Dust and leaves trailed behind me as I ran for my life.

  Chris: Uh guys… it’s gaining on me!

  Siva: We’re in position. Waiting on you.

  Gavin Sim: It’s really fast. Wow.

  Chris: I know, Gavin! Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

  Shawn: Want me to kill it?

  Chris: What? Fuck no!

  I was running. From a motherfucking cheetah.

  This was the last of the animals we needed to return to its enclosure without killing it.

  We entered the Singapore Zoo expecting another boss fight. Maybe something with two heads or too many claws and teeth again. But the moment we were locked in, the objective revealed itself to be:

  [Crimson Zone Objective: Return the escaped animals to their enclosures without harming them. Any animal death will result in additional releases, and the objective restarts.]

  The second I read it, I gave up pretending to be independent and joined Andy’s party. We’d need coordination for this one, and even if it was temporary, the party chat would make things a hell of a lot easier.

  One would think this was a cakewalk. Much easier than fighting boss mobs.

  One would be wrong.

  Not only were the animals spread out across the massive zoo, some of them could literally kill us.

  I never want to be up close to a hippo again. Ever.

  We’d spent the last five hours coaxing various animals back into their enclosures using a combination of spells, skills, and, in the case of the Galápagos tortoise, pure brute strength.

  The cheetah chasing me was the very last one.

  We’d found it lounging high up in the spider monkey enclosure. We tried everything from loud noises to illusion spells, even shooting blunt arrows at it.

  Finally, someone came up with the bright idea of disguising me as a gazelle covered in blood and having it chase me.

  I was the only one with a speed boost from my boots’ special skill, plus a small mountain of Haste potions everyone pooled together.

  Gavin, the Illusionist from Andy’s party, cast a glamour spell to make me look like a delicious gazelle. He needed to maintain line of sight to sustain the illusion, which meant he was perched somewhere on a lookout tower watching all this unfold.

  They then dumped a bucketful of real animal blood on me, and that finally worked to bring down the cheetah that was currently gaining on me.

  Gavin: You’re close. About 200 meters straight ahead.

  I slammed down another Haste potion, the familiar burn running through my veins. The open cage door came into view, the endpoint. Safety, and probably a medal if this world still handed those out.

  I could feel the cheetah’s paws pounding closer behind me, rapidly gaining on me.

  I’m not gonna make it. It’s too close.

  Every instinct screamed at once. My senses dialed up to eleven as the world slowed. I felt the air shift as the cheetah lunged.

  I dove. Straight into the enclosure.

  The beast followed mid-pounce, a blur of muscle and fury just as a deafening clang echoed behind me. The cage door slammed shut.

  Siva had done it.

  The notification pinged across my HUD:

  [Objective Cleared: All Escaped Animals Returned to Enclosures]

  We’d succeeded.

  The only problem, I was now inside the cage with the cheetah.

  The glamour shimmered, then collapsed, Gavin’s illusion flickering out as I snapped back to my normal self.

  The cheetah blinked once, confused, then began to circle. It growled, muscles glistening from the chase. My way out was right behind it, but I’d never make the distance.

  It tensed, ready to pounce.

  And then it was just… gone.

  A black hole yawned open beneath it, silent and sudden, and the big cat had fallen in.

  “Holy fuck,” I gasped. “Shawn?”

  A voice called back, smug and panting.

  “Grave Digger, baby. Don’t question the magic.”

  I bolted for the now opened cage door, diving through as Siva slammed it shut behind me.

  For a long moment, I just lay there, chest heaving, staring up at the dull dark sky.

  Then four faces leaned into view. Siva, Gavin, Shawn, and Andy, all peering down at me in a crooked square.

  “You good?” Shawn asked, grinning.

  “Define good,” I croaked.

  They laughed the exhausted, half-delirious laughter you only get when you’ve cheated death again.

  We regrouped at a nearby hawker center, starving after a full day of wrangling animals. As we ate, I realized something.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  We hadn’t killed a single one of the animals. Not one.

