Fire on the Mountain

The Grand Cathedral rose before them, pale and massive as a bleached mountain. Its spires scraped the crimson sky like desperate fingers. Blood streamed down the marble staircase in thick rivulets, pooling at the entrance like some grotesque offering. The banners of the Holy Kingdom hung in tatters, sagging under soot and moisture, their colors bled to nothing.

He waded through the dead, his boots sinking into flesh and fabric with each step. Leon walked at his side, a broad shadow moving through the slaughter. Sandy-blond hair fell past his chin, framing a face carved from stone. Only his gaze betrayed life—burning with steady resolve as he slid his blade home with ritual calm.

“Are you ready?”

The words dragged something bitter out of his chest. Ready? His sword thrummed against his palm as his grip tightened. Memories flickered like sparks—Tomas laughing over campfire stew, Kira collapsing with a magical arrow through her heart. His blistered hands breaking frozen ground for their graves. His mother’s vacant eyes in the ruins of their home. All of it sacrificed to feed the ambition of a monster.

“Yeah.” The word grated like stone over dry earth.

“For Sera.”

The name struck like a blade to the gut. A flash of red hair in sunlight, blue eyes brimming with life. Her face unmarked, even as blood clung to the whorls of his fingertips.

For her. For everyone they had lost.

The cathedral doors creaked open, spilling harsh light across the dead. Ren raised his sword, pulse thundering in his ears—when suddenly the world convulsed. The crimson sky fractured, shattering into blackness.

“Ren.”

Leon’s voice—urgent, distant.

Hands seized his shoulders, shaking him violently.

“Ren, wake up.”

“Wake up!”

Her voice cut the dream apart. Smoke seared his lungs, wrenching a cough from his chest as his eyes flew open. Orange light pulsed against the dark sky. Thick smoke poured through every seam of the farmhouse in the distance. Reina loomed above him, her face streaked with sweat and terror, fingers digging into his shoulders.

“Ren! Fire—they’re coming—” Her words broke into a sob. “Lilly’s still in the house!”

She tore from his grasp, lurching toward the door, one arm raised against the searing orange glow.

“Reina, stop!”

“There’s a path!” she cried, voice cracking with desperate hope. Between the barn and the field, flames seemed to bend aside, leaving a narrow corridor of smoke. “I can get to her!”

Ren lunged and clamped her wrist, his grip iron. She spun on him, wild-eyed, but froze at the sight of his expression.

“Look again,” he said.

Reina blinked through the haze, chest heaving. The path wasn’t empty—it writhed with movement. Human-shaped infernos staggered through, arms thrashing as fire devoured them. Each flicker of light revealed more figures streaming from the trees, their guttural howls splitting the roar of burning timber.

Hell had broken loose in the farmyard. Smoke rolled upward in choking waves, blotting out the stars. Red and orange bursts lit the night like a dying heartbeat, and in those brief flashes, countless shapes moved—some ablaze, others shadows, all drawn to the screams and the crash of falling beams.

Ren’s gaze cut across the corridor of smoke, mind racing. Heat pressed against his skin with suffocating weight. Through that gauntlet? Death, swift and certain. Around the edge of the farm? Slim, but possible.

He wrenched Reina toward him, gripping her shoulders until she stilled. “We can’t go through. They’ll rip you apart before you take ten steps.”

Reina’s lips trembled. “But Lilly—”

His jaw clenched. “Around. It’s the only way.”

If I let go of you now, I’m choosing your grave.

Chaos devoured the night. Burning bodies reeled through the trees like vengeful spirits, shadows surged toward the noise, and the farm flickered between harsh brilliance and suffocating dark. Nothing beyond arm’s reach stayed real.

Ren led her into the treeline, his grip locked like steel. Each stride carried them further from the great oak and the collapsing barn, which vanished behind them in a tower of sparks and smoke.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Orange streaks slashed across the night sky, the farm’s blaze mimicking sunrise hours too early. Yuka huddled with the others—Hayami, Haruto, Satsuki—their skin ghostly under the pulsing glow. Each inhale carried the nauseating tang of charred meat mixed with fuel, a taste that clung to the back of her tongue.

