***


    Back to the past, to the first night of the newcomers at the bootcamp, the new fighters have finished the first day of their training regime, and now they are all going to their beds to sleep. Now, on this bootcamp, the males and women are sleeping mixed in big tents that hold about twelve sleeping bags. All of them are tired, some on the verge of collapsing, and others have already puked their meal from this morning before leaving. Women and men are sleeping in separate tents, obviously, and they all should wake up from their slumber at around 5 o''clock for a new training session. A habit that will happen daily for them for the next five months. It is harder at first, but at the end it will become easier.


    In one specific tent, twelve people are sleeping on the ground, in sleeping bags, and most of them are snoring, but those who are awake don''t care to wake these people who are snoring. They know all of them are tired from the first day of training. Most of the people in that tent were Chinese, men in their 20s to 40s. All of them are tired after a day like this. Running while chased by soldiers who were on bikes with whips was probably the toughest training program so far for some of them. This training consisted in making the recruits understand the dangers of a zombie from Class F who can throw boulders, cars or anything else at them. Most of them have been whipped several times, while others have managed to escape with only one whip on their back, but a whip still hurts like hell.


    About twenty people give up on their dreams to become recruits after this hellish training they went through. They''ve taken their luggage and gone back into the artificial islands, where they would help maintain the places they''ve been designed by The Organization. They can also choose where they want to live, but if the said place has enough available space for them.


    Another difficult training was combat fighting, where highly trained soldiers were going empty-handed to the recruits, who were armed with logs, bricks, cobblestones, whatever they could find, and had to knock out the soldiers who went to attack them like zombies. But these soldiers were hard to fall down, even if they were getting a brick thrown at them. Although, a few people, like Ahmed, managed to put at least a soldier down which ends the training of the said future fighter. And Ahmed has managed to do it with a plank.


    Ahmed was face to face with a soldier who didn''t look to be in the best form, but neither was Ahmed six months ago, still malnourished to the point where the rib cage could be seen when he was going topless at the shower room. The man put that soldier down by using the plank as a defensive object, and not to attack the soldier. He protected himself with the plank while the soldier was launching the punches and kicks. When the plank breaks, Ahmed hits the soldier in the chest by a kick, which makes the soldier land on the ground. The soldier is looking at Ahmed with a smirk and tells him.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "Not bad. But you cannot survive out there by protecting yourself. You have got to attack."


    "I know." says Ahmed, getting up, and looks at the soldier who is preparing himself for another attack.


    The soldier goes straight to Ahmed, who by instinct moves to the left, and lands a punch, also by instinct, to the jaw of that soldier. A hit so hard, it makes the soldier fall on his knees on the cold ground. The soldier looks back surprised at Ahmed after he regains his composure, Ahmed is also surprised by his sudden attack while making a punch.


    "You did good. What is your name, recruiter?"


    "My name is Ahmed, sir!" says Ahmed, looking at the soldier getting up on his feet and cleaning himself.


    "You punched well. But zombies can only be killed by aiming at the brain. And your punch cannot go through a zombie''s brain. Their skulls may be weakened with time, but a punch is not enough to destroy that shield. Understand? But your idea of using the plank as some sort of shield is not bad, but it was the worst choice as a shield. You get it?"


    Ahmed only responded to these questions by shaking his head in approval. The soldier tells Ahmed that he passed this exercise, and he can go to rest for the next exercise.


    The next and final exercise of that day consisted of swimming five hundred meters on the ocean, fully clothed. A difficult task that made many of these recruiters quit this training and pack their stuff who want to leave. But those five who managed to pass this test were many, and in that group were Ahmed, Xin, Ri, Li and Yu.


    "Hey." whispers Li Kay to the person named Ahmed in English. "Are you awake?"


    "Yeah…" whispers Ahmed looking at the tent ceiling. "Who are you?"


    "Li. Kay."


    "Li or Kay?"


    "Both are good. Sorry. Bad English."


    "Don''t worry. Mine''s not any better. Ahmed."


    "Huh?"


    "Name is Ahmed."


    "Nice to meet you."


    "Same… You cannot sleep?"


    "No… All my body hurts like hell."


    "Same here."


    "Training is hard," says another person in a whisper.


    "Would you all shut up!" says a person, sounding pissed off. "People are trying to sleep here."


    From this, everyone decided to stop talking and try to fall asleep. Ahmed and Li fell asleep minutes later, but this wouldn''t last long because four hours later all of them were awakened from the slumber, ordered that all of them leave their sleeping bags, take their boots and leave the tents. They did not need to change clothes because they were sleeping in what are called uniforms, that are just normal civilian clothes with a bulletproof vest.


    This is an average day at the bootcamp, lots of training, small doses of sleep and a lot of time to learn about enemies in the zombies guides that were made and shared to some police stations around the world for the survivors in the early days. But these guides they''ve been handed here at the bootcamp, contains everything.