The survivors ran without speaking, their footsteps slapping against wet asphalt, ragged breaths echoing louder than the silence of the dead city around them.
No one looked back.
But all of them heard it.
Not the screech of crows anymore. Not the thunder of wings. The noise that followed them now was something deeper; a chorus of shrieks and tearing flesh, grinding bone, wet echoes of claws raking stone. It was Elias in the swarm. It was the sound of something breaking and being remade.
Hana's sobs cut through the rhythm of their running. She stumbled once, clutching Nia's scarf, soaked in blood, crusted to her fingers. Mara yanked her forward, jaw clenched, not slowing, not comforting. Survival didn't allow softness.
Jonah trailed behind like a drunk, arms pumping too wildly, his face pale with shock. Sweat streaked through the soot on his cheeks. He muttered between panting breaths, broken words, nonsense syllables, curses. Every time his shoes splashed into a puddle he flinched like he'd been struck.
Mara didn't falter. Her crowbar was clenched white-knuckled in her fist, and her eyes scanned ahead, always ahead, refusing to flicker toward the noise behind them. She wouldn't give it power.
But Darius… Darius ran differently. Not with fear. With a kind of measured ease, eyes narrowed, head tilting slightly as if listening.
Above them, the sky churned with ash and vapor, streaks of moonlight cutting through gaps in the cloud. The crows that had been dogging them for days didn't follow. They scattered. They spiraled up, up, black flecks vanishing into the sky.
That absence was worse than pursuit.
The city had gone still. Too still.
It was as if everything living knew to stay out of the path of what followed behind.
Jonah was the first to break the silence. His voice was cracked raw from screaming.
"He's still alive."
No one answered.
His steps faltered, then quickened again, and the muttering started: words half to himself, half to anyone who'd listen.
"He should've been torn apart. I saw them, I saw them bury him. No one lives through that. No one. Unless—unless—"
"Shut up," Mara snapped without looking back.
But Jonah didn't stop. His words came faster, louder, until his voice shook.
"You didn't hear it? You didn't hear the way they screamed? Not him, them. The birds. They were screaming like he was eating them alive. Like—like—"
He choked on the words, staggered, then forced them out.
"Like he was one of them."
Hana stumbled again, her sob turning into a sharp cry, but Mara's grip on her arm didn't loosen.
"Keep moving," Mara barked. "We stop when I say."
But even she glanced over her shoulder then, just once. The freeway ruins were black against the horizon, smoke curling upward. And beneath the smoke, faint and distant, something shrieked again. Not human. Not crow. Something twisted between.
The sound made Jonah cover his ears and scream into his palms. Hana squeezed her eyes shut and clutched Nia's scarf tighter, rocking as she ran.
They found shelter in the carcass of an old office building.
The lobby was half-collapsed, ceiling tiles dangling like nooses, desks overturned and split. Moonlight leaked through shattered windows, dull silver smearing across broken glass and wet plaster.
It wasn't safe. Nothing was safe. But it was cover, and that was all that mattered.
Mara motioned them in with a sharp gesture. She was breathing hard, but her eyes still scanned every angle; the broken stairwell, the sagging balcony above, the shadows where rats had long since stopped scurrying. Her crowbar rested across her shoulder like a general's sword.
"Here. Rest. Quietly."
No one argued.
Hana sank onto a slab of broken concrete, knees tucked to her chest, clutching Nia's scarf so tightly it cut into her palms. She pressed it to her face, as if it could bring the woman back, as if blood and cloth were enough to anchor memory in this rotting world. Her lips moved but no sound came out.
Jonah paced. Back and forth, back and forth, his boots grinding grit into the floor. His hands rubbed his arms until the skin was red, raw, as though he could scrub something invisible off his flesh. His muttering hadn't stopped since the freeway.
"He should be dead. I shoved him in. I saw them take him. No one—no one lives through that. Unless…" His eyes darted toward the shattered windows.
Mara's jaw tightened. "Jonah."
