When the thick smell of blood seeped into his nostrils, Chen Fan suddenly opened his eyes.
Above him was the familiar, old ceiling. Gray-black cement showed through where the wall plaster had peeled away, and a few cobwebs hung in the corner. Outside the window, the loud, hearty voice of his neighbor, Auntie Wang, rang out as she scolded her grandson for throwing his toys downstairs again. The sound was like a rusty awl, stabbing hard into Chen Fan's temples.
Wasn't he supposed to be in the underground bunker at Survivor Base B? While covering the retreat of the last group of women and children, he had been surrounded by three high-level zombies, their claws ripping out his intestines... The agonizing pain of his organs being torn apart, the numbness lingering in his nerve endings, all of it had felt so real that his whole body trembled.
Chen Fan abruptly sat up and looked down at his hands.
