NIGHT
Reyan couldn't sleep.
He sat on the balcony. Her daughter was dozed off an hour ago. Inside, the others were sleeping too. Samir and Taj on the floor, Vikram in the chair by the door, knife still in his hand.
The city was quiet. No sirens anymore. No car alarms.Just distant glass breaking and, sometimes, a low groan.
Then the screaming started.
A woman's voice, raw with terror, coming from somewhere in the building. The lobby, maybe, or one of the lower floors. She was begging, pleading, the words incoherent but the desperation crystal clear.
Reyan's hand moved toward the door handle. He could go down. Help her. Save her like he'd failed to save Priya.
Please, someone, please help me! Oh God, oh God, they're—
The scream cut off with a wet, gurgling sound.
Reyan's hand fell away from the door.
He couldn't help her. If he went down there, he'd die too, and then who would protect his daughter? Who would find Samir's sister? Who would keep this fragile group of survivors alive?
The woman was already dead. Going after her would just add his corpse to the pile.
He knew this. Logically, rationally, he knew this.
But the sound of her dying—the wet tearing, the crunching, the satisfied groans of the infected as they fed—would haunt him for the rest of his life. However long that might be.
He walked to the balcony railing.
Below, in the street lit by a few surviving streetlights, he could see them. Dozens of infected, wandering aimlessly, searching for prey. Some shambled. Some ran. Some just stood perfectly still, heads tilted, as if listening to something only they could hear.
As he watched, a figure burst out of an alley—a man, living, running flat-out. Behind him, infected gave chase. But not all of them. Some of the faster ones circled around, cutting off escape routes. One darted ahead, positioning itself at the mouth of another alley.
It was coordinating. They were all coordinating.
The man didn't see the trap until it was too late. He turned into the alley—the only escape route left—and ran straight into the infected waiting there. It grabbed him, pulled him down, and the others descended like a pack of wolves.
Reyan watched the man die. Watched him get torn apart. And he felt... nothing. Just a cold, analytical observation: They're getting smarter. They're learning to hunt.
What did that make him? What kind of person watched another human being die and felt nothing?
A survivor, something dark whispered in the back of his mind. That's what you are now. Not a person. A survivor. And survivors do what they must.
He went back inside, locked the balcony door, and tried to sleep. But when he closed his eyes, all he could see was Priya's face. All he could hear was that woman screaming in the lobby.
All he could feel was the cold, creeping knowledge that he was becoming something less than human.