Fire on the Mountain II

He let go.

The forest convulsed. Trees bowed as if the heavens themselves had sunk to crush the earth. From his core came a pulse—silent at first, then tearing through the air. Space rippled outward, warping sound, light, and gravity itself. The earth groaned. The grass shuddered. And everything stopped.

The infected, moments ago sprinting through flame and shadow, now hung mid-lunge, limbs thrashing against invisible currents. Smoke ribboned around their bodies. Above them, burning leaves and drifting ash spiraled slowly, trapped in the pull of a storm without wind.

At the maelstrom’s heart, he stood motionless. The blast had torn his coat open, its edges snapping in the false wind. Reina’s blood soaked his shoulder and chest—its heat scalding against the cold sweat on his skin. Firelight painted him in gold and crimson, his shadow stretching monstrously long across the trembling ground.

He shifted his hold, cradling her closer, one arm locked around her waist. For one suspended heartbeat, time stopped. Even the flames seemed to hold their breath.

Above them, the infected hung against the moonlight—charred silhouettes writhing soundlessly, their dying embers forming a broken constellation.

Ren exhaled. The world around him loosened its grip; his boots hovered an inch above the ground. He drew one steady breath and let the pressure fill his lungs. The earth released him with a sound like rushing wind. His body blurred through the haze, weightless, Reina held tight against him as they arced through the storm of smoke and ash. Each landing came softer than the last—only the brush of bent grass and dust lifting. He adjusted with every motion, balancing precision against exhaustion, keeping her safe while his body screamed for rest.

Behind him, it began to rain. Bodies cascaded like falling stars—wet, concussive thuds, meat and bone collapsing under impossible force. He didn’t look back. Looking back never saved anyone.

Ren touched down atop a slope where the flames couldn’t reach, his boots barely whispering against the dirt. Momentum bled from his limbs, and he sank to one knee, clutching Reina close. Her head rested in the crook of his neck, her breath feather-light but still there. Still alive.

His hand trembled. Veins along his forearm pulsed with faint, molten light.

I can’t keep this up forever.

He looked down at her—the girl who’d stumbled into his life and unknowingly become the last tether to what little humanity he had left.
“We’re safe,” he whispered, though even he didn’t believe it. He set his palm to her forehead, brushing the streak of blood at her temple with his thumb. “This won’t heal you completely, but…”

A faint green light bloomed. It flickered weakly, struggling against the pull of his craft. Healing felt wrong—unnatural, like forcing the tide to run backward. Still, he poured what energy remained into her. The glow seeped into the wound, slowing the bleeding, sealing flesh with a faint hiss.

Beyond the treeline, embers drifted skyward like inverted snowfall. Somewhere in that darkness, the others were still alive—or dead. For this moment, Ren simply held her closer. The woods had gone still, save for the rhythm of her shallow breathing in his ears.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

The ceiling beams glowed like molten arteries, the house hemorrhaging fire as it split apart. Smoke forced itself through every seam, strangling Lilly with each breath. The living room dissolved into flame, walls collapsing like wet paper, floorboards curling and splitting beneath her. Through the haze, furniture became burning silhouettes and doorways—portals of light and heat.

She clamped her palms over her ears, but the noise pierced through—livestock wailing, gunfire in the distance, the low percussion of the structure giving way. Big sister… where are you?

Her legs failed as she tried to rise, muscles turned to water beneath skin gone cold with terror. A thunderous impact struck the doorframe ahead—another—until the wood gave way with a crack. For one terrible second, she thought it was over.

Then movement through the smoke—driven, not shambling. Shion burst from the haze. Soot streaked her face; a sleeve hung in tatters. In her hands, a crude weapon—a machete bound to a wooden pole with fraying cord. Through the churn of smoke, their gazes met.

“Move!”

Her arm hooked beneath Lilly’s, hauling her upright. They staggered through the doorway as a wall of heat slammed into them from behind. The living room yielded to gravity with a groan, retching fire in their wake. From the flames, something lurched—a human shape wreathed in red, mouth stretched wide in a soundless scream. Shion pivoted. Steel caught the light and swept. The head rolled back into the blaze.

