The young man's eyelids felt as heavy as a bad dream. With an effort that left him exhausted, he managed to part them slightly. A blinding light forced him to squint, while his clouded mind struggled to decipher his surroundings.
"Ahhh…" he whispered. His hoarse, aching voice rose along with him.
A sharp pain shot through his body, ripping him from his drowsiness. Where am I? The question echoed in his head, but there was no answer. Who am I? Panic seized him. His mind was a blank slate, a void that terrified him. Little by little, the contours of his surroundings became clear: he was inside a car.
He tried to move his arms to relieve the tension, but a sudden pull stopped him. His hands were bound behind his back; the cold metal of handcuffs dug tightly into his wrists. His breathing quickened, though, strangely, a cold calm wrapped around him almost immediately. What is going on?
Through the window, he saw buildings and streets that seemed vaguely familiar, yet he remembered never having been here. His gaze drifted across the scene: pedestrians drawn by the incident, others resuming their path after taking a look. Discomfort snapped him back. He struggled against the handcuffs, searching for an explanation. Outside, two men in police uniforms and a small girl caught his attention. One officer was leaning against the car window, while the other was speaking with the girl, whose red, tear-filled eyes shone with a terror that froze the young man's blood.
The girl looked at him and her face twisted into a mask of panic; she began to cry. The officer by the window said something to her, and she nodded slowly, trying to calm herself. The young man couldn't hear them, but a chill ran through his entire body: whatever was happening, it wasn't good.
Dark thoughts began to fill his mind, and his body trembled from shock. Then his eyes settled on a small screen near the steering wheel. An image—a sketch—flickered on it: the face of a man, partially covered by long hair. He didn't recognize it immediately, but the description and the number beside the image made him freeze.
Reward for information: 10 million yen.
Fugitive criminal:
Name: Nanashi (unknown/anonymous/nameless)
Age: No record
Charges:
• M*rder.
• Ext*rtion.
• R*pe.
• Kidn*pping.
He stopped reading. A nauseating premonition swelled in his chest. He hesitated, but something compelled him to look at the rearview mirror. When he saw his reflection, a shiver ran through him. The face in the sketch was his own, though long hair concealed part of his features. It was him. Everything fell into place in a single, horrifying instant.
Is this what I am? A monster?
The words echoed in his mind, drowning out the sounds outside. He trembled, lost in fear and confusion. Only one phrase repeated itself relentlessly: I'm lost.
Then, like a bolt of lightning, чужие images burst into his mind. A ruined school. A bitten teacher collapsing, students fleeing in a bus. Zombies everywhere, the city in flames, a mansion, and finally an escape. The memories—memories that could not be his—left him breathless. They were memories of days he had not lived, which he observed as a spectator; they passed in a few seconds, though they spanned several days. And at the end of all those memories, an image stood out: a ring he felt on one of his fingers—only now did he notice it—and a simple yet terrifying line hovering at the end of those recollections:
Take the surviving students to the Takagi mansion.
He struggled to process those seconds of information, but—
A scream tore through the silence.
"What are you doing?!" one of the officers shouted from outside.
The young man looked up, stunned. The officer who had been talking to the girl was struggling to pull her off him. She was biting his shoulder ferociously, her small teeth sunk deep into his flesh. The other officer, Takeuchi, ran toward them trying to pull her away, but it was useless. The man's screams filled the street, leaving passersby frozen in shock, as those screams continued to spread like a plague and people began to flee from the surreal scene, screaming. A mob was approaching, staggering forward with clumsy but relentless steps. Their inhuman moans made the young man's skin crawl.
"Help!" the bitten officer screamed. "Takeuchi, do something!"
But Takeuchi, paralyzed, watched the mob advance. Some fell, trampling others, emitting nothing but guttural growls. Terror forced him to retreat; he released the girl he had been trying to pull away from his partner and ran, abandoning him.
"Takeuchi, damn it, help me!" the officer on the ground begged, as the mob surrounded him, biting, tearing.
The young man in the car made no sound. He understood—by instinct or by those чужие memories—that noise attracted them. Sweating and clenching his teeth, he remained silent.
The mob continued on its way; noise drew them toward different places, though the sound of gunshots soon followed, and they advanced slowly, hungrily.
Once they were far enough away and he analyzed his situation, he carefully struggled against the handcuffs, driven by the fear of dying. Surprisingly, he managed to free himself, as if his body knew exactly what to do, as if it had experience in this situation—though he had no idea how he had done it.
Once free, his eyes fell on the ring on his finger; those memories told him it was very important, but there was no time to think—he had to get away from everything.
The chaos outside grew: screams, frantic footsteps, smoke rising from a nearby building. This is going to get worse, he thought, recalling images of the apocalypse. He couldn't leave on foot; they would catch him. The car was his only hope. He searched desperately, avoiding making noise. By a miracle—or the officers' carelessness—the keys were still in the ignition of the patrol car.
