The Z Gene - Chapter 2：The fight within

Daniel was clutching his head as he was tossing and turning on the hot sand, small critters like scorpions or venomous snakes would approach him from time to time to try and inject him with their venom but even if they succeded the Z Gene from his body would take in the venom and give him immunity to the venom afterward.

Daniel’s programming was that he was supposed to help the people who couldn’t awaken the Z Gene, he was brainwashed in this way for the amusement of the people from the bunker, they wanted to see the archetype of the crazy villain fight with the selfless hero who would sacrifice himself.

Of course, due to his unknown strength, Daniel killed an innocent woman, he couldn’t control his strength properly as he had no prior training this was something the doctors who were in charge of his brainwashing didn’t anticipate that by killing an innocent and going against the orders implanted in his brain he would break free from them!

Inside his mind, Daniel was running around howling and crying but in reality, he was tossing and turning on the sand while crushing the critters that were approaching him to try their luck at consuming his flesh.

All the animals mutated after nuclear war and viruses that spread, some humans were also mutated but these type of humans would often hide, other were lucky like the ones from that village who had nothing happen to them, besides the obvious psychological damage.

Life was hard after the nuclear war, billions of people died deadly viruses spread, just a common cold could kill a full-grown man, of course, the viruses were man-made.

In Daniel’s mind, a struggle could be seen, as he was running farther and farther away he was being moved right where he started running then everything reset to the beginning, he was in a continuous loop, he tried to run away from the darkness that was approaching him but most of the time he got consumed by it then he reset back to where he was before.

He was frightened by what was happening, he was just a young man with no memories of his prior existence manipulated by some rich snobs to become their entertainment, unlike Costil who didn’t have his personality altered Daniel was in a way more precarious situation mentally.

To break through the conditions imposed in his mind needed quite a high amount of will which Daniel currently lacked, he was scared of everything that happened to him, he wasn’t any superhuman he was just a lucky human who survived the nuclear war but then he was taken by the bunker to be experimented on.

He started running at high speeds towards the village where he met Costil, he appeared and saw how the humans infected with the Z Gene were eating some cured meat of unknown origin, but Daniel knew the origin of the meat. It was all human meat!

All of the humans who were infected with the Z Gene had an excited look on their faces as they ate the meat in big mouthfuls and patted their bellies, the Z Gene increased lifespan to a degree that’s why all of the old people returned to middle-aged looks now, they were the most ferocious of the bunch eating the most meat.

Costil was nowhere to be seen, he disappeared from the village no traces of him found at all, Daniel’s eyes saw only red as he took in the sight of fellow humans eating each other, the instructions implanted in his head told him to slaughter everyone in the village from the children to the men and women too!

And so he did, even though everyone else awakened the Z Gene as well, he was a primogenitor of the gene who took a high dosage of the serum so he was way stronger physically and had higher attributes than all of them combined, the only one who could defeat him would be Costil or a trained user with the Z Gene!

He fought sloppily but his punches were enough to shatter bone and destroy the flesh, his power was extremely high even though he had no technique. He decapitated people left and right then he took their spines and used them as a sword or club!

The people of the village tried to fight back but unfortunately for them, his strength speed and reaction speed was too high for them, even though he had no skills whatsoever considering fighting any brush with him would lead to the death of someone.

They tried to pile on him but he just shouted and used his muscle strength to throw everyone else like they were sacks of hay then he continued massacring the village.

On the monitor, the unknown man was watching with a gleeful look on his scarred face the cat was purring on his lap then it suddenly woke up and said:

“Baidoa, can I go now?” the man now known as Baidoa shook his head and said:

“No, he still isn’t ready you will go to him later now he is just in his infant stages, the brainwashing is fucking with his reason and makes him enter into sudden anger bouts that only killing would solve, it’s too dangerous for you to follow him now, maybe later when he gets rid of the brainwashing.”

The cat nodded its head and then got back to sleep while his owner continued to look at the monitor with an interested look on his face, he was also gasping from time to time.

Daniel just finished massacring the whole village when he suddenly blacked out among the corpses, his new clothes were all red his hair was sticky with the blood but he couldn’t feel anything.

Even though he blacked out he could still feel his whole body, somehow the blood from all the people he slaughtered started to converge on him and strengthen his body but it was by very small margins, his power barely even increased by one percent after his body absorbed all of the blood from everyone in the village.