They lurched through the corridor, smoke curling at their ankles. Lilly tried to speak and produced only a ragged cough. Another shadow lunged from a side door—skin blistered and dripping. Shion shoved her aside and met it head-on. Steel bit, a wet thunk. She wrenched the blade free and kicked the body back into the fire.

“Shion—your arm—”

Blood streaked down to her wrist wrap. She spared it a glance, shook her head. “It’s fine. Go.”

They burst into hell. The yard was an ocean of flame crawling across grass like living vines. From the stable came panicked whinnies. Every breath was molten, the air thick enough to choke. Sweat plastered Lilly’s clothes to her shaking body.

Shion shoved her toward the fence line. “Run! I’ll handle—”

The impact came without warning—a blur of charred flesh and teeth. The infected smashed into her, dragging them down. The weapon skittered away. Blackened fingers clawed for her throat, jaws snapping inches from her face. Shion drove a knee up, felt something crack, and still the thing came on.

“Get away from her!”

Lilly’s grip found a splintered fence post. Panic and fury fused as she swung, the wood whistling through smoke. Not this time. The jolt shot up her arms; bone crunched. The creature reeled. Shion surged, heaved it off, reclaimed her weapon, and punched the blade through its skull.

Boots pounded over packed earth; voices cut through the inferno’s growl.

“You two! Over here!”

Sayaka emerged first, rifle raised. Ash had turned her face into a war mask, hair singed and wild. The others followed—Shigure with his rifle white-knuckled, Amira at his shoulder, Haruto with a trembling knife, Hayami streaked with tears, Satsuki clutching a pitchfork like a spear.

Sayaka reached them first and seized Lilly’s shoulders as if she might vanish. “I thought—” Her voice cracked, relief raw. “I thought we’d lost you too.”

“The others—did anyone see them?” Satsuki shouted. “After the blast—I couldn’t—”

Shigure’s rifle cracked twice. Two shapes crumpled mid-lunge, but more came—shadows spilling from the dark, limbs jerking as the flames backlit their broken rush.

Sayaka pointed. “The truck—there!”

The pickup sat half-melted; tires had puddled, the windshield spider-webbed. Inside, something still thrashed against a seat belt—jaw unhinged in a silent scream as smoke poured from the engine. Shigure fired again—and missed.

Sayaka stopped. Lilly saw her gaze fixed on the burning truck, then swept the yard—flame devouring everything, smoke choking the sky, the night caving in. Her expression hardened.

“Get out.”

Haruto turned. “Takemori-san, what are you—”

“Go!” Her voice fractured. She shoved Lilly toward him, eyes bright and terrible. “This land has our blood in it already.” Her rifle came up. Crack. A body dropped. Crack. Another fell. Crack. Each gunshot punched through the chaos like a drumbeat counting down to the end.

“Takemori-san!” Lilly screamed, throat raw.

Shigure locked an arm around her waist and dragged her back. “She’s made her choice! Run!”

Flames swallowed the horizon. Sayaka’s gunfire faltered, turned ragged—then fell silent. The quiet stretched, unbearable, before one last shot snapped the night in two.

Halfway across the field, Lilly’s legs buckled. Shigure caught her, hauling her forward. Behind them, the farmhouse groaned one final time and folded into a tower of sparks.

Lilly twisted back as they pulled her on. Through the smoke, the inferno burned like a funeral pyre. For a moment, a lone silhouette stood at its edge—a woman with a rifle raised against the fire—before the smoke consumed her too.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Midori crashed through underbrush, thorns and snapped branches knifing skin. Behind him, the forest blazed—gray smoke billowing into the night. Every breath scorched, tasting of iron and cinders.

“Don’t stop!” Kurobane’s voice tore the dark.

His lungs burned. The shotgun thudded against his ribs as he ran, its single remaining shell rattling like a death knell. To his right, Haruka fired twice more; each flash carved their terror-struck faces in white before throwing them back into shadow.

Yuka stumbled and caught herself on a trunk. Her grip flexed around phantom steel—the machete lost in the blast. Every few strides, she glanced to her empty fingers, as if will alone might bring it back.

“Left!” Kurobane cut through the dark.

