The trees bowed, and the grass shuddered. Infected, moments ago sprinting through, now hung mid-lunge, limbs thrashing against invisible currents. Smoke ribboned around their bodies. Burning leaves and drifting ash spiraled, trapped in the pull of a storm without wind.

  Her blood soaked his shoulder and chest and hand, its heat scalding against the cold sweat on his skin. He shifted his hold, cradling her closer, one arm locked around her waist. Above, the infected hung against the moonlight, flaming silhouettes writhing soundlessly, their dying embers forming a broken constellation.

  His boots hovered an inch above the ground. His body soared through the air, weightless, Reina held tight against him as they arced through the storm of smoke and ash. Each landing came softer than the last, only the brush of bent grass and dust lifting. He adjusted with every motion, balancing precision against exhaustion, keeping her safe while his body screamed for rest. He didn’t look back. Looking back never saved anyone.

  When he touched down atop a slope where the flames couldn’t reach, his boots barely whispering against the dirt, momentum bled from his limbs, and he sank to one knee. Her head rested in the crook of his neck, her breath feather-light but still there. Still alive.

  Ren’s hand trembled. Veins along his forearm pulsed with faint, molten light. I can’t keep this up forever. He looked down at her, the woman who’d stumbled into his life and unknowingly became the last tether to what little humanity he had left.

  “You’re safe,” he whispered. He set his palm to her forehead, brushing the streak of blood at her temple with his thumb. “This won’t fix you completely, but…” A faint green light bloomed. It flickered weakly, struggling against the pull of his craft. Using mana to heal felt wrong to him—unnatural, like forcing the tide to run backward. Still, he poured what energy he could into her.

  The glow seeped into the wound, slowing the bleeding, sealing flesh with a faint hiss. Ashes drifted skyward like inverted snowfall. Somewhere in that darkness, the others were still alive, or dead. For this moment, Ren simply held her closer.

  * * *

  The ceiling beams glowed like molten arteries, the house hemorrhaging fire as it came apart. Smoke forced itself through every seam, strangling Lilly with each breath. The living room dissolved into flame, walls collapsing, floorboards curling and splitting beneath her. She clamped her palms over her ears, but the noise pierced through—livestock wailing, gunfire in the distance.

  Big sister… Where are you?

  Her legs failed as she tried to rise, muscles turned to water beneath skin gone cold with terror. A thunderous impact struck the doorframe ahead—another—until the wood gave way with a crack. For one terrible second, she thought it was over.

  Shion burst from the haze. Soot streaked her face; a sleeve hung in tatters. In her hands, a crude weapon: a machete bound to a wooden pole with a fraying cord. “Come!” Her arm hooked beneath Lilly’s, hauling her upright.

  They staggered through the doorway as a wall of heat slammed into them from behind, retching more fire in their wake. From the flames, something lunged, a human shape wreathed in red, mouth stretched wide. Steel caught the light and swept. The head rolled back into the blaze.

  Lilly heaved through the corridor, smoke curling at her ankles. She tried to speak and produced only a ragged cough. Another shadow lunged from a side door, skin blistered and dripping. Shion shoved her aside and met it head-on. Steel bit into flesh. She wrenched the blade free and kicked the body back into the fire.

  “Shion—your arm—”

  Blood streaked down to her wrist wrap. She spared it a glance. “It’s fine!”

  The yard was a river of fire crawling across grass. Shion shoved her toward the fence line. “Go! I’ll watch your—”

  The impact came without warning. A blur of charred flesh and teeth smashed into her, dragging her down, her weapon knocked away. Blackened fingers clawed for Shion’s throat, jaws snapping inches from her face.

  “Get away from her!” Lilly’s grip found a splintered fence post. Panic and fury fused as she swung, the wood whistling through smoke. A jolt shot up her arms; bone crunched. The monster reeled.

  Shion heaved it off, reclaimed her weapon, and punched the blade through its skull.

