It was after 5pm, the sun was setting and the weather was warm with a nice breeze going by, as Barry cruised down the road in a SUV from the crematorium.

  One hand on the steering wheel, the other out the window feeling the wind fly by. He was enjoying the cruise, it was soothing to him. Just him driving down a long stretch of road with no one but peace itself.

  He didn't have a clue where he was, but he knew that the fresh tire tracks that he found outside the crematorium had to have been the doctor who fled in another vehicle. He had no memory of anything important so his current goal was tracking down the doctor.

  Eventually, the road was going up hill with no view of what was over it. So Barry slowed down, creeping up the hill, not wanting to hit anything he couldn't react too.

  “...fuck!” He cried as he immediately freaked before moving any further. There were a couple of cars parked a bit over the top of the hill he could see.

  Barry put the vehicle in park and stepped out of the vehicle to inspect what was over. He marched up the hill with a sigh, thinking that the road up ahead must be backed up by a bunch of other abandoned cars.

  “I bet there's going to be a crap ton of cars blocking the road…” He assumed.

  And when he reached the top, he was half right. Not only were there a stretch of cars blocking the road but there were his favorite stress relievers roaming about.

  “Fucking wonderful! Of course it's zombies that jammed up the roads.” Barry slammed his hand on the rear of car as he said. Looking up ahead, down the rest of the road leading into a city, he saw hordes of zombies wandering about. “Well this is going to be a challenge to overcome…”

  He decided to try looting the cars that were near him since there weren't any zombies. Quickly, he spent 30 minutes scoping out the cars and storing anything useful into his inventory.

  After looting the cars, he had obtained the following: snacks/food to last a week; 2x first aid kit; 1x multi-tool knife; 1x guitar; 1x baseball bat; 20x baseballs; 1x baseball helmet.

  He felt okay with his finds but did have an idea with the baseball equipment he had found. Another thing that he noticed from the items he had gathered, was that they had their own descriptions.

  For example, the baseball bat had a rarity description stating that it was a ‘common’ item, with 60% out of 100% durability, and an attack damage of +10. But something else like a plain white t-shirt he found would say ‘Thin plain jane white t-shirt, what do you expect?’.

  Barry wanted to equip the baseball bat and helmet, and when he thought of them, they appeared on him. Helmet and bat equipped.

  He wasn't confident he would do a great job at accomplishing his plan but it was the best plan he had so far if he wanted to obtain some quick exp.

  Barry stood on one of the cars on the hill, he planned on hitting a couple of the cars down hill to trigger their alarms in order to attract a huge crowd of zombies. And when that happened, he would hopefully do the spectacular finish to his scheme.

  He commenced his plan, battering the baseballs towards the direction of cars he wanted to hit. The first 5 balls were going astray but after a few more, he started landing them on the cars he wanted.

  The moment the balls landed on the cars, they would immediately start blaring out their lights and setting off their alarms. He had made 4 car alarms go off with all the baseballs he had.

  ‘Need to work on my form more but this is good enough.’ He criticized himself. The ruckus the cars were making lured in the zombies around them. He watched them bash and claw at the vehicles before making his way to his own car.

  Barry got back inside his car and slowly backed up down hill and quickly backed up even further once he was on flat ground.

  When he decided he was far enough away from the hill. He stopped and started reving the engine to full throttle in park for a moment.

  ‘This better work as well as I picture it in my head.’ He hoped. This would be the sickest way to gain some experience points, he thought.

  With a swift shift of the gear to drive, he sent the car zooming as fast as it could. When it reached the hill, it started to slow down a bit but it kept moving.

  And when he felt like the car was going to be sent flying, he immediately hopped out the door and rolled on the ground tumbling to a stop.

  Barry swiftly got back on his feet, darting towards the direction of the car alarms just in time to see the SUV land on top of the group of cars surrounded by zombies.

  By the looks of it, there were about 60-80 zombies around the cars. And when the SUV collided with them, an explosion went off and blasted them back to the underworld.

  In an instant that it happened, Barry received multiple notifications saying ‘Level Up!’. He couldn't help but feel good about what he had accomplished. It was something cool and managed to gain him multiple levels without much effort.

  Excited, he checked his profile and saw that he was now level 7. He also had a total of 30 points available to spend on increasing his stats.

  As excited as he was to have a bunch of points available to spend, he had to be smart. Right now he still needed to get through this road of walking dead. But he wasn't going to dump all his points into his physical stats. He might need to save some for later in case he needed to switch up his build.

