Gasp!

Cough!

Alex woke up with a sudden shortness of breath.

He grabbed his chest and looked around, but no one else is in the room.

'What is going on? Is this a heart attack?'

He tried to clear his throat but nothing is blocking his airways.

Each second that passed made breathing much harder.

Only one thought rose above all.

'Will I really die a virgin?!'

A spark appeared inside him and his will flared with determination.

'No! I choose to die trying!'

Alex stood up from the swivel chair - tried to stand up but failed miserably.

The moment he tried standing up, he immediately slid down towards the floor.

His feet wobbled as if they were made out of jelly.

His mind felt hazy like it was clogged with smoke.

He tried holding on to the table but his hands felt so weak they barely latched for a second before eventually letting go.

Crash!

He endured the various things falling on him especially the heavy laptop that he uses daily for work.

One good thing about what happened is he noticed his phone that fell next to him.

He immediately grabbed it like his life depended on it.

He called the emergency hotline but no one answered.

He tried looking for someone on the internet, but he's having a hard time moving!

He felt his heart pounding.

It's beating too much and too fast.

Getting faster and faster every second.

He could feel the end coming...

Bu then he felt that something was strange.

Heart attacks normally last a few seconds or a minute at most.

The fact that he was still alive means that he is not having a heart attack.

However, the next time he tried to breathe he realized the situation is much worse than a heart attack.

His eyes widened.

He's sucking too much air every time he takes a single breath!

And the spark of life he felt earlier was because his heart was not beating too fast, but too slow.

It's working overtime from getting too much air!

What's worse is he's visions starting to get blurry.

"Could I be having a panic attack instead?"

He chose to slow down...

'I have to calm down.'

Alex remained still trying to relax himself.

He closed his eyes and focused his attention on his surroundings.

He could hear the rain. The sound of raindrops tapping against his window.

'Breathe.'

"Huuuuuuu...haaaaa. Huu - ack! Cough, cough!"

'It is not working! I'm getting overwhelmed.'

Alex tried taking large gulps of air in quick successions and his eyes brightened when his breathing became less strained.

Knowing what to do eased his mind.

He began experiment on his breathing patterns and after a couple of tries, he found the best pattern.

'I need to take long breaths, roughly around 7 seconds, hold it in for another 7 seconds, and slowly breathe out for 7 seconds.'

"Uhhhhhhh....haaaaaaa."

"Uhhhhhhh....haaaaaaa."

By repeating the process several times, he successfully catched his breath and everything returned to normal.

Normally, someone would run out of breath by doing this after a couple of cycles but it seems to be just enough to keep his breathing regulated.

As he focused on his own surroundings, he heard a growling sound coming from the wall of his apartment.

Alex lives on the second floor of a simple two-story apartment.

Despite the cheap rental, the construction of the place was quite good. He usually wouldn't hear as much as a bark unless the dog gets excited when the owner comes back from office work.

The dog started barking as if trying to scare something away.

He could hear a thumping sound.

'A robber?'

He thought, but soon realized that a robber wouldn't be stupid enough to knock on the door at this time of the day.

Then he heard fighting sounds, but Alex couldn't see anything.

He heard the dog whimper and its barks getting weaker and weaker until finally, it stopped.

"What is going on over there? Animal cruelty?"

Alex wondered and peeked outside the window, but there's nothing he could see from the glass door of the next unit.

'Wait, didn't I just had a panic attack a few moments ago? Is the lack of oxygen in my brain playing tricks on me?'

Alex sat back down and took a few more deep breaths.

'Is it really my imagination? I have never seen the neighbor's dog acting that aggressive, especially towards people. Except for the stray cat that likes to hangout in the parking lot.'

He took a glance at his laptop which fell next to him after hitting him earlier. The screen is still turned on and he saw the project he was working on last night.

He was trying to hack the apartments security system on the request of the landlord's wife.

After learning that he was an IT Specialist especially from the cyber security branch of a start up company, a job was offered that he couldn't resist - because he got threatened to be kicked out.

The bad thing about this is he's just a new graduate and isn't really that confident about it, but with the landlady basically feeding him every information he needed, basically letting him in the security system, he decided to olay game for extra cash and some experience.

