"I'm home," Alex said, entering with a backpack full of supplies he'd exchanged for a small portion of the points he'd earned by completing the mission.
He left the rest of the points untouched, because if he exchanged everything for supplies all at once, the Ashford family would eat it all and leave nothing for him and Leo.
He often considered abandoning the Ashford family, but he knew Leo wouldn't, and he also felt guilty for his son's death.
What Alex found strange was that when he arrived, the house was completely silent.
Normally, thanks to his heightened senses as a person with supernatural powers, he could hear noises inside the house before approaching, and sometimes he could hear unpleasant things the Ashford family said.
Because of this, he knew the Ashfords were pretending in front of him and hiding something, but every time he got closer to his return date, they would speak secretly, hinting at things without explaining them.
Since Leo went with him on missions back then, and because, from overheard conversations, this secret was apparently something Leo didn't know either, Alex's disdain for the Ashford family more than doubled.
He knew that in that family, the only person he could trust was Leo.
But he also had no choice, no one in the Ashford family had awakened superpowers, so they refused to leave the base to go on missions with him for fear of death.
Leo was the only one who knew the martial arts he had learned before the apocalypse, as he wanted to show his family that even as a beta, he could be equal to the alphas.
Unfortunately, in the apocalypse, this was useless.
At the beginning of the apocalypse, people with martial arts had an advantage over normal people, but with the emergence of people with superpowers and the evolution of zombies, this advantage disappeared.
A normal person had no chance of surviving against a person with superpowers if they fought alone.
If they fought in a group, they had a chance of surviving, but not without sacrifice. This was the reason why people without superpowers desperately tried to enter the base, as they were safe, but upon arriving at the base, realizing that money was no longer worth anything, and to obtain supplies, they needed to collect zombie cores or complete the missions given by the base in exchange for points, these people became desperate.
They fought their way to the base, hoping to reach safety, and when they arrived, they discovered that to survive, they would have to fight the same monsters they had fled from all along the way.
People with superpowers were a little better off, as they could get a job inside the base or choose to team up with other superpowers to complete missions.
The only thing that made them despair was the fact that, all the way to the base, they were fighting zombies, and no one had collected the core crystals!
They thought about how much food and good accommodation they could exchange for those core crystals… But they couldn't blame anyone else, either, because who would think to search for core crystals inside zombies' brains?
Wondering how and where they should retrieve core crystals, some people began to feel sick, remembering the zombies' putrid appearance and smell, but they had no other choice, did they?
The fragile omegas immediately considered looking for someone to support them, but they met a tragic fate. Because they were fragile, the omegas were the first to be discarded during the escape with the zombies, regardless of whether they were siblings or lovers, and were the first to die.
Those who remained were considered slaves, some even being sold to people with superpowers who exchanged them for food.
The buying and selling of omegas was also, in a way, considered a form of exchange, which was, however, greatly undervalued, as the number of omegas who survived after being purchased was minimal, and their fate was to be sold to someone else when the previous owner tired of them, as if they were mere objects.
The only omegas who were treated as human beings were those who had awakened superpowers, but since people with superpowers were considered rare, omegas with superpowers were considered even rarer.
There were rumors that there was a base where people could live before the apocalypse that was considered only for omegas with superpowers and didn't accept alphas, making the number of omegas entering other bases almost nonexistent.
Most omegas risked their lives to reach the omega-only base.
But could the alphas allow all the omegas to go there?
Of course not.
Only the omegas with superpowers who could defend themselves managed to escape to this base, but having to travel alone during the apocalypse, the death toll was enormous.
This was one of the reasons Leo hadn't gone with him on the mission after returning with him from the last mission. The Ashford family said they were worried about Oliver.
As omegas became rare, the Ashford family was afraid Oliver would become a target since he didn't have superpowers.
With him and Leo constantly having to go on dangerous missions, Leo was worried that they would take his brother by force; after all, only Alex had superpowers.
Alex was against Leo staying at the base, knowing that the Ashford family would exploit him if he were alone with them and would treat him like a servant.
But Leo reassured him, because before they returned from the mission, Leo had been running a high fever for days, causing the team to suspect he had been infected with the zombie virus and wanted to abandon him.
It was Alex who insisted on caring for him, tying him up in case he turned into a zombie and giving him supplies and water that were his, something the other members were against, believing he would turn into a zombie.
This was how the apocalypse began, with several people developing high fevers and fainting for unknown reasons, overwhelming the hospitals and causing the price of medicine to rise. Initially, news outlets around the world reported several people contracting this unknown disease.
They suggested that uninfected people stay home. If they had a sick relative, they should isolate them and give them fever-reducing medication while the government arranged temporary shelters and doctors to house the infected.
However, it would take time to obtain the equipment and set up a place to calm the population.
At first, countries tried to hide this information, but with hospitals overwhelmed and lacking beds, citizens began complaining about the government online.
As the number of cases rose and public opinion spiraled out of control, one country released information that they had a new strain of flu and that, after taking fever medication, the patients' symptoms disappeared, only for the patient to become unconscious for unknown reasons.
This is why hospitals were overwhelmed, as the patients hadn't yet woken up. The news that the symptoms had disappeared after taking the flu medicine calmed the families of those infected, but they were worried because their relatives had not yet woken up.
With the first country as an example, other countries also began spreading the news of the new flu variant, emphasizing to the population the importance of getting up-to-date vaccinations and taking precautions.
The portion of the population that had been vaccinated up to date was relieved and agreed with the government on social media, emphasizing the importance of getting vaccinated on time, which calmed the population.
Governments around the world then began emphasizing the importance of vaccinations, and the population assumed that sick people either fell into this category or were people who hadn't taken proper precautions.
After all, the person was unconscious and couldn't be questioned.
But the government knew the situation was serious and that it wasn't the flu, but a new, unknown disease.
However, they couldn't allow the population to panic and began secretly stockpiling supplies, subtly insinuating to their families to do the same, as the situation couldn't be publicized or it would lead to widespread chaos.
They couldn't have imagined the tragedy that would follow: the people infected with the virus turned into zombies, and a small portion who had fainted with a high fever gained superpowers.
Alex was lucky, because when he fainted with a fever, his family was wealthy, and they contacted his family doctor.
He saw him at home and, after running tests, denied he had been infected with the new virus, thus avoiding being taken to the hospital emergency room for isolation.
When he woke up from the fever, the apocalypse had already begun two days earlier, and the mansion was zombie-free. According to Oliver, the surviving bodyguards had sacrificed their lives to kill the zombies, leaving only him.
When Alex found him, most of the food in the mansion had already spoiled, as the apocalypse had cut off the water and electricity a day after the chaos.
Initially, Oliver encouraged him to go for food, and Alex agreed. After the apocalypse began, no one cared for him, and he was feeling weak and in need of food and water.
Alex would have died if it weren't for the fact that he had awakened his superpowers and activated them subconsciously when he was about to be killed by a group of zombies.