Two weeks later.
The road narrowed, winding between jagged hills, their peaks clawing at the grey sky. Nature, warped by the virus, grew in twisted silhouettes—tree trunks split and pulsing like veins, moss that hummed when touched.
Chen Yu flinched as a winged creature—part bat, part serpent—swooped overhead.
"You know what I miss?" he muttered. "Dogs. Normal ones. That didn't fly or scream."
"Dogs still exist," Rui said, walking beside him. "But most of them aren't… pets anymore."
Li Wei didn't comment. His eyes were locked ahead.
The trio had survived Hollow Ridge. The path since then had been slow, grueling. Food was harder to come by. The bloody rain had changed the ecosystem. Animals were more intelligent. Zombies moved in packs now, coordinated, adapting like predators.
Their world had grown quieter—and deadlier.
That morning, they reached the gates.
A high concrete wall stood before them, half-eaten by vines but still sturdy. Cameras pointed down from the corners. A hand-painted sign hung above the entrance.
"Welcome to Haven Reach. Survivors Welcome. We Share What We Grow."
Chen Yu blinked. "Oh no. A place with hopeful slogans. We're doomed."
But for once, Li Wei didn't turn away.
They stepped closer, cautiously. No one manned the gate—but a speaker crackled to life above them.
"Newcomers. Please disarm. No sudden movements. You are being scanned."
Rui's hand twitched near her blade. Li Wei stopped her with a look. She reluctantly let it go.
A pause.
Then the gate hissed open.
They were met by a woman in her early forties, tough-eyed and sunburnt, wearing a patched brown coat and combat boots. Her name was Mara, and she didn't smile much.
Behind her stood a younger man with dreadlocks and a missing leg—Jonno, her second-in-command. He nodded politely but said little.
"Welcome," Mara said. "If you're sick, we'll find out. If you're violent, we'll throw you out. But if you're willing to pull your weight, there's a place here for you."
Chen Yu raised a brow. "That's the warmest greeting I've gotten in two years."
They were led through narrow walkways lined with small houses made of salvaged metal and solar panels. Greenhouses thrived behind mesh walls. There were children here—laughing, playing. The sight hit Rui hardest.
She froze at the edge of the garden.
"They're… alive," she whispered.
"Yes," Mara said. "Because we don't take chances."
They stayed.
One day turned into four. Four into seven.
They took shifts: Rui in the greenhouse, Li Wei helping patrol the perimeter, Chen Yu in the kitchen—though he mostly caused chaos and invented "zombie tacos."
"It's just beans and expired cheese," he'd whisper dramatically. "But with trauma."
For the first time in months, they slept without one eye open.
Li Wei sat with Mara some evenings, speaking little, but exchanging glances that held mutual understanding—two people with too much blood on their hands to waste words.
Rui grew fond of a young boy named Tevin, barely six, who kept asking her if she was "one of the ghost kids from the legends."
Chen Yu taught some teens how to rig traps. He even laughed—a real one—when one backfired and sprayed paint on his face.
But beneath the laughter, Rui felt it.
That quiet wrongness.
The way some residents watched them too closely. The way no one ever talked about where they found all their food. The absence of elderly. The silent chapel near the center of the camp that no one entered, ever.
One night, Li Wei asked Mara about it.
She looked away. "Some stories aren't ready to be told."
Another night, Rui saw something worse:
Tevin, the little boy, was dragged quietly from his home after dark—by Jonno and two others.
She followed.
What she found behind the chapel made her stomach twist.
A sealed hatch.
The boy… taken below.
The faint smell of bleach and blood.
She ran.
At dawn, Rui told the others.
Chen Yu stopped chewing mid-bite. "Are you sure? Maybe it was a medical thing—"
"No," Rui said. "They're doing something. I don't know what. But it's wrong."
Li Wei had already strapped his sword to his back.
"I knew it," Chen Yu muttered. "Too much peace. It always means a monster's coming.
Rui insists on rescuing the boy. Li Wei and Chen Yu join her.
But what they uncover beneath Haven Reach isn't just an ugly secret.
It's a forgotten experiment from the earliest days of the virus—something twisted, buried, and now beginning to awaken.