His green eyes, once sharp and alive, struggled to focus. The moon hung above him, pale and distant. His black hair spread across the grass around his head mixed with dirt and blood. It would have looked dramatic from a distance. But sadly, no one was there. Well, except for the creature.
He vomited lots of blood as he coughed in pain.
Seconds passed. Silence settled — solemn, suffocating. Not even the air dared to move.
Then came the sound of heavy steps. A shadow slowly moved over him.
“You really thought you could win?” The voice wasn’t yelling or screaming. It was calm and soothing. It felt like when Karma's mom used to read the same old bedtime story.
A boot pressed into his already broken ribs and the crack that followed wasn't just bone.
“Even if I were not immortal, you would have lost. ”
Karma tried to breathe but it was hard. Blood was filling up his lungs and mouth. It tasted like regret.
He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even scream. Skull throbbed with pain, and though he was sure something inside was broken, consciousness stubbornly clung to him—against all odds.
As the stars blurred into a dizzying swirl, the moon seemed to mock him with its cold, indifferent smile.
definitely
In that exact moment, Ryuguji Karma lost
Chapter 1 - The First Broken World
"Huh?"
Karma woke up.
There wasn’t even time to take a breath before it hit him: he shouldn’t be here. He had died
The world smelled… different. Probably the soft, wet thing under his head — a fresh dead body. His body moved stiff, reluctant, like it still remembered being dead. The burn of blood in his throat was still fresh in his mind, even if his body had forgotten it.
After he managed to stand up, he quickly examined his surroundings noticing that there was only a road full of rusted cars and a LOT of corpses. He was still not sure if it was all a dream before dying or if he was really reborn in another world, but it would've been a waste of time overthinking everything as always. So instead, he observed: a van lay overturned near the sidewalk, faded paint with a childish drawing of a melting cone on its side. It was ice cream, and there, in bold, cracked letters, English writing. He paused.
Apparently, this world had that language too.
He moved on, following the road, scavenging what he could, hunting small animals, and avoiding trouble. Days bled into nights. Small villages had long been abandoned—doors yawning open, tired of holding themselves up, grocery shelves empty, the occasional half-decayed corpse giving him an unwelcome “hello.” Nature was patient: weeds pushing through cracks in asphalt, crows squawking at anything that moved. Shit was no joke.
While exploring, he found a house that still had its door attached. That was enough of a reason to stop for the night. Inside, a small table was still set — two dusted plates, two empty glasses, a dried flower in a cracked vase in the middle. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall and ate what he'd scavenged, tasting like shit. Outside, the wind moved through the empty street like it was looking for something too. He didn't sleep much. Never did anymore. When the light changed he got up, stepped over the threshold, and kept walking.
After two weeks of walking like this, his goal was still the same: figure out what the hell had happened, or at least make sense of the world around him.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Then, finally, a cityscape appeared in the distance.
“Holy shit…” he muttered, squinting. “An actual fucking city? Finally… I’ve had enough wandering like a baby that got lost.”
Closer now, devastation was impossible to ignore. Skyscrapers leaned at odd angles, like someone had tried to turn the Leaning Tower of Pisa into a city skyline, dead bodies were scattered across the road and graffiti screamed warnings about cures, lies, and whoever survived.
After what seemed like an hour of walking non-stop, he found a supermarket barricaded with sharpened metal and wood.
Inside, pallid faces turned. Eyes hollow, clothes filthy, hunger written into every angle of every face. Two survivors murmured in a corner, voices low enough to be secrets. Near the wall, an adult crouched over a kid, pushing broken toys across the floor with the kind of focus that had nothing to do with the toys. Most of the others were laid on makeshift beds — coats folded into pillows, jackets spread over concrete.
Karma stood out in his oversized, drippy clothes.
Then, near the entrance to the left, a man leaned against a post with a yellowed newspaper like the world hadn't ended. Short, built like someone who'd earned every scar the hard way. Black hair going grey at the edges, beard the same. One eye dark brown, sharp, cataloguing the room without moving. The other — full white. Blind, probably. Didn't make him look weaker but much worse.
One side of his jaw was stuffed with chewing tobacco. When he spat into a bucket, the echo felt like a gunshot.
“Yo, I’m new here, I just wanted to ask ab—”
“First, learn some manners boy,” the leader cut him off.
“Second, you clearly don’t need help like these people do.” He gestured to the malnourished crowd.
“Bring us food, then we talk... . Deal?”
Karma’s jaw tightened. “My bad! I am so sorry for my manners. How much food is ‘enough’?”
