USC Baseball Fields

At the near-empty batting cages, a couple of players could be seen picking up the mess they created after batting practice.

Preparing to head to his dorm for some much-needed rest and a shower, Zeke gathered his gear after enduring an exhausting night practice session with a few other players.

"Zeke, you better hurry, or we will leave you behind. We don't want to eat cold food at the cafeteria." Jason shouted after picking up his bag while he and a few others headed to the door.

Zeke stopped what he was doing and looked over at the group before replying. "Ah, don't wait up on me I had a light dinner before I hit the cages. Im going back to the dorms."

After hearing his reply Jason and the rest of the group left the building and went to the cafeteria. Zeke was still picking up a couple of the balls behind the pitching machine.

At this time Sarah walked in and saw Zeke still in the facility.

As a senior team manager for the baseball team, Sarah has the responsibility of ensuring that everything is properly secured at the training facility before she departs.

Seeing the 6'4 player with short black hair she was trying to remember the player's name before calling out to him. 'Who is still here at this hour? He must be one of the freshmen or a new transfer since I don't recognize him.'

"Hey! I need to close up the building soon or the coaches will get angry." Sarah announced as she started to walk over to assist in cleaning.

Zeke startled flinched a little when he heard the voice out of nowhere but turned to see one of the managers coming over to assist he thought to himself. 'She is pretty cute.'

"Thank you I just finished, sorry I was just trying to get some extra time in," Zeke replied while standing up.

After Sarah and Zeke left the building he took one last look at the brand new batting cages lined with 7 different lanes with state-of-the-art pitching machines to make sure there was no mess and watched as she locked up the doors and they left walking in the same direction.

As they walked together the silent atmosphere was a bit awkward and it only grew until Zeke started the conversation as he introduced himself.

"I've seen you around helping with some of the practices my name is Zeke what is your name?"

"My name is Sarah, I am a senior and one of the baseball team managers are you a freshman or did you just transfer in?" Sarah replied

"I am a freshman and I am excited for this year hoping I can impress the coaches so I can see some playing time."

"I think I saw your play in the scrimmage last week, you had a great game even after that first-inning error. I am sure the coaches thought so as well."

They continued to talk while walking to the dorms making small talk talking about the upcoming baseball season and how they were excited that the semester just started this week.

As they got to the dorms and were about to head their separate ways.

Zeke worked up the courage and asked. "Do you think maybe I can grab your ---"

Before he could finish he was interrupted the ground started to shake and the buildings around looked as if they might fall over.

After living in California his whole life he quickly noticed the signs and realized a massive earthquake started. Everyone around the campus started to scream.

All of a sudden Zeke felt dizzy and he could see in the distance one of the smaller buildings collapsing.

As he was losing consciousness he saw Sarah also falling out and seemed to be unconscious. He quickly moved stumbling over to her as he caught her before he fell to the ground.

Waking up Zeke was confused he was used to earthquakes since he lived in California, but this was the first time he was knocked out due to one. He looked and he saw Sarah was still on top of him and she was slowly waking up.

They both slowly got up and Zeke quickly started to look around and noticed the view around him as buildings were collapsed, fires started to spread, and the sky had a dark red hue similar to the red of the USC logo.

After they both stood up and observed some of their surroundings they noticed something in their eyes.

Zeke was confused and looked at the message he could see and at the same time he heard a voice resound the message he was looking at in his head.

[Welcome to Project New Era. Earth will now be going through the first evolution phase. Good Luck!]

As they were reading this strange message in their eyes they did not notice they were quickly getting surrounded by zombies.

Sarah was able to hear some growls when she was reading the message and quickly noticed around 20 zombies slowly approaching them. She started to freak out and quickly shouted.

"Zeke, snap out of it we need to get out of here." She shouted while shaking him. Zeke quickly looked around and noticed the situation they were in and went completely frozen for a couple of seconds.

Seconds later he felt Sarah's hand touch his and was brought back noticing that within that time the zombies were already much closer than before.

Quickly looking around he noticed an exit route where only a few zombies were.

"Stay behind me. My dorm is close we can hide there and think of what to do next."

Zeke quickly moved in the direction with the fewest zombies. Dodging a few of their outstretched arms Zeke and Sarah made their way to an empty building.

Once inside the building, both Zeke and Sarah collapsed with their backs to the door trying to collect their thoughts. 'Why are their zombies outside? What was that message that popped up earlier? First Evolution Phase?'

With copious questions and zero answers, Zeke could only regather himself and move forward for the time being with surviving being the most important thing.

After taking a few minutes to come to terms with the changes Zeke stood up.

Not knowing where he was Zeke began to look around the small building.

After checking and coming to the only other door in the room Zeke slowly opened it, but the door was quickly pushed open from the other side.

Frightened Zeke started walking backward as two slow-moving zombies began to move into the room they were hiding in.

Due to the small room Zeke quickly had to make a decision whether to fight or leave the building.

Realizing that he and Sarah ran away from another group and they could be right outside the door he looked around for something that could help him fight.

Zeke searched for something sharp that would cut the head off the zombie cleanly as he had seen in many movies he watched.

Not finding anything that he thought could help him he sprinted to his bag and grabbed one of his bats. While picking up the bat he heard Sarah telling him to move.

Taking a brief second to see one of the zombies closing in on him he rolled to the right away from Sarah.

As the closer zombie followed him he used all the strength he had and smashed the bat against the zombie's head causing the zombie to fall down.

As he wondered if he killed the zombie, he received a notification telling him he leveled up. Making sure this meant the zombie had died Zeke used his bat to poke the zombie's corpse.

While Zeke poked the corpse with his bat he heard a scream. Noticing it was from Sarah he saw the second zombie slowly making his way toward her.

Seeing this Zeke dashed toward the zombie and swung connecting with the back of the zombie's head.

After the hit connected Zeke received a second notification that he leveled up. Seeing the notification pop up Zeke connected that he must have leveled up after he killed the zombie.

After looking around and making sure there was no imminent danger, Zeke fell down and thought about the situation and what just happened.

Noticing he also felt stronger he thought back to the message he received in the middle of his fight and decided it was safe enough to look at now.

[You have leveled up]

[You have leveled up]