Min-Tong Lin didn't scream.
That was the first thing I noticed. Most people, seeing an army of the dead standing behind someone they knew, would have screamed. Would have slammed the door. Would have tried to run.
Min-Tong just stared.
"Wei," she said again, her voice carefully controlled. "Why are there zombies standing behind you?"
"Because I told them to stand there."
Her dark eyes searched my face. Looking for signs of madness. Looking for the joke. Looking for any explanation that made sense.
"That's not possible."
"And yet."
Behind her, the elderly woman clutched the teenage girl's arm. Both of them were trembling, their eyes fixed on my horde with naked terror.
"The dead things," the old woman whispered. "The dead things are here—"
"They won't hurt you," I said. "Not unless I tell them to."
That didn't seem to comfort anyone.
Ghost padded up to my side, and Min-Tong's gaze snapped to her.
"Is that... a cat?"
"Her name is Ghost. She's with me."
The human smells like Master, Ghost observed through our bond. Fear and confusion and... something else. Something warm.
Recognition, I thought. Despite everything, Min-Tong recognized me. Not just my face—but something deeper. Something she couldn't quite name.
In my original timeline, we'd been together for three years before the apocalypse. We'd survived the first wave together, fought side by side, built something like hope in a hopeless world.
Then she'd died, and that hope had died with her.
Ten thousand years later, here I was again. Standing in front of the woman I'd lost. The woman I'd come back to save.
And she was looking at me like I was a monster.
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"We should go inside," I said. "I'll explain everything, but not in the hallway."
Min-Tong hesitated. The elderly woman shook her head frantically.
"Min-Tong, don't let him in. Whatever he is—"
"Mrs. Chen." Min-Tong's voice was quiet but firm. "Wei and I... we knew each other. Before. He's not going to hurt us."
"How do you know that?"
Min-Tong didn't answer. She just stepped aside and gestured for me to enter.
I left most of my zombies in the stairwell—no need to terrify the survivors more than necessary. But I brought Ghost, and I brought three of my horde as an escort. Just in case.
The apartment was small—a living room connected to a tiny kitchen, a single bedroom, a bathroom. The windows were covered with sheets and blankets. Empty food cans littered the kitchen counter. A bucket in the corner served as... well. Survival wasn't glamorous.
Min-Tong sat on the couch, her posture rigid. The elderly woman—Mrs. Chen—huddled with the teenage girl in the kitchen doorway. The girl looked barely sixteen, her face hollow with hunger and fear.
"You have three minutes," Min-Tong said. "Explain."
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I told her.
Not everything. Not ten thousand years of war and death and the slow erosion of everything that made me human. But enough.
I told her about the return. Waking up seven days before the apocalypse with memories of a future that hadn't happened yet. The sense of displacement, of being a stranger in my own skin.
I told her about my power. The Death Aura. The ability to sense the dying, to bond with creatures on the edge of death, to command the dead.
I told her about the preparations. The compound. Max Yang. The growing community of survivors I'd gathered.
And I told her the one truth that mattered most.
"In my original timeline," I said, "you died on Day 3. You were helping survivors escape a collapsed shelter when a Tier 2 zombie caught you. I wasn't there. I didn't even know where you were until it was too late."
Min-Tong's face was unreadable.
"Day 3," she repeated. "That's tomorrow."
"Yes."
"And you came back... to save me."
"Among other things." I met her eyes. "But yes. You were the first thing I thought about when I woke up. Finding you. Making sure what happened before doesn't happen again."
Silence stretched between us.
Mrs. Chen broke it. "Time travel," she said flatly. "You expect us to believe you're a time traveler."
"I expect you to believe whatever helps you survive. The specifics don't matter. What matters is that I know what's coming, and I can help you live through it."
"By controlling the dead."
"By using every tool available."
The teenage girl spoke for the first time. "Can you... can you control all of them? Every zombie?"
