As they arrived at Bruno's old home, everyone got out of the car in silence. Pedro looked around. Unlike the last time, when they had escaped being chased by a pack of infected, the place now seemed empty. Only a few skinny, dirty dogs wandered the street, sniffing through scraps of food.
— Yo, Bruno — called Pedro, leaning against the hood of the car. — Me and Gui are faster than João. We'll take a walk around and see if we find anything, alright? — He opened a bottle of mineral water, taking a long sip before waiting for a reply.
Bruno stepped out of the car with a strange weight on his shoulders. His head felt light, his body burning from the inside out. The relentless sun made everything spin even more. He simply nodded, muttering — Go on — before heading toward the house. Pedro and Gui started off slowly, conserving energy under the scorching heat.
Alicia was the last to leave the car. The moment her feet touched the ground, she noticed João standing still, pale as paper, eyes fixed on Bruno's house. He looked like he was reliving some kind of nightmare.
Bruno, on the other hand, walked inside as if in a trance. The world around him felt unreal, distant — as if he were watching everything through a camera lens.
— My head… it's spinning — he murmured to himself, his voice low, almost swallowed by the silence of the street.
The stench of death hit him like a punch the instant he stepped inside. The bodies of his family were exactly where he had left them the day before. Flies buzzed furiously around flesh that had already begun to rot. The odor was thick and putrid — yet, strangely, it didn't bother him as much as it should have.
— Why don't I feel anything? — he asked himself, his tone disturbingly cold.
He moved closer and began dragging the bodies outside, guided only by the discomfort of the smell filling the house. As he pulled the mutilated body of his sister, Hanne, toward the door, Alicia and João Paulo appeared at the entrance.
Alicia froze at the sight of the corpse. Hanne's head was almost severed from her body, connected only by splinters of bone and strips of bloody flesh. Alicia couldn't hold it in. She turned away instantly, stumbling toward the car as she vomited, panic taking over her every step.
João Paulo felt his stomach churn, but he forced himself to stay put. A knot in his throat made it hard to breathe, and he fought against the urge to throw up. When Bruno finally lifted his gaze, João instinctively took a step back. Bruno's eyes—once brown—were now a deep, dark red, hollow and lifeless, as if all traces of humanity had been drained from him. His expression was inhuman, a face devoid of emotion—cold, distant, mechanical.
— Stop! — João pleaded, his hand covering his mouth as he fought back nausea.
Bruno dropped the body without a word. Every movement was precise, almost robotic. He turned away and started walking back into the house, ignoring the terrified looks behind him.
— What… what are you doing now? — João asked, his voice trembling, barely recognizing his friend.
— Getting some clothes. I'm gonna take a shower. — Bruno replied flatly, not looking back, already one foot inside the doorway.
João took a deep breath and stepped away, leaving the house behind as Bruno disappeared inside. He walked toward Alicia, who was crouched beside the car, her head low, trembling, clearly suffocating under the weight of that place. The mutilated bodies inside made it impossible to stand there for long.
— You okay, Alicia? — João asked softly, resting a hesitant hand on her shoulder.
Alicia lifted her face. Her pale skin contrasted with the tears threatening to fall—but what struck her most was João's expression. He was shattered too. She didn't need him to say anything to know that he was barely holding himself together.
— So that's what happened… when you first got here? — Alicia's voice broke, trembling as she spoke. A tear slid down her cheek before she continued, louder now, though she struggled to keep her composure. — They were all infected… and you had to kill them!
The girl swallowed hard, her chest rising and falling quickly as she tried not to draw the attention of whatever might be lurking nearby.
João Paulo took a step back, visibly shaken. His hands trembled, as if struggling to hold onto something that wasn't there.
— To answer your question, Alicia… it was Bruno. He's the one who killed them. All of them. I… I couldn't move. I just stood there—frozen—watching it happen. — His voice came out weak, almost a whisper, but his eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
Alicia blinked, as if his words had struck her straight in the chest. Her mind raced, trying to piece together the horror he'd described. She straightened her posture and leaned against the car, her body heavy under the weight of the revelation.
So that's why he lied to Samira, she thought, a lump forming in her throat. He had to kill his own mother. His own sisters.
***
As they combed through the tall weeds and peered into holes in the empty lots, Pedro tossed a comment into the air:
— Yo, Gui, I think we're wasting time here. We should get the hell outta this place. Still gotta grab some stuff back home.
Guilherme didn't even glance at his brother, excitement written all over his face.
— Hey, Ph! Found a big one over here! — he called out, holding up a bag of weed wrapped in a black plastic sack. A sly grin spread across his face as he waved his discovery. — Jackpot, bro.
Pedro huffed but couldn't help letting out a short laugh. Guilherme always had a way of turning any situation into some kind of "treasure hunt."
