The store smelled of dust, blood, and iron. The shelves were too neat, too intact, as if the world outside had ended but commerce inside remained untouched. Edward thought of Maria, of how she had begged for electronics, of how this absurd errand had forced them here. A laptop, in a dead world—what does that matter? But he bit his tongue, for his father's jaw was set, and Noah had become iron.
And then—
the sound.
Chewing.
Wet. Steady. Not hurried, not frantic, but deliberate—like monks in prayer, tearing bread and sipping wine.
Noah raised a hand. Edward froze. His pulse raced, but his father's silence carried authority greater than fear.
They turned he corner.
Five shadows bent over what had once been a man. They tore him slowly, reverently, as though savoring the act of pretending. The body was not a body anymore but a broken hymn. And their faces—ah God!—their faces betrayed nothing but serenity. Smiles stretched too far, eyes blinking too slow.
Edward felt the scream climb his throat. He crushed it down, but his body shook, betraying him. His father's grip seized his shoulder. A command, wordless, but absolute: quiet.
Then one of them looked up. The smile widened, as if it had heard Edward's unspoken terror. The others followed, heads rising in perfect unison.
The feast ended. The judgment began.
The first shadow leapt, jerking like a marionette cut loose. Noah's bar swung. Iron met skull. The sound was hollow but did not end it; the thing staggered and smiled, as if even pain was a borrowed mask.
"Strike again, boy!" Noah roared, voice breaking through Edward's paralysis.
Edward swung at another. Too slow. Too wild. The shadow caught the bar, yanking him forward. Its face was close now, lips stretched, eyes that did not blink. Edward smelled not breath but absence, a cold void pressed against his skin.
Noah lunged, tackling the creature, smashing its head against the floor again and again. His style was savage: wrestling throws, hammer fists, knees driven like spears. He fought like a man who knew he was already dying and meant to tear death down with him.
Edward flailed, basic karate blocks, clumsy but desperate. One strike connected—a rib cracked, the shadow reeled. His heart surged with triumph, then collapsed with terror as two more closed in.
They were surrounded.
"Run!" Noah's voice thundered. Blood ran down his face, his chest heaved, but his bar was raised still. "Run to your mother! Do not look back!"
Edward's heart screamed. "No—I won't—"
"Go!" Noah's eyes blazed with an authority Edward had never seen before, not in sermons, not in kings. It was the authority of a father prepared to die so his son might not.
Edward stumbled toward the door, sobbing without sound. His father turned, back to him, bar raised like the staff of a prophet. The shadows came.
And then—
Boots. Boots. Boots. Boots.
Measured. Steady. Calm.
The sound cut through the storm like a blade. The shadows froze mid-stride. Their smiles faltered—not gone, but cracking, trembling at the edges.
From the doorway, through the fractured light, Cinica entered.
No eyes to judge.
No mouth to curse.
No nose to breathe.
Only silence, walking.
One shadow lunged. Cinica shifted. No haste, no fury—only inevitability. His hand brushed its chest, guiding it aside in Aikido's irimi-nage, sending it crashing into the shelves. Bones broke. It did not rise.
Another struck. Cinica's fists erupted—Wing Chun chain punches. Each blow short, brutal, precise. The skull collapsed like clay.
Noah stared through bloodied eyes. What is he?
Cinica pivoted, Bagua Zhang's circle step, and his leg whipped back in a Savate reverse kick, breaking ribs like sticks. He spun, Capoeira's meia-lua, catching another by the throat, twisting—Krav Maga's neck snap. Silence followed.
The shadows shrieked voicelessly.
Noah, half-dead, surged to fight beside him. His style was chaos, savage and untrained—brawler's rage, headbutts, hammer-strikes, elbows—while Cinica was geometry itself, calm inevitability.
Together, fury and silence tore through the grinning horde.
When it was over, silence reigned again. The chewing was gone. Only corpses smiled now.
Noah fell against the wall, eyes clouding. His voice rasped: "You… what are you?"
Cinica did not answer. He could not. He only placed a hand on Noah's chest, and Noah felt—not words—but presence. A prayer without language. A vow beyond sound.
Edward ran outside. His bar clattered as he fell to his knees. "Dad"His mother heartbroken crying but she couldn't sacrifice another one of her loved ones .
"Obeying was worse than dying, for to obey meant watching his father swallowed by the silence. And yet to disobey meant destroying the last order left in the world: the word of a father."
Cinica lifted Noah as though he were light, carrying him across his shoulders. The faceless figure stepped forward.
Boots. Boots. Boots. Boots.