  “Over here!”

  Boots pounded over packed earth; voices cut through the inferno’s growl. Sayaka emerged first. Ash had turned her face into a war mask, hair singed and wild. The others followed. Shigure with a rifle, Amira at his shoulder, Haruto gripping a trembling knife, Hayami streaked in blood, Satsuki clutching a pitchfork.

  Sayaka reached them first and seized Lilly’s shoulders as if she might vanish. “I thought we’d lost you too.”

  “The others? Did anyone see them?” Satsuki shouted. “After the blast—I couldn’t—”

  Shigure’s rifle cracked twice. Two shapes crumpled mid-lunge, but more came, spilling from the dark, limbs jerking as the flames backlit their broken rush. Shigure fired again—and missed.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  It was here Sayaka stopped running. Lilly saw her gaze fixed on the burning house.

  “Get out.”

  Haruto turned. “Ms. Takemori! What are you—”

  “Get out! Go!” Her rifle came up. Crack. A body dropped. Crack. Another. Crack!Crack!Crack!Crack!

  “Ms. Takemori!” Lilly screamed. The inferno burned. A lone silhouette stood at its edge—a woman with a rifle raised against the fire—before the smoke consumed her, too.

  Shigure locked an arm around her waist and dragged her back. “She’s made her decision!”

  The farmhouse groaned one final time and folded into a tower of sparks.

  * * *

  Midori crashed through underbrush, thorns and snapped branches knifing skin. His lungs burned. The shotgun thudded against his ribs as he ran, its single remaining shell rattling.

  To his right, Haruka fired twice more; each flash carved their terror-struck faces in white before throwing them back into shadow. He saw Yuka stumble and catch herself on a trunk, Kurobane at her side helping her up. Through gaps in the trees, moonlight skimmed a thread of highway, salvation beyond the smoke. The night pulsed with motion. Shapes flitted between trunks, glints like wet coins where eyes should be.

  A blur burst from the shadows, colliding with Kurobane mid-stride. They went down hard. Bloody jaws snapped inches from Kurobane’s throat.

  “Get it off!”

  Steel caught moonlight as the knife plunged. Blood sprayed, and the thing only clawed harder, fingers digging for purchase. The shotgun wavered in Midori’s hands. One shot would end it, if the buckshot didn’t take them both.

  Two gunshots split the trees. The first chewed bark. The second burst through the skull, peppering Kurobane with gore. He shoved the corpse aside, gasping, fabric around his sleeve smoking where the round had grazed. “Keep running!” Haruka said. The gunfire had called more.

  Midori chambered his last shell and fired. The shotgun kicked, and one body blew apart mid-leap. Through the trees, he saw the open highway. He almost said it out loud—We’re going to make it!—then swallowed the curse.

  He heard Kurobane scream.

  “FUJIMORI!”

  Midori’s head snapped.

  It smashed into her, hauling her.

  Haruka pivoted, firing blind. The first round vanished. The second and third hit—but the thing only clawed faster. Kurobane was already moving, knife flashing. Midori followed. Breathless.

  It had her pinned, jaws clamped to her neck, tearing in fits. Blood misted in fine arcs. Her scream fell to a strangled rasp. Kurobane hit from the side; the blade found the hinge where the skull meets the spine. The body sagged, and he flung it aside. Beneath them, Yuka blinked up, focus slipping. She pressed both hands to her torn neck, but blood pushed between her fingers in stubborn pulses. Each breath rattled; air bubbled where the throat could no longer seal.

  Midori dropped beside her, knees sinking into the soaked earth. “Shit! Yuka—hey—hey, look at me.” She found him and tried to speak; only a gurgle answered. Her hand lifted, trembled violently, and snagged his sleeve.

  Haruka’s pistol quivered; tears cut clean tracks through soot. “Maybe we could—”

  “No…” Kurobane crouched. His voice was hoarse. “It took the artery.”

