Era of the Living Moon

"What the hell is going on?" Aurora muttered, her breath ragged as we pushed forward.

But we couldn't get out.

The exits were gone. Not physically, not in the way a door vanishes or a hallway suddenly ceases to exist, but in the way that mattered—the way that meant survival. The changed students—zombies, no other word for them—had flooded the gates, twitching and staggering, eyes glowing like silver fireflies. More of them outside. Probably everywhere. The building wasn't a safe haven. It was a feeding ground.

My mind raced, pulling at threads of information, desperate to stitch together some kind of plan.

They were changing—that much was clear. The ones who collapsed first had started convulsing, their skin fracturing like broken porcelain, their veins darkening into something alien. One moment, students. The next, snarling husks of what they used to be, tearing into those who hadn't been fast enough. Every bite, every scratch—more of them fell, twisting, their eyes snapping open in eerie unison, glowing with the same unearthly silver hue. It spread like a wildfire with no smoke, no flames—just hunger.

And it was closing in.

I turned, scanning the room, my breathing sharp and shallow. There were no weapons. No exits that weren't already blocked. No backup. Just overturned desks, scattered books, a professor bleeding out near the whiteboard.

Think. Think. THINK.

The screen.

The damn system screen that had popped up just before this nightmare began.

It had mentioned a class.

"Aurora, activate!" I snapped, gripping her arm as I pulled her back from a lunging zombie.

"What?!" She whipped around, eyes wide, panicked, but still sharp. Still her.

"Your class! Activate it!"

Aurora hesitated. Not because she didn't believe me, but because nothing about this moment made sense. The world had gone from astrophysics lectures to a full-fledged apocalypse in under sixty seconds, and now I was yelling at her to activate some mysterious system like we were in a game. It was insane. It was stupid.

But the zombies were real.

And they were here.

I saw the moment she decided to trust me—just a flicker in her eyes before she exhaled sharply and shut them.

Behind her, three of them lunged.

I barely had time to throw up a desk between us, shoving it forward with every bit of strength I had. The impact rattled my arms, but it only stalled them for half a second. They snarled, clawing over it like animals, fingers digging into the wood.

I braced for impact.

Then the light came.

It wasn't blinding, wasn't the kind of light that made you turn away. It was silver, pure, radiating out like a pulse, spreading across the floor in rippling waves. It shimmered—moonlight given form, fluid and cutting and impossibly sharp.

And then—

Schlkk.

The zombies froze. Not dramatically, not in some cinematic moment of realization. They just—stopped.

And then they fell apart.

Aurora stood in the center of it all, body tense, shoulders rising and falling with every breath. Her right hand was wrapped around something that hadn't been there a second ago.

A sword.

It gleamed under the flickering classroom lights, silver like the glow in her eyes, humming softly like it knew it belonged to her.

She exhaled, gaze locked onto the weapon in her hands, fingers tightening around the hilt. She turned it slightly, the metal catching the light.

"A sword," she muttered, almost to herself. Then she smirked. "Fits me well."

I knew Aurora was good with a sword. She was a kendo martial artist, after all. She had trophies, medals, the whole deal.

But this?

This wasn't humanly possible.

She had cut apart those things. Not with technique, not with skill honed over years of training, but with sheer, unstoppable force. These zombies—these things—weren't just your shambling horror-movie fodder. They were fast. Strong. Their movements were erratic, unpredictable, like puppets with half-broken strings, twitching and lunging with something far more dangerous than mindless hunger.

And she had butchered them.

The silver sword in her hand had sung through the air, leaving only dismembered limbs and gory smears in its wake. It had carved through them like a blade through mist, like they were made of something lesser, something that had no right to stand before her.

And yet—

Aurora was breathing hard.

Her chest rose and fell in quick, uneven bursts, and there was a faint tremor in her grip. For all that power, for all the ease with which she had cut them down, it had taken something out of her.

Of course. She had limits.

That was all I needed to know.

'I can analyze the system later,' I thought, my mind racing. 'We need to get out of here now.'

Aurora grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward, her grip iron-tight. She moved like a force of nature, carving a path through the chaos, her sword still glowing as it tore through flesh and bone like they were paper. Even with one hand, she wielded it like a reaper.

But I noticed it.

Her fingers, just slightly—shaking.

Not from fear. Not yet. She was still in the moment, still running on the raw adrenaline of battle. But her body knew what her mind hadn't caught up to yet—this wasn't just another fight. This wasn't sparring in a controlled dojo. This was real.

And she was killing people.

I squeezed her hand, hard. Just enough to ground her. Just enough to remind her she wasn't alone.

She didn't say anything. But her grip tightened in return.

We pushed through the last wave of bodies, slipping past clawing fingers and bloodstained desks, until—finally—we reached the emergency exit. The door flung open under our weight, the metal slamming against the wall with a loud clang that echoed down the stairwell.

