Walking Dead: Level Up or Die Trying

The evening sky burned gold and orange as Aiden leaned against the cool concrete wall just outside Cell Block C, watching the last rays of light stretch across the prison yard. The group, though tired, was in good spirits. Cell Block C had been a smoother job than expected — a blessing after the chaos of clearing out A and B. Fewer walkers. Less blood. Still, they didn't let their guard down.

Aiden took a moment to sip water from his canteen before stepping forward. "Alright," he said, voice firm but not harsh. "We've still got daylight and energy left. Let's move on to Cell Block D. It's the last one."

The group murmured in agreement, some nodding, others silently tightening their grips on their weapons. Even Mara gave him a brief look of acknowledgment from across the yard as she slung her crossbow over her shoulder and fell in line with the others.

They moved as a unit across the yard, the scrape of boots and gear echoing faintly in the quiet. When they neared the front doors of Cell Block D, they spotted a handful of walkers meandering around outside — the sluggish kind, the ones that had either wandered from deeper inside or had been stuck out in the open too long.

Without hesitation, the fighters stepped up. Bows twanged softly. Arrows thudded through rotten skulls. Aiden stepped in, finishing off one that had stumbled toward Mara with a clean strike of his blade. One by one, they dropped. The group barely broke rhythm.

Once the outside area was secure, Aiden signaled for the barricade crew to move. They grabbed whatever they could — metal benches, old lockers, busted tables, and even a few wooden pallets from nearby — and began constructing a defensive blockade in front of the doors leading into the block.

The barricade was solid, built with purpose. But most importantly, it was strategic. Gaps were deliberately left between the larger pieces, just wide enough to stab a spear through or aim a bow. It was a tactic Aiden had refined during their earlier cleanups, and the team had grown adept at building these mobile kill zones quickly.

When the barricade was ready, one of the younger members of the group, a scrappy kid named Jase, stepped up, grinning with nervous energy as he held the air horn. Aiden gave him a nod.

Jase took a breath and pressed the trigger.

BWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAMMM!!

The sound blared like a warhorn, echoing through the entire block. It bounced off steel, concrete, and hollowed walls. Within moments, the response was immediate. Groans. Shuffling. Then the sickening drag of undead limbs scraping across the floors.

Walkers began pouring from the dark hallways within Cell Block D, drawn to the noise like flies to a corpse. They stumbled, clawing, snarling — driven by instinct, rage, and hunger.

But the barricade held.

Aiden and the others waited with calm precision. As the walkers slammed against the barricade, snarling through the gaps, spears were driven into exposed skulls. Arrows pierced rotten eyes. Knives were pushed forward and withdrawn again and again. It was bloody work, but it was controlled. Efficient.

Mara, crouched beside Aiden, reloaded with practiced ease. "Lot more than in Block C," she muttered between shots.

"Yeah," Aiden replied quietly. "D was deeper in the complex. Could've trapped more inside. Might be the worst of them."

The groaning continued for what felt like an hour. Bodies stacked at the barricade, forcing some of the fighters to shift position or yank back jammed blades. Still, the group held the line. Nobody panicked. Nobody broke ranks. They had done this before, and Aiden had trained them well.

Eventually, the flow began to slow. The howls faded. The pounding became a shuffle, and the shuffle became stillness.

Aiden signaled a cease. Breathing hard, the group stepped back, the pile of corpses now slumped in a grotesque wall on the other side of the barricade.

"Don't drop your guard," Aiden said. "We still need to sweep the block. There might be a few stragglers that didn't come to the horn."

He gave everyone a few minutes to rest, wiping sweat, sharpening blades, and checking wounds. Then they began dismantling the barricade slowly and carefully, clearing a path through the carnage, and pressing into the shadowed heart of Cell Block D.

The real clearing had just begun.

Once the final groans and shuffles died down and no new walkers came clawing toward the barricade, Aiden gave a silent nod. It was time.

He motioned with two fingers, and the team began carefully dismantling the makeshift barrier. Piece by piece, benches, lockers, and scrap were pulled aside with quiet precision. The smell of rotting flesh hit them like a wave as the path was cleared — the bodies of the walkers they'd just taken out lay slumped and twisted, some still twitching in those last lingering spasms of undeath.

Aiden stepped in first, weapon raised, eyes sharp.

The group followed behind in tight formation, their movements cautious but confident. They'd done this routine enough times to know what to expect — but Cell Block D was deeper, darker, and had more blind spots. The corridor inside was littered with decay: overturned trays from a long-abandoned meal service, shattered glass, dried blood smeared across floors and walls like old war paint.

"Double tap everything," Aiden said, voice calm but serious. "If it twitches, you put it down. No exceptions."

The fighters split into pairs, slowly advancing. One would cover while the other checked the bodies. It didn't matter how lifeless the corpses looked — in this world, one moment of mercy or assumption could mean getting bitten or worse.