The Z Gene in the people was just awakened and too weak to strengthen Daniel too much if he let the village grow then he slaughtered them he would have had a higher increase in power, but he didn’t know that.

Daniel woke up groggily after a few hours the dismembered and decapitated corpses were still there but no blood could be seen, also all of the blood on his body was seemingly cleaned off him.

Daniel shook his head then looked around, he didn’t remember much at all besides the violent rage that took him when he got into the village and all the red he saw… so much red.

He did realize he was the one who exterminated all of the humans but all the remorse he should have had for doing this was blocked and erased by his tampered mind directly. In his mind these people were evil so he had no remorse for them, they deserved to be massacred!

The only people he would find remorse in killing would be people without the Z Gene, he was supposed to protect them and take care of them or at least put them somewhere safe where they wouldn’t be eaten or killed.

Costil wasn’t in the village anymore thinking that his job of converting the people was done, he was on the road trying to find more villages which he would corrupt using the promises of longer life and increase in strength.

Life in the post-apocalyptic world wasn’t easy, food and water were scarce, especially cured water was hard to find, normal people would die of thirst if they couldn’t find some good water or drink irradiated water and maybe suffer mutations.

Most of the people, however, chose to drink the irradiated water and they got minuscule mutations, like an extra eye or nose maybe an extra arm, unlike those heavily mutated people these persons would still live on the surface and they wouldn’t try to hide.

Costil found himself trying to convert such a type of village, he succeeded easily then left leaving one more village to be massacred by Daniel, of course, there were more people now that couldn’t accept the Z Gene, so when most of the people who couldn’t accept the Z Gene were spotted they ran to hide. The first village had more potential candidates but his one had way less, five people were converted and they tried to hunt down the unawakened Z Gene people.

Daniel was going at high speeds through the wasteland known as Earth, very few places on Earth still had vegetation, they were practically extinct but some still existed, there was an oasis for humanity here and there, but they were either secluded or very rarely found.

Unfortunately, Daniel skipped the infected village, of course not all of the people with the unawakened Z Gene were slaughtered some were kept for breeding or as slaves, there was a huge difference between normal people and people who awakened the Z Gene, it was almost as high as the difference between normal Z Gene users and Daniel and Costil.

Daniel finally found a village Costil didn’t get his hands on yet and he decided to protect it while waiting for Costil.

He wasn’t welcomed warmly by the villagers however they were all cautious of him and they had gloomy look on their faces, an elderly man with a goatee suddenly walked out the crowd and said:

“What do you want outsider you are not welcome here!” Daniel walked forwards but the villagers started flinching and the old man started to tremble while he said:

“Please don’t kill us please take everything you want.” It seemed the people of this village were already being raided every few weeks by bandits or scavengers. Daniel explained to them how he wanted to help and protect them from Costil and how Costil would infect people and make them eat human meat.

The villagers were skeptical at first but when Daniel destroyed a sturdy rock with his fists only they shut up and invited him into the village. Who were they to decline the protection of such a strong guy?

The elder of the village was called Costop and he was the smartest in the village, he rationed the bits of food they had to a great deal which helped them survive, the ground was poor and they made very few crops which they had to survive every year if they didn’t have Costop who could rationalize the food so well they would all have starved to death by now.

Costop gave Daniel an empty house which he could live in then left him alone, they were to immediately inform him if Costil or someone else who would dare to harm the villagers came.

He already described Costil’s appearance to them so they knew who to be wary of.

Daniel stayed on his bed and pondered what he should do next, he couldn’t find Costil on his own so he could only wait for him to find this village.

Maybe he could train? he didn’t know what to do he only knew some basic training techniques and he didn’t know how his current body would get strengthened by them at all.

In the bunker in the observation room where the rich folk were watching the big monitor that could see every action of Daniel’s people started to yawn as they felt bored. They decided to leave the room and come later as they watched all of Daniel’s moves for quite a long while already. Only the leader with the monocle was still watching the screen with glowing eyes.

Daniel was ready to take a rest even though his body didn’t need much rest his mind still did, it wouldn’t hurt him if he slept for a few minutes from time to time, his body would also adapt better to his environment if he was sleeping.

Daniel laid on the bed then started to sleep soundly but his dreams never left him, he was always running from some darkness that would engulf him never letting him be truly free, sometimes chains would come from the darkness and put themselves around his ankles wrist and neck then drag him in the darkness directly instead.

His sleep would never be peaceful until his mind would be free of the tampering the scientist did to it.