The barn roof glowed at its edges, timbers spitting embers. From inside came the frantic percussion of hooves and the keening of trapped animals. Across the fields, the infected lurched forward with fire stitched to their flesh, their howls rising and falling like damned souls clawing out of the grave.

Yuka’s gaze darted from face to face, silently ticking names against an invisible roster. Six? Seven? The gaps between them loomed like accusations. She tried to count again and lost it at four; faces kept smearing into smoke.

Hayami’s nails dug into her forearm. “If we stay, the smoke kills us before they do.”

Before Yuka could answer, more figures stumbled out of the haze—Midori, Kurobane, Haruka—their words colliding in panic.

“Did anyone get bit? Is everyone all right?” Midori gasped.

“I can’t even see faces—this smoke—” Kurobane hacked into his sleeve, eyes streaming.

“Who’s missing?” Haruka’s demand cut through the confusion.

“Makabe-san! And the sisters!” Haruto shouted.

“We’re here,” Amira choked as she emerged, dragging the boy in tow. His glassy eyes reflected the firelight, his breaths quick and shallow, lips trembling around whimpers.

Another shadow stepped out behind her. Shigure—rifle clutched tight, sweat carving pale tracks through the soot on his face. His chest heaved, his eyes wild. “The woods are crawling with them,” he barked, voice cracking. “Our only chance is the city!”

“The city? Through that?” Kurobane flung his arm toward the wall of flame chewing through the fields.

Shigure’s jaw worked, teeth bared, before he snapped his head back and screamed over the din: “You have another option? There isn’t one!”

Faces around Yuka hardened, others sagged. Fear spread like infection itself, crawling under her skin. She pressed a hand to her gut, nausea rising.

“Dad!” Sayaka burst from the treeline, half-dragging Kurama beside her. Blood streaked her cheeks, her gaze skittering frantically until it landed on the weapon in Shigure’s hands. She froze. “My father’s gun.” The words splintered, brittle as kindling. Her stare locked on Shigure. “Why do you have that? What happened to him?”

Shigure faltered. His knuckles whitened around the rifle, pulling it close like a shield. “Sayaka—your father—” His voice fractured, the rest dying in his throat.

The forest answered for him. Blazing figures erupted from the treeline, their shrieks climbing over the din as shadowed forms stampeded after them.

“The shed!” Sayaka’s voice cracked like a whip. She thrust her arm through the smoke. “Now! Move!”

They surged as one, a human tide of terror. Midori and Haruka broke ahead, the rest stumbling in their wake. Yuka was carried forward, each breath scraping her lungs raw, each blink grinding ash across her eyes.

Inside the shed, pandemonium. Bodies slammed against one another, hands snatching, metal clattering against concrete. The arsenal spilled across the floor like bones in a grave: rifles, pistols, blades dulled with rust, boxes of brass-tipped ammunition.

“Grab something—anything!” Kurobane roared, shoving a knife toward Satsuki.

The spell broke. Yuka’s hands closed around a blade, its weight alien and slick in her trembling grip. Haruto fumbled with a hunting knife, nearly dropping it. Midori pumped a shotgun with practiced rhythm, teeth grit. The boy hefted a machete too heavy for him, his arms shaking.

The first infected smashed through the doorway.

The boy’s scream tore the air as he swung too wide, missing by inches. The creature crashed into him, jaws locking on his shoulder with a wet crunch. His shrieks turned to gurgles, the machete clattering from his grip.

Yuka’s vision tunneled. She saw him writhe under clawing hands, ribs cracking open like rotten wood. His scream climbed until it snapped—just breath and bubbles. Blood sprayed in pulses across the shed, warm on her cheek, metallic on her lips.