Aiden moved with Mara at his side. She silently pointed to a body lying half under a metal table, its face turned away. Aiden nodded, stepped forward, and drove the tip of his spear through the base of its skull with practiced force. The sickening crunch confirmed it.

Further down the hall, one of the younger fighters let out a startled grunt. A body that had seemed still suddenly rolled and grabbed at his ankle, snarling — until his partner reacted fast and buried a hatchet into its face. Afterward, both breathed heavily but said nothing. Just another close call — one of too many.

They continued down the block, checking each cell one by one. Some doors were closed and locked, others wide open with the remains of walkers slumped inside, long since turned and rotted to the floor. One walker had been tangled in bedsheets, its legs snapped at unnatural angles as if it had tried crawling toward the sound of the horn and got stuck. It took two shots to put it down for good.

They cleared the showers next. The darkness was thick in there, and claustrophobic. Shadows danced under the flickering beam of their flashlights. Water still dripped somewhere in the distance, a haunting echo in the silence.

Inside one of the stalls, a female walker lunged when the door was kicked open, her jaw barely hanging on by a strand of sinew. Mara stepped forward and ended her with a clean stab through the eye, wiping her blade clean on a ruined towel afterward.

It took nearly an hour to do the full sweep, checking every room, every cell, every hallway. They were methodical. Relentless. Quiet.

By the end of it, the floor was covered in even more corpses, now confirmed to be permanently dead. Aiden took a final walk down the main corridor, inspecting every body himself. It was a burden he never handed off. His responsibility. His people.

"Clear!" one of the fighters called out from the far end.

Another voice echoed, "All clean on this side!"

Aiden exhaled slowly, nodding as he lowered his weapon.

"Good work," he said to the group, his voice steady but tired. "We'll rest for a bit, then start hauling out the bodies. Same routine — pile them up outside the main yard. We'll burn them once we've cleared the grounds."

The group began filtering back out of the block, some stretching their aching limbs, others just sitting against the walls, catching their breath. It wasn't glamorous work. It wasn't glorious. But it was necessary.

And with Cell Block D finally silent, for the first time in who knew how long, Aiden knew they were one step closer to making this place a true sanctuary. One block at a time. One fight at a time.

For the final stage of the cleanup, Aiden didn't waste a single second. He gave the nod, and everyone moved with the same grim focus they'd honed over days of clearing the prison. This part was always the hardest, not the most dangerous, but the most gut-wrenching.

They dragged the corpses one by one across the concrete floors of Cell Block D and through the corridors toward Cell Block A. The bodies left behind streaks of dried blood and old rot, the stench thick enough to choke a grown man. Some were just bones in uniforms. Others were fresher, more grotesque in their deformity. But all were stripped of anything useful.

Boots were taken, as were belts, jackets, and shirts. Pants, too, when intact. Not a single scrap of useful cloth or leather was spared. Some of the riot gear on a few walkers, though broken or worn, could still be repurposed for armor. Helmets, visors, gloves — even small items like knives or trinkets in pockets were scavenged. It wasn't about greed. It was about survival. Every item had value now.

Aiden helped with the heavier bodies, hoisting them by the shoulders or legs with the help of another fighter, dragging them through the prison halls. His gloves were dark with dried blood by the time they reached the growing pile in Cell Block A — a monstrous mound of rotting death. The final tally was easily over a hundred corpses between all four cell blocks.

The group stood around it for a moment, breathing heavily, sweat sticking to their skin and clothes. No one said a word. No one had to. It was done.

But Aiden wasn't finished.

"Split into two teams," he said finally, his voice hoarse. "One group comes with me to check the warden's office. The rest — I want you up in the watchtowers. Anything useful, anything tactical, you bring it down. Weapons, radios, scopes, ammo, documents — all of it."

The tired but obedient group nodded and broke off.

The warden's office was sealed tight — a solid door, reinforced with steel bars. It took some work, but with a pry bar and a bit of force, they cracked it open. Inside was dust-covered furniture, scattered papers, and the stale stench of disuse. But there were also locked drawers in the desk and a wall safe.

Mara found a set of keys nearby, and with some trial and error, Aiden managed to get the safe open.

Inside: a Glock 19 with two mags, a stash of old emergency cash, some keys, and a journal that looked like the warden's personal notes. Aiden pocketed the journal for later. You never knew what knowledge might be hiding inside old words.

In the desk drawers, they found a few old radio batteries, emergency flares, and a small bottle of antiseptic — still sealed. Aiden pocketed the flares and the medical supplies, handing the rest off to others for inventory.

Meanwhile, up in the towers, the others were having similar luck. One tower held a bolt-action rifle with a rusted scope, but the barrel was clean enough to still fire. Another tower had binoculars and a long-range two-way radio system — old, but maybe functional with enough power. A couple of the watchtowers still had working floodlights, though the wiring was weathered. If Aiden could redirect power to them, it might offer nighttime visibility — a massive strategic advantage.

