The birds were flying around and singing beautiful, beautiful songs. The leaves of the trees were creating calming sounds while the wind was blowing through them. The air felt fresh, but not very cold. The sun was shining in a bright yellow color, and it seemed like it was a wonderful day in this small village in Switzerland as Octavia was going to the village after her crossbow training while putting a Ricola inside of her mouth and looking forward to buying some groceries.

  While walking, she decides to check the news on her phone.

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  NEWS:

  An official outbreak of the virus started in France. The police fight against those aggressively behaving with the virus-infected people. The situation gets worse and worse, and Paris has fallen to the infected. It's a virus we've never seen before in our entire lives. The government left Paris and is currently in an unknown location.

  The army surrounded Paris and tried to keep the infected inside, but we heard about many other incidents in other cities.

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  Octavia: Damn...

  She checks another news outlet, which tells about Switzerland.

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  NEWS:

  The government of Switzerland closed its borders, but just days before the real outbreak, thousands of French tourists came to visit Switzerland. Some were stopped at the airport when the government of Switzerland started with their new actions against the virus. But many went into other cities.

  The cities are

  Bern, Zurich, Basel, and a small one near the Bodensee... Rorschach.

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  Octavia: Wait, what?

  She goes to a news outlet in her small city.

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  Rorschach NEWS:

  A huge wave of tourists visited our beautiful town, and all the hotels and holiday homes are filled with French tourists.

  Around 200 people. How wonderful! ??.

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  Octavia: Wonderful? Really?

  She checks another post and sees news about some of those French tourists feeling sick right now and that these tourists visited the hospital in this place.

  She directly realizes that it's not good what's happening but still decides to buy some groceries, and it anyway makes more sense to get groceries if such an outbreak happens to be prepared. Because of such news, she's just sure that she will buy a bit more canned food this time.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  As she walks through the streets, she sees multiple people walking around, and it seems quite peaceful. Maybe like a calm before the storm, she thought to herself...or she was just overthinking everything. Who knows? ...

  Octavia keeps walking and goes into the store to get some food.

  She sees around 10 other people there, trying to buy as much canned food as possible. Weird.

  She takes a basket and takes some fresh water, a package of Ricola, some fruits and vegetables, and also some canned food.

  Suddenly she hears a weird sound of some sort of growling.

  She goes to the cashier.

  Octavia: What's that sound?

  Cashier: Oh, nothing to worry about. A worker felt a bit sick and tired and wanted to take a break there.

  Octavia: Okay....

  She says in an untrusting way.

  So she just keeps taking the other stuff that she wanted to buy and waits in the line.

  But the sounds don't stop. Those terrifying and loud sounds won't stop. But maybe the person just has stomach pain.

  Her curiosity takes over, and she goes to the closed door, which isn't locked. While she's doing that, she feels like the world around her just stopped, and she even hears her breathing and heartbeat, which is becoming faster, and as she opens that door, she sees nothing.

  Octavia: Huh?... Where is he? ...

  Cashier: Hey! What are you doing?

  Octavia: I just... suddenly she hears a scream from the bathroom of the store and runs towards it as a horrific-looking person with dead eyes falls upon her and pushes her down.

  Octavia doesn't scream, but her heart beats as fast as possible, and she doesn't even feel the pain she got after falling to the ground since her whole body fills with adrenaline, and as that person is about to bite him, she quickly pushes him off and punches him in the face, but he doesn't stop and tries to bite her for some unknown reason.

  Infected: Aaaargggh!!!

  The cashier: Stop! What are you two doing?

  Octavia quickly grabs a knife and pushes it into the eye of that infected person, who doesn't stop but keeps trying to bite into Octavia's neck. She tries to push him away but barely manages to do it. He looks terrifying with his bloody mouth, his dead eyes, and his angry facial expression. But he just keeps attacking, and Octavia drastically takes the knife out of the eye of this person and pushes it into his other eye. After she did this, she quickly pushed him away as he landed on a sharp, huge object and was finally killed.

  Octavia managed to control herself again, and her mind worked again. It seems like this was some sort of survival instinct that got the upper hand and controlled her to murder, just for her own survival.

  The cashier: She... she... oh no. Thomas?! What did she do to you?

  The cashier panics and sees all the blood in front of her. In her eyes she saw a murder right now.

  A woman: Oh my gosh.... You're sick! What's wrong with you?

  A kid: Aaaaah! Mommy! Aaaaah!

  Octavia quickly grabs the food and runs away. After some time she finally arrives in another place where she sits down next to a tree while the blood slowly hardens on her skin that she got from the person she killed.

  Octavia: What was that? ... I killed him... But I had to... The kid looked so terrified. Like I was a monster...shit... They just didn't realize that I had no choice...

  She suddenly hears screams from the store again. She slowly realizes that the infected and horrific person that attacked her had almost no blood on him, except on his mouth, which was weird since she saw blood on the floor when she went after the noise before in the store. Because of that, she directly realized that there was another person who was bitten or even eaten by that infected guy. Out of nowhere another scream breaks out in a holiday house and another one in a small hotel...

  Those aren't many screams, but panic kills people. She knows that. Panic can turn people into animals and make them do crazy things. Leave their loved ones to die just to get away, beat other people just to get some more canned food, or run around without any plan on where to go.

  So even if she wants to help, she knows that she should better go somewhere safe, which is the clubhouse of her crossbow club.

  So, she just stands up and runs like she never did before but stops as she sees a girl screaming for help and sees someone attacking the screaming girl. She takes her crossbow out, trying to aim and calm down, and just shoots the arrow, but misses and then again. That makes no sense at all, she thinks. She has a very good aim and trained a lot every day...but now it just doesn't work. Maybe that's fear. Seeing death in all directions she looks is truly scary.

  But as the girl keeps screaming and crying loudly, Octavia finally manages to hold still and kill that infected person with her arrow.

  Octavia: Oh, fuck....

  As she sighs in relief, only more and more panic breaks out in the city, which forces her to escape.

  So she quickly runs away as panic breaks out all around her. After around 10 minutes she reaches the clubhouse and runs inside without looking around.

  When she gets inside, she quickly closes the door behind her and sees those infected trying to get in and a bunch of men standing in front of her.

  Kai: Who the actual hell are you?

  Octavia just stays quiet and feels like she's in some sort of nightmare. Escaping from an outbreak in her hometown, seeing people panic, and now being in a huge room with multiple men. Damn... That's bad. Octavia, the brave and strong girl, feels scared.

  Octavia's fear takes over, and she moves back till one looks at her and smiles.

  Ben: Octavia! You're alive! That's great.

  Octavia: Oh, hi Ben...

  Octavia calms down as she at least sees one familiar face but still stays quite defensive and doesn't move any closer. She just sits down on a couch while looking at the bunch of infected people trying to get in and standing in front of huge windows.

  Octavia: Why so many? ....

  Ben: A bus with French tourists had a crash next to the clubhouse, and let's say, many felt sick there, and the other ones in the bus panicked and got bitten...and now they're here.

  And the police or army didn't arrive since they have enough to do in Bern or Basel... or any other huge cities. They don't waste their time on a small place like this.

  Octavia: Okay....

  She just looks there and sees different faces, but also a familiar one, which is the bus driver.

  The worst thing about an outbreak is that the infected you'll have to kill at the beginning will always be familiar faces or those who are important people and not some unknown ones.

  You'll have to kill your friends and neighbors, not some monsters. And they'll realize this soon enough.

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