In the pitch-black alley, Sun Qi ran until his lungs burned, surrounded by the ghastly howls of monsters—once human, now mindless predators. But the real terror was him—the man with fangs like daggers, eyes that turned your blood to ice.
"Monster…" Sun Qi gasped, collapsing against a damp wall, (school uniform) stained with sewage. The memory of Xia Ying's (despair) clung to him, a guilt heavier than his fear.
A shadow loomed at the alley's mouth.
"W-what did you do to Xia Ying?!" Sun Qi croaked, clinging to a shred of hope.
Lu Qiu tilted his head, smile razor-thin: "Oh, she's dead. Torn apart, eaten—her screams were delicious, especially when she realized you'd abandoned her."
Sun Qi scrambled back, but Lu Qiu's hand shot out—
Crack!
A bullet grazed Lu Qiu's arm, splashing (sewage) across Sun Qi's face. The boy seized his chance, fleeing toward the Central Hospital, where zombies pounded the doors, drawn by his scent.
"Dammit!" Lu Qiu hissed, spotting the sniper—third-floor window, SVD rifle, a man in his 30s with eyes that screamed leave us alone.
But Sun Qi had vanished into the hospital, swallowed by a tide of snarling corpses. Lu Qiu grinned; let the hunter become the hunted.
He pulled a high-explosive grenade from thin air—100 Despair Points, 100 lives condensed into metal and gunpowder. "Bon appétit," he murmured, tossing it at the hospital doors.
The explosion tore the entrance apart, flames licking at zombies who surged inside, drawn by fresh meat. Screams erupted from within—female terror, male fury—as the undead overwhelmed the lobby.
The sniper cursed, firing again, but Lu Qiu sidestepped effortlessly, eyes alight with chaos. Let them fight; he had a (prey) to reclaim.
Inside the hospital, corridors dripped with blood, bodies torn apart by claws stronger than human. Lu Qiu ascended, ignoring the panicked doctor who grabbed his leg, begging for mercy.
"Save yourself," Lu Qiu sneered, kicking the man into a zombie's path. The creature's roar of triumph, the squelch of tearing flesh—music to his ears.
On the third floor, he followed Sun Qi's scent—fear, sweat, a faint trail of blood—to a room at the end of the hall. Through the door, he heard rapid, panicked breathing.
"Hide-and-seek's over," Lu Qiu whispered, fangs glinting in the dim light, "Time for you to meet the reaper… or become one of them."
He pushed the door open, met by Sun Qi's terror-stricken gaze. The boy clutched a broken scalpel, hand shaking.
"P-please…"
Lu Qiu advanced, scarlet eyes hungry: "You saw what I am. You know what happens to loose ends."
Below, the sniper fired at a zombie horde, his shouts drowned by growls. Up here, in this bloodstained room, the real monster wore no mask—only the cold, unblinking stare of a predator who'd forgotten mercy.
"Mercy's for the weak," Lu Qiu hissed, hand closing around Sun Qi's throat, "And you… are very, very weak."
The boy's struggles faded, eyes rolling back as Lu Qiu's grip tightened. Somewhere, a woman screamed her last; somewhere, a zombie feasted. But in this moment, only one truth mattered: prey ran, predators hunted, and the world turned on its axis of despair.
"Sleep now," Lu Qiu murmured, dropping the limp body, "And dream of the monsters you tried to outrun."
He stepped over the corpse, pausing to watch a zombie tear into a nurse's throat. Evolution, he thought, is messy… but inevitable.
As he descended, the hospital burned from within, flames casting his shadow long and terrible over the carnage. Let the sniper fight; let the survivors pray.
Lu Qiu had more worlds to burn, more despair to harvest.
And in the distance, the first rays of dawn struggled to pierce the smog—a false promise of safety in a world where the only certainty was hunger… and the monsters who fed on it.