Someone's POV
The forest smelled wrong.
Not the damp earth, not the sharp tang of moss after rain—no, this was metallic, foul… like something rotting had decided to get up and take a walk.
The man pushed through the underbrush, muttering curses under his breath. His snares for rabbits lay empty; he'd been out since dawn, but the silence had been crawling over his skin all morning.
The forest was too quiet.
No chirping. No rustle of squirrels. Just the faint whisper of leaves—and something else.
A vibration. At first, he thought it was the hum of blood in his ears, but then it deepened, spreading through his boots like distant thunder.
His head snapped toward the sound. Through a gap in the trees, the horizon… moved.
Not like wind-bent grass. Not like the sway of branches. This was a roll, a surge, like the ocean in a storm—except it was coming toward him.
Thousands—no, tens of thousands—of shapes burst from the treeline beyond the ridge. Dark. Frantic. The land itself seemed to split as bodies smashed through brush and tree trunks.
His mouth went dry.
"What… is that?"
The wind shifted.
The stench hit him—rot, sour meat, coppery blood so thick it coated the back of his throat. His stomach lurched.
Faces came into view. Torn open. Jaws snapping. Eyes burning with something that wasn't life.
"What the hell…" he whispered.
They were running. All of them. Straight ahead. Straight for—
He didn't think. He turned and ran, snapping branches, stumbling over roots. The vibration became a drumbeat, the ground trembling harder with each step.
They were coming.
And nothing in the forest was faster than them.
Ed's POV
The smell of coffee hit him before he opened his eyes. For a second—just one—he forgot. Forgot that the world outside the boarded windows had fallen apart.
Then Ley's voice cut through the haze.
"You planning to sleep all day, or are you going to eat before I eat it all?"
He sat up, rubbing his face. "If you eat it all, you're making lunch too."
She stood at the counter they'd fashioned from a door laid across crates. "We don't have lunch. This is lunch. And breakfast. And maybe dinner—unless you find something today."
Ed swung his legs over the couch-turned-bed. Slivers of daylight cut through the gaps in the plywood over the windows.
"Yeah… I was thinking about going out."
Ley turned, a plate in her hand. Scrambled eggs—sort of—and what looked suspiciously like canned beans.
"You mean… looking for her again."
He sat at the table, taking the plate. "Yeah."
"You've been out there a lot lately," she said, her tone soft. "I'm not saying you shouldn't, but… it's dangerous, Ed."
He looked up, meeting her eyes. "Every day I stay here is another day she might be gone. If there's even a chance—"
"I know." Her voice was almost a whisper. "I want to find Kia too."
He hesitated. "I was… going to go alone today."
She arched a brow. "Not happening. If you think I'm sitting here while you run into God-knows-what, you're crazy."
"Ley, I can move faster on my own. I can't be worrying about—"
"You'd worry about me here too."
He opened his mouth, but she was already staring him down. He sighed and pushed the plate away.
"Fine. But you do exactly what I say."
A faint smile tugged at her lips. "Deal."
In the City. The streets were ghosts of themselves. They moved along brick walls, shadows among shadows, ears straining for any sound that didn't belong.
Doors splintered, blood smeared in streaks on walls, toys lying in grass turned brittle under the sun. No Kia.
A small grocery—emptied shelves, a freezer door shattered like spiderweb glass, the stink of rot clinging to every aisle.
And finally… the mall.
The once-bright facade was faded and peeling, graffiti scrawled across the entrance: DON'T GO IN.
The glass doors were bent inward, like something huge had rammed them.
Ed pushed one open; the hinges groaned, loud in the silence. Inside, the air was stale, hot. Their footsteps echoed too loudly on the tile.
"Feels weird," Ley murmured.
"Yeah," he said. "Places like this used to… breathe."
They scavenged what they could—two bottles of water, a half-crushed pack of crackers. Nothing else.
When they stepped out the back, the sky was turning orange.
That's when he appeared.
A man, sprinting so fast he nearly plowed into Ed. His shirt was torn, his face streaked with mud and blood.
"Hey! Whoa—calm down!" Ed raised his hands.
The man's eyes were wild. "It's the end," he panted. "No one's gonna make it. No one!"
"What happened?" Ley asked.
"They're coming. All of them. Everywhere." His voice cracked. "Run. Just—run."
He bolted before they could ask more.
That's when Ed heard it.
A low, rolling thunder.
Ley's eyes widened. "Ed…"
They looked around. The sound was growing, shaking the air itself.
Ed spotted a tall office building down the block. "Up. Now!"
They sprinted inside. The stairwell was half-collapsed, forcing them to climb over twisted rails. They didn't stop until they hit the roof.
And then they saw it.
A tide. A hundred thousand strong, flooding the streets below. A river of bodies, teeth, and hunger.
"Oh my God…" Ley whispered.
"We stay here. They'll pass," Ed said, but the words tasted like a lie.
For a while, it seemed they might be safe. The horde surged past in endless waves.
Then came the scrape. The snarl.
Ed turned—just in time to see an infected haul itself over the edge. Then another. And another.
"Damn it—Ley, jump! That building!" He pointed to the rooftop across the alley, slightly lower.
Her face went pale. "Ed, I can't—"
"You can! Go!"
The first infected lunged. Ed's machete cleaved through its skull with a wet crunch, spraying hot blood across his cheek. Another clawed at him; he shoved it back and stabbed deep into its throat.
"I'm not leaving you!" she yelled.
"You will if you want to live!" He kicked another corpse backward, then slammed the stairwell door shut.
Hands burst through the gap, clawing for him. At least twenty infected shoved against it. The hinges screeched.
"Ed—!"
"Go!" He jammed a steel pipe through the handles. It bowed under the pounding.
The roof trembled. A loud crack split the air.
"Oh no," Ley whispered.
The far corner collapsed. She screamed as the rooftop dropped beneath her feet. She slid, grabbing a rusted rebar jutting from the wall.
"Ed! Help!"
He ran, dropped to his knees, and caught her wrist. Her legs kicked wildly in empty space.
"I've got you! Just hold on!"
"I—I can't!"
"Yes, you can! Look at me! Don't look down!"
Her grip was slick—sweat, dust, maybe blood.
"I'm slipping!"
"You're not! I've got you!" His voice cracked.
Her eyes locked on his—wide, terrified. "Ed…"
The rebar groaned. Metal splintered.
"No, no, no—"
Her fingers slid against his.
Then she was gone.
He lunged, fingers grasping nothing but air.
"LEY—!"
The alley below swallowed her.
The sound that followed—flesh hitting metal, then silence—was enough to hollow him out.
For a moment, the world stopped. Even the roar of the horde felt far away.
Then it came back, all at once. The pounding at the stairwell door. The shrieks. The sky darkening.
Ed stayed on his knees, chest heaving, the empty space before him a wound that wouldn't close.
She was gone.
Ley was gone.
To be continued…