Ten years.
Time dulled everything hope, anger, even grief but not fear. Fear sharpened with age, spread like a second infection. It was in the way people glanced at their neighbors, wondering if a cough meant something worse. It was in the way guards at the gates gripped their rifles tighter, hands always trembling just a little.
The quarantine zone hadn't fallen. Not yet. But every wall cracked eventually.
Michael saw it every day. The desperation in food lines. The fights over nothing that ended with someone beaten bloody. The whispers of escape, of going "out there" because staying in here felt worse. Fear was a disease, and there wasn't a cure.
That was why he trained.
Not just himself. The girls too.
The abandoned school gym had become his classroom. It was quiet most nights, the military rarely patrolled that far inside the zone anymore. The mats were torn, basketball hoops broken, but the space was wide, empty, and most importantly unnoticed.
Sarah stood awkwardly on one end, fists raised too high, shoulders stiff. Lena mirrored her, a nervous smile pulling at her lips. Michael faced them both, arms crossed.
"First rule," he said, voice steady. "Don't fight unless you have no choice. Second rule if you do fight, finish it fast."
Sarah frowned. "Sounds simple."
Michael shook his head. "It's not." He stepped forward, adjusting her stance, lowering her hands, angling her body. "Balance. Weight on the balls of your feet. Always ready to move. A fight isn't about strength. It's about staying alive long enough to end it."
He shifted to Lena, nudging her chin down. "Don't stare at their eyes. Look at the chest. You'll see the strike before it comes."
Lena bit her lip. "And if they're bigger?"
"Everyone bleeds," Michael said flatly. "Everyone breathes. You take one away, the fight ends."
He demonstrated, slow and deliberate a palm strike to the nose, a kick to the knee, an elbow to the throat. Efficient, brutal. No wasted motion.
"Violence isn't pretty," he said, meeting their eyes one at a time. "Forget what you've seen in movies. Out there, hesitation kills. You act, or you don't come home."
Sarah swallowed hard but nodded. Lena exhaled shakily.
The first hour was hand-to-hand. He drilled them in repetition strikes, blocks, footwork until their arms trembled. Sarah caught on fast, frustration flashing in her eyes every time she missed a step. Lena struggled more, but her stubbornness kept her on her feet even when her knees shook.
"Again," Michael said each time. "Again."
By the end, sweat slicked their faces. Their movements were sharper, if not yet strong. Michael nodded once. "Better. Not good. But better."
Sarah wiped her forehead. "How long until we're… good?"
Michael's jaw tightened. "You don't measure it like that. You train until you don't think. Until your body moves before your fear does."
Lena dropped onto the mat, gasping. "So… forever?"
Michael almost smiled. Almost. "Something like that."
The second hour was guns.
He laid out the battered firearms he and Kyle had managed to keep hidden an old pistol, a pump-action shotgun, a scratched-up rifle. Nothing special. But in the right hands, everything was special.
"Rule one," Michael said, tone hard. "Treat every weapon like it's loaded. Rule two finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire. Rule three never point it at something you're not willing to destroy. Understand?"
The girls nodded.
He showed them how to check the chamber, how to load and unload, how to clear a jam. Over and over, until their fingers fumbled less, until Sarah could reload the pistol in near silence, until Lena stopped forgetting the safety.
"Speed comes later," he told them. "Safety comes first. A mistake here doesn't just kill you. It kills everyone around you."
When they finally fired, it wasn't at targets they couldn't risk the noise. Instead, he set up makeshift drills with empty chambers. Raise, aim, squeeze. Reset. Over and over until their arms ached.
Sarah's hands were steady, her jaw clenched in concentration. Lena's aim wavered, but her eyes hardened with each attempt.
Michael watched, silent. He remembered his own first lessons hands shaking, instructors barking, the weight of a gun feeling unnatural until it didn't anymore.
When Sarah's aim finally held true, Michael gave a single nod. "Not bad."
Her lips curved in the faintest of smiles.
After three hours, the session ended. The girls collapsed onto the mats, exhausted. Michael sat across from them, cleaning the pistol with precise motions.
Outside, the zone groaned under its own weight. Shouts echoed from distant streets. Somewhere, a window shattered, followed by running footsteps.
Fear. Always fear.
Sarah broke the silence first. "Do you think this will matter? If the walls fall?"
Michael paused, cloth in hand. "It'll matter more than anything."
Lena's voice was softer. "Do you… do you ever get tired of fighting?"
Michael didn't look up. He kept cleaning, motions steady. "Every day."
"Then why keep going?"
He met her eyes then. Cold. Steady. "Because stopping means dying. And I'm not ready yet."
The girls exchanged a glance, quiet settling between them.
Later, when he walked them back through the dark streets, Michael noticed it again that smell in the air. Not the rot of the infected. Not the mildew of old buildings. Something else. Something sour.
It was fear.
It seeped into everything now. The way mothers clutched children tighter. The way men glanced over their shoulders. The way soldiers snapped at civilians, their own nerves frayed.
Fear was spreading, and there was no wall high enough to keep it out.
Michael tightened his grip on the pistol hidden beneath his jacket. He couldn't stop the fear. But he could prepare them for what came after.
And when the day came and it would he would make sure Sarah and Lena weren't just survivors. They would be fighters.
Because ten years of fear only meant one thing.
The worst was still ahead.