  After a moment of thinking, he decided to settle on holding half of his points for later. The other half, he was going to invest 6 points in agility, 5 points in strength, and 4 in endurance.

  His health and stamina increased significantly after submitting his points. Barry also noticed that he received a couple of small boosts in his health, stamina, and mana that must have been from just leveling up. But regardless, he could feel a boost of new found physical prowess circulate around his body.

  Suddenly, a chat window popped up in front of Barry's face. “(^_^) Heya! How's it going contestant! I saw what you did and the viewer's LOVE it! Driving a car off the hill and nose diving into a spectacular explosion, that's awesome! However, I kinda wanna spice things up seeing as how you just got a bunch of levels…” The same mysterious person messaged Barry through the system.

  Another window appeared next to the chat window with the text, ‘Event Objective: Survive 15 minutes while avoiding the fog of death; Penalty: Death (^_^); Reward: 1x Uncommon Starter Gear Kit; 1x Random Grade D Skill.’.

  Once Barry finished reading the objective, he turned around behind himself with curiosity, wondering what this ‘fog of death’ looked like and how far.

  There in the distance, not close, was a massive purple fog that was approaching him. Barry couldn't believe what was going on but expressed his current state with “You gotta be fucking-”, before getting cut off by the system.

  “Good luck! \(^_^)/” The system told him before closing the chat window.

  With no time to process what was happening, he instinctively started booking it down hill.

  With his newfound agility, it being at 10, he could feel as though he was much lighter from before and it surprised him. With his enhanced physical prowess, all he believed he could avoid almost every possible zombie confrontation on the long stretch of road. He could simply hop over the cars if he had too and his stamina was pretty good.

  As he zipped past the cars down hill and was about to reach the area of explosion he caused, the system once again opened up another chat window.

  “Hmm (??? ), it seems like you moving a bit too fast for my liking. So…say…do you like dogs?” The system asked.

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  Loud howling could then be heard from behind Barry, which caused him to glance back to see what appeared to be wild feral undead hounds running down the hill. “Enjoy! ????(? ?? ? - ? ) ?”. The system told him before closing the window.

  Barry had mentally put the system on his shit list after the the doctor for being a stuck up prick. ‘Fuck this guy.’.

  Even worse, while Barry was distracted looking back, a zombie that was hiding under a vehicle reached out grabbing one of his legs. He tripped over, landing on his side, shouldering the impact.

  He then looked to the zombie and before it could take a bite out of his leg, he bashed it's head with the handle of his bat till it died from caving it's skull in.

  He was about to get back up and move again but stopped when a window opened in his face with the option “Loot.”.

  “Uh, yes!” He said with hesitation and it opened a list of items that the corpse had. Each item in a square slot that he could either take individually or use the ‘Take all.’ option.

  “I don't have time for this! Just take all!” He shouted, if he wasn't in such a rush, he would take his time looting the useful stuff.

  Barry then thought about the crowd of zombies he had blown up. “Should I greed or not?’ He thought, these were high stakes. ‘...Greed.’. He decided.

  He was close by the explosion of where it had happened. Fire was still lingering around and he had to take caution not to catch on fire.

  Barry scurried around the fallen dead, looting everything he could without even taking a glance of what they had.

  He peeked behind himself and noticed that the fog had already reached down hill, along with the hounds who were not far behind. “Time to go.”.

  Dashing down a path, out of the fire, he kept working his legs as fast as he could. Brushing past a couple of zombies and slugging any that got in his way. Yet, he could hear the hounds gaining on him.

  Then, when he checked behind himself again, one of hounds had leaped on top of one of the cars ahead of him and lunged towards him with it's jaws unhinged.

  But thanks to his 10 in agility, he managed to narrowly avoid the hound's attack just barely by side stepping, dodging the attack.

  He now had a closer view of his new enemy. A part of it's skull was showing along with other visible exposed parts of bone and torn flesh around it's body. It's fur was a light gray color, it's eyes were sharp and milky colored reddish-orange. The beast snarled at Barry showing it's jagged teeth.

  Barry didn't want to waste any time with the hound so he fainted a retreat by pretending to turn away. This caused the hound to perform another lunge attack at his back, believing he was wide open but was met with a swing of his bat to the face.

  The beast flew back, hitting the side of a car and remained staggered for the moment. Barry then took the opportunity to continue legging it away.

