Shibuya Underground, Tokyo
Silence in a city is a disease.
It was a lesson Sakura Miyamoto had learned in the three days since the world had gone mad. Above, on the surface, the rain had washed the blood from the famous Scramble Crossing, but it couldn't wash away the silence. Here, in the sprawling, lightless labyrinth of the Shibuya underground mall, the silence was deeper, heavier. It was a predator.
Sakura moved through it like a ghost, her tabi boots making no sound on the debris-strewn floor. Thirst was a dull ache in her throat, but hunger was a blade twisting in her gut. She remembered a small, high-end grocery store near the Hachikō gate exit, one that specialized in imported goods. Canned goods. Survival.
To get there, she had to cross the central promenade, a wide, open space that had once been filled with the laughter and footsteps of a thousand shoppers. Now, it was a hunting ground.
Her family had taught her the art of shinobi-iri, of becoming one with the shadows. She flattened herself against the cold wall of a shuttered boutique, her breath a controlled, shallow rhythm. The air was thick with the cloying, sweet smell of decay and the acrid tang of ozone. She peered into the gloom, her eyes having long since adjusted to the near-total darkness.
They were there. Scuttling sounds, like dry leaves skittering across pavement, echoed from the darkness. The mutated cockroaches were a plague upon this underground kingdom. They were the size of a man's shoe, their carapaces a slick, oily black that absorbed the faint emergency light filtering from distant corridors.
She moved, a shadow detaching from other shadows. From a darkened storefront to a toppled vending machine, to the concrete pillar of a dead escalator. Each movement was precise, economical, planned. Her heart was a slow, steady drum, a rhythm she had practiced controlling since she was a child. It was this control that kept her alive.
She was halfway across when a new sound cut through the silence. It wasn't the scuttling of the smaller roaches. It was a low-frequency chitter, a sound that vibrated through the soles of her feet.
From the shattered glass of a jewelry store, it emerged. It was massive, the size of a large dog, its antennae twitching not to smell, but to listen. Its multifaceted eyes were milky white, blind, but its head was cocked, a grotesque parody of a curious animal. A Lord.
Sakura froze behind the pillar. Don't breathe. Don't move. Control your heart.
But it was too late. The Lord's chittering intensified, its antennae pointing directly at her hiding place. It hadn't seen her. It hadn't smelled her.
It had heard her heartbeat.
An answering wave of chirps and clicks echoed from every dark corner of the promenade. From drainpipes, from shattered storefronts, from the ceiling vents. An endless, rustling tide of black carapaces and twitching legs began to pour into the open space. The sound was no longer like leaves; it was the sound of a rising flood.
She broke cover, sprinting. The ghost was gone, replaced by a desperate girl running for her life. The swarm converged behind her, a living carpet of clicking, chittering hunger.
Ahead, she saw a heavy metal door, marked with the kanji for "Staff Only." A storeroom. A dead end. But it was her only chance.
She threw her shoulder against the door. It was unlocked. She stumbled inside, into the pitch-black, and slammed the heavy door shut just as the first of the swarm reached it. She fumbled for a lock, finding a heavy deadbolt and ramming it home.
For a moment, there was blessed silence. Then, the first impact struck the door. THUMP.
Then another. THUMP. THUMP.
Soon, it was a deafening, metallic drumming, the frantic, mindless assault of hundreds of bodies hurling themselves against the steel. The door groaned, the hinges