Chapter 7: The End Begins (3)

Reina’s palm pressed tight against Lilly’s lips, feeling her ragged exhale against her skin. Her silent plea burned brighter than the fires beyond the windows.

Stay quiet! Please!

The classroom they’d plunged into stank of blood. Overturned desks lay in shattered heaps, the wood stained dark red. Amid the wreckage, something lurched. Splinters crackling, glass tinkling under heavy, dragging limbs. Every scrape jolted Lilly’s shoulders and hammered Reina’s heart against her ribs. She didn’t know what the thing was or why it chased them. All she knew was that if Lilly screamed, they were both dead.

Her sister’s tear-streaked face lifted toward her. Pleading. Trembling. Lilly had never handled stress well—not during exams, not even over scraped knees. This was breaking her.

What should I do? What can I do?

She scoured the debris until her focus caught on a jagged shard of window glass glittering in the dust. She didn’t think twice. She slid her hand away from Lilly’s mouth just long enough to snatch the shard, curling her grip around the edge. Pain tore through her palm, hot and immediate, but she didn’t care. She yanked her sleeve down, tearing the fabric in muffled jerks, and clumsily wrapped it around the shard.

Lilly’s gasp ripped the hush apart. Reina pinned her with a desperate look. What am I doing? Her sister’s eyes widened with dawning fear. I’m going to get myself killed, she thought, even as she pressed her palm gently to Lilly’s cheek and held her gaze.

Her little sister. The only thing she had. Reina kissed her forehead, and stepped out from behind the knocked-over desk.

By the only exit crouched something that might once have been a man. Its blazer hung in tatters, blood crusted across pale flesh. Gashes yawned along its back, and blackened bite marks pocked its shoulders.

Her legs quivered, weak beneath her. The small cuts on her palms burned. Beyond the shattered windows, Hanamizu City glowed hellish red with smoke and flame. More wails carried up from below, a choir of screams turned into one voice.

She inhaled a ragged breath, gripped the glass dagger tighter, and stepped forward. Broken glass snapped under her heel, every fragment a bomb in her ears.

The creature pivoted. Its milky stare, rimmed with dried blood, drilled into her. Its jaw hung slack, a wet gurgle leaking from its torn lips, as if it tried to speak.

It charged.

Move. Her body wouldn’t listen. Her sight tunneled. Her head swam. Move. Damn it, move!

“Reina!”

Lilly’s cry snapped her out of it. She dove under the creature’s sweeping arms, rolling across jagged debris. Pain bloomed as glass slashed her forearm, but adrenaline drowned it.

The monster rammed into another desk and tumbled over it. It crawled out the other side, practically falling over itself to rise, then barreling toward her again.

Fueled by desperation, Reina drove the glass blade into its back. The shard sank deep; a strangled howl rattled her bones as she staggered backward. Unhindered, it lunged, turning its weight into a living hammer. Clawed hands pounded her forearms. Each blow felt as though her bones might splinter.

It hurts!

Agony and terror blurred until the monster’s hold yanked her upright, teeth gleaming a breath from her wrist. It hauled her forearm closer, its mouth gaping wide, teeth hovering inches from her flesh. She couldn’t draw air. Couldn’t even scream. Her gaze stretched wide, her expression nothing but raw terror.

The sharpened, wooden end of a broom tore through the back of its throat and stopped an inch from her face. A dark gush spilled from the slack jaw, dripping onto her uniform.

Reina panted, body shuddering. Pain still throbbed in her cuts, but fear had drained out, leaving only numb relief.

The eyes that met hers reflected nothing. Polished discs catching the red of the emergency lights. She curled inward instinctively. That gaze tracked over her face, down her blood-spattered uniform, lingering on her trembling knuckles.

“Aren’t you brave.”

The woman twisted the broom. A wet squelch followed as it slid free. Without looking, she dragged the wooden shaft across the monster’s tattered blazer, leaving a crimson streak. She tilted her head, the corner of her mouth lifting just enough to show the edge of a canine. “You didn’t die,” she said, smiling.

Reina’s fingers shook. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She clutched her sliced palm against her sternum, feeling her heartbeat thud against her knuckles.