He started the engine. His hands, guided by an instinct he didn't recognize as his own—though moving clumsily as if trying to adapt—pressed the accelerator, carrying him away from hell. Traffic rules didn't matter. He only needed to escape, to find a place with fewer zombies. As he drove, the ruined city unfolded before him; he did everything he could not to listen to those screams, those impacts, and he took a deep breath, calming himself.
After driving far enough, the young man parked the car on a deserted road at the edge of a dark forest. Mountains surrounded him, silencing the city's chaos. For now, there were no zombies in sight. The adrenaline that had buried the pain faded, and a sharp burning sensation coursed through his body: bruises, cuts, or who knows what had been done to him before he woke up. In the distance, screams tore through the air, the sound of collisions echoed, and black smoke rose from shattered buildings. The world was falling apart.
He slid into the back seat, wiping sweat from his forehead. Now he could better examine the ring on his finger: it was a trinket that seemed to have no value, yet in his memories it was something extremely important, because this ring contained objects that would help him survive. He closed his eyes, and with a single thought, a small, rather strange chest appeared in his hand, radiating a peculiar aura. He examined the other items contained within the ring: an old cloth bag, a metal box, and a crumpled note stuck to the small chest. He could understand it perfectly; it read:
Think carefully. This chest will grant you what you desire.
The young man took a deep breath, set the chest aside, and began inspecting the other objects. The ring could store things; by focusing his mind, he could look inside it. It wasn't a small space, nor a large one, but it could hold many supplies if needed.
He opened the small bag. Inside were many green beans. He took one from the cloth bag: they were small, green, insignificant. He ate it without knowing what else to do with them; at the very least, he had a gut feeling that nothing from that ring would harm him. A comforting warmth spread through his body. The pain vanished, the hunger gnawing at him disappeared, and his muscles regained their strength. What the hell is this? he thought in surprise, inspecting his body. He felt extremely energetic—it was downright magical.
Excited, he inspected the small metal box. It contained nothing when he opened it. Closing it, he thought: food. He knew it was a bento box—food. Now that he thought about it, he didn't remember any food at all: no taste, nothing. He only remembered the taste of that small bean, and as if by magic, he felt the box in his hands grow heavier. When he opened it, he found many beans identical to the first.
He had received many beans in that small bag, but here, in his hands, there were far too many—so many they overflowed, enough to fill many bags like the small one he had been given. He tried one; he felt nothing magical beyond the familiar taste. He sighed and thought: It would be cheating to be able to get so many identical beans. I guess it's just for feeding myself. He grew excited instantly—if he managed to eat something truly delicious, he could replicate it with the box. He looked at the small chest that seemed far too important, stored everything else away, and with determination stepped out of the car.
He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, ignoring the chaos he could still hear in the distance and trying not to think about it. Holding the chest in his hands, the young man thought carefully, and only one coherent idea came to mind: he needed a weapon.
He thought of armor—armor could protect him from the zombies' deadly bites—but armor was heavy, and what if he couldn't move in it? It would just sit in his ring gathering dust. He also thought about how to use it; having to put it on—would he even have the time?
He could only think of a weapon. A weapon, because with zombies, all it took was a scratch and life would be over. Something that didn't require training or aiming for vital points like cutting off a zombie's head. He took a deep breath. I need a weapon that can kill in a single strike. With that thought, he opened the chest.
The chest vanished, and in his hands appeared a sword. Its scabbard and hilt were stained crimson, and the grip bore illegible inscriptions carved in some ancient language. He leaned closer with curiosity, and somehow, he understood them perfectly:
The deadly poison that instantly kills anyone wounded by its blade… Murasame.
It was exactly what he had asked for. Excited, he tried to draw it—but as if awakening a beast, a dark aura burst from the sword. The young man felt himself suffocating; terror consumed him, strength left his body, and he dropped the sword. He stared at it in horror while trying to catch his breath. As if nothing had happened, the sword lay on the street, without a trace of the black miasma he had felt. With trembling hands, he carefully touched it and stored it in the ring.
He let out a bitter sigh. His only means of defense was so terrifying that it was impossible to use. Returning to the car, a small spark of clarity entered his already empty mind. What use is a deadly poison against zombies that are already dead?
He clutched his head, remembering that he hadn't thought his wish through properly. He should have asked for a weapon that could kill anything—was that impossible? He sighed heavily, though he had managed to relax after escaping and obtaining such valuable items. The reminder in his mind resurfaced, the one that forced him to do dangerous things and find those students. He thought about escaping, but the simple thought of driving down this road to some remote place, away from the concentration of zombies and toward another part of the country, vanished. He suddenly felt as if he were suffocating; the air fled his lungs, and his thoughts stopped. He quickly regained consciousness, his breathing ragged—now he understood that he would die if he went against it.
The young man looked back at the road leading to the city and its chaos. He tried to regain his composure and calm himself, taking a deep breath. Now he had to think about what to do—because it felt impossible to achieve… or so he believed.