RE: The Walking Dead [Zombie LitRPG]

In the doctor's office.

Jenner is sitting behind his desk while wearing his working clothes, a button shirt and a pair of pants.

While looking at the photo of his wife, he looked remorseful and full of emotions that he had forcefully bottled up. "I did the best I could in the time that I had. I hope you'd be proud of that."

*****

Jenner had just walked out of his room when he bumped onto Carol with Sophia.

"What is happening doctor? Why did the air and lights in our room suddenly turn off?"

He ignored them and just walked past them and continued moving ahead. Then he grabbed the bottle of liquor from Daryl's hand when he walked past him outside his room.

"Hey! What's going on? Why is everything turned off?"

The survivors came out of their rooms one by one and trailed behind him, all hurried and rattled at the current situation.

"Energy use is being prioritized." Jenner took a chug of the liquor in his hand.

Standing ahead of him, Dale gave him a skeptical look. "Air isn't a priority? And lights?"

"It's not up to me."

Michael watched the man's expression as he walked past him. 'He looks determined. So even after all the information I shared, he had long since already given up. It must be because of his late wife and had long lost the will to keep going on.'

Placing his hands on his waist, Michael turned his head down, then up, and let out a sigh. 'But am I doing this right? Why do I feel relieved that a man is going to off himself? Am I losing myself or is it because I'm still looking at this world as a mere TV show and not as real as my Earth can be? The human mind can be so complicated sometimes.'

Suddenly, a hand landed on his shoulder, and he saw Andrea standing beside him with a worried face.

"What are you thinking so deep that you don't hear me calling out to you?"

Smiling slightly, Michael shook his head. "Nothing, I'm just thinking about how Jenner had been acting weird since Dale brought up that clock thing."

"Yeah, but be honest with me. Do you know what is going on? I have this nagging feeling that I think you do since you had Amy and me bring those guns and medicines by the entrance." Andrea asked, her face solemn. She knows that something is not right, but she just can't put her finger on it.

"I don't know. I only know that for someone who had been trapped for almost a month without human interaction. I expected Jenner to be more enthusiastic in welcoming us, but he continued to keep to himself and that's not good in my books."

"That's it? That's all you needed to know, and you've started making preparations in case shit hits the fan?"

"Yeah. One step ahead, two steps ahead, or even ten steps ahead. I'd do anything to survive"

'I have to make preparations since I don't know if this world will try to trip me up in the future. I need to take advantage of the information I hold while it's still early. With my existence in this world, I need to keep preparing and stocking all necessities we need until I'm satisfied since I don't know if future events would still play out like they used to. Only if I'm prepared can I remain standing.'

"Don't burden yourself too much. It's not like you're the only one worrying for this group." Michael only smiled at those words.

The two talked while making their way to the big room.

"Dale and I talked earlier. He has suspicions that the countdown must be a self-destruction sequence."

Andrea jerked her head to look at him, her face painted with shock and surprise. "I also came to that conclusion, but Jenner wouldn't really do that right?"

Michael chuckled. "Jenner might not, but what about Vi? It's a computer that will rigidly follow its program"

"Then what are we still doing here? Shouldn't we immediately tell the others?"

"Hang on."

Andrea was about to run ahead when Michael quickly grabbed her arm and stopped her.

"Calm down. If the three of us had surmised this far, the others must have too. Don't forget that Rick and Shane are cops. Let them handle it."

Andrea shook off his hand and stood in confrontation with him. "Why can't you? Why can't you be the one to handle it? Is it that hard to ask if Jenner plans to blow us all up?"

Weng! Weng! Weng!

Then the sound of the alarm started blaring, interrupting them.

Michael smiled at her. "It seems like it's starting."

"You fucking jerk! It's not something to smile about!" Andrea cursed as she hurriedly followed after him.

"What's going on?!" With a yell from Andrea, the two arrived at the big room.

Rumble!

Michael and Andrea arrived just in time to get themselves locked in with the others as the door behind them slammed shut, trapping everyone altogether.

"Hey! Did you just lock us in?! He freaking locked us in!" Glenn let out a panicked yell when he realized what it entailed with the exit being blocked

Jenner ignored them and started making one final recording.

"We've hit the 30-minute window. This is my final recording before this place-"

Jenner was cut short when Daryl suddenly came charging at him with the bottle of liquor. "You son of a bitch! You locked us in here!"