“Most people,” she added softly, “didn’t make it this far.”

Her attention shifted past Reina, toward Lilly, who clung to the toppled desk with both hands. The smile thinned—still polite—but her eyes lingered too long.

We’ve yet to formally meet,” she said, as if reciting a line. “My name is Makabe Shion. Come. If we stay here, we’ll just add to the mess.”

My body is moving on its own.

The thought looped in his head as his feet carried him through Seiryo’s bleeding halls. He didn’t have to think about where he stepped or how he slipped between broken desks and scattered body parts. His body remembered. His mind was elsewhere.

Reina.

He bit down until his jaw ached. That echo was louder than the drum of rain in his head. He told himself she didn’t matter in the end, that none of this mattered. His pace quickened anyway.

He could see her face in his thoughts as clear as the red glow seeping through the windows. The halls were too still, too empty, as if the school itself had exhaled and never inhaled again. As if they were the only ones left.

The thought sank in his gut. If survivors were so few, scattered and fading by the minute, what were the odds she was among them? He hated himself for even imagining it. He hated that worry had wormed in when it shouldn’t exist at all. And here he was, wasting time, chasing a ghost.

Why?

He couldn’t explain it—no, that was a lie. He could. It was her fault, wasn’t it? Or maybe his. His thoughts circled, a vulture picking at the same rotting carcass. One moment he wanted to blame her for making him feel this way, for forcing herself into his life. The next, he despised himself for trying to pin it on her. Because who else had left the door cracked open for her to enter, if not him?

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. None of this is supposed to be happening.

A hand jutted from beneath an overturned vending machine, its fingers curled like wilted petals. The hallway clock ticked over another minute no one would mark. Seiryo belonged to them now; to the dead.

And she was out there, among them—alone.

“Please... Someone help me! I can’t—”

The sound shuddered through the corridor. A chair scraped across the tile. A weak fist pounded wood. Then, that same voice, cracked and desperate.

“Please. Someone help me.”

For a moment, he thought of moving on. And yet… his feet were already turning. They carried him to the door. A desk had been wedged sideways against it, legs jutting at sharp angles, smeared with blood where someone had tried to push through.

“Y-you! The door! Please!”

Walk away. Stop pretending.

But his palm was already on the desk. He shoved it without a word, muscles bunching. The pounding stopped in sudden, breathless silence. The door creaked open, and a man no older than him stumbled out, disheveled, shaking. The sour stench of sweat clung to him.

His gaze went wide at the sight of Ren, at the blood streaked across his uniform, and for a moment he looked ready to collapse. “Th-thank you,” he stammered. He bowed awkwardly, then bolted down the corridor. His shoes slapped against the tiles until the sound was swallowed by silence.

Ren didn’t call after him. Didn’t move to follow. He just stood there, posture rigid. His focus slid to the shattered window at the end of the hall.

Where is she? Reina—stubborn, certain, even when she had no right to be. She was capable, more than most, but that didn’t matter here. Not when one mistake meant teeth at your throat.

A cold weight pressed down on him. Even as he was now, stripped bare in this world, he could still reach for the thing inside him. That which had carried him through fire and blood once before. The thought flared, then faltered. His thoughts slipped unbidden to another time. Another place. To a kingdom ablaze. To a woman with sunlight for hair and glimmering stars for eyes. To the sword in her hands, a slab of light, thick and sharp.

His throat felt dry. He turned away from the window and kept walking, faster now.

Silence thickened.

A scream cut through it.

His stride broke into a near-run. The hallway shrank around him. Every wet tear of flesh echoed too loud. He rounded the corner just as the others converged.

They weren’t looking at each other. They were all staring at the same thing. And so was he.

The man he had freed minutes ago was on the floor. An infected bent over him, jaws tearing into his stomach. His fingers scrabbled weakly at the tiles, streaking them red, before his unfocused gaze locked with his.

He wanted to do something, anything. His hand twitched, but his legs stayed rooted. All he knew was the man’s slack face, the way his lips had tried to form words before giving out. The sound of feeding went on and on.

Until a broom shaft drove clean through its skull.