  Even when I was trapped in the cheetah’s cage after the objective was complete, no one took the easy way out. We could’ve just killed it and walked out of the Crimson Zone. But we didn’t.

  I wasn’t sure what the others were thinking, but for me it was simple, for once, the animals were real. They weren’t twisted, corrupted things or grotesque fusions of flesh and metal. Just living creatures, dangerous but real.

  They might not last long in this world, but they wouldn’t die by our hands.

  And I think the rest of them felt the same.

  After the meal, we lingered over coffee. The adrenaline had worn off, leaving only exhaustion and the winding down feel after a good ball game.

  Andy reached into his pocket and pulled out a torn sheet of notebook paper. He passed it around the table without a word.

  When it reached me, I smoothed it flat and read the scrawled handwriting across the blue lines:

  We’re gathering at AMK Hub. We’re rebuilding there. If any survivors see this, look for us.

  I read it twice, the cigarette burning down to a stub between my fingers. I flicked it away and looked up at Andy.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “I found it taped to the toilet mirror in the hawker center, yesterday” he said. “Other people were here before us. I tried talking to the hawkers, but you know how they are.”

  I nodded slowly. “Are you going to look for them?”

  He met my gaze. “Yeah. We talked about it as a party. It’s time. If people are rebuilding, maybe they’ve got structure and roles, rules, some kind of safety.”

  I glanced at Siva, hoping selfishly that he wouldn’t want to go with them. But who was I to stop him? Maybe that kind of place would be better for him. He didn’t owe me anything.

  The silence stretched between us until Siva spoke up.

  “Thank you, Andy. Shawn, Gavin. All of you. Thank you for helping us.”

  He gave them a small, sincere smile.

  I turned to him, surprised by how easily he said it. Then I nodded in agreement.

  We finished our coffee and started to move off, exchanging handshakes and quiet thanks. One of Andy’s party had driven their bus to pick up the others waiting back at the prison safe room, and they’d just returned in time for the goodbyes.

  Andy tried once more to convince Siva and me to join them. I smiled and shook my head.

  “You’re looking for community,” I said. “And that’s okay. I’m looking for answers.”

  “Who’s to say you can’t find both in the same place?” Andy replied, smiling faintly.

  They loaded into their bus, and before they pulled away, Andy leaned out of the passenger seat and called across the car park.

  “We left you a gift, by the way! It’s at your bike!”

  He waved, grinning, as the bus rolled off.

  What the fuck? A gift? They didn’t need to do that.

  Siva and I exchanged bemused looks as we headed back toward the bike. My smile shifted to a grimace the moment I saw what Andy meant, and a quiet groan escaped my throat.

  Siva doubled over laughing as we approached.

  Leaning casually against my bike, grinning like the devil himself, was Shawn.

  Fucking “Grave Digger” Shawn. Necromancer, lover of older women, and now apparently our problem.

  As we got closer, Siva still snickering, Shawn spread his arms wide and announced,

  “Tada!”

  I covered my face with both hands, looked up at the ever-present night sky, and silently cursed. Then I shook my head and sent a few creative curses Andy’s way for good measure.

  “So,” Shawn said cheerfully, “We gotta find a new car. A nice one. A big one. Something with style.”

  He was already talking a mile a minute as we wandered toward the nearby parking garage. Now that there were three of us, the bike wouldn’t cut it anymore, which hurt, because I loved that bike.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t like Shawn. He’d saved my life more than once. He was a capable fighter, funny, and damn good at his necromancy, even if he’d picked the class by accident.

  But God, he was loud.

  As he and Siva chattered about cars, I studied him. The good-looking, twenty-something Chinese guy looked like he’d stepped out of a gym ad, all lean, wiry and athletic. His wavy, shoulder-length hair framed his easy smile. He was charming and affable. The kind of guy who probably sold air to clouds back in the old world.

  He told us once he was a sales manager. Of course he was.