He ignored her, kept pacing, voice louder, pitched high with nerves. "You all felt it too, didn't you? That noise. That screaming. It wasn't just them. It was him. Twisting. Feeding. And if he's feeding, he's growing. He's not running from them anymore. He's hunting."
"Enough." Mara's voice was iron, but it didn't slow him.
Jonah whirled on her, spittle at the corner of his lips, eyes fever-bright. "Don't you get it? He's not gone. He's out there. And he'll come back for us. For me. I know it. I feel it."
Hana jerked her head up, her voice cracking through the gloom. "Stop it!"
Her cheeks were wet, streaked with ash and tears, but her voice trembled with steel. "He saved me! Again and again, he—he stood between me and those things. If he was like them, if he was one of them, he wouldn't have bothered! He would've left me to die like—like—"
Jonah's laughed, mockingly, "Oh come on, Hana! You think that matters? Nia thought the birds were her husband too. And we all saw what happened to her."
Hana flinched like he'd struck her. She clutched the scarf tighter, shaking, her small frame folding in on itself.
Darius sat near the firepit of broken chairs and splintered wood, drawing his whetstone slow along the edge of his blade. Shhhk. Shhhk. Sparks hissed with each stroke.
Jonah's words made Mara snap, the edge of her restraint shattering. She surged forward, crowbar half-raised. "One more word, Jonah, and I swear I'll—"
"Jonah's not wrong."
The fire guttered. Shadows shivered along the walls.
Hana turned sharply, eyes blazing. "Don't you start—"
But Darius wasn't looking at her. His gaze was fixed on the knife in his hand, his tone unnervingly calm. "Elias isn't one of us. But he isn't one of them either."
The whetstone whispered again; shhhk, shhhk, before he set it down, letting the silence stretch. He finally lifted his eyes.
"When prey is pushed far enough, it breaks. You've all seen it. Men starve, men snap, men die. That's what people do. That's what prey does."
He leaned forward, the knife catching the fire's glow. "But Elias? He didn't break. He shed."
Hana shook her head violently, clutching the scarf tighter. "You don't know him. You don't—"
"No, Hana. I know exactly what he is. The world doesn't reward hope, or kindness, or clinging to scraps of rules that died with the old world. The world rewards hunger. The world rewards predators. And Elias?" He let the words hang.
Jonah seized on it instantly, voice hoarse, triumphant. "You see? You all see now? He's a predator, a monster!"
But Darius only tilted his head, considering him. "You call him monster. I call him… inevitability."
The words landed like stones in water, rippling outward.
Mara's grip on her crowbar slackened, her knuckles pale but unmoving. For once, she had no retort.
Darius slid his blade back into its sheath, the sound crisp and final. "Hope is prey's last lie. Faith is its lullaby."
The fire cracked, spitting embers.
Mara's voice finally broke the silence. "Enough." But it wasn't the iron of command anymore. It was brittle, tired, worn at the edges.
The survivors huddled where they could. Ash crusted their clothes, smoke stung their throats, but exhaustion dragged them down.
Jonah twitched first. His head lolled against the wall, then jerked upright, sweat streaking his face. His mouth worked around broken words, muttering Elias's name like a curse. His mutters sharpened, turned to pleas, then to screams.
"Claws—he's—he's tearing me apart—stop—STOP!"
His shout knifed through the room. Mara was on him in an instant, shoving a hand across his mouth, muffling the cries before they spilled into the night. "Quiet, you idiot," she hissed, voice ragged. "Do you want every crow in the city on us?"
Jonah thrashed, eyes wide, foam flecking at the corners of his mouth. Mara gritted her teeth, pressing him down until his kicks weakened into jerks, until his screams dissolved into gasps. She pulled her hand away, smeared with spit and sweat. Jonah lay trembling, staring into the dark like something stared back.
On the other side of the fire, Hana had not moved. She sat curled around Nia's scarf, face streaked wet. Her lips moved faintly, too soft for anyone but the walls to hear.