Standing with Michael and Andrea by the entrance, Rick pointed at Daryl and started yelling. "Shane! Shane!!"

"You lying piece of shit!"

"No, no, no, don't!"

Shane quickly went over to restrain Daryl away from the doctor with T-Dog helping him.

"No, don't do it!" T-Dog helped in restraining the man.

Rick hastily walked towards Jenner and with authority in his voice. "Hey, Jenner. Open that door now."

"There's no point. Everything topside is locked down." Jenner stared straight at him and while fixing his robe, he continued. "The emergency exits are sealed."

Angered, Rick raised his voice at him.. "Well, open the damn things!"

"That's not something I control. The computers do. I told you, once that front door closes. It won't open again. You heard me say that." Jenner calmly explained. They finally understood what he meant by those words yesterday.

"It's better this way." The doctor continued.

"What is? What happens in 28 minutes?" Rick snapped his head at him.

Jenner ignored him and started typing something on the keyboard.

"What happens in 28 minutes?!"

Rick and Shane exchanged a look, and the latter was about to do something when Jenner abruptly stood up and yelled back at Rick. "You know what this place is?!"

"We protected the public from very..nasty..stuff!! Weaponized smallpox! Ebola strains that could wipe out half the country! Stuff you don't want getting out! EVER!" He addressed every single survivor around him.

The survivors didn't know what to say, they just looked at him in silence.

"In the event of a catastrophic power failure, in a terrorist attack for example, HITs are deployed to prevent any organisms from getting out." Jenner added, now calm.

"HITs?"

"Vi, define."

[HITs, high-impulse thermobaric fuel air-explosives consist of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear. The vacuum-pressure effect ignites oxygen between 5000-6000 degrees...]

The survivors started despairing and hugging each other while listening to Vi giving them detailed information of what a HITs is.

"Well, sh*t!"

Someone among the crowd cursed. It does not take a genius to understand how powerful an explosion that's only second to a nuclear is.

"I knew it." Andrea mumbled; her face painted with worry.

"It sets the air on fire. No pain, an end to sorrow, grief, regret. Everything." Jenner had clearly accepted his end from how calm he is.

On the other hand, Andrea went over to Michael.

"Do something."

Michael slowly turned his head towards her and gave her a helpless look. "Do something? Do I look like Omni-man or something?"

Andrea released a frustrated sigh and went over to her sister to comfort her.

Michael walked away from the door as Daryl charged right past him and threw his bottle of liquor at the blocked exit.

Shatter!

"Open the damn door!" Daryl shouted while pointing at the door.

Shane charged towards the door with an axe in hand. "Out of my way!"

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Daryl, Shane and three more men began their siege at the block entrance. They started pounding the door with axes, creating small scars.

The kids, and some of the women started huddling together and started crying.

Michael looked at one particular woman among them, then slightly tilted his head to the side. 'I still can't get used to Carol looking that young. She's probably in her early to mid 20s, right? I'm worried about what kind of personality she has compared to her TV version.'

Dale noticed Michael at the side just standing there while the rest were panicking trying to get out and went over to chastise him. "Why are you just standing there? Aren't you gonna do something?"

"Nope. As far as I see it, only Jenner can open those doors. If he wanted to let us leave, he would have done so by now. Besides, I think Rick would sooner or later convince him to open it for us."

Dale couldn't understand where the man's confidence in Rick was coming from. "How can you be so sure of that?"

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Letting out a chuckle, Michael looked at Dale from the corner of his eye. "I heard that Rick only arrived a day before me, but he already managed to take leadership alongside Shane. You guys didn't even realize that you had already started regarding him as one of the leaders of the group. I think that speaks for itself that he has some ways to charm people to follow him. Even if he doesn't know it yet."

Listening to him, Dale had also just realized that he had indeed started treating Rick as a leader of the group, unconsciously.

"Don't worry, I'll step in if Rick can't really talk Jenner out of opening that door, and instead of complaining to me, it'd be better for you to look after the others."

Dale nodded and left him alone. Michael then noticed Cole and Alan heading towards him. He just shook his head at them. They got the message and left him alone.

"I need you to step up soon, Daryl. I can't put forward my plans if these people would always turn to me after Rick and Shane. But Rick will convince Jenner, right?" Michael grew worried at the end when he saw that they only have a few minutes left on the clock. He's actually not sure how long they had on the show before Rick managed to talk it out with Jenner.

While Michael is deep into his own thoughts, Daryl and the rest had retreated from the door.