Once in a while, a trigger would occur as Zain had named it. A large headache would occur which was strange for his zombie self which didn't feel pain anywhere on his body, and soon after he would pass out.
At times it would be a vision and he would appear as a child and after experiencing these visions, he would remember what had occured in them.
At other times it seemed to be something more to do with the system, but he still hadn't quite figured it out yet nor the reason behind them.
Regardless, right now this trigger was occuring at one of the worst times possible. He had yet to bite Crunk, the superhuman, if the other was to wake up and Zain was seen there on the floor, without a doubt he would attempt to kill him… ending his life.
'This piece of crap body, can't you see what situation I was in. I'm doing everything I can to survive and it feels like sometimes you are trying to do everything you can to kill me!'
There was no answer, at least Zain thought there was no answer, but soon a familiar message box appeared in front of him.
[The system is currently receiving an update]
The message had appeared in a completely dark room. There was nothing… Zain was unable to see his own hands, or body; it was almost as if he was stuck here while the system was updating.
"You have improved considerably." A deep voice said.
This voice, it was one that Zain recognised, it was coming from the faceless man that he saw in his visions.
Although Zain wanted to reply, he was unsure if it was talking to him, and in the past the faceless man appeared to dislike when it found out Zain truly wasn't the one in the visions.
"I have done my best to teach you as much knowledge as I can, passing on everything that you might need to survive in this world.
"However, there are some things that might occur where you will be forced into a choice. Right now, you will be forced to choose."
The black space that he was in was starting to go away and an image was reappearing once again. The night sky could be seen out.
Zain could feel his heartbeating once again and the wind was blowing quite strongly. When looking out from the view, it appeared they were on top of an apartment building of some sort.
The surface was flat and the rooftop was clear with a short ledge, but in front of him there was the one thing he wasn't hoping to see.
The faceless man was standing there. He had his camo uniform on as if he was a member of the army, but as usual there was no face.
This time he wasn't alone either. There were two people that had black bags over their heads sitting on chairs and had been tied up.
"These two people here you do not know." The faceless man said. "So you don't have to worry about them. However, they have a family, people who care and worry about them dearly. If they were to die they would be greatly missed, that is a fact."
Zain had to wonder what type of vision this was and who was this mad man in the first place. When he looked at himself once again he was in his child-like body, around 11 years old at the top.
Was this someone else's memories, because he sure didn't ever do something like this, yet a situation like this had reminded him of something similar.
Looking down at his hands for a second they were covered with blood, but it soon disappeared quickly.
'I'm having visions in visions, great.' Zain sarcastically said to himself.
"I said before that you would have to make a choice and one of the important things that you need to do is to get used to killing."
For a second, Zain was worried, worried that he knew where the faceless man was going with this. As he looked down to his right, on the ground there was a large dagger sitting unused.
Zain went to pick it up.
"You are catching on, as I would expect. Your duty is to kill one of these people. You can ask any question you wish and I will answer about their lives.
"Kill one, and the other lives. Kill none, and they will both die by my hands."
Immediately Zain scrunched his face at the choice.
Although this was a vision, there was a sense of reality to this that he didn't like.
In some ways, the real world felt like the fake one to Zain. He was a zombie, a person who couldn't feel pain and there was madness and death everywhere.
Yet here, he could hear his heartbeat, feel the wind and even smell the air. This world, apart from the faceless man, felt very real.
Which made him second guess himself, if this was real or the real world, then did he really have to decide.
With the dagger held in his hand, Zain walked forward toward the two wondering what to do.
As he walked he tried to access the system, but the same message as last time had appeared, stating that it was in the middle of updating.
'Come on, get me out of this thing… I can't do this?'
Why was it so hard, Zain had killed easily ever since turning into a zombie. No, more correctly, it was ever since he lost Skittle… So why was this so hard?
"You're shaking." The faceless man said. "Hurry, are there any questions you want to ask?"
Zain stopped, in front of the two people, while the faceless man stood to his side.
"I do have a question." Zain finally spoke. "Are those really the only two options?"
"What do you me-"
Before the man could finish his sentence, Zain had leap toward him with the dagger in hand. There were always other options if one looked hard enough.
******
Thank you for all the support so far on LUZ. LUZ will be continuing on, and I hope I can do more chapters for all my series as time frees up in the future