Zaide the Zombie (A Short Story)

Chapter One: Reborn to find Space

I got ripped-off with my reincarnation. When I died – stupid I know, dying like that – I awoke in a zombie apocalypse story. How do I know? I read it, just the night before, and the memories of this poor cannon fodder I woke up in, lasted five years into the end of the world before he died trying to save the heroine, and I came back in time in his stead. Not him. Me, damn it.

But it only took me twenty-five minutes to go through all his stuff to find the pendant that was left to me by my grandfather. Dropping blood on it – 'cause that is what every protagonist does to open their mystical space or inner farm – I sighed in relief, it worked this time.

I looked at the ancient medical books, gold necklace, crystal bracelet, antique painting, pumpkin-shaped jade carving and dragon statute, all the various paraphernalia scattered around my feet and on the chair next to me and realised I was starting to run out of blood. I had to smear it all over every item just to see which item was the rumoured Gold Finger.

Yes, my own Gold Finger! I happily thought as I passed out from loss of blood.

You might be wondering how I got ripped off? Well, not only did I faint from loss of blood on my first day that I was isekai'd into a novel, my so-called inner space was only sixteen meters squared. Sixteen. Frackin' %#$&#!!! That is only four meters to a side. Come on, give me a break!

That was the first thing I thought when I woke up again, hours later. There was no spring water, no fields of ripe vegetables, fruit trees or medicinal herbs, not that I'd know what to do with herbs, except to add them onto an Italian meatball sub... Meatballs... Hmm.

My tummy gurgled, and that right there was the first sign of the things to come. The date on the phone in my pocket was the second sign of things to come. It was the day before the apocalypse and I was already out of food.

The small apartment I lived in was on loan from a friend of mine. Yeah, I decided to become this body's original identity, named Zaide, at least until I knew how to rule the world, then I could... I don't know, change identities again? I'll think about it when I get there, I guess.

I know this apartment belonged to a friend because after 'Zaide' left school, he had nothing. His parents died when he was young then his older sister got married and left him on his own. All the ancient junk in the small apartment came from his Grandfather passing away in his last year of high school. Sucks to be him. Safe to say, he didn't manage his end of year university exams too well after that.

So his friend put him up in an old mistress apartment that his wealthy family owned and hid away. His friend, you might ask? Yeah, one Male Lead of the apocalypse novel, AKA best friend – sorta – from high school. I still shiver thinking about using the same bed as this guy's parents' secret lovers... Gross. I got up and closed the bedroom door. Never gonna use that room again.

So there I was, flicking things around me, in and out of the jade necklace space that I was wearing, that was still smeared with my blood from hours ago. It was pretty cool how they can go in and out like that. One second there in my palm, next second gone. I should take up a job at a magician's show, I'd be a real hit.

Time on my watch said I had twenty-eight something hours to go before the end of the world. I had exactly one hundred and fifty dollars in my wallet and zero balance on my credit cards. It was time to come up with some real quick way to make loads of cash and buy up all the food in the city that I could. I groaned.

I'd already lost hours fainting from blood loss. Brown sugar water, vitamin pills, beef soup, and pork chops, I'd done all I could replenish the blood loss, but this body wasn't really the fittest of men, even by my old standards. Classic bookworm I was in my old life. I then spent ten minutes figuring out the extent of my super-space powers. While drinking brown sugar water. Gotta keep my fluids up.