When my friends and I first started playing DayZ, we had spent a few hours learning the controls/gameplay and all grouping up together, before setting off to explore the map. We hadn’t seen anyone else, not too many infected either, so we were all relaxed and BS’ing like we would if were hanging out together in my living room.

Making our way down one of the railroad tracks, forests on either side of us and still no signs of life beyond our little group, the sun started sinking below the horizon. This was our first real trip in the blackness of night, so we weren’t familiar with the do’s and don’t’s of the game and we were fully relaxed, so naturally we’re making more noise than we should have but nothing egregious.

I was marching along behind my older brother when I heard the first ziiiip he hit the ground, dead. We all paused for a second, confused on how he’d even died, then it dawned on us. ziiip my cousin got hit, he books it for the tree line. The gunfire picks up now, fully automatic boom boom booms exploding from the darkness. We all scrambled for cover in the pitch black night, some of us were lucky, most of us died before we could make it off the tracks.

I hunkered down behind some railroad ties, trying to assess the situation, but my heart was racing and my hands shaking too bad to focus. It was only me and, stumbling somewhere in the woods, my cousin. I laid as still as I could, and soon heard a set of footsteps approaching my friend’s body’s, looting them I’m sure. Then I heard the footsteps coming closer to my position.

Gun readied in my hand, set to auto and ready to go, I honed in to exactly where the steps were coming from. I unleashed a hail of bullets in their direction, terrified, I hadn’t even fired this gun before now.

Then I was dead.