Chapter Text
One wouldn’t expect to find comfort at a time like this, but Technoblade had never felt more welcome, more cared for, or more safe than during the zombie apocalypse.
It had all started a few months ago when a man-made illness had escaped a lab somewhere in Missouri. It was rather deadly, the world shutting down around them as hospitalizations ticked up and deaths trickled in. It took hold of people quickly, spreading from person to person in just moments, symptoms showing after only two days, and hospitalization after only four. The world had watched in silence as people started to die without hospitalization, dropping dead where they stood, too many bodies littering the street to pick up, and there were not enough workers to care. People stayed in their homes, not touching their families, not talking to each other. Soon, entire households went silent.
Then came the first survivors. Someone had left the hospital feeling brand new, free from the sickness that had spread so fast that no one could even come up with a name. He had strolled out of the white building, free from the clutches of the Virus, just for his car to stall on the expressway and for him to walk out of it with a dazed expression in his eyes.
Apparently, the Virus was done with killing its hosts and had made them empty shells instead.
And it really had to come out of Missouri , of all places.
Half of the population was dead in three months, the Virus somehow finding its way over the ocean to start the process all over again in Europe, and then Asia, and then Africa and Australia. South America fell with North America.
Half of the world’s population was dead in three months. The other half wasn’t dead, not really, but you couldn’t call them alive.
As far as Technoblade knew, he was the only one who was truly alive. Thanks to his farm out in the middle of Kansas, he hadn’t needed to go anywhere for food and supplies. He lived alone, no one knew he existed, and he hadn’t heard that the world had gone to shit until a month after it had all started. The poster had fluttered to his doorstep, escaped from a passing car, baring a phone number to report your sick or dead. It was then that Techno went online to do something besides play Terraria.
He really had no reason to worry, even after everything went dead. Gone were the occasional cars that passed by his house, social media was a silent buzz of automated messages and somehow still cycling ads. Phone lines were down, and even if they weren’t there was no one to call. Radios were crackles of static, and if Techno had gone into town there would have been no one to greet him.
No one but shuffling corpses and the flies that hung over their heads.
Techno was content with all of this. He had survived on his own for almost his entire life. Sure, he mourned the family he had left behind and he felt bad for the world that continued to crumble around him, but if he was the one to avoid it all, he was ok with that.
Now, Techno had to figure things out for himself. When the first corpse had come banging on his door, he had settled a gas mask over his face and had beat it until it wouldn’t move anymore. From there he found to target the neck, which was the main tunnel for the small amount of blood circulation that the Virus needed. Its effect was almost immediate, and the corpse had been disposed of in a pit near the road.
He wasn’t sure whether or not to call the things zombies . They were still people, even if they were dead, and people didn’t exactly call their dead friends and family zombies. These things were bodies, corpses, but they still moved and were out for more victims wherever they could find them. Techno touched on the phrase ‘reanimated-corpse’ and then realized that was a synonym for zombie, and he left it at that.
His quiet life just got quieter, not that it mattered. His routine stayed the same, his animals and crops were healthy, he just had the added variable of zombies shuffling through his land every so often, and he would take to them quickly and dispose of them before they could touch his livestock.
The pit he had dug the first time had filled, so he dug another one.
As the days passed, they got more full, and Techno just resided to calling it part of his routine now. Dig a pit in the morning, fill it up at night, and it wasn’t too hard to get used to.
His farm was rather quiet most days. There was still the shuffling and exclamations from his animals, and always the constant beat of Floof’s tail against the couch or floor. Techno had found her among his animals, a stray feasting on what he had left out for the horses. She had been eager to learn how to herd his sheep or tricks like playing dead and rolling over. She was energetic and feisty and made the days go by faster and the nights seem shorter.
His farm was rather quiet most days. There was still the groaning of zombies that prowled his land, looking for living creatures to infect and take hold of. One of them had gotten into his chicken coop, and only two of the birds had survived the encounter. He mourned the loss of the small chicks but was ready to take on whatever the world threw at him, because he was certain the world was watching him and him alone.
His farm was rather quiet most days, but a car’s engine was not something he had thought he would ever hear again.
