Dead Breaker Vol. 1

CH2: Eastern Region I

"Hey! Evan, look what I found! It tells all the weaknesses of a Revenant!" He kept shouting in my ear as I rested on the ground.

"I'm busy right now. Can' you see I'm trying to sleep?" I was not amused with his shouting.

"But come on! It says here in the book that a Revenants weakness is fire and extremely cold environments. Oh! It even says landing a bullet in its head is considered a lethal strike."

I had my legs crossed, lying down, trying not to care.

"Not interested..." I said again. I should have been sleeping, but instead I had one eye open watching Ryder gaze into the book that he found in the school library.

"Listen Ryder, to be honest, I couldn't care less about the study of the undead. It's not like I want to become a soldier when we're safe inside these walls." I rose from the ground, patting my bottom, getting ready to leave.

"How can you say that, Evan? You never know when they may break through! If and when that time comes, we have got to be ready for anything."

For once, he had concern on his face.

"Ryder, the undead haven't been able to break through these walls for twelve years now. I'm pretty sure that the walls are doing the job." Even though I tried to assure him with my words, deep down I felt as if I didn't believe in them.

* *

October 16th, 2032

I had been living in what used to be called the city of Blacksburg, Virginia before the fall of Humanity. After society fell apart, Humanity tried to gather the surviving humans into three walled regions on the West Coast of the U.S. Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Phoenix were converted into the three major districts of Humanity. In the center, the cities of Denver, Omaha and Wichita contained the majority of the remaining human population. Baltimore, Washington DC and Blacksburg were among the last three cities to remain occupied on the East Coast. All of the regions were surrounded and protected by walls high enough to hold back an army of Revenants. The undead weren't intelligent. They were also slow in movement compared to humans. What the Revenants lacked they made up through sheer numbers. They migrated in large packs, making them dangerous in high numbers. A lone human would be entirely overwhelmed by a large pack of the undead.

Although the walls were designed to protect humanity, deep down I hated them. Just looking at them reminded me of how small and insignificant I had become in this world. In reality, we were livestock being kept in a cage. We had no freedom and were just postponing the inevitable.

For this and many more reasons, I hated school. The stuff we learned was pointless and did nothing to help us while we lived behind the walls. More often than not, I would find myself skipping class and going to the roof, staring at the sky to help forget about the messed up life I lived. I would stay there until I eventually fell asleep and the day was done.

Today though, my time of peace was lost due to Ryder continuously flashing the giant book in my face. As the day ended, we left the school grounds together.

"What's the point of looking at this book?" I asked him.

"What?! You can't be serious. It's because I want to join the Inter Reaper Armed Forces. This way, I can get stronger and beat every one of those stupid Revenants!" He continued flipping through the pages as we kept walking.

"Oh yeah, I forgot that you wanted to become a Reaper Soldier..."

The Inter Reaper Armed Forces were a group of people who created the walls in the U.S. during humanity's uprising. Their sole job was to keep the remaining humans safe from the undead. Reaper Soldiers possessed some sort of supernatural ability that allowed them to be equal to a Revenant during battle. This piece of information was kept a secret from the general public, but I knew this because my older sister, Marie Wolf, was working for the Reaper Forces patrolling the walls.