Age of zombies

It was another laid-back day at UC Berkeley, same old routine, same old faces. I was hanging out with my crew—my fellow otaku and weeaboo buddies—in one of the quieter corners of campus. The kind of spot where no one really cared that we were huddled together, geeking out over the latest anime or discussing, for like the hundredth time, how we'd survive a zombie apocalypse."Bro, I'm telling you, we should head straight to a Costco," said Kenji, the guy who took zombie prep way too seriously. He was half-Japanese, half-whatever, with a shaggy mess of black hair, and he never stopped talking about the zombie shit. "You've got food, supplies, everything you'd need.""You're an idiot," Malcolm chimed in, shaking his head. Malcolm was this big dude, all into FPS games and military shit, always trying to sound like the expert. "Costco's a fking death trap. Too many people. It'd get overrun in no time.""Yeah, yeah," said Ethan, rolling his eyes as he stretched out on the grass. He was the laziest of us all, the dude who'd probably get bitten in the first five minutes and be like, 'Eh, guess I'm a zombie now.' He had his usual Mountain Dew in hand, sipping like the world wasn't about to end. "Doesn't matter. If the apocalypse happens, we're all fucked. I'm just gonna binge the rest of One Piece and call it a day.""Shut up, Ethan," I said, laughing. "You wouldn't last five seconds. You'd trip on your shoelace and get eaten."We all laughed at that, even though it was true. Ethan was about as useful in a crisis as a chocolate teapot."You know, I bet Jake's got this all planned out already," said Raul, nudging me. Raul was the smart one, always coming at shit with some deep-ass philosophical take, but he had the body of a linebacker. I never got how that worked."Yeah, man, Jake probably has a hentai stash hidden somewhere to keep him company when the world burns," Kenji teased, waggling his eyebrows."Fuck off, dude," I shot back, shaking my head. "I'd be the one saving your asses. You guys would be screwed without me."Before I could get into my foolproof plan (which was definitely not inspired by too many hours of playing L4D2), a group of jocks swaggered over, all cocky grins and bad vibes. You know the type—douchebags who thought they owned the place. Behind them, their girlfriends trailed along like accessories, all short skirts and resting bitch faces. The guy leading them, some football dude with a too-tight polo, zeroed in on us like we were his personal joke for the day."Hey, look at the fking losers," he said, loud enough for the whole campus to hear. "Talking about anime and jerking off to cartoons, huh?"Kenji, of course, had to respond. "At least we have brains, unlike you and your steroid-pumped buddies.""Brains?" the jock repeated, his voice mocking as hell. "Is that what you call it? Man, I bet you've never even touched a real girl. Probably don't even know what tits feel like."His friends laughed like he just said the funniest shit in the world. I felt my blood start to boil. I hated guys like this—always acting like they were top shit just because they had muscles and a hot girlfriend.I was about to say something, maybe tell him to fuck off, when Raul stood up, towering over the guy. "Keep walking," Raul said, his voice low and calm, but you could tell he wasn't playing around.The jock took a step back, maybe a little surprised that Raul wasn't as much of a pushover as he looked. His buddies weren't so quick to back down, though."Or what?" one of them spat. "You gonna fight us, nerd?""Raul, don't," I muttered, pulling him back a little. The last thing we needed was a fight. We were already losers on campus—getting our asses kicked would just cement it.Raul didn't say anything, just glared at them until the jock leader threw his hands up like he didn't care. "Whatever, man. We don't waste time with anime freaks."As they walked off, one of the girlfriends, this blonde chick with too much makeup, turned and sneered at us. "Fking virgins."Kenji, never one to let things go, flipped her off behind her back. "Bet she's into tentacle porn and doesn't even know it."We all snickered at that, the tension dissolving a little."Man, I hate those guys," Malcolm grumbled, cracking his knuckles. "One day, they're gonna get what's coming to them.""Yeah," I agreed, leaning back against the wall. "Maybe when the zombies show up, we'll see how tough they really are.""Hey, at least we'd have a head start," Ethan said, not even looking up from his phone. "They'd be too busy trying to find Wi-Fi for their Tinder accounts.""Speaking of zombies," Kenji said, eyes lighting up. "What's the next move? After we secure a base? Where do we go from there?""Look, man," I said, shaking my head. "It's all about mobility. You don't want to get stuck in one place. We need to find a way to keep moving, scavenge, maybe find some survivors who actually know what they're doing.""And what about the girls?" Raul asked, smirking. "We bringing them along, or are they just gonna slow us down?""Depends on the girl," Malcolm said with a shrug. "Some of them are probably more useful than Kenji.""Hey, fk you," Kenji shot back, but he was laughing. "I'm the brains of this operation."Ethan finally looked up from his phone and raised an eyebrow. "Dude, if you're the brains, we're dead already."Another round of laughter. It was all bullshit, of course, but these stupid talks—these what-if scenarios—they were our thing. I knew if the shit actually went down, we'd be fucked. We weren't survival experts. We were a bunch of nerds, wasting time between classes, dreaming about a world where we were the heroes instead of the losers.Still, part of me liked the idea. In a world where everything fell apart, maybe we'd finally matter. Maybe we'd actually have a chance to be something more than just the weird guys no one wanted to hang out with. A chance to prove we weren't as useless as everyone thought.But that was just a fantasy, right?At least for now.Q: Do you play L4D2?