Each whisper was a thread, weaving between her sobs and the creak of the building.
Darius did not lie down. He sat cross-legged by the shattered window, blade across his knees. His eyes fixed on the horizon beyond the ruin. He looked like a man waiting. For what, no one asked.
The fire hissed. A plank collapsed with a hollow groan, making Hana flinch. Jonah muttered again in his sleep, thrashing weakly. Mara leaned against the wall, crowbar in her lap, her eyes shut but her grip iron. Even in rest, she looked like she was ready to swing.
And then—
A flicker.
Beyond the cracked window, between the jagged skeletons of ruined buildings, something moved. A silhouette, too far to see clearly, but wrong in the way it stilled.
It did not look like a scavenger. Not a crow. Not even a shadow.
It stood. Watching.
Hana's prayers faltered. Her eyes, swollen and wet, flicked toward the window. For a heartbeat she swore she saw him there, tall, shoulders broad, head bowed. She whispered his name again, softer, breathless. "Elias…"
The silhouette did not move.
And then, two ember pinpricks blinked open in the dark.
The gasp muffled in her throat. She clamped both hands over her mouth to keep the sound from spilling out.
When she looked again, the figure was gone.
Only the night remained.
Somewhere far off, a crow cried; a thin, broken note—and then cut off with a snap, as though silenced mid-cry.
Dawn was gray; a thin wash of light smeared across ash and smoke, seeping through shattered windows like a wound too weak to close.
The fire had died in the night. What remained was a shallow bed of embers, faint and red.
The survivors woke brittle.
Mara rose first, shaking cinders from her coat, shoulders squared as though routine alone could carry her forward. Her voice was steady, but her jaw was tight. "Our goal remains the same: We move east. River first, then factories. Keep your heads down. Don't fall behind."
Jonah dragged himself up with a sound between a groan and a curse. His eyes were hollow, ringed in black, but the paranoia in them burned hot. He muttered as he strapped his pack, loud enough for all of them to hear. "We should've finished him. Should've cut him down when we had the chance."
Mara turned on him, her crowbar slung across her shoulder. "Say another word and you walk alone."
Jonah's lips pressed tight. The defiance stayed, but his voice didn't.
Hana lingered by the ashes of the fire, scarf clenched in both hands, threads dark and stiff with Nia's blood. She didn't rise until the others were already by the doorway. Her eyes were rimmed red from crying, but there was something else there too; a quiet stubbornness. She stared once more at the window, at the ruins beyond, as though hoping the silhouette would be waiting for her again.
Darius slid his whetstone into his pocket, blade balanced loosely in his hand, and cast one final glance toward the city's horizon. His expression was unreadable.
They left the office lobby behind. Boots crunched through broken glass, carried them into the open. The air was cold, damp with smoke.
The march eastward was silent, every step brittle. The group no longer moved like companions. They moved like survivors bound together by fear, each one waiting for the others to break.
Jonah muttered under his breath, each word bitten with paranoia: He's coming. He's coming. He's coming.
Mara strode ahead, crowbar in hand, leading with iron and little else.
Hana trailed behind, eyes fixed not on the road ahead but on the ruins they left behind.
And Darius? Darius lingered too, not at the back, not at the front, just slightly apart.
Above, the crows circled high but did not descend. They spun in wide spirals, restless, like carrion waiting for a beast greater than themselves to feed.
Far behind, in the skeletal teeth of ruined towers, something moved.
It was not the crows.
A figure.
Closer now.
Shoulders hunched, claws flexing, ember-red eyes burning faint through the ash.
Tracking them.
Step for step.
Hunger pulling tighter with every breath.
The System whispered in the silence of his skull, velvet and venom both.
"Closer, Elias. Don't let them run. Not yet. Let them feel it. The dread, the waiting. The prey is sweetest when it knows the hunter is behind it."
Elias's lips peeled back from his teeth. His eyes locked on one person.
Jonah
"Yes. Jonah first,"
His eyes burned red.