Apocalypse: I Can See Health Bars
Chapter 1: Death and The Beginning

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Death and The Beginning

He carefully disinfected the corpse, placed it in a body bag, and moved it into a freezer. Then, he cleaned up the bloodstains that had splattered on the floor.

Finally, he meticulously sprayed every surface he had touched with hydrogen peroxide disinfectant.

As if cleaning a murder scene, Lin Fan methodically sanitized every blood-stained corner.

He was a veterinarian who ran a small pet clinic out of a residential unit on the ground floor of his building.

And today, it seemed an unknown animal epidemic was spreading through the urban districts of Linjiang.

Three dogs in a row had been brought to him, and three dogs in a row had been sent off by his hand.

This was certainly not because of his lack of skill or his reckless disregard for their lives.

Although he only ran a clinic of less than sixty square meters out of a ground-floor unit in this old, run-down residential complex, and his clientele mostly consisted of poodles that couldn’t poop or wouldn’t eat...

He had, in fact, worked for many years at the Linjiang City Zoo and possessed a wealth of medical and emergency treatment experience.

It was just that today’s cases were truly bizarre. Each dog would show slight signs of improvement before suddenly dying. The pathology reports showed nothing conclusive, and all common viruses came back negative.

’I should probably stop taking appointments tomorrow. Better wait for the official medical guidelines to come out...’

He gave himself a quick wipedown with alcohol in the pet bathing area. His undershirt had gotten blood on it earlier, so he had already thrown it away.

So, he was shirtless as he prepared to head home for a proper shower.

His home was on the third floor, in the same building as his clinic, separated by one level. After losing his previous job, he had rented this ground-floor storefront.

The air, heavy with the promise of a downpour, felt even more suffocating in the stairwell. Compounded by the unknown epidemic, it left him feeling agitated.

Lin Fan locked the door and was about to head upstairs when the delicate arch of a slippered foot and a pair of long, slender, pale legs appeared in his line of sight. A young woman in a yellow silk nightgown was walking down the stairs, and in his distracted state, he couldn’t help but look a few times more than he should have.

"Sister Su, going out this late?"

Running into someone at this hour was a bit unexpected, but Lin Fan greeted her anyway.

The young woman’s name was Su Qing, and she was the tenant living across the hall from Lin Fan. She had moved in over a month ago.

Lin Fan spent his days tending to the clinic on the first floor, so they were constantly running into each other and were reasonably familiar.

He had occasionally overheard from the poodle owners who came for treatment that this woman had been framed and forced out of her marriage with nothing. She was currently fighting a lawsuit and had to rent this place temporarily.

Her experience of being framed made Lin Fan feel a certain kinship from shared misfortune.

"Little Brother Lin, still busy so late... Are you alright?"

Su Qing was also a little surprised to see Lin Fan. Noticing he was shirtless and seemed to reek a bit of alcohol, she couldn’t help but ask with concern.

Her gaze met Lin Fan’s, and then it was as if she suddenly thought of something.

She glanced down at her own thin nightgown, her face flushed, and she avoided his eyes as she said awkwardly,

"I’m just taking out the trash..."

Then, without looking back, she quickly squeezed past him through the space he had made by turning sideways and hurried out.

The cool, air-conditioned air and faint, pleasant fragrance that wafted from the beautiful young woman dissipated the humid heat of the dog days of summer, soothing his mood considerably.

Watching her retreating figure, Lin Fan couldn’t help but give a wry smile.

’Better get home and shower. Any longer and I’ll be marinating in my own sweat.’

Lin Fan turned and went upstairs, deliberately making his footsteps heavy and slamming his apartment door shut.

’Su Qing probably wouldn’t dare come back until she saw me go inside. And she might get caught in the rain.’

He could understand his neighbor’s reaction.

Anyone who ran into a shirtless man reeking of alcohol in a stairwell late at night would want to steer clear.

’I’m just lucky it was her. If one of the neighborhood gossips had seen me, it wouldn’t be long before every old man and woman in Xingfu Li knew that the dog doctor at the community entrance is a worthless drunk who wanders the halls half-naked at night like a hooligan...’

As these thoughts ran through his mind, Lin Fan sent a message to the dog’s owner to break the bad news.

After hitting send, he didn’t even check for a reply, just tossed his phone onto the sofa to charge and headed straight for the bathroom.

The dog was dead, and the body was dealt with. A shower came first.

If the owner came looking for him and he said he had been drinking, it would be an impossible situation to explain his way out of.

Outside, the downpour that had been threatening for days finally broke, accompanied by rumbling thunder. Raindrops drummed against the glass with a continuous PITTER-PATTER.