  We’d already split from Andy’s party, and for the umpteenth time in a very short span, I wished we hadn’t, if only so I could properly curse him out via chat.

  I’d added Shawn to our party shortly after we reached the parking garage partly so I wouldn’t change my mind and bolt off on the bike. As we combed through rows of abandoned cars, I pulled up his stats.

  Solid strength and dexterity, with sky-high charisma. His specialization covered not just necromancy but charm spells too. Interesting.

  Still, something about that made me pause. Charm. Persuasion. Influence.

  Why did the system include those here? Surely not to sweet-talk a gorilla.

  There was a bigger picture forming, something beyond the jungle zones and the monster hunts. Abilities like Charm and Persuasion had to mean there were still people out there to use them on.

  The thought lingered, unsettling and electric all at once.

  “And that. Is. Perfect.”

  Shawn’s loud proclamation snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked over to the vehicle he had stopped at.

  “No.” I said.

  “Ah-ha. Yes.” He nodded enthusiastically, grinning like he’d just discovered fire.

  “No.” I said again. Firmer.

  “You’ll love it. Give it a few days. And” he raised a finger dramatically, "I’m pretty sure we can get the bike in the back. You know, just in case.”

  His grin somehow got wider. Siva looked from him to me, caught between us like a kid watching his parents argue in public.

  I sighed. “Fine. Only if it runs and you can get the bike to fit.”

  Shawn didn’t cheer. He didn’t fist-pump. He lunged forward and hugged me. A full-on, two-arm wrapped around me hug.

  Siva completely lost it, laughing so hard he had to hold onto the hood for support.

  It was a black and green Ford Raptor. It was massive, mud-caked, and wildly out of place in Singapore.

  A Malaysian plate hung crooked off the bumper, half-caked in grime. Floodlights lined the roof rack, two of it cracked, and twin winches were mounted at the front and back. Mud splattered high up the wheel wells and across the tailgate, proof that whoever drove it hadn’t been afraid to get dirty. I knew this type of truck was popular in Malaysia’s agricultural states, where farmers spent their days on rugged forested hills or swampy fields. Whoever owned this, must had drove it into Singapore before the switchover.

  In short, it was completely absurd for Singapore.

  We spent the next few hours getting it running. The engine still had compression, but the battery was long dead, so we scavenged one from a nearby van. We siphoned fuel, cleaned the filters, and replaced a busted fan belt Shawn somehow found two cars down. It felt almost normal. Like a weekend project, just three guys under a hood instead of fighting for our lives daily.

  When the engine finally turned over, the sound wasn’t a polite hum. It was a deep roar.

  Siva let out a whoop as Shawn punched the air.

  I leaned against the hood, wiping sweat and engine oil from my forehead. “You know,” I muttered, “I wanted something fast and agile. Something I could weave through traffic with.”

  The truck idled, low and powerful.

  “But this…” I admitted reluctantly, “this might actually work.”

  Shawn grinned. “Told you. She’s got muscle.”

  “She’s got the fuel consumption of a battleship,” I countered, but even as I said it, I couldn’t help but smile.

  We loaded the bike into the back and stood there for a moment, just looking at it. The floodlights, the winches, the thick-tread tires.

  It was big, loud, and completely impractical for Singapore’s roads.

  But in this new world, it was perfect.

  “I’m naming this vehicle…” I began.

  “The mid-life crisis?” interrupted Siva with a grin.

  Both Shawn and I laughed at that.

  “No... I’m naming it… The Grave Digger.” I said with a flourish, caught in the moment.

  Shawn smiled wide and pointed finger guns between the truck and himself, high-fiving Siva. I had actually named the truck after the famous monster truck; it even had the same coloring, but I let Shawn have this one.

  We got on with Shawn at the wheel and Siva in the double cab and drove out of the parking garage in search of new lodgings.

  I let myself enjoy the moment, reveling in the engine’s growl and the laughter, even as two more Crimson Zones pulsed faintly in my HUD.