The sun was already up, thin light spreading over narrow streets and tangled power lines.
An obscurant dragged a dog's carcass into an alley, claws screeching faintly over the pavement. The animal's head lolled uselessly, tongue slack, fur mottled with dried blood.
The creature crouched over its prize but didn't feed right away. It pressed its flat face close, nostrils flaring as if uncertain. Its chest heaved, shuddering with wet breaths. Then its tongue slid out, slick and too long, running a slow trail across the dog's side.
The taste seemed to stir something. Its throat rumbled with a guttural croak. Then it tore in. Flesh gave way, bones cracked, wet sounds filling the morning air. The alley walls carried the noise like an echo chamber until the streets outside seemed to hum with it.
[Inside the Clinic Office]
Paolo adjusted the straps of his splinted foot, watching Eli sort through supplies in silence. The office smelled faintly of dust, antiseptic, and the faint metallic note of old air-conditioning. Outside, the world had gone too quiet, save for the occasional distant echo neither of them wanted to identify.
"You think it's… changing?" Paolo finally asked, his voice low.
Eli glanced at him, then back at the bag he was packing. "Maybe. I'm not sure. It didn't eat right away. Like it was testing something."
"That's worse," Paolo muttered, rubbing his palms together.
Eli didn't answer. He crouched near his duffel, laying things out with practiced efficiency. Bottles of water. A few cans. Medical tape. Alcohol swabs. The essentials. The box of food and the cooler already stood near the door, ready to be moved.
Before they left, Eli decided to sweep the hall. He rose, arnis stick in one hand, knife in the other, and pressed his ear to the door. Silence. Slowly, he cracked it open, checking each angle. His shoulders moved with taut precision, muscles strung tight as bowstrings.
He stepped out.
The hall smelled stale, faintly of dust and disinfectant, as if the clinic had been abandoned mid-shift. The floor tiles reflected pale light from high windows. His boots made the faintest tap with every step, echoing too loudly in the quiet.
Eli moved methodically, arnis raised, clearing each room he passed. Empty wheelchairs. A crumpled chart on the ground. No movement. He kept his breathing steady, listening past his own pulse for the scrape of claws or the wet rasp of a tongue. Nothing.
Satisfied, he returned and cracked the office door wider. "Clear."
Paolo nodded, shouldering his pack with a grimace. "You always look like you're about to fight a ghost when you do that."
Eli's mouth twitched. "Sometimes it feels like I am."
They began the careful process of packing. Eli opened drawers and cabinets, methodically pulling items into a neat pile: sterile gauze, rolls of tape, boxes of gloves, surgical masks, and another first-aid kit. Paolo, sitting near the desk, handed items over when he could reach, wincing at the weight on his injured foot.
All of it went into Paolo's backpack and Eli's duffel. By the time they finished, both bags bulged heavily, zippers stretched.
"Box ready?" Eli asked.
"Yeah." Paolo thumped it lightly. "Just don't make me carry both."
"You're only bringing the box. I've got the cooler."
Paolo huffed, half amused, half annoyed. "Lucky me."
They crept down the stairwell. The walls smelled damp, old rain clinging to concrete. The sound of their footsteps—soft, deliberate—still seemed to echo too loud. Paolo shifted his grip on the box every few steps, sweat already slicking his palms.
At the ground floor storage shelves, Eli swept through quickly, scanning labels. He found unopened bandage rolls, a sealed pack of gloves, and another first-aid kit shoved behind a cracked box of syringes. He shoved everything into his duffel without ceremony.
"Come on," he muttered, leading Paolo out the door.
The morning air pressed warm against their faces. The street was empty. Quiet. Too quiet.
The Hummer waited by the curb, streaked with water but otherwise untouched. Relief rippled through Eli's chest as he saw it still there. He crouched and slid the cooler into the back seat, adjusting it so it wouldn't tip. Paolo staggered up beside him and lowered the box with a grunt, shaking his wrists.
"Finally—" Paolo started.
"Quiet," Eli warned, crouched low, eyes flicking across the street.
Paolo's voice cracked through the morning stillness like a gunshot.
"Eli! Behind you!"
Eli spun on instinct, arnis stick snapping up in both hands just as a pale blur lunged from the side alley. The obscurant slammed into him with bone-jarring force, claws flashing. The wooden stick cracked against its forearm, redirecting the blow inches from his face. The impact rattled down his arms, numbing his grip, but he held firm.
The creature was worse up close—skin stretched thin over bone, eyes pits of black, breath sour with rot. Its long nails scraped against the asphalt as it rebalanced, hunched, feral, low to the ground.
Eli widened his stance, knife angled backward in his left hand. The Hummer loomed just behind him, the cooler and boxes already stowed inside. No distractions this time. Just him and it.
The obscurant shrieked, a high-pitched rasp that made Paolo flinch back from the driver's side. It came again, faster now, slashing downward. Eli blocked with the stick, wood ringing under the blow, then twisted, driving his knife upward. Too shallow. The blade only scraped the ribs before the creature twisted away, faster than anything human should move.
Eli's chest heaved, the sting of old wounds nagging at his side. Still not healed. Still slower than he wanted.
The obscurant circled, low and twitching, its fingers gouging the ground as if testing the grip. It didn't attack immediately—just stalked him, head jerking in unnatural snaps, black tongue darting over bloodless lips.
Paolo's hand clenched the doorframe. His voice came hoarse, wavering: "Eli—!"
"Stay in the car!" Eli barked, eyes never leaving the thing.
It lunged again. Eli met it head-on, arnis stick cracking across its temple. The creature reeled but didn't fall. A claw raked his arm—burning pain, sharp and hot—before he could twist free. Blood welled down his sleeve.
Eli gritted his teeth, answering pain with motion. He slammed the stick across its jaw, then rammed a kick into its gut. The obscurant stumbled but caught itself, claws tearing gouges into the cement.
It hissed, head cocked, eyes soulless. Then it rushed, impossibly fast.
Eli braced, arms shaking under the force of the impact. The stick groaned but held, locked against both clawed hands pressing down. The obscurant's face was inches from his, its fetid breath hot against his cheek. It pressed harder, raw strength bearing down, and Eli's knees buckled.
"Get in!" Paolo's voice again—panicked, sharp.
Eli growled low in his throat, muscles straining as he forced the obscurant back just enough to twist his body. His knife darted in, stabbing shallow into its side. Black ichor sprayed. The obscurant shrieked and wrenched away, the knife sliding free.
For a beat, they circled—man and monster, both bleeding, both refusing to yield.
Paolo's heart hammered as he gripped the steering wheel with trembling hands. He couldn't tear his eyes away from Eli—his silhouette taut, weapon raised, a lone figure holding the line against something that shouldn't exist.
And Paolo hated himself for just sitting there.
His leg throbbed where it was splinted, a dull ache that reminded him of his limits. Every instinct screamed at him to get out, to help, to throw himself between Eli and that thing—but what then? He could barely stand without leaning on something. He'd only slow Eli down. He'd only make things worse.
He clenched his jaw, stomach twisting. It was always like this—hiding while Eli fought. Watching while Eli bled. Sitting behind doors, behind walls, behind someone stronger. He told himself it was survival, that he was injured, but it didn't feel like survival. It felt like dead weight.
Useless. Always useless.
Eli's grunt snapped him back—the sound of exertion, of someone fighting not just a creature but exhaustion, pain, and the odds stacked against him. Paolo's grip tightened until his knuckles went white.
For the first time since the outbreak began, the thought took root, sharp and bitter: What if I'm nothing but a burden? What if I'm just dragging him down?