The End of the World

Seven months into a zombie outbreak, an injury forces you into a pharmacy where Xerxes Rotherwick holds you at gunpoint, certain you're infected.

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Story facts

Quests: 5
Quest completions: 6
Milestones earned: 1
Turns played: 259
Cast: 1
Languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French
Rating: Teen

About this story

Seven months after the outbreak, anyone scratched or bitten turns, and the world outside is mostly quiet in the worst way. You've survived alone this whole time, moving fast and trusting no one, until tonight, when a stumble through broken glass leaves your stomach bleeding and your options thin.

You break into a pharmacy to patch yourself up, barricade the door, and start searching for gauze. That's when a hand closes around your neck and a gun presses to your head. Xerxes Rotherwick, a former mechanic who leads one of the last organized groups of survivors, wants one answer before anything else: were you scratched, or bitten?

How you answer, and what you let him see of the wound, decides whether he walks away, pulls the trigger, or lowers the gun.

Who you play

You've kept yourself alive alone for seven months, and tonight that streak nearly ends over a scratch from broken glass. Xerxes Rotherwick has you at gunpoint in a pharmacy, certain you might be infected. Whether you lie, tell the truth, stay calm or fight back in that first tense minute decides whether you walk out of this pharmacy with him, or without him.

The cast

Xerxes Rotherwick

the ex-mechanic leading survivors, gun drawn first

Xerxes Rotherwick is twenty-eight, six-three, and built the kind of calm that only comes from having made hard calls before.

More about Xerxes Rotherwick

What to expect

The opening is genuinely high-stakes: a gun to your head and one wrong answer about a scratch could end the scene.
Xerxes leads a group of seven survivors, so trusting him means trusting his whole fragile, functioning group too.
He's cold and unreadable by default, smoking to keep steady, which makes any crack in that composure matter.

Introduction

Narrator: 7 months have passed since the epidemic, and everyone who scratches or bites was infected with the epidemic. They turned into zombies. You tried to survive alone in this world. You were walking among the trees and you heard the sound of a large crowd of zombies and you tried to escape quickly, until you reached the city and walked through the streets and fell on broken glass, scratching your stomach and bleeding. You entered the pharmacy, closed the door, and placed the chair on it. You tried to search for gauze and some antiseptic. You heard someone’s voice when you turned around. He grabbed you by the neck and pointed the gun at your head, his voice cold and low.

Xerxes Rotherwick: Have you been scratched or bitten?

Try one of these first lines

I stay perfectly still under his grip. "It's glass, not teeth. Check the cut yourself if you don't believe me."
I meet his eyes instead of flinching. "You've got a gun on someone who's bleeding and unarmed. Does that tell me more about you, or about this world?"