By the time both teams returned and met back in Cell Block A, the group was dragging their feet. They were exhausted, sore, and filthy. The sun was beginning to set beyond the walls of the prison, casting long shadows over the courtyard. The pile of corpses loomed behind them — a grotesque monument to what they'd survived.

But there was something else there, too: progress.

The prison was finally theirs. All of it. The blocks were cleared. The towers were reclaimed. The office is secured. And all of it now stood ready to become a home. A fortress.

Aiden stood silently for a moment, looking out over his group. His people. Survivors. Fighters. Builders.

And then he spoke.

"Tomorrow," he said, loud enough for them all to hear, "we burn the pile. We clean the halls. And then… we start rebuilding. This place, this group, our future — we build it here."

Tired hands still found the strength to clap. A few nodded. A few even smiled.

And in the fading light, for the first time since the outbreak began, they all felt something real.

The next day came with no alarms — just the quiet hum of a place that had finally stopped echoing with the groans of the dead. But the work wasn't over. What came next might have been the most important task so far: cleansing the air — and the land — of what they had removed.

Aiden woke early. His joints ached slightly from the hard stone floor and the long days before, but he pushed through. There was no room for rest when there was still death to deal with.

After a quick meal, he gathered everyone in the courtyard for a rundown.

"Today's simple," he said. "But it won't be easy."

They all knew what he meant. The massive pile of corpses in Cell Block A — a grotesque mountain of rot — had to be burned. Leaving it would attract more walkers, breed disease, and pollute the space they'd fought so hard to clear. It was time to turn it all to ash.

They split into teams. One would head out beyond the outer fences to cut and haul fresh wood. The other would stay behind and guard the prison — noise from axes would no doubt call to nearby walkers, and they had to be ready. Aiden chose to work with the woodcutters.

Armed with axes, machetes, and a couple of salvaged handsaws, they marched toward the surrounding forest just outside the northern fence. Aiden's boots sank slightly in the soft morning dirt as he led the way, marking a safe route with flags. The fallen leaves and dead trees made finding dry kindling easy enough. But they needed more than kindling — they needed fuel. Thick logs. Branches. Anything that could burn long and hot.

The work was brutal. Trees were felled one by one, stripped of limbs, and then cut into manageable pieces. Sweat poured from their foreheads. Hands blistered. Shirts soaked through. But they didn't stop. Not until they had hauled what felt like a forest's worth of fuel back to the courtyard.

Meanwhile, the other group stayed alert. Walkers, drawn by the rhythmic thwack of axe against bark, began to appear around the prison fence line. But with the barriers repaired and with the new spears and bows ready, the guards handled them quickly and quietly — just as they'd trained.

By midday, the pile was ready.

Aiden stood near the base of it, silently staring at the bodies. Dozens of corpses, stripped of anything useful, are now stacked like firewood. Many still wore the twisted, half-decayed expressions they'd died with — mouths agape, eyes hollow. The smell was indescribable — wet rot and old blood mingled with the dryness of the fresh wood beneath.

He took a breath and nodded. Then he pulled out a small red device from his bag — a drill pump. Salvaged from an old hardware store weeks ago, it was a hand-powered tool meant for moving liquids, but today he'd rigged it for something else: starting a fire fast and hot.

The group backed up as Aiden filled a canister with a thick mix of motor oil and old gasoline they'd siphoned from cars along the highway. He attached the pump, cranked the handle until pressure built, then carefully began spraying the flammable mixture across the base of the pile.

When it was coated thoroughly, he gave one last look to his people — grim, quiet, prepared.

And then he struck the match.

The flames caught instantly. A whoosh of fire raced across the base of the pile, climbing rapidly up the wooden frame and catching onto the dried corpses. The sound was horrifying — a crackling roar of burning flesh, the popping of old bones, and the hiss of fluids boiling away. Smoke bellowed into the sky like a funeral pyre rising for miles.

Everyone stood still. Some covered their faces with a cloth. Others turned away, eyes watering — not just from the smoke, but from the reality of what they were seeing. These weren't just bodies anymore. They were the final remains of a world that had fallen apart.

But to Aiden, this was also a cleansing. A necessary step toward reclaiming something that still mattered. A place. A home.

As the fire burned, Aiden stood at the front of the group, eyes fixed on the blaze. His face unreadable, but inside, something settled. Something deep. The dead were gone. And the living — his people — were still here.

When the flames finally began to die down, the group dispersed in silence, heading back into the prison for rest and water. They didn't need to speak. The fire had said enough.

Ash drifted down like black snow.

And above it all, the prison stood silent, towering, and finally… clean.

[Quest completed]

[Total normal walkers killed: 37]

[Total Riot Walkers killed: 6]

[Rewards]

+5 unspent skill points

+598 EXP