  Yuka’s mouth shaped something—his name, a prayer? Midori’s chest seized as her stare began to fog. He swallowed bile and still couldn’t move. Haruka staggered back, palm over her mouth to dam the sound.

  “She’ll turn if we don’t do something…” Kurobane’s grip tightened on the knife. He shut his eyes. Steel whispered through flesh.

  Midori turned and retched into the dirt until nothing remained but tremors. Cold highway light washed the trees. Yuka lay at the edge, blood pooling beneath her head, a knife wound where mercy had found her.

  Haruka brushed a strand of hair from Yuka’s brow with unsteady care. The shrieks—closer. Kurobane hauled him up by the shoulder. His world was muffled, as if sound couldn’t find him. Midori looked back one last time. Under the pale lamps, Yuka’s eyes caught the light, until the shadows swallowed her.

  * * *

  Consciousness returned like a wave. First the rhythm, a gentle rocking that matched the crunch of gravel beneath someone’s boots, then sensation, rough fabric against her cheek, the solid warmth of a shoulder rising and falling.

  “Ren…?” Her voice was a rasp, barely there. Pain bloomed in her skull.

  He shifted slightly, moonlight cutting the edge of his profile. “Welcome back,” he murmured.

  Ahead, the road went on between silent houses. Windows shattered, doors yawning like open mouths.

  “The others?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She lifted her head, searching the horizon where the glow still smoldered.

  “Lilly?”

  “...I don’t know.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, but the visions burned behind her lids. The farmhouse engulfed, flames licking at weathered boards, smoke choking the night air. Lilly was quick, resourceful. Her little sister was alive. She had to be.

  “You saved me again, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t reply. She noted Ren’s breathing was shallow and a bit uneven. She fought the undertow of sleep when his stride faltered. His knee found asphalt with a dull thud, sending her sliding off. She caught herself.

  “Ren!” Under the moon, his face was paper-pale, lips drained of color. Blood traced a slow line from nose to chin. “What’s happening to you? Are you hurt?”

  He wiped it away with the back of his hand. “It’s nothing. I just need to rest. Think you can walk now?”

  Despite the fear knotting her stomach, she let out a shaky breath that almost became a laugh. “Even now, you’re still trying to act tough.”

  “Just… give me a moment.”

  Reina scanned the street. Tall hedges, iron gates, long drives vanishing into shadow. She recognized Suiren Gaoka—the old, rich district. Tall gates that rarely opened, houses built like monuments. The mall sat downhill; this neighborhood always fed down to it. A glint tugged her eye: a bicycle half-buried under branches. The front wheel was bent but still turned in the breeze, spinning out a soft metallic whine.

  “Don’t move,” she said.

  Ren blinked, unfocused. “Not like I could—”

  She set a finger to his lips. “Save your strength. No sass. I’ve got this.”

  Working quickly, she threaded her cardigan sleeves through the bike’s frame and tore shirts from her bag and whatever she could find into strips she could knot together. The contraption sagged under its own weight, but it would do.

  She eased him onto it—carefully—and began to push. The fabric strained, whispering over the cracked asphalt as she dragged him forward. One warped wheel squealed at every turn, its uneven rhythm becoming a source of constant anxiety. Her breath hitched as she worked, every step sending jolts through her exhausted legs. Shadows stretched long beneath the streetlights, thin, trembling things that moved when she did.

  “What do we do now?” she asked finally, her voice barely rising above the whisper of the wheel.

  “I don’t know.”

  A handful of stars still pierced the haze, stubborn and faint, they refused to hide. She kept moving, the rhythm kick of her feet giving her something to cling to, when something caught her eye. Through the mist and smoke, a faint glow pulsed behind glass.

  A light.

  The shape of a house loomed behind it, rising out of the dark like the ghost of a dream. Iron gates hung crooked at the base of its driveway. She slowed to a stop. The glow remained steady in the window above, as if it had been waiting for them.