A black, beat-up car pulled into his driveway. The man that had been inside stepped out onto the dirt path that led up to his house. He looked back at the pits Techno had dug for the zombies, and then back to the surplus of livestock behind fences. The man wore green, a radiculous sun hat on top of his head to shadow his eyes, and a gun sat on his hip. He had no sign of rot like most corpses that braved his land, and his motions were quick and made with intention.
This man was alive and on Techno’s doorstep.
Floof started barking from downstairs, just alerting the man more that this place was different from the rest of the world. Stuck in the past, having to adapt to new conditions, but staying domestic and safe despite it all.
“Quit it, Floof,” Techno told her, and she quieted as his footsteps echoed down the stairs and to his front door. He placed a gas mask over his face, knowing the danger of outside contact, only hoping that this man had survived by either staying away or being immune.
The door creaked open, and Techno met the man’s eyes. Floof strayed just behind the open door, guarding her master from unknown dangers.
“Do you have water?” Was the man’s first question.
Techno had to think about the last time he had heard someone speak to him. It had been ages ago, and the rush came like an oncoming train.
“Are you sick?” Techno then asked him. The man was shorter than him, but older, and would have probably been more susceptible to the virus had he been exposed. Now, he didn’t look that old, but anyone older than Techno was old to him.
“No. I should be, but I’m not.”
It wasn’t the most heartwarming answer. For all Techno knew, he could have not had any symptoms, and his body was slowly rotting from the inside out.
“Yeah, I’ve got water,” he held the door open despite his best judgment. “Don’t mind the dog, she might be curious.”
The man smiled, brushing past him to get through the door. Techno closed it behind them, watching Floof sniff at the air around the man and then settle at his feet. Techno used that as a sign that he was alright, and left his mask hanging around his neck.
“Where you coming from?” Techno asked as he dug a water bottle out of the cabinets. The plumbing had run unclean for a few months now, but Techno had invested in a purifier and iodine tablets years ago and had been using that without fail, always keeping clean water around.
“Michigan, but I’ve been searching around for quiet areas for a few weeks.” He took the bottle with tender hands and downed half of it in two seconds, looking somewhat relieved. “Been a little short on supplies lately.”
“I can tell,” Techno said with a huff as he tossed an egg over to him. The man caught it with a bit of a panic, looking up with confusion. “Hard boiled, I don’t exactly have a plethora of ingredients to work with, though my spices seem to be bottomless.” The man snickered as he rapped the egg against the side of the table and began to peel the shell off.
“How’d you manage out here all on your own?” The man asked him. “Seems like a big farm.”
“Done it most of my life,” he replied. Somehow, if Techno looked close enough, he could see a next-door neighbor sitting at his kitchen table making casual conversation instead of a survivor of the apocalypse scraping for supplies that happened to stumble by his estate.
Techno wasn’t the last person on earth anymore.
“How’d you manage?” Techno bounced his own question back. “I was almost sure I was the last one living on earth.”
The man chuckled, “Funny, I thought the same thing.”
Techno walked over and held his hand out. “Technoblade.”
“Phil,” the man took it. “Mind if I bunk here for a while?”
“Don’t mind at all.”
And that had been the beginning of Techno’s less-than-quiet life. Phil was good at survival, knew how to pillage through forests (not that there were many in Kansas), and how to find which fruits and berries were good to bring back. He could hunt like a madman, and many nights they had rabbits and birds instead of Techno’s never-ending supply of eggs and potatoes. Floof got used to the man, hanging around him as he went hunting, and leaving Techno to feed his animals in peace.
He still dug a pit every morning.
Still cleared out the zombies at night.
He just didn’t do it alone anymore.
He was content to spend the rest of the world’s days with Phil by his side, just the two of them and their fluffy companion. Sure, Phil had his flaws. He woke up in the middle of the night to look out the window, or at the fire, a dazed look in his eyes as he thought about things he would never tell the world. He was brash, loud, cursed to his heart’s content, but it made up for Techno’s reserved quiet and low chuckle. He was violent and took out zombies like they had personally offended him.
If Techno knew him any better, he would have said that they did.
The world was ok like that. The two of them lived, and months passed by. Backstories were shared and hobbies were shown, and the two became the last ones living on the earth.
At least, they both thought so, and there was no one there to prove them wrong.