
Summary
- The post-credits scene in The Walking Dead: World Beyond unveils the origins of the zombie pandemic.
- The outbreak began in a biomedical lab in France due to an accidental incident.
- This revelation spurred further speculation, leaving fans pondering the pandemic’s global spread.
The Walking Dead franchise has long held onto the mystery surrounding the genesis of the zombie apocalypse, a narrative secret closely guarded by its creator, Robert Kirkman. For years, Kirkman expressed his desire to keep the origins undisclosed, thereby maintaining an air of enigma around the series.
Both the comics and the television adaptation initiate the apocalyptic saga from an off-screen perspective, with protagonist Rick Grimes awakening from a coma to a world overrun by the undead. Despite the comic series’ lengthy publication history before the AMC show, the cause of the outbreak remained elusive. Even over the show’s ten-year course, the narrative did not reveal the origins—until now, in The Walking Dead: World Beyond.
The Walking Dead World Beyond: Is This Really The Origin?

The season finale’s post-credits sequence provides an intriguing backstory to the iconic TWD zombies. This segment unveils that the zombie virus traces its roots to Europe, specifically from a biomedical facility in France. In this scene, a lone researcher returns to the derelict lab, intent on resuming her work to understand the virus and potentially develop a cure. An unexpected encounter with another survivor, who is familiar with the lab’s dark secret, leads to a chilling exchange: “End this? You started this.”
The narrative deepens with ghostly graffiti on the lab’s walls: “Les Morts Sont Nés Ici, ”hinting that this location could be the epicenter of the apocalypse. The dialogue further implies that the researchers were unprepared for the virus to escape their controlled environment, which unintentionally unleashed chaos upon the world.
Burning questions remain about the exact mechanism of virus transmission. The show suggests that the virus resides in all humans, activating upon death—as long as the brain is intact. However, this new origin does leave fans reeling, as the speed at which the outbreak reaches global proportions remains unexplained.
Throughout the series, early-season hints suggested that the outbreak’s inception was rooted in human error rather than supernatural causes. In one notable episode, Rick and his team visit the now-defunct CDC, where a researcher reveals he was attempting to uncover the virus’s cause and find a cure—though time ran out before any definitive answers could be discovered.
A TWD Mystery That Should Have Been Left Untouched





Now that fans are presented with what appears to be the origin of the apocalypse, a pertinent question arises: was it essential to unveil this secret? Many would argue that it was not. The creative team appears to recognize this, which explains why the information was tucked away in a post-credits scene of a spinoff that did not gain much traction among viewers. This choice positions the revelation as a reward for the most committed, albeit puzzled, fans.
The primary dilemma with revealing the origins of the outbreak is that it raises more questions than it resolves. How did a virus of such magnitude travel so rapidly from France to the United States and beyond without the originating lab issuing warnings or sharing critical research data? While it is conceivable that infected individuals became unknowing carriers, the unprecedented speed of the pandemic remains a mystery. Perhaps this revelation is but a fragment of the complete narrative, which leaves viewers both intrigued and skeptical about what really transpired.
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