Limping, one hand braced against the wall, Artur pressed on, leaving the battlefield behind. The discovery of the monsters' internal war brought him no comfort—only another layer of complexity to an already impossible situation. He was still the only thing here that did not belong.
The anomaly that bled red.
He entered what must once have been the heart of an upscale shopping district. Designer storefronts lined the street, their display windows shattered, hollowed out. It was there—reflected in a shard of dark glass on the pavement—that he saw movement.
His instincts screamed.
He threw himself sideways into the shadowed entrance of a jewelry store, heart slamming against his ribs. The sudden motion sent a wave of white-hot agony through his injured leg, and he bit down hard to keep from crying out. Slowly, cautiously, he peered around the edge of the doorway.
Not monsters.
People.
A small group—four at most. An older man and woman. A young guy in his early twenties. And a woman he recognized with a jolt: Carla, the delivery driver from the workshop.
She had survived.
They were crouched behind a massive concrete planter, moving with the kind of silent terror that had become the new normal. They were rummaging through an abandoned car—searching for food, water, anything.
Something inside him stirred. A part he had thought buried and cauterized.
Relief.
Other humans. He wasn't completely alone. The isolation of this hell was a crushing weight, and for a moment the idea of joining them—of sharing that weight—was almost overwhelming.
To speak.
To hear a human voice instead of snarls… or the echo of his own pain.
He watched as the young man finally forced the trunk open. They found a backpack. The small victory was marked not by cheers, but by frantic nods and shaky exhalations of relief.
Carla took the bag. She scanned the street with wide, frightened eyes.
And then she looked straight at the storefront where Artur was hiding.
Their eyes met.
Just for a second.
He saw recognition. Then fear.
Then something worse.
A kind of reverent dread.
She remembered him.
The man with the axe.
The man who had drawn hell down upon them.
She didn't wave. Didn't call out.
Instead, she touched the young man's arm and whispered something. The entire group stiffened. They looked toward the store entrance—toward him—with renewed terror.
And they began to move away.
Not running.
Retreating.
Putting distance between themselves and him.
And Artur understood.
He wasn't a savior. He wasn't an ally.
He was a magnet for danger.
Whatever governed this place—the "system," as he had begun to think of it—was focused on him. The creatures he had killed. The blood he had spilled. It had marked him.
He was the infection.
And the nightmare's immune system was dispatching antibodies to erase him.
Joining that group wouldn't bring them safety.
It would bring them condemnation.
Staying near him was a death sentence. The horde that had hunted him, the scouts that had flanked him—they would find him again. And when they did, anyone beside him would be collateral damage.
The temptation turned to ash in his mouth.
Loneliness was no longer a burden.
It was a responsibility.
His self-imposed quarantine.
To protect them, he had to stay away. He was the lone wolf—not by choice, but by necessity—because his very presence endangered the herd.
He watched as Carla and her small band of survivors disappeared into an alley, leaving him behind.
That brief flicker of connection only deepened the abyss of his isolation.
He turned away, the pain in his leg an echo of something deeper, and limped in the opposite direction.
A ghost among ghosts.
Hunted and hunter.
Condemned to walk alone.