Apocalyptic Ascension

Ethan Cole's life was already falling apart before the dead started walking. A broke third-year business major drowning in student debt, he'd just buried the grandmother who raised him, lost his job, fallen behind on his grades, and watched his girlfriend Chloe leave him for Xander, the arrogant rich kid who'd tormented him for years. He had nothing left and nowhere to go. Then, in the middle of an economics lecture, the screams started outside, and the world ended in an afternoon. Trapped in a classroom with twenty-five terrified students, a tired professor, and the man who ruined his life, Ethan watches the people around him panic, turn on each other, and vote him out to die on a supply run before the bodies in the hallway have even gone cold. But something else happens that day too. A blue screen appears in front of his face that no one else can see, calling itself the Survival System, offering missions, stats, levels, and the chance to grow stronger with every infected he kills. In a world where the weak are eaten and the loud are followed, the broke kid nobody believed in is suddenly the most dangerous person in the building, and the only one who can keep his people alive long enough to reach a military safe zone two miles away. As the apocalypse deepens and the infected evolve into something worse than anyone imagined, Ethan has to decide who to save, who to leave behind, and how much of himself he's willing to spend keeping the people he loves alive. Because the dead are getting smarter, the safe zones are getting fewer, and every level he climbs brings him closer to monsters the world isn't ready for.

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