Apocalypse: I Built Myself a Bunker

The apocalypse came, and he was the only person left in the entire city. Chen Mo, 23, a recent civil engineering graduate. He never got his job offer. Instead, the end of the world arrived. No System, no supernatural abilities, no survivor base. All he had was a copy of the *Civil Engineering Construction Manual*, a broken piece of rebar, and the last line his father had drawn in his palm. He decided to build himself a shelter. The first time, a mutant beast smashed through the roof. He spent the whole night drawing plans in a pipe, then decided to go underground. The second time, a flood underground drowned the shelter. Burning with a fever of forty degrees, he tore down a wall to drain the water and nearly died in the mud. The third time, the foundations began to sink. All he had left was a bag of cement and his own two hands. He used that bag of cement to cast a stone tablet, carved with every building code he could remember, and set it atop the highest point in the ruins. Then he lit a red signal lamp and tied it to a bent scaffold. The red light blinked on and off, like a heartbeat that refused to stop. It shone for three days and three nights. On the fourth day, he heard Morse code.