Why is the landlady looking for him instead of speaking with his husband?

He doesn't know.

Would he like to know?

No.

He wasn't told anything and plans to keep it that way.

Besides, anyone with an adult mind immediately has the correct answer in mind.

No matter what, he still wants to rent here because of several reasons: this place is close to his office, extremely affordable, and most importantly, it has a decent internet connection for free.

With the limited funds he has and just being average in class, Alex had to complete this so he can put something new in his resume.

He was able to finish the security system last night and he just had to run some tests on it but fell asleep while the program code was getting compiled.

Alex picked the laptop and dusted it. He hissed seeing the scratches on its body.

Several small cracks can be seen on the corners of the screen.

His heart ached.

The laptop was given to him by his parents on his graduation day and he treasured it, making sure to never scratch it or even mishandle it.

He could only sigh deeply and hope it can still function properly.

"Please don't crash, please don't crash."

He muttered, and then the computer's screen turned on with a familiar logo.

"Thank god."

He heaved a sigh of relief.

It didn't take long for the laptop to start. He quickly navigated to a folder and run the program for hacking the security cameras.

It took a few seconds and several minimalistic loading bars before a user menu appeared.

He filled up a couple of details like IP address, MAC address, usernames and passwords and other known information before hitting enter and letting the program continue doing it's thing.

With all the information he had, it didn't take long before a success message appeared and a new folder appeared on the desktop.

Alex opened it and there's only one program inside it.

"I did it!"

Alex danced around and celebrated by stirring an invisible pot in the empty air.

"I did it, I did it. I'm awesome, I'm awesome."

Alex grinned and run the program as he calmed down.

"Now let's see what we can do here."

The program opened a new interface and he saw sveral option to start from. He saw where the recordings were stored, some settings he can tinker around and finally access to live footage of the cameras.

Curious, he opened the live feed and the first thing he saw is a video footage of the parking lot.

And the view was not pretty.

A homeless person is eating the flesh of a stray cat.

He felt the cold breeze of the AC running down his neck turn even colder.

"Is this real? Is he really that hungry?"

The cat and the person are the only thing he could see in the scene.

Alex looked closely at the man. The person looks like to be the old beggar near the highway. His clothes are worn out and there are patches of dirt and grime all over.

"I hope I don't become like this one day. Even if I have to fail I must avoid bankruptcy!"

Alex noticed the weird posture and how he moved.

"Is he sick? Cold? I should give him something later. Food, medicine, and some clothes..."

The old man didn't walk like in a straight linr and kept on swaggering while munching on the stray cat.

Alex decided he had enough of the disturbing image and focused on the program in front of him.

The interface was easy to navigate and he quickly cycled through the cameras: the hallways for the upper floor, the ground floor, the back of the apartment, and the parking lot.

On the hallway downstairs, he saw a lovely couple playing with each other - that's what he thought until the man shoved his girlfriend a bit forcefully.

The man tried to apologize but the woman bit him instead. He shoved her back again in shock, and warily stared at her.

The woman kept lunging at him as if trying to get more pieces of him and he had to use his baseball bat to hold her down.

Alex didn't stay longer and went to other feeds.

Except on the second floor hallwaya snd the back alley, everywhere seemed to be in chaos.

'This can't be real, right?'

He tried to deny reality but as the fight downstairs concluded, with the woman munching on the guy who didn't even try to attack, he had to accept it.

'There's no doubt about it, these are zombies!'

He had a bit of a hard time accepting what is going on.

'If this is real, then those who are dead have risen from the grave and are now walking corpses with the ability to kill humans and eat them.'

'Well, there's no proof of that, but I can see if the dead will come back to life and I just need to wait.

"Let's hope it's just that... I don't even want to know what other strange things happened."

Then he shivered as he remembered the earlier events next door.

The dog, the scuffle, and everything turning quiet.

He looked at the date on his laptop and found out today was Saturday. His neighbor was a white collar worker and he doesn't work on weekends.

Thst means he's home and he might be deader than dead.

"Damn it."

Alec couldn't help but curse.

His neighbor might've turned into a zombie.