The leader laughed. “Enough is enough.”
“That’s not a number...” Karma muttered with a half-grin that looked more like a rigid grimace.
“You want an exact figure?” The leader folded his arms. “Mhh... Let's do five days’ worth for everyone here.”
Karma glanced around. Seventeen people and one kid. Eighty-five meals minimum. Assuming nobody drops dead in the meantime.
The shelves behind the leader looked like they’d survived two different apocalypses: half-chewed cans, flattened chip bags, one lonely pancake mix box spilling powder over the floor. Even the rats had probably given up and left.
Karma sighed. “Fine. Where should I go then? And how do I know you'll give me what I need?”
“Listen kid, do you really have any other option?"
"..."
"Yeah, that's what I thought." The leader nodded toward the docks. "In this city, we’re the only ones alive. If you want the good stuff, go to the dead zone. You'll find it following the canal; once you see the rusted bridges, past them, the dead zone begins. No one’s cleared it since the outbreak. Or at least, not that I’m aware of.”
Karma didn’t flinch. “Is it crawling with—?”
“We don’t really know…” The leader’s voice held something between respect and fear. “Some people I really respected went there and never came back.”
“Gotcha. Well… I’ll see you later then.” Casual voice, calm eyes. Inside, calculations already running — risk, reward, ways out.
The leader extended a hand and Karma gladly
Karma stepped out of the supermarket and made his way toward the docks.
He passed through what used to be a residential street. Most doors were open. He checked a few kitchens out of habit — empty, mostly. In one of them, a jar sat on the counter — a spice, maybe, or just dust pretending to be one. The cap came off without thinking and the smell hit before it could be stopped. Warm. Foreign. The kind that had no business existing in a dead world. One second. Then the jar went back down and the kitchen got left behind.
The city behind him groaned and creaked under the weight of its own decay.
The more he followed the canal, the more it got darker and motionless. Once he saw the rusted bridges arched over the black water, he sighed. Beyond it, the city was a different kind of chaos—rusted cars stacked like toys, abandoned barricades, trees twisting over cracked pavement like they owned the place. The deadzone didn't mess around.
Dead zombies were still scattered around but… no human corpses. Not a single one. That alone was weird. Very weird.
While scouting the zone, his mind ran.
Mh… if something happens right now, I could just run and dive into that building… but wait, what if there’s someone or something inside? Maybe I should just use my power… Would it even work on zombies? No, probably not... Distance… supplies… crap, how much do I even need? Escape routes, angles… okay, stay calm. Don’t get cocky. Never get cocky. Seriously, don’t underestimate humans or whatever’s left of them. Also, for the love of my own sanity, I have to keep the sarcastic commentary going. Otherwise I’ll fucking lose it.
Hours passed. His stomach protested, but he ignored it. Focus mattered more. He noted every little thing, every sound. A rat raced across a broken car. A distant groan made him flinch. A flicker of movement — maybe a bird, maybe something worse. Karma gave it a polite nod.
Hello little bird. Or demon. Whichever is fine, just leave me alone please...
Finally, through a gap between collapsed buildings, he spotted an outpost: small, fortified with sharp metal and scavenged wood, smoke twisted upward from a chimney. Voices drifted, low murmurs carrying in the dead air.
Time to play the role of a thief", he muttered.
Crouching behind a wall, he listened. Most voices sounded like human — whispers of hunger, fear, and territory. But something was… off. One figure moved too cleanly, too deliberately. Not human, not really.
What the actual fuck is that thing? Superhuman weirdo. Just what I needed today.
He inched closer, observing: holes in barricades, guard positions, makeshift traps, some tents. His brain cataloged everything silently.
Whispers:
“…ran out of blood…”
“…watch the…”
“…he won’t make it…”
Then — movement at the perimeter caught his eye, subtle, almost lazy, but enough to tell him someone had noticed. Karma froze, every nerve screaming, heart pounding in a rhythm that threatened to betray him, muscles coiling as if they remembered pain from the last few weeks all at once.
Oh, perfect timing. My luck today is surely something that has to be studied.
A shout from the barricade. Heads turned — boots on gravel, four guards moving toward him, fast and coordinated while the others broke for the remaining entrances. Not panicked. These people knew what they were doing.
Not enough time. Not enough options. Think Karma, think.
Whispers in his head.
Karma spun, instinctively dodging without seeing, and an axe bit into his left shoulder. The pain was sharp and immediate.
"Heh, rats are not allowed here."
Yeah—
he thought distantly, feeling the warmth spread down his arm
—nothing ever is.