Listening to the muffled thunder, for some reason, the spot where the contaminated blood had directly splashed on him began to tingle with a faint, sharp pain.

This made Lin Fan frown, and he started to recall the symptoms of those dogs.

Information swirled and collided in his brain.

Ulceration, fever, shock, cardiac arrest, vomiting blood...

Lin Fan stood at the bathroom door, staring at his own toilet, his eyes widening as a preposterous idea surfaced in his mind.

At the same time, a numbing, electric sensation surged from the depths of his bones!

Then, as if all his marrow had been set ablaze, a scorching, intense pain instantly shattered his tolerance for pain!

’I...!’

’Radia—!’

Lin Fan’s eyes rolled back, and he passed out completely.

...

’Am I... dead...?’

’Cold... so hungry...’

Lin Fan opened his eyes. His gaze fell upon the same familiar toilet he had been looking at just before he collapsed, the one that had been with him for many years.

"I’m... I’m not dead..."

He weakly climbed up from the floor. Everything he saw was still his familiar home.

"What... what’s happening?"

There was no time to think about what had happened to him. Hunger drove him to the living room, where he grabbed a half-eaten bag of crackers from the coffee table and started stuffing them into his mouth by the handful.

The crackers had gone stale and soft from the humidity; otherwise, eating them this way would have probably choked him to death.

He had barely managed a few mouthfuls when the food must have stimulated his empty stomach. A violent cramp instantly sapped his strength, causing him to fall to his knees, dry-heaving uncontrollably.

RETCH! RETCH!

He kept retching until he was seeing stars, but he stubbornly refused to vomit up the crackers.

As his stomach began to digest the food, his consciousness slowly stabilized.

"What is going on...?"

Recalling the events from before, it was as if he suddenly remembered something!

Lin Fan violently lifted his hand and carefully examined the skin on his arm...

"No ulcers... no redness or swelling..."

"It’s not... radiation... is it?"

"Thank god..."

Just thinking about his earlier guess sent a wave of fear through him.

’If I’m still alive, my guess must have been wrong. If it really was radiation...’

"No! Stay back! AHH—!"

A sudden scream from outside the window cut off his thoughts. He scrambled up from the floor, steadied himself against the windowsill, and looked down. The scene below made his pupils contract violently.

The rain was still falling, and the sky was the color of lead.

Several cars were tangled in a chaotic pile-up in the middle of the narrow street below, and the rising water was already halfway up their wheels.

On the sidewalk, near his clinic, two figures were locked in a struggle...

A drenched woman was clinging tightly to a man, tearing at the flesh of his neck. As the woman jerked her head back, she ripped away a bright red strip of something. A gush of dark red blood instantly sprayed out, only to be immediately washed away by the rain, blooming in the water at their feet.

The man’s arms twitched spasmodically, his head thrown back toward the sky, his mouth wide open as the rain poured in.

Even through the window, Lin Fan could almost hear the man’s throat emitting a "GURGLE—GURGLE—" sound.

"Zombies?!"

Lin Fan’s eyes widened in disbelief.

’Is this for real? It doesn’t look staged!’

What remained of his professional knowledge told him: the blood, the torn muscles, the throat being ripped open causing muscle spasms and struggles from asphyxiation—it was all terrifyingly real.

In the moment he stood there stunned, two more zombies emerged from some corner, limping and wading through the water to join the feast.

Entrails and chunks of flesh were being tossed around. A few bags of bread and instant noodles floated in the bloody puddle at their feet.

"RETCH!"

The sight triggered another violent spasm in his stomach.

"What... what is going on?"

"First... call... call the police!"

Forcing himself to calm down, Lin Fan quickly found his phone and tried to make a call.

But he discovered that even though his phone showed a signal, no calls would go through!

He swiped down, and in his panic, his eyes fell upon the countless, densely packed notifications in his notification bar:

"Emergency Alert: Malignant flu of unknown origin reported in multiple areas. Symptoms include high fever, mania, and extreme aggression. Citizens are advised to reduce non-essential outings and avoid contact with suspected patients!"

""Patients" out of control at Linjiang City Central Hospital, multiple medical staff injured on site!"

"Military has been deployed! Do not harm "patients" unless absolutely necessary, as a cure may be possible!"

...

The deluge of news filled the notification bar and left Lin Fan stunned.

But he couldn’t open any of the news pages; they all showed a "network not connected" error.

"The world has lost control."

"The apocalypse... is it here?"

Today was July 27th, a Sunday.

The day he had treated the dogs was a Thursday.

If you count today...

He had been unconscious for almost three days!

...