Without wasting another minute, the two stepped out of the brush, agreeing it was best to head home and grab what they needed before something—or someone—crossed their path.
***
Inside the house, Bruno headed straight for the bathroom, already pulling the blood-stained clothes off his body. As he took off his hoodie, he noticed a few scratches on his arm and torso—marks he couldn't even remember getting during the fight. He didn't care; he just stared at them with indifference, as if they were the bruises of an ordinary day. He kept going, stripping down completely and tossing the clothes on the floor without a second thought.
Before even thinking about turning on the shower, he grabbed his phone from his jeans pocket and opened his music app. His fingers moved quickly through the playlists until he found the song that seemed to mirror what he felt at that moment: "Marcas" by Petrichor, from the album Casa de Pensamentos. They weren't a famous band, but Bruno admired their ability to mix styles and create something truly unique with every track.
As the first chords echoed through the bathroom, he stared at himself. Facing the mirror, he examined the wounds scattered across his bare body while the melody filled the heavy silence of the room. There were cuts, bruises—and something that froze his blood for a split second.
On his left shoulder, near the back, was a bite mark. The dried blood around it was almost black, staining his skin with an unsettling hue. He leaned to get a better look, and as he lifted his eyes toward the mirror again, he noticed something even more disturbing.
His reflection stared back—but it wasn't entirely his.
An eye. Red. Burning like a newborn flame, replacing the natural brown that had always been there. He stood motionless, studying the new color—not in panic, not in fear. Just… curiosity.
"Interesting," he thought, lips curling into an almost imperceptible smile.
Bruno turned to open the shower. Water began to fall, and though the electricity still worked in the house, he chose a cold bath. His body was so hot that even under room-temperature water, steam rose from his skin as if he were boiling from the inside out.
He looked down, watching the blood mix with the water, streaming in thin red lines toward the drain. The music from his phone kept playing, but a white noise began to rise—like static building in his head, swallowing the melody. The sound grew louder, pressing in, until a throbbing pain took over, pounding and relentless.
Before he could react, everything changed. In the blink of an eye, Bruno was no longer in the bathroom. He was standing in front of Alicia's house.
— How did I end up here? — he muttered, confused. But before he could think further, his body began moving on its own, as if it didn't belong to him.
— What the hell is this?! My body won't obey me! — he shouted, though the voice echoed only in his mind.
Out of control, he slowly opened the door and stepped inside. The house was dark, heavy with an oppressive atmosphere, as if the occupants had been asleep when the virus arrived through the air. Bruno struggled to regain control, but it felt like he was only a spectator trapped inside his own body.
"Am I possessed? Damn it!" he yelled and wrestled with the thought in his head, yet his body continued moving through the rooms, ignoring the surroundings. Suddenly, something attacked him from behind. Alicia's mother, infected, sank her teeth into his shoulder.
Before she could bite deeper, Bruno, with cold, automatic reflexes, bent down and thrust his hands together—one clenched, the other open—driving a precise elbow into her stomach. The woman staggered back, but the dark, hot blood ran down from his shoulder.
"I got bitten! Shit! Why the hell am I unarmed?!"
His body acted again, grabbing the woman by her hair and throwing her against the wall. He realized with horror that his mouth was opening involuntarily, moving toward her neck.
— No! — Bruno shouted, his desperate voice echoing in his mind.
But it was useless. He was slipping on the wet bathroom floor, gasping for air, his eyes burning and his mouth beginning to salivate. On his phone, Monster by Skillet played in the background like a macabre soundtrack.
Suddenly, he was back in the house. His body, possessed by something he didn't understand, bit the infected woman's neck, tearing the skin with his teeth. The taste of blood filled his mouth, and a terrible sensation overwhelmed him: pleasure mixed with an indescribable horror. He drank the blood, and the wound on his shoulder began to close, as if regenerating.
His eyes glowed an intense red, pulsing with every drop of blood spilled. Possessed by something monstrous, Bruno grabbed a knife from his waist — his hammer had remained in the car — and cut the tendons in the woman's feet, preventing her from standing.
Even as she struggled on the floor, he advanced. He plunged the knife deep into her legs, dragging downward, tearing the flesh without hesitation. She screamed, but he didn't stop. He stepped on her neck, crushing any attempt at resistance, and began cutting the tendons in her hands, repeating the process on the other.
"I drank infected blood…" Bruno repeated in his mind, unable to look away from what his body was doing. He dragged her by the hair to the kitchen, leaving a trail of blood across the corridors. There, with brutal force, he smashed her face against the floor and began mutilating her with the knife. Organs, blood, and guts spread across the floor as he cut mercilessly.
His eyes, now completely red, glowed like embers. The more blood he spilled, the brighter they shone.