"Not yet. My power is limited. But it's growing." I looked at her—really looked, taking in the fear and the hunger and the desperate hope beneath it all. "What's your name?"
"Lily. Lily Wong."
"Lily. I can't control every zombie in the city. But I can control enough to protect you. All of you. If you're willing to come with me."
Mrs. Chen shook her head. "Come with you where? Into the streets? With those... those things?"
"To a compound. Fortified. Supplied. Twenty-six survivors, plus myself. It's safer there than anywhere else in the city."
"How can we trust you?"
"You can't." I shrugged. "Not yet. Trust is earned, and I haven't had time to earn it. But consider the alternative. You're three women in a barricaded apartment with no food, no water, and zombies in the stairwell. How long can you last here? Another day? Two?"
No one answered.
"I'm offering you a chance to live," I continued. "That's all. Take it or leave it."
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Min-Tong Lin was quiet for a long time.
Finally, she stood and walked to the window. She pulled back the sheet just enough to look outside—at the ruined city, the wandering dead, the fires still burning in the distance.
"You remembered me," she said, not turning around. "After ten thousand years. You remembered me."
"I never forgot."
"That's..." She let the sheet fall back. "That's not normal, Wei. That's not how people work."
"I stopped being normal a long time ago."
She turned to face me. Her expression had changed—still cautious, still uncertain, but something else was there now. Something that looked almost like wonder.
"In your original timeline," she said slowly. "Before I died. Were we...?"
"Together. Yes."
"For how long?"
"Three years before the apocalypse. Two years after." I paused. "Five years total. The happiest years of my very long life."
Her eyes glistened. "And you came back to save me."
"I came back for a lot of reasons. But you were the most important one."
She took a step toward me. Then another. And then she was standing directly in front of me, close enough to touch, close enough that I could see the pulse jumping in her throat.
"Show me," she said quietly.
"Show you what?"
"Your power. Show me what you can do."
I hesitated.
Then I raised my hand, and my three zombie escorts stepped forward in perfect unison. They stopped at the edge of the living room, standing at attention like soldiers awaiting orders.
"Kneel," I said aloud.
All three dropped to their knees simultaneously.
"Rise."
They rose.
"Salute."
Three hands lifted to three foreheads in a grotesque parody of military precision.
Min-Tong watched the display with wide eyes.
"My God," she breathed. "It's real. It's all real."
"Every word."
She looked back at me, and for just an instant, I saw her—not as she was now, frightened and overwhelmed—but as she would become. The Saint. The healer. The woman who'd saved more lives than anyone else in my original timeline.
The woman I'd loved for ten thousand years.
"I'm coming with you," she said.
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We left the apartment an hour later.
Min-Tong, Mrs. Chen, and Lily Wong walked at the center of my formation—three living hearts surrounded by three hundred and fourteen dead bodies. It should have been a nightmare. Instead, it was a procession.
Ghost trotted beside Min-Tong, who kept glancing down at her with a mixture of fascination and unease.
The human is scared, Ghost observed.
She's handling it better than most.
She is special to Master.
Yes. Very special.
The journey back was smoother than the journey in. My zombies had already cleared most of the route, and any strays I encountered were quickly claimed.
Three hundred and twenty-one. Three hundred and thirty-four.
The headache was a constant drone now, like static at the edge of my consciousness. But I pushed through it. We were close. So close to safety.
And then I felt it.
A pulse of power.
Different from mine. Colder. More alien. Coming from somewhere ahead—somewhere on our route back to the compound.
I stopped.
"Wei?" Min-Tong's voice was concerned. "What is it?"
I didn't answer immediately. I was too busy reaching out with my Death Aura, trying to pinpoint the source of that pulse.
There.
Two blocks ahead. Moving parallel to our route. And surrounded by... not zombies. Something else. Something that felt like zombies but wasn't quite right.
Controlled zombies.
But not by me.
My blood went cold.
"We have a problem," I said quietly.