The screen flooded with red.
[Initiating… Spreading of Zombie Virus]
[Pick a specific location to start.]
[Timer : 1:00]
[If no location is selected when the timer hits zero… the system will pick randomly.]
"Goddammit—GODDAMMIT!"
She shot up from her chair, hands flying across the panel, pulling up every menu she could find, scanning through options, looking for anything—cancel, override, abort, something.
The noise rippled out from earth.
Past the atmosphere, past the silence of space, spreading outward.
One by one, heads turned.
"The fuck was that?"
"Where did it come from?"
Gods from other planets traced the pulse back to its source, one after another, drifting closer until earth came into view.
"Oho…"
"This looks interesting."
They gathered, watching earth from a distance. Some took one look and left, but some stayed, eyes fixed on earth, completely hooked.
Compared to the worlds they were managing, this was entertaining.
Meanwhile, back at the panel—
The screen was still flooding red, the timer still counting down.
"Does the previous administrator have a reverse button for this?!"
[Not that I know of.]
"Who in their right mind sets something like this up without a cancel measure—"
[Err… the previous administrator?]
"ARRRGG—!" She grit her teeth, hands still moving frantically across the screen.
The timer kept counting down.
[10 seconds remaining.]
"Okay okay okay—"
Without any other choice she dug through the system files, found the file labeled human.exe and swapped it out—renamed it zombie.exe. Trying to trick the system into thinking there was nothing left to infect.
[???]
[ERROR]
The red on the screen got brighter.
[ERROR][ERROR][ERROR]
The whole screen was drowning in it.
But the timer kept going.
[3]
[2]
[1]
[Initiating…]
She stopped tapping.
Pulled both hands off the panel and pressed them flat together.
"Please cancel…" she muttered, eyes locked on the screen. "Please work…"
She stared at the screen, both hands still pressed together.
The screen flared bright red.
Then—glitch.
Everything stuttered for half a second.
Then again.
Then again.
The administrator's eyes went wide as she watched the live feed. The gods watching from above leaned in closer.
Humanity was glitching.
Flickering between human and zombie, back and forth, back and forth, unable to settle on either one.
Then it stopped.
The screen settled.
The administrator stared at it for a long moment, then slowly sank back into her chair.
"…I lost."
Humanity—as a whole—had turned into zombies.
But then she looked closer.
They were… continuing on with their day. Working. Eating. Sleeping. Someone in the middle of a busy intersection was in a full blown road rage, two zombie drivers hanging out their windows going at each other, horns blaring.
The administrator watched it for a second.
"…it could've been worse." She let out a small sigh, shoulders dropping just a little. "It's just the appearance. I can still fix this."
Just as she said that—
[The system has successfully selected a starting location.]
[Guangzhou, China.]
[Virus spread initiating.]
"NOOOOO FUUUUCKING SHIII—"
Then—
Eh?
She watched the screen.
The virus wasn't going after the humans. It spread to the animals instead—the everyday ones.
Insects crawling along sidewalks. Lizards on walls. Cats lounging in the sun. Dogs mid-afternoon walk.
One by one they got hit.
And one by one they turned.
Turned into mindless shits the moment they got hit by the virus.. Full rabid, full feral.
Spreading fast across Guangzhou, bleeding into the streets, swarming everywhere.
And somehow… those humans—I mean… zombies? What do we even call them at this point?
Civilized zombies. Yeah. Let's go with that.
Those civilized zombies walked right past the infected animals. Completely unaffected.
She pulled up the system log. The human.exe to zombie.exe swap she'd done in a panic had accidentally flagged the entire human population as already infected. So the virus skipped them entirely—no point infecting what's already categorized as infected.
She stared at that for a moment.
Then leaned back.
"Whew."
"I can still fix this." She rubbed her face. "It's going to be a massive pain in the ass… but it's doable."
Up above, the gods who had gathered to watch earth frowned.
"…that's it?"
"I traveled dozens of light years for this?"
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Some of them were already turning to leave, thoroughly unimpressed.
Then two voices rang out at the exact same time—from completely opposite ends of the gathering.
"Let's mutate them."
Silence.
The two gods slowly turned and looked at each other across the crowd.
One of them pointed at themselves. "That was my idea."
The other one grinned. "No, no… that was mine."
"It was mine."
"I was faster."
A full second of silence passed between them.
Then—
"FUCK YOU!"
"FUCK YOU TOO! What's your name?"
"Tory."
"FUCK YOU TORY!"
"FUCK YOU—what's your name?"
"Ezreal."
"FUCK YOU EZREAL!"
"ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT!" another god cut in, pinching the bridge of their nose. "Mutate them, we get it—just shut up, both of you."