By the seventh day of the apocalypse, I was a shell of myself. Every rustle in the bushes, every falling leaf and even strangers walking past had me on edge. I was still alive, but I would hardly call myself a survivor.
I enlisted in the Tabletop Roleplay Appreciation Program’s annual Humans vs. Zombies game. The rules of the game are elaborate, but its core mechanics are simple:
- There are two zombie factions, “alpha” and “omega” zombies. Each zombie team begins with one zombie to start.
- If a zombie tags a human player, the human has two hours before they become a zombie.
- If a zombie goes 48 hours without getting a kill or feeding, they starve.
- There are two human factions — the citizens of Scarletmoor, Team Red, and the citizens of the Bureaucratic-Leaders-United-Entity, Team Blue.
- Using closed socks and eventually unlocked Nerf guns, humans could temporarily stun zombies, but their main objective is to make it to the end by avoiding being tagged.
The game began with 33 humans. As a citizen of Scarlettmoor, I fought to survive under the mantra, “Better red than undead.”
My first two days passed without any zombie encounters. That was until Nu-tech, a company supposedly providing safety and security, sponsored an event in the remnants of a building known as “the Simon Center.”
The humans were tasked with finding clues and solving puzzles in the building. One problem: It was infested with zombies. We lost a few lives along the way, but our work developed the technology to use Nerf guns.
I had my first zombie encounter that night: Chris Caruso ‘25, leader of the alpha zombies. We stared each other down on a staircase, socks in both my hands. The zombie staggered off and I lived to see another day.
Monday passed quietly, but Tuesday brought about a new danger: a bounty placed on my head.
I chose to play aggressively, joining an escort mission to retrieve misplaced blueprints for a Nu-tech engineer, Jordan Sigal ‘26, which were critical to a device for humankind. A group of humans escorted Sigal to her lab in Acopian Engineering Center.
The mission went well, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Nu-tech was trying to sabotage us.
I survived the bounty, but the worst was yet to come.
Wednesday afternoon, I went to the Hugel Science Center to claim a three-coin reward for surviving my bounty. I came more prepared than in my previous encounter, with multiple socks on hand, but I was still careless.
An omega zombie stood outside the shop. I had to get past this brains-seeking being to claim my reward. Fine. I threw a sock to stun the zombie. I missed. The zombie lunged at me. I threw another sock, and I missed again.
The zombie closed in on me, my life flashed before my eyes and I threw my third and final sock: stunned.
I entered the shop, a safe zone, and was awarded with my three coins.
My suspicions about Nu-tech proved to be true. Rumblings of corruption turned to calls for a rebellion, and in a showcase of power, Nu-tech killed one human and one zombie to put us in our place. As it turned out, this was just another experiment by Nu-tech, and the two casualties were instead revitalized, becoming members of a new zombie strand: “sigma” zombies.
Friday was Assembly Day. My time and my luck was running out. Down several former red-vengers, and even mourning the loss of much of Team Blue, us humans entered the final event in a showdown against the zombies. Our 33 warm-blooded people had dwindled down to 12.
We returned to the zombie-infested Simon Center. Humans were again tasked with completing a series of objectives — this time, unlocking a cure-release device within the time limit, which would heal all the zombies and revive the undead. If the zombies got their hands on the device and returned it to their safe zone, it was game over.
We reached the final objective. Keep your hands on the case for 15 minutes total.
The zombies took a new approach. Instead of utilizing their advanced capabilities, they slowly staggered towards us while dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” I guarded a staircase, slowly picking off the zombie hordes.
Unfortunately, my fellow humans didn’t find the same success. The case was stolen, and the zombies won. Game over, or really?
As one massive zombie force, we carried out one final mission: destroy Nu-tech. They created the zombies, seeking to create an exploitable labor force. Our task was to neutralize them with sock tossing.
Nu-tech was destroyed, and zombies now ruled. Granted, without Nu-tech, there were no ways to create zombies, meaning we would all inevitably starve to death, but that would be a problem for another time.
My week-long apocalypse was over, and no, I hadn’t survived as a human, but I had contributed to Nu-tech’s demise and restored some form of unity. After a week of paranoia, togetherness — even as a mindless zombie force — didn’t seem so bad.
A correction was made on November 1, 2024: A previous version of this article misstated the class year of Chris Caruso ’25.