Gunfire thundered. Shigure fired blindly, teeth bared in a snarl, each recoil jerking his shoulders. The shed strobed with muzzle flash—faces caught mid-scream, mouths locked in terror, blood slicking walls. One shot. Two. Three. The infected’s skull burst apart, body collapsing into the mess.

“Out!” Sayaka commanded.

Yuka stumbled into the yard last, lungs ablaze. Behind her, the farm writhed in ruin. The barn’s skeleton glowed orange-white, animals shrieking as timbers gave way. Broken lanterns birthed rivers of flame that snaked across dirt and wood. The infected reeled through it all like moving pyres, spreading destruction with every step.

Kurama fired twice into the dark, then vanished beneath a dozen bodies. The gun clattered away; his last sound was not a word but a wet, breaking sob. His scream cut the night in half, then died, smothered by the roar and the infected’s frenzy.

The air thickened, turning to liquid ash. The world shrank to flickering silhouettes and choking heat. Yuka stumbled backward, hacking for air, vision watering until the night blurred.

That was when she saw it. By the barn—sparks skittering up the generator, crawling over the rusted oil drums.

The explosion split the world apart.

A dome of fire erupted skyward, the shockwave hammering through the farm. Yuka threw up her arms as the concussion slammed her to the ground, shrapnel and sparks pelting her skin. When she raised her head, nothing remained. Only flame and ruin.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Ren hauled Reina forward, both of them bent low along the treeline. Each breath scoured his lungs raw as smoke clawed after them, thick enough to taste. Behind, the farm burned higher, vomiting sparks into the night. Through the trees, flaming silhouettes careened—infected turned to living torches, their burning flesh touching off pines into towering matchsticks.

“The others—” Reina’s cough choked the rest, fingers clutching his sleeve with desperate strength. “We can’t just leave them—”

His eyes swept the hellscape. Beyond the wall of haze, he glimpsed shapes thrashing in the glow—fragments of the group scattered like embers in the wind. Voices reached him for a moment, torn to tatters by the roar, then vanished as the blaze devoured all trace.

I can’t reach them. The truth bit sharper than the heat. Even if I tried, I’d lose her in the dark. I can’t lose her too. If I stop, she dies.

The blast came like a second dawn. The night shattered—a monstrous flower of light splitting the sky, flinging debris across the forest.

Ren turned, pulling Reina tight as the earth heaved, shielding her as splinters rained down. The farmhouse folded in on itself, the barn dissolved into cinders, the farm erased in a single convulsion of thunder.

Screams. Gunshots. The howl of hungry throats.

Ren’s chest ached as he dragged her onward. Each stride deeper into the trees felt heavier, his lungs fighting for every ragged breath.

What am I supposed to do? If it’s for her… does anything else even matter? If she sees what I can really do—what I really am—will she ever look at me the same?

If she sees. She’ll know what I’ve hidden, what I’ve done. She’ll never look at me the same. Maybe she’ll hate me. Maybe she should.
But not tonight. Not like this.

I don’t want to lose it. That look in your eyes. That smile meant for me alone.

Another shockwave rippled the ground.

“Ren!” Reina cried out, stumbling. Her ankle twisted against a root, sending her pitching forward. Her skull met stone with a sickening crack. She collapsed, breath shallow, blood threading through her hair in the glow.

He dropped beside her, hand trembling as he brushed at the wound. Her earlier cry still seemed to hang in the air, echoing through the smoke, refusing to fade.

And others had heard it.

Figures lurched through the haze, eyes glinting like molten copper in the firelight. Their footfalls pounded closer, raw cries sharpened by frenzy, closing in on the sound of prey. Branches whispered. Then snapped.

Ren’s pulse thundered. His fingers curled into a fist, the familiar pull stirring deep inside him. The weight pressed against his skin, begging to be unleashed.

Reina’s chest rose faintly. She didn’t stir. She wouldn’t know.

The cries grew louder, the silhouettes clearer. Darkness closed like a noose—smoke choking on one side, ravenous death on the other. And there, over Reina’s still body, Ren’s choice crystallized.

He took a deep breath.

The weight fell.