The night didn't fall.
It descended, like a curtain soaked in rot and screams.
The air reeked of burnt rubber, charred flesh, and something worse—fear. Ash floated down like diseased snow, dusting the blood-soaked ground of Sector 9. What had once been streets was now just a graveyard breathing beneath firelight.
Kai didn't blink.
He stood on edge, pipe in hand, the jagged metal already stained with black-red gore. His hands trembled—not from weakness, but from adrenaline. From the storm surging inside.
Behind him, survivors shifted in their restless sleep, unaware of the shadow that loomed just beyond the barricades.
Then came the sound.
A crunch.
Flesh on gravel. A dragging foot. And then...
A whispering groan that no human throat should ever make.
Kai's eyes snapped to the edge of the overturned bus. He crept forward, the silence pressing into his skull like a scream held in too long.
There.
A silhouette, hunched, twitching—devouring something.
No. Someone.
Thomas. The lookout. Face frozen in agony. Half his throat gone.
The mutant's head jerked up. Eyes white, jaw dislocated, gums torn from its lips, exposing yellowed bone and ragged sinew.
It leapt.
Kai didn't flinch. The pipe swung, catching it mid-air. A crack of bone. The monster twisted, landing on its back.
Kai drove the metal down.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Blood sprayed. Skull caved. A gurgled hiss escaped its throat before it finally stopped twitching.
[+30 EXP] blinked faintly in the corner of his vision.
His chest rose and fell.
He wanted to scream—but something in him had already gone cold.
And then—
Chaos.
The barricade groaned. Then splintered. And the night erupted.
They poured in.
Not dozens—hundreds.
Some crawled on all fours, bones cracking with every step. Others sprinted like twisted marionettes, limbs flailing, mouths snapping.
And their eyes—glassy, ravenous, inhuman.
"GET UP!" Kai roared.
Riko sprang up, blade in hand. Lina grabbed her rebar. Tara screamed as claws tore through the tent flap beside her.
Blood exploded into the air.
A mutant lunged.
Kai turned, ducked, swung.
The pipe smashed through its neck, ripping flesh and muscle. The head spun in the air like a coin, landed with a thud.
[+20 EXP]
Another charged.
He dodged. Elbow to its face. Knee to its ribs. Then shoved the jagged pipe through its chest. It shuddered, gagging blood, before slumping over.
Screams. Gunshots. Gore.
Aarav fought with his bare fists, one arm useless, the other smashing jaws. Riko stabbed through the temple of one monster and spun to block another. Renji fired his last bullet into a charging creature's mouth, splattering grey matter against the wall.
Tara tripped.
A mutant leapt.
Kai threw himself forward.
His body slammed into the beast mid-air, sending them both crashing into a pile of broken crates. The mutant hissed, clawing at his face.
Kai grabbed a shard of metal and sliced through its throat.
Hot blood poured over his chest.
[+25 EXP]
He was soaked. His heart thundered. But there was no time to think.
The horde pressed in.
"TO THE BUS!" Lina screamed.
They retreated, fighting every inch. Riko dragged Tara, who bled from her shoulder, face pale. Mutants slammed into the makeshift barricades, climbing over each other like insects.
Aarav punched one off the roof. Another bit into Renji's arm. He didn't cry out—just stabbed the thing repeatedly until its head was a ruined pulp.
They fell back behind the bus.
Breathing hard. Bloody. Surrounded.
Kai looked over the edge.
Too many.
"Molotov!" someone shouted.
Renji lit it. Threw.
Fire bloomed.
The front lines of the mutant swarm burst into flames, howling as skin bubbled and dripped. But others ran through the fire. Unstoppable. Screaming. Laughing.
Kai grabbed the blood-slick pipe again. He was done thinking.
He was done being human.
He became movement.
Slice. Stab. Crush. Twist.
One lunged at him—he shoved his fingers into its eye sockets, pulling until the skull gave way.
Another swung a claw—he ducked and cut its leg clean off, then crushed its head beneath his boot.
His name was a whisper in the chaos.
"...Kai?" Riko's voice again.
He didn't answer.
His mind wasn't here.
It was somewhere deeper. Somewhere primal.
[+85 EXP]
[Level Up: 2 → 3]
[Trait Unlocked: Blood Familiarity – Fear resistance increased in combat. Reduced panic.]
The notification blinked. He didn't even flinch.
He stood tall, surrounded by twitching corpses.
Breathing hard. Alive.
And for the first time—feeling strong.
"Are you okay?" Riko approached slowly, her blade still dripping.
He looked at her, eyes wide and wild.
"No," he said. "I'm not."
He raised his bloodied hands.
"But I'm learning."
He looked at the bodies.
"They die easy now."
The others fell silent. Some injured. Some barely standing. But everyone watched him.
Watched as Kai wiped the gore from his face with the back of his hand and stepped over a twitching corpse like it was nothing.
He knelt beside one of the mutants.
Something glinted from its spine.
A shard of metal. Embedded deep. Faintly pulsing.
"What the hell is that?" Lina asked.
Kai stared at it. Turned it over in his fingers.
It didn't belong here.
It looked... placed.
"This isn't just infection," he muttered.
Riko stepped closer. "You think someone's controlling them?"
"No." He stood.
"I think someone's evolving them."
The fire roared in the distance. Ash fell like snow. The wind carried the sound of more howls approaching.
And Kai, dripping with blood and madness, finally smiled.
"Let them come."