The last thing David knew was the wet heat of his own blood, the cruel curve of a smile on the lips of the girl he'd tried to save, and the profound, soul-crushing weight of his own naivete. The darkness that swallowed him was absolute, a final, merciful end.
Then, a jolt.
The groan of an engine. A familiar, stale smell of cheap vinyl and teenage sweat. A weight on his shoulder.
David's eyes flew open. Sunlight, ordinary and golden, streamed through the grimy bus windows. The world was not crimson and torn; it was painfully, mundanely normal. He was slouched in a cracked leather seat, his head resting on a familiar shoulder.
He turned, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs.
Lena.
Her head was tilted against the window, her dark hair falling across her face, her chest rising and falling in a soft, steady rhythm. Alive. Whole. The memory of her death—pushing him out of the way, taking the claw meant for him, her last breath a whisper of his name—sliced through him like a physical wound. A choked sound, half-sob, half-gasp, escaped his lips.
He looked around, his breath catching in his throat. The same kids. The same jokes. The same world, blissfully ignorant, seconds from oblivion. It was a dream, a cruel trick of a dying mind.
Then, he saw it.
Outside the window, a single, perfect snowflake drifted past. Then another. And another. A silent, beautiful, deadly snowfall.
No.
The memory crashed over him not as a thought, but as a visceral flood—two years of hunger, of fear, of betrayal, of watching everything he loved burn. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. The phantom ache of every old wound screamed in unison. He jolted upright, his body thrumming with a tension these children couldn't possibly understand.
"David?" Lena mumbled, stirring, her voice thick with sleep. "You okay? You're shaking."
He couldn't answer. His eyes were locked on a boy a few rows up—Timmy, a quiet freshman. He was clutching his head, a low moan escaping his lips. The other students giggled, thinking he was fooling around.
David knew. He knew the sound of a mind breaking. He knew the scent of a body turning against itself.
"Someone check on Timmy," a voice called out, laced with mock concern and laughter.
It was happening. All of it, again.
Timmy convulsed, his body slamming against the floor of the bus in a violent seizure. The laughter died, replaced by a startled, nervous silence. The bus driver glanced in the mirror, annoyed. "Hey! Knock it off back there!"
David was already on his feet. Every instinct, every scar, every lesson paid for in blood screamed at him to move. This was no longer a bus of classmates. It was a metal coffin, and the first predator had just been born inside it.
Timmy shot up. His eyes were no longer human. They were milky, vacant pools of hunger. Saliva dripped from his slack jaw. Before anyone could process the change, he lunged at the boy next to him, his teeth sinking into the soft flesh of his neck with a sickening tear.
A symphony of screams erupted, shrill and paralyzing.
The infected boy—the thing that was once Timmy—jerked its head up, blood painting its chin. Its blank gaze scanned the panicked herd and locked onto the nearest movement: David, standing in the aisle.
It charged, a guttural snarl ripping from its throat.
Time didn't slow down for David; it crystallized. This was the first dance of a thousand he'd known. His body moved without conscious thought, muscle memory carved by two years in hell. He pivoted on his back foot, his hips generating a force these soft schoolboy muscles shouldn't possess. His leg swung up in a perfect, brutal arc.
The sound of his sneaker connecting with the thing's face was a wet, solid thwack. Its head snapped back, and it crumpled to the floor, twitching.
There was no hesitation. No horror. No debate. There was only survival. David stepped forward, his face a mask of cold, grim finality. He brought his foot down. Again. And again. The sound was awful, a crushing of bone and a squelch of something that was no longer human. He didn't stop until the twitching ceased.
And then, it emerged. A soft, ethereal blue light seeped from the broken corpse, coalescing into a shimmering orb that hung in the air for a breath before shooting into his chest. A familiar, electric warmth flooded his veins—a sensation he'd forgotten was possible. Power. The barest, most basic spark of it.
He took a sharp breath, the cold air clearing the last of the fog from his mind. He was back. And he knew the rules now.
His eyes fell on the bitten boy, Mark, who was clutching his ravaged throat, his eyes wide with a terror so profound it was almost peaceful. He was already dead. He just didn't know it yet. The infection was a death sentence, and a turning one.
The students were wailing, hiding their faces, begging for an adult, for help, for this nightmare to end.
David felt nothing for them. Their cries were just noise. He saw only the threat.
He walked to Mark, whose pleading eyes looked up, seeing a savior. David saw a future monster. He grabbed the boy by his jacket. There was no malice in the act, no anger. It was simply… pest control.
With a strength that surprised even him, fueled by that new, tiny spark of power, he hauled Mark up and hurled him bodily through the open bus doors. The boy landed in the accumulating snow with a soft thud, his weak cries instantly muffled by the falling white silence.
David turned back to face the bus.
The screaming had stopped. Now there was only silence, broken by ragged breaths. Twenty pairs of eyes were fixed on him, wide with a terror far greater than what they'd felt for the monster. They were looking at him. At the cold emptiness in his eyes. At the blood spatter on his jeans. At the boy who had just saved them and then performed an act of unspeakable cruelty without a flicker of emotion.
Lena stared at him, her hand over her mouth, her eyes brimming with tears of confusion and horror. "David?" she whispered.