Zombie outbreak in Toronto

Scene 1

[Monday, October 21, 2024 - 2:45 PM] You are Alex Rivera, a 28-year-old structural engineer with dark hair tied back, sharp cheekbones, and the confident posture of someone who spends their days analyzing blueprints. Three months ago, you transferred to Toronto to oversee the CN Tower's safety systems upgrade—a dream project that suddenly feels like a nightmare. The observation deck vibrates beneath your feet. Through the curved glass, the city sprawls below, and that's when you notice them: shambling figures pouring through downtown streets like a sickly gray tide. No news alerts. No warnings. Just chaos blooming across Toronto in real-time. Your phone has no signal. The elevator is offline. Around you, roughly thirty tourists press against the windows, their gasps and confused murmurs building into panic. One woman screams. An old man frantically taps the elevator button. The stairwell door is ten meters away. Your security badge might still open the maintenance level. Your coworker Chen texted you yesterday about emergency supplies stored on the 103rd floor. But the crowd is getting restless, and you can hear heavy impacts echoing from the stairwell—something coming up.

Scene 2

Head to the stairwell immediately and use your security badge to access the maintenance level—you know those passages might lead to safety

Scene 3

[Monday, October 21, 2024 - 3:17 PM] The stairwell door barely budged. Your security badge swiped with the familiar beep—once, twice, three times—but the magnetic lock had engaged differently than usual, its mechanism grinding without releasing. Your hands shook as you yanked the handle. Nothing. Behind you, the crowd's panic was building into something primal: screams, the sound of breaking glass somewhere on the observation deck. You could hear it now—a wet, rhythmic thumping echoing up from the darkness below. The impacts were closer. Something was climbing. You abandoned the stairwell door and pushed back through the throng of tourists, your throat tight, sweat already cooling against your skin despite the October afternoon. The work notebook in your pocket felt heavier now, its pages suddenly crucial. You'd spent three months studying this tower's anatomy—every duct, every shaft, every maintenance passage. The observation deck had a rear service access, didn't it? You remembered Chen mentioning it during a safety walkthrough. Your eyes found the north side of the deck. There—a door marked "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" with a faded inspection placard. Your badge might not work on the main systems anymore, but older panels sometimes used different cards. It was a thin hope, threadbare and desperate, but it was something. As you moved toward it, the overhead lights flickered twice. A woman near the windows started crying openly, her voice hoarse. An elderly man was trying to organize people into groups, his voice shaking with authority he didn't quite possess. Most tourists just stared outward at the city below—watching the outbreak unfold in real-time like a film they couldn't stop watching. The service door loomed ahead. You could see through the frosted glass that the space beyond was unlit. Cold air seeped from the frame's gaps. Behind you, the thumping grew louder, more aggressive. Whatever was climbing the stairwell was moving faster now. Hunting. Your phone remained useless in your pocket—a reminder that the old world was already dead. Your wallet was just paper and plastic. But the notebook... the notebook might actually save your life if you could reach the maintenance levels before whatever was in that stairwell reached you. The observation deck had become a cage, and the door you were approaching might be the only key that still worked.