Chapter 3

The audio system boomed with blood-chilling howls, growls, and shrieks. Crazed beasts bellowed as claws scraped against bars and screeched across metal plates.

Even in broad daylight, while everyone relaxed in a beautiful garden surrounded by freshly pruned lawns, the sounds made many in the crowd's skin crawl. Plenty shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Some of the women covered their ears.

This had to be the zombie sound effects they had spent so much money creating.

"God, this is too realistic even for my taste, Professor Devos. Your audio system is truly state of the art!" the bob-haired woman half-joked, trying to hide her discomfort.

The footage blurred with violent vibrations. The basement bunker must have been shaking to simulate the impact of a zombie horde. My mother stared at the emaciated figure in the corner and frowned.

It did not move at all.

"Something's not right," she declared, her fingers flying across the control panel.

"He's supposed to show some reaction. His adrenaline should be rising. He should be looking for a weapon or even begging for help by banging on the door. So why isn't the subject moving?"

She turned the knob higher.

The sounds intensified in both volume and ferocity. Every thunderous slam from the imaginary horde crashing against the door felt like a blow to the guests' hearts. Even the golden retriever ducked beneath the table in fear.

The figure on the screen did not move. The blanket did not even rustle.

My father looked deeply displeased.

"Is he acting out against us?" he grumbled before turning a sharp gaze on my mother. "Did you go overboard with your performance last time? You might have accidentally caused him to lose all hope!"

She shook her head, baffled.

"That can't be it. Every living creature possesses a self-preservation instinct. Unless he's..." She trailed off, then shook her head again. "No, no. I think he may have slipped into a sort of comatose state from extreme hunger."

My father nodded. He seemed convinced. "That's quite clever of him. He could also be pretending to be dead to avoid facing his fears, knowing that any panic or movement would waste precious energy. His mental fortitude is better than we predicted."

Even now, they kept inventing one ridiculous theory after another instead of accepting the simplest explanation. They simply could not believe I was dead. To them, I was some kind of immortal experimental subject who could never be broken.

The guests visibly relaxed.

"Whoa, he came up with a tactic like that? He really takes after his parents!"

"What a promising young man! Greatness is clearly waiting for him!"

They showered my parents with praise, yet my mother still could not shake her sense of humiliation.

She had carefully orchestrated this grand climax, only for the main character to refuse to follow the script she had written. It felt like a public embarrassment in front of all her guests.

"I believe he needs some hands-on guidance," she announced, rising to her feet and straightening her collar.

She gestured toward the mansion. "Since the cameras aren't showing us anything interesting, why don't we take a trip down there and observe him more closely? We can all witness firsthand what the human body looks like when it's trying to conserve energy!"

The guests eagerly agreed. It felt like the start of an adventure. Experiencing it in person was always far more exciting than watching it on a screen.

"Let's go! To the apocalypse bunker!" the bob-haired woman cried, leading the others.

I rushed in front of them and spread my arms wide. "No! Stop! Don't go down there and gawk at me like an animal! I'm not some exhibit at a zoo! Please... leave me some dignity. I'm begging all of you. Don't look at me when I look... like that...

"You will only find my body. All you will see is me at my most desperate, most pathetic, and most wretched."

I just did not want a crowd of well-to-do people pointing at me and talking about me as though I were some grotesque spectacle. I did not want them showing off their lofty theories and clever observations over my corpse.

The crowd walked straight through me, chatting excitedly as my mother led them behind the hillside facade.

Hidden within what appeared to be an ordinary boulder was the entrance. No one would have noticed it without looking closely.

She entered a string of codes.

The boulder slid aside, revealing a heavy-duty, metal-reinforced door. She pounded on it with her palm.

"This thing can withstand every kind of explosion and bombardment. It can even survive a nuclear blast!" she said smugly. "Even if there were a zombie outbreak, everything behind this door would still be safe!"

Yes, safe from the threats outside. They locked the vulnerable inside as well. They saved a man from becoming a zombie, but they never saved him from becoming a ghost.