Suddenly, Bruno opened his eyes. He was back in the bathroom, lying on the floor, the cold water hitting his body. Streams of blood ran from his nose. He breathed heavily, as if he had run a marathon.
The first thought that crossed his mind was the most comforting possible:
— None of this was real. It was just a hallucination. That's all.
But the taste of blood still lingered in his mouth.
Bruno shook his hands on the towel and grabbed his phone, searching for something to distract his mind. The song Endorfina by the band Petrichor began to play, filling the bathroom with its pulsing beat. He started singing quietly, but each verse seemed to bring back flashes of the memories he wanted to forget. The more the images repeated, the louder he sang, almost as if trying to drown out the chaos in the melody while hot water ran over his body.
When he finished, he turned off the shower and stood still, arms resting against the cold wall. Without any apparent reason, he let out a nervous, almost hysterical laugh, his eyes fixed on the bite on his shoulder. The marks were ugly, but something worse was emerging: thin, black veins, like lightning, began spreading under his skin from the wound. He didn't feel pain, only a strange sensation, as if it were a part of him now.
— My body's fighting this shit, — he murmured, trying to convince himself of the lie.
A little later, he left the bathroom. He was wearing a dark green sleeveless shirt with a hood, blue jeans, and black sneakers. His gaze seemed clearer, his eyes regaining their natural color, and his curly hair was slicked back with his still-wet hands. He felt different, as if seeing the world from a new perspective. Leaving the house with bags of clothes, he found Alicia watching him approach. Something about him had changed. His expression, his posture, even the way he walked… She liked it, but kept the thought to herself.
A little further on, João Paulo saw the two of them returning.— Hey, Tico and Teco are coming back. Besides the mattresses, do you think we're missing anything?
Bruno quickly assessed the situation before replying:— A stove. It'll be good to grab it while we're here.
Without waiting, he went back inside the house. João Paulo looked at Alicia, who was now sitting in the back of the Fiorino.— Looks like not everything's gonna fit in this car.
— Agreed, — she replied as Pedro and Guilherme approached.
Pedro smiled at João Paulo.— It worked out, my dude!
— What worked out? — Alicia asked, curious.
Before Pedro could answer, Guilherme stepped forward with a mischievous grin.— The night.
— What? — Alicia pressed, frowning.
— None of your business, damn it! — Guilherme laughed, enjoying her irritation.
Without patience for the teasing, Alicia tried to imitate Bruno and slapped Guilherme. He, however, dodged easily, leaving her even more irritated. Pedro laughed, mocking her. João Paulo sighed, thinking, "This fifth-grade immaturity runs in the family." He remembered Bruno's endless pranks.
Bruno, meanwhile, returned carrying two single mattresses. His gaze was empty, almost cold. He noticed the casual atmosphere around him, but in his mind, the only scene repeating was that of dead bodies and blood everywhere.
— We'll need ropes to tie the mattresses to the car, — he remarked, drawing everyone's attention.
— You have any at your place? — João Paulo asked.
— No. But at Patati and Patatá's house there's some. On the porch, on top of the sofa in the back.
— Gui and I will get it, — Pedro said, heading toward the house.
— I'm not going there, dude! — Guilherme replied, going back to teasing Alicia with silly faces.
— I'm not getting anything for you, idiot! — Pedro shouted from the gate.
Alicia crossed her arms and asked Guilherme:— Why don't you go get your stuff?
The smile disappeared from his face.— My mom's dead in there. I don't want to see her body.
Silence fell for a moment. Bruno, without saying a word, loaded the mattresses into the car and took out the ones inside to tie them all together. He sighed deeply as João Paulo said:— I'll go with him… That way we finish this quickly.
— Alright. I'll grab the stove, — Bruno replied, still distant.
While Bruno tied the mattresses to the car, João Paulo watched in silence. That's when he noticed the mark on Bruno's shoulder: a clear bite, the teeth leaving irregular scar-like marks on the skin. For a moment, his eyes narrowed, and he held his breath. That kind of wound usually meant a quick end for anyone.
But Bruno seemed… normal. No tremor, no vacant gaze, no strange movements. João Paulo swallowed hard. He knew he should ask, confront him, but not now. Not in that moment. There was urgency to leave, and Bruno's behavior, up to that point, gave no reason for immediate alarm.
"If he starts changing, I'll deal with it later."
With that decision in mind, João Paulo pushed any thoughts of confrontation aside. Without saying more, he turned his back and walked quickly toward Pedro's house, trying to focus on what really mattered: leaving that place before something went wrong.
A short while later, everyone was ready to head back to the market. Yet, the images in Bruno's mind continued: dead bodies, blood, and chaos. He knew that wouldn't fade anytime soon.