Kei Fukuda's eyes were weary, yet wide open, fixed on the final pages of *Global Freeze*. His small room was filled with a faint orange glow from a single lamp as he devoured each devastating panel. Outside, the real world was a stark contrast to the frozen wastelands in his manga, yet somehow the coldness of it all bled through, seeping into his bones as he read. *Global Freeze* was a post-apocalyptic saga that had been his favorite escape from reality—a world where an unstoppable global freeze swept across Earth, decimating the population and transforming cities into graveyards of steel and frost. Only those with latent abilities survived, awakening strange powers to fight off evolved zombies and monstrous creatures that emerged from mysterious portals.

But it wasn't just the apocalypse or the hero's epic battles against waves of zombies that entranced him. It was the characters who struggled, failed, and fought on regardless. In particular, a haunting female zombie had lingered in his mind—a powerful, evolved second-level zombie with tragic backstory fragments that had barely surfaced before her untimely death in Chapter 20. She had been a beauty wrapped in terror, with flawless, ivory skin marked by ancient, glowing red symbols—a mystery hinted at but never solved. 

"Why did she have to die so early?" Kei muttered, slumping against his bed as he closed the manga. She was the first antagonist he had genuinely felt for, a character somehow trapped between the monstrous and the human, with layers he wished he could peel back and explore.

His stomach grumbled, interrupting his thoughts. *Of course, the one night I forgot snacks.* Sighing, he tossed the manga onto his bed, threw on a jacket, and left his apartment. 

As Kei walked through the midnight streets, the air seemed colder, biting in a way that reminded him of *Global Freeze*'s eerie, frostbitten landscapes. His mind drifted back to the female zombie. He pictured her standing there in her haunting beauty, her movements fluid yet unsettlingly graceful. She was trapped in a cold, desolate world, fated to be slain by the hero she barely knew, doomed by a story that never gave her a chance.

*What a waste.*

Just as he turned the corner, headlights seared into his eyes. In a blinding second, everything shattered—pain flashed like lightning through him, his vision spun, and the world turned to shadows. His last thought was the image of her pale, haunted face, staring back from the manga panel.

---

A fierce, icy chill gripped him as Kei's eyes cracked open again. He jolted upright, disoriented, surrounded by crumbling buildings and streets blanketed in white. Everything was wrong—his body felt foreign, every nerve tingling with an unnatural chill. Confused, he struggled to his feet, noticing the snow crunching beneath him, the frost creeping along broken glass and metal debris. It was as though he had stepped into the pages of *Global Freeze* itself.

He looked down at his hands, gasping. They were slender and deathly pale, like fine porcelain, glowing faintly under the harsh light of the frozen wasteland. He reached up, touching his face, finding it cold and smooth. Panic bubbled within him as he stumbled over to a shattered window, staring into the cracked reflection staring back at him.

The face was not his own. A hollow-eyed woman with ghostly pale skin and delicate, haunting features looked back, her eyes a fierce, otherworldly violet. Scarlet symbols, ancient and ominous, glowed across her skin in intricate, winding patterns that seemed alive with a silent, unknown power. Kei's heart pounded. He was her—the female zombie from *Global Freeze*, the very character he had mourned in his room just moments ago.

As he processed this impossible reality, visions and memories flooded his mind—not his own, but hers. Flashes of battlefields buried under ice, monsters tearing through screaming crowds, and figures in cloaks chanting ancient words. He felt her agony, her rage, and her silent acceptance of her fate. She had been someone before the infection, a person with a story. That life, fractured and fragmented, bubbled to the surface, though it remained just out of reach. 

His thoughts scrambled, Kei took a few shaky steps forward, feeling the world twist around him as his vision adjusted to this new body. His senses were heightened, attuned to every shift in the air, the soft crunch of snow beneath his feet, and the faint scent of decay lingering in the frozen air. The world felt muted, devoid of warmth and life. He could feel an insatiable hunger gnawing within him, a deep urge to hunt, to consume.

But overriding it was something more potent—fear. He knew this story, and he knew her fate. Within 20 chapters, the hero would find her. Her tragic death at his hand had been one of the most iconic moments in the manga. But standing here, inhabiting her skin, feeling the thrum of power beneath it, Kei found himself faced with a question he hadn't considered before.

Could he change her fate?

He examined his new body, testing his movements. She was strong, agile, and radiated an eerie, unearthly grace. Her skin might have been flawless and cold, but it was resilient, hardened in a way that spoke of evolution beyond her first stage as a mindless zombie. The red symbols burned across her skin with a mysterious intensity. They held meaning, ancient magic, perhaps a link to the powers of the gates and portals that had opened when the freeze first took over Earth. He could feel energy surging from them, a power she had barely tapped into before her death in the original story.

Exploring the ruins around him, Kei noticed remnants of civilization frozen in time—a shattered coffee cup, a street sign half-buried in snow, and, hauntingly, the skeletal remains of someone caught in the first waves of the freeze. This place was once bustling, alive with people and noise, but now, all that was left were echoes of the past, trapped in a graveyard of frost and silence.

He knew that the hero would come for him eventually. In the story, the hero was a survivor with abilities honed to combat the undead and their mutations, armed with skills awakened by the relentless struggle to survive the apocalypse. Yet, standing here now, he didn't feel like the villain. The character he had become had her own story, a tragic, unwritten narrative that had been overshadowed by the hero's journey.

Determination sparked within him. This world, as brutal and unforgiving as it was, had given her—and now him—a second chance. Kei closed his eyes, focusing on the sensations coursing through this body. The red markings seemed to pulse with life, a source of ancient knowledge and power waiting to be unlocked.

As he ventured further into the frozen wasteland, the ground beneath him trembled, a subtle but ominous reminder that he wasn't alone. Other creatures lurked in the shadows, remnants of humanity twisted by the cold and infection. He could sense their hunger, their restless anticipation for prey, just as they would sense him. 

But Kei felt no fear. With each step, he embraced the strength, the resilience of this body, letting the ancient symbols hum with power. This was his world now, and the hero wasn't the only one with a story to tell.

If he was going to survive—and rewrite his fate—he'd need to unravel the mysteries of this ancient power, find allies, and rise above the story that had doomed her. The heroine of *Global Freeze* was destined to die a forgotten, tragic death, but Kei was determined to defy that fate.

As he took one final look back at his reflection in the frozen glass, he saw the determination in those violet eyes, the fierce beauty that masked something far deadlier. He was no longer Kei Fukuda, the reader. He was a second-level evolved zombie, powerful, beautiful, and holding the keys to an ancient power that just might tip the scales.

He smirked, a wicked glint in his eyes as he embraced his new, cold fate.

"Bring it on."