Regret.

It was just a simple word.

One word that just explained much of the self-loathing people felt about themselves.

Just a feeling that was so complicated that it devoured you into the depths of uneasiness, slowly eating away at you till the end of your lives.

Lucien's father always used to say, "Just forget about the past and focus on the things you can change in the present."

But failure is what teaches a man. When the door of opportunity slams itself shut in their faces...that was when they realized. 

That was when Lucien also realized.

At the end of life, regret is all that is left.

While the beer bottle swayed in his tired hand, his eyes shifted to the window.

Under the gaze of the blood-red moon, his face shone in crimson light, lack of sleep and malnourishment were evident on his face.

He could faint at any moment because of not being able to eat for days, his stomach felt like it was shrinking, eating on itself to sustain the daily activities.

One could say he had more alcohol in his body than water at that moment.

Outside, the city of Ratchel was bathed in a haunted yet captivating glow, casting an eerie atmosphere upon its streets.

Various people gathered in the city center, dreading the tremors that spread throughout the ground as he looked at dust particles falling from the roof.

Each tremor increased the fear inside them, as they looked at the sky for salvation, but all of them knew that it was a false hope.

As the eruptions increased, people's hearts sank in despair, until that despair turned into anger, lust, and insanity.

The zombie herd was coming their way.

His eyes suddenly shifted to the screams that were just starting to erupt all around.

Shoplifting and assault, among other crimes, were being committed all across the city. No crime that gave the people some form of relief from the disaster was left untouched.

After all, it was the end of the world.

It was the year 2055, and this was the last standing city in Southeast Asia. Every other country was engulfed and destroyed in the aftermath of the death root plague.

It all started 30 years ago and kept on going, zombie-like creatures kept appearing and infecting humans over and over.

Soon, more than half the globe was already enveloped in this deadly plague, and it had no plans on stopping just at that.

Many countries fell victim to this disaster and only some managed to stumble back up into a working state, just delaying the inevitable.

There was no way to know where it started or how to cure it, renowned physicists and other scientists all tried to find an answer, and he was also one of them, albeit an assistant.

But alas, all they could peek into was that it worked on another plane, a plane that wasn't reachable with current technology, touching the edge of quantum mechanics.

"Sigh, If I just had better qualifications, I would have been sent to Antarctica with all those fuckers, at least living for some more years or maybe just maybe living my lifespan fully…"

"Only if I had better qualifications huh…" He chuckled.

Maybe he should have thought about that when he had a party before his master's thesis presentation and overslept, causing his graduation to be pushed back by months.

Or maybe when he was addicted to binging shows and porn instead of working out or better focusing on his studies, which would have helped him survive this disaster.

Or maybe when he ran away and left all the people who loved him behind, just to feel this self loathing at the end.

Or maybe when he was just a sore loser deluded by fantasies, that everything was easy before even trying it.

"These memories…they really leave a bitter aftertaste."

"Ahhh!" Lucien screamed at his own helplessness, punching his hand again and again on the wall.

'I am just pathetic.'

Throwing a bottle of booze out of the window that hit someone's head, he cheered.

"Headshot!"

Maybe he had also gone crazy considering the state of the world, all that knowledge and what did he achieve? Nothing but a nuclear death.

The most concentrated horde of the creatures was moving toward Ratchel and other nearby countries decided to bomb this last city of Southeast Asia to save their skin.

After all, no one wanted to die in this accursed way, eaten and assimilated into zombie-like creatures.

The best option was just to sacrifice their worthless lives and get some breathing time.

"There was that time as well where I rationally thought about how to use my own death, I must have truly gone crazy."

He laughed while still throwing some miscellaneous shit he had in the room out of the window.

It was somewhat fun or maybe this was what you would call coping. Anyways, who would even care after everyone here died?

Finally feeling the starting excitement dim down, he slowly walked back to his vintage chair, it creaked heavily, telling him that its time was also near.

Sighing in his mind, Lucien called out to Miri, his personally developed AI.

"Hey, Miri! What is the ETA for the missile?"

"It is 5 minutes, sir." A soft and feminine voice came out of a small ball-like structure that slowly rolled towards him.

Picking it up he touched its rough metallic surface, it was a marvel of hundreds of years of human technology.

Sighing once again, he decided to ask another question to the AI, "Miri, what is more painful, dying from the death root plague or a nuclear missile?"

"Sir, objectively speaking, death from a nuclear missile would likely be quicker and less painful compared to the prolonged suffering and loss of humanity associated with a death root plague."

Thinking about it for a second, he looked at the roof of the room, minute dust particles were still falling off.

Lucien just silently waited for death to come to him. There was nothing he or anyone else in the whole city could do.

Even if there was no nuclear missile, he would have still died from the raging horde out there.

The ticking sound of the clock was the only indicator of the passing time.

The clock ticked away, but slowly, every noise out there faded away, he was lost in the memories of his small yet painful life, and just one thing resonated deeply within him.

Just one.

That line from his father, if only he had focused on the present.

Only regrets were left as death neared.

Slowly, tears fell from his face, it felt like they were slowly washing away all of his regrets, but the past was hard to forgo.

He screamed. He cried. He laughed.

Trying to let this ending world know he was still alive here, on his way to death.

Only in death did he understand.

"I…I wanted to live more." He stuttered heavily.

He wanted to live more when his regrets caught up to him.

But suddenly the walls caved in, and a blinding light with intense heat ate away at his body.

His tears along with his body were vaporized before he could interpret what happened.

And an eternal darkness enveloped him.

Or so he thought.