  There were more hounds heading his way, along with the inevitable fog of death. No way was he going to stop and finish off the hound just for some loot and exp. He barely took any damage but his stamina was about halfway empty from running and defending himself so far. He also had a couple of swings left for his bat it seemed because it's durability was getting kind of low.

  ‘Should I use the rest of my remaining points?’ He wondered, the thought of somewhere down the line needing them to switch up his build, made him hesitate. ‘No, I just need to tough it out.’.

  He was making some decent distance between the fog and himself until two more hounds halted his advance by blocking him on both his front and back. Not only were there just the hounds, but there were still zombies encircling his area. He turned his back towards the side of the car he was next to, keeping watch of the two hounds.

  He focused up, waiting at the ready in this life or death situation he was in. The evil beady eyes staring into his soul, the groans of the other zombies approaching his location.

  The first move was made by one of the hounds on his right but he countered it by slamming the side door of the car in it's face. The hound was staggered, knocking back and shattering the glass of the door window.

  The second hound took it's chance while he was distracted and pounced on him, sinking it's teeth into his bat. Barry laid there on the ground face to face for a few moments till he managed to kick the canine off.

  The hound caught it's fall, stabilized itself, and tried again but was also slammed in the muzzle by a car door. The beast was taken aback, giving Barry enough time to zip past.

  He had to get on top of the cars and long jump across to the next vehicle because there were too many zombies roaming about, the farther he went.

  He wasn't keeping track of the time he had left for the event and wondered if he could see if he opened the quest info option.

  And when he thought it, the quest board magically appeared displaying all of the event's information. However, he was only able to take a glance of it for a moment because a hound had knocked him over on top of a trailer, face first.

  Barry groaned in pain from slamming his head but the next thing made him clench his teeth to avoid shouting in agony. The canine had pierced it's fangs into one of his shoulders and tugged on it.

  He tried swinging his bat at it's head but another hound had arrived and sunk it's jaws into his batting arm. Barry was now restrained and saw from a HUD displaying his current health and stamina which were ? HP and ? stamina. Things were looking dicey.

  Zombies were swarming around him as the hounds were holding him down, chewing on him. The fog was closing in and he seemed to be shit out of luck. ‘Am I really going to die here? This early?’ He thought, bearing through the pain the best he could but let loose a small yelp.

  Once again, unexpectedly, he started experiencing a headache again and blacked out.

  Another vivid dream played in his mind, he could faintly see a figure playing a video game with someone next to him on a couch it seemed. The person playing set his controller down, seeming frustrated.

  “Why did you stop?” The person next to him asked, almost shocked.

  “My health was low and I can't figure out the attack patterns of so many enemies around me. Some of them are too unpredictable and their attacks seem delayed. It's stupid! It's much faster to die and try again.” The person responded, letting out a big sigh.

  “Dude, just keep fighting. You haven't even touched your consumables at all! You've been hoarding those since the very beginning, their meant to be used, not to be collectables.” The guy's friend replied with encouragement.

  The guy shook his head. “But I might need this more later-”

  “Bro! You've been saying that since the beginning too! Later, is now! So use them.” The friend responded instantly, knowing what he was going to say.

  “Fine! I'll waste my consumables but I still won't make it past those annoying pricks.” The guy huffed and picked up the controller to try again.

  After a couple of moments went by, the person playing stood up from the couch and shouted in anger “Yeah! Fuck you all!”

  “I told you, just use your resources and don't hoard them all…by the way, you're still ass bruh.” His friend said in a jokingly manner.

  The guy playing turned to look at him, Barry couldn't see their faces but knew the guy was staring at his friend with an expression saying ‘Really?’.

  Barry's day dream came to an end and he was back to reality. The hounds were still holding him down and the zombies were still all around the trailer he was on.

  Anger began to rise from within, he was not about to die without giving it his all. “Open inventory!!” He yelled out and his inventory appeared, his eyes locking onto the first aid kits and snacks.

  “Consume!” He commanded, depleting the resources he auto selected in his mind. Barry's HP and stamina went back to full, using 1 med kit and half of his snacks.

  Facing the hound clenching down on his batting arm, he started headbutting it with his baseball helmet until eventually it let go. He swung his bat into it's face, stunning it briefly. Barry then knocked the bat at the one trapping down on his shoulder.

  It, however, was the last time he would ever use the bar because it dematerialized. It's durability had been reduced to 0 from that last hit, assuming that meant it could no longer be used. Barry stood back up and noticed that the fog was only a few yards away.

