)]

[Stamina: 31/61 (122) (slowly decreasing)]

[Food/Water: 7/122 (slowly decreasing)]

[Feels Like: 60 F]

[Walker Kills: 231]

[Magazines: Bow Crafting Lv. 5]

[Skills: Strength - Attribute Lv. 8, Skull Crusher Lv. 4, Big and Fast Lv. 1; Fortitude - Pain Tolerance...]

[Status Effect: Fatigued (You need rest.)]

[Status Effect: Hypothermia (Body temperature is too low.)]

[Status Effect: Broken Arm (Right arm unusable. Health is slowly decreasing.)]

[Status Effect: Weakness (Maximum stamina temporarily reduced. Combat power restricted.)]

[Status Effect: Hunger and Thirst (At zero, health will continue to fall until death.)]

A long string of negative effects appeared at once.

Evan clicked his tongue.

When he saw Hunger and Thirst, the exhaustion vanished from his face and he snapped fully awake.

He closed the system, opened his inventory, and pulled out the ready-made meals he had found in the motel treasure room.

Food did not spoil inside the inventory.

When Evan tore open the thin packaging, steam still rose from it.

He did not bother checking what dish it was.

He grabbed the included spoon and began shoveling food into his mouth.

'My body burned through less while I was unconscious, but Food/Water still kept dropping.'

'I must have burned through almost everything during the fight.'

'Still, I got lucky. It didn't hit zero. Healing Factor needs food in the body before it can repair me automatically.'

'Without Healing Factor and those antibiotics, the bleeding alone might have drained my health to nothing.'

He kept eating as those thoughts passed through him, unable to stop the relief rising in his chest.

At the very end, he had not lost his mind the way he had at the beginning.

The two points he had forced into place and that handful of antibiotics had both been necessary.

Without either one, Evan might never have woken up again.

He ate three boxed system meals one after another.

Only when Food/Water rose from 7 all the way to 112 did color return to his face.

His body temperature rose with the food and the morning sun. The hypothermia status slowly faded away.

Evan got up and looked around the second floor.

His eyes finally settled on the wooden bed where the priest had likely slept.

He crossed over the ruined bodies, moved through the mountain of blood and corpses, and picked up the hammer with his left hand.

At the bed, he swung.

Thud.

The bed broke apart.

Evan wrapped several usable pieces of wood in the bedsheet, then found a small roll of tape in a drawer.

Cloth.

Wood.

Tape.

"That's enough."

Relief sparked in him.

'Craft.'

He heard the familiar sound of hammering and turning gears.

Only a few seconds later, a fresh splint appeared on Evan's right arm.

The splint looked simple, just two pieces of wood holding the arm in place.

Under the system's effect, however, the medical item did far more than its appearance suggested.

[Splint]

[Can heal the arm or leg you ruined, but don't get overconfident. This is not a walker chew toy and will not prevent further injury.]

At the same time, the Broken Arm status in the lower-left corner disappeared.

In its place, a new icon appeared.

[Broken Bone (Healing) - Time Remaining: 05:00:00]

"Five hours. I can live with that."

If he could make a cast, the healing speed would be much faster.

Unfortunately, that required a magazine level he did not have yet.

Medical Lv. 19.

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