Aurora didn't hesitate. She followed as I took the lead, bolting down the stairs two at a time.

"Basement," I panted, forcing my brain to work through the panic. "Nobody should be there. No people, no danger."

Aurora didn't argue. She just ran.

The stairwell was eerily empty, the sounds of carnage muffled behind us as we moved lower and lower. The further we went, the colder the air became, the distant hum of the building's generators filling the silence where screams had been just minutes before.

Then—a door.

I shoved it open.

Dark. Empty. Safe.

We staggered inside, slamming it shut behind us.

The moment we did, it was like gravity doubled.

Aurora dropped first, knees hitting the floor as she braced herself against it. I collapsed right after, my back hitting the cold tile as my lungs burned.

We sat there for a moment, just breathing.

Aurora was the first to break the silence.

"What the fuck was that?" she whispered, her voice raw, shaking.

I turned my head, just in time to see her sword fade.

It didn't clatter to the ground. It didn't vanish in a shimmer of light like some RPG animation. It just ceased to be, dissolving into silver mist, as if it had never existed in the first place.

"I don't know," I admitted.

And then I noticed.

Her shoulders.

They were trembling.

She was scared.

"Hey, Aurora. Come here," I said, my voice quieter than usual.

I didn't wait for an answer—I just pulled her into a hug, arms wrapping tightly around her before either of us could think too hard about it. She was still trembling, muscles wound so tight it felt like she might snap.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. We just held onto each other, the quiet hum of the basement filling the empty spaces between breaths. The warmth of another human being, the undeniable proof that we were still here, was enough to steady the storm.

Eventually, she pulled back, wiping at her eyes before the tears could form properly.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"Don't be," I said.

She took a deep breath, then another. I could almost see the shift—Aurora, battle-ready, refocusing on what needed to be done.

"We need to discuss this," she said, her voice steadier now. Survival always came first.

I nodded. "So… we have some sort of system now," I said, touching my chin as if stroking an imaginary beard might help me sound wiser. "We have stats, classes, and powers, apparently. Some people got them, and others…" I trailed off, remembering the bodies we had left behind.

"The ones who didn't get a class turned into those things," Aurora finished grimly.

"Yeah. Which means this isn't just some weird magic trick or hallucination. This is structured. A system. Rules. Like something out of a game or—" I exhaled through my nose, letting the absurdity settle for a moment. "A movie."

Aurora gave me a wry look. "A pretty fucked-up movie."

"Yeah."

She shook her head, rolling her shoulders before focusing again. "Anyway. What are your stats?"

I blinked. Right. Stats. That was a thing now.

"Uh…" I tilted my head. "How do we see them?"

"Maybe we just… say it?" she muttered before trying, "Hey, System."

Nothing happened.

She frowned. "System, open."

Still nothing.

I took a breath and thought about it. If this was a structured system, then maybe it worked on intent. A mental trigger.

I closed my eyes and focused. System. Stats.

The moment I opened them, a translucent blue screen hovered in front of me, floating in the air like an intrusive notification.

Nathaniel Moretti

Level: 1

Main Class: Astral Equationist (★★★★★)

Stats:

CI: 23

CON: 12

INT: 18

STR: 14

AGI: 13

I exhaled slowly, half in disbelief, half in resignation. Yep. This was real.

Aurora's voice pulled me back. "I've got 20 Strength, 22 Agility, 17 Constitution, and 11 Intelligence," she said, studying her own screen.

I glanced back at mine. "I have 14 Strength, 13 Agility, 12 Constitution, 18 Intelligence, and… 23 Cosmic Insight."

She tilted her head. "CI?"

I frowned. "You don't have it?"

She shook her head.

I frowned deeper. "What's your class?"

"Lunar Knight," she replied. "Four stars."

I blinked. "Mine's Astral Equationist. Five stars."

Her eyebrows lifted. "Five? So that's why you have a unique stat?"

"Probably," I said.

Aurora glanced at her screen. "I'm level four," she muttered. Then her eyes widened. "Did I really kill that many?"

"Yeah."

She didn't respond to that, just studied her hands as if she could still feel the sword that had disappeared.

"What do you get for leveling up?" I asked.

She pulled herself out of her thoughts and tapped at her screen. "I got 15 stat points to assign."

I studied her build for a moment. "You seem more reliant on Strength and Agility than Intelligence," I noted. "I think Intelligence is more of a caster thing. Mages, maybe? My class probably uses INT… and this CI stat."

Aurora nodded. "That makes sense. I'll put five points each in Strength and Agility, four points in Constitution, then one in Intelligence."

She swiped at her screen, confirming the allocation, then turned back to me, something sharp in her expression.

Before she spoke, the door rattled.