  One of the hounds got back up and leaped at him but Barry was ready. He bucked up, pulled his head back, and bashed his helmet into it's snout, depleting it's durability but taking it out.

  The second one recovered and tried to attack Barry as well, but he decided to contest the beast by catching it in mid-air.

  Although, he was on his knees when did catch the canine, he was able to slowly lift it from the bottom and when the fog got close enough to him, he tossed it into the fog. The hound growled but was enveloped into the fog of death, ending it's life completely and earning Barry another ‘Level Up!’.

  He panted from exhaustion, he had ? stamina left and ? of his health but he knew he had to keep going. Barry was on top of the trailer and saw that there weren't any cars close enough for him to long jump on.

  The zombies swarmed from all around and he had no other choice but see how far he could get from leaping across the zombies. So he sprinted across the trailer and gave it his all, clearing over a large gap of undead, yet still falling on top of a couple of zombies.

  The zombies that he fell on broke his fall but he could feel the ones around him clawing and even taking bites. His HP was dropping steadily, Barry thought about using his last med kit when his health would get close to the danger zone.

  He was close to getting out of the crowd but had to fight and worm his way out the rest of the way.

  Channeling his inner rage, he squirmed and struggled free from the undead's grasps. Managing to stand up and doing all that he could to swim through the blockade of zombies.

  He was getting critically low on both HP and stamina so he decided to use up his last resources of med kit and snacks, recovering it all back. Barry could see a glimpse of his freedom just a bit more ahead.

  Barry shoulder tackled, slugged, kicked, shoved, and did his best to tough it out. And when he reached the end of the sea of evil undead, his freedom was in clear view. A long stretch of clear road towards the city.

  The only problem was that he was on the ground being pulled away from the zombies behind him. He kept doing his best to crawl forward but was having a hard time making progress.

  “I.Will.MAKE IT!” He encouraged himself. The fog was closing in and his death was sure to come. He had done all that he could to make it as far as he could, Barry continued to struggle even if it seemed like it was pointless.

  “I WILL FIND OUT WHO I AM!” He shouted as his whole body was being dog piled on by the undead. He was not ready to succumb to this sick game of the system.

  And seconds just before the fog of death had reached him, he received a message of relief. ‘Congratulations! You've completed the objective and will now be rewarded!” A notification window appeared.

  And just then, Barry's body began to feel lighter, the weight of the zombies on him was gradually being lifted it seemed. He realized the zombies were despairing and after a bit, it was just him.

  ‘1× Uncommon Starter Kit, 1x Random Grade D Skill added to inventory’. The notification window told him.

  Barry laid there on the ground, turning with his face looking at the sky. It was officially nightfall, he had survived his first event and obtained some rewards in the process

  ‘I'm so tired, if I had invested a bit more into strength and agility, those hounds might have been easier to handle.’ He thought.

  Butt then he remembered the system had added in the hounds because he was moving faster than it was expecting. ‘Actually, that would have been made things harder for me.’.

  He wanted to lay there and rest all night long, but knew he couldn't. He would have to seek shelter in one of the abandoned cars or something.

  It was a long day for him, waking up naked with no clear memory of his past or how he got in the crematorium. It was all a bizarre start for him. Then being told that he was in a life or death game called ‘Lost Adventure.’. It all still seemed like a dream but it was all real.

  ‘And the fucking doctor!’ He called up his fists just thinking about him. How would he like to end him, Barry wondered.

  Wanting rest, he got back up and started motioning towards a van that was close by. He opened the back of it and found a couple of boxes stacked inside. He would look through them once he got rest.

  Barry locked the doors and laid down, closing his eyes shut and hoping to fall asleep fast.

  Not even a minute goes by and a blue screen pops up emitting it's usual blue light. “What the fuck is it now…” he grumbled, his eyes opened.

  It was a chat window, but this one wasn't from the asshole system person that would talk to him, it was from someone else it seemed.

  Apparently, the chat window was local, so it was coming from someone in the area. And the text was highlighted in yellow with an @everyone. “@Everyone. Help, I'm in Millawauke City on Rhodes Street inside a bakery store. Please, I don't want to die!”

  Barry was shocked to see a message from someone else, maybe this person could read the documents he had brought.

  Regardless, Barry's response to the text was simple. “I'm tired, good luck man and good fucking night.” He said to the screen and shut his eyes once more.