Through gaps in the trees, moonlight skimmed a thread of highway—salvation beyond the smoke. Between them and escape, the night pulsed with motion. Shapes flitted between trunks—glints like wet coins where eyes should be.

A blur burst from the shadows, colliding with Kurobane mid-stride. They went down hard. Midori froze, pulse hammering. The infected’s jaws snapped inches from Kurobane’s throat.

“Get it off!”

Steel caught moonlight as the knife plunged—throat, base of skull. Blood sprayed, and the thing only clawed harder, fingers digging for purchase. The shotgun wavered in Midori’s hands. One shot would end it—if the buckshot didn’t take them both.

Haruka made the choice he couldn’t.

Two gunshots split the trees. The first chewed bark. The second burst through rotten skull, peppering Kurobane with gore. He shoved the corpse aside, gasping, fabric around his sleeve smoking where the round had grazed.

Yuka yanked him up by the collar. “Come on!”

Branches cracked behind them—the gunfire had called more. Silhouettes broke the undergrowth on twisted limbs, their howls slicing through the fire’s rush. Midori chambered his last shell and fired. The shotgun kicked, and one creature blew apart mid-leap.

They tore through brush toward that distant strip of concrete. The scorched air gave way to something worse—the sweet-rot stink that rides cold wind. Through the trees, the open highway glimmered.

He almost said it out loud—We’re going to make it—then swallowed the curse. He glanced back. For an instant, the flames caught her—hair wild, face ash-streaked, gaze fixed on his.

Something smashed into her flank, hauling her from the treeline in a blur. The sounds came next. A heavy thud. A crack. Her scream—cut short.

“YUKA!”

Midori’s cry split the dark. Haruka pivoted, firing blind. The first round vanished. The second and third hit—but the thing only twitched and fed faster. Kurobane was already moving, knife flashing. They followed—blind, breathless, desperate.

It had her pinned. Jaws clamped to her shoulder, tearing in fits. Blood misted in fine arcs. Her scream fell to a strangled rasp. Kurobane hit from the side; the blade found the hinge where skull meets spine. A wet crunch, and the body sagged.

Beneath it, Yuka still moved. She blinked, focus slipping. She pressed both hands to her torn neck, but blood pushed between her fingers in stubborn pulses. Each breath rattled; air bubbled where the throat could no longer seal.

Midori dropped beside her, knees sinking into the soaked earth. “Yuka—hey—hey, look at me!”

Her gaze found him—dilated, shaking. She tried to speak; only a gurgle answered. Her hand lifted, trembled violently, and snagged his sleeve.

Haruka’s pistol quivered; tears cut clean tracks through soot. “Maybe we could—if we just—”

“No…” Kurobane crouched, wiping blood from his brow. His voice was hoarse and final. “It took the artery.”

Yuka’s mouth shaped something—his name, a prayer? Midori’s chest seized as her stare began to fog. He swallowed bile and still couldn’t move.

Haruka staggered back, palm over her mouth to dam the sound.

Kurobane’s grip tightened on the knife. “She’ll turn if we don’t.”

Midori didn’t hear him. He saw only her—shallow breaths, tears mixing with the red on her cheeks, that small sound when pain crested. She was still here. Still Yuka Fujimori.

Steel whispered through flesh. Quieter than a sigh. Her fingers twitched once, then fell still. Midori flinched, bile surging. He turned and retched into the dirt until nothing remained but tremors.

Cold highway light washed the trees. Yuka lay at the edge of it, blood pooling beneath her head like a crown. The knife rested where mercy had found her.

“We need to go.” The words cracked like brittle glass.

Haruka brushed a strand of hair from Yuka’s brow with unsteady care, then stood. Midori didn’t move. He studied her face.

Then the moans—closer. Drawn to the noise.

Kurobane hauled him up by the shoulder. “Now.”

Midori followed, hollow. His world was muffled, as if sound couldn’t find him. They broke onto the highway. He looked back one last time. Under the pale lamps, Yuka’s eyes caught the light—almost alive. Until the shadows swallowed her.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

Consciousness returned like a tide.

First the rhythm—a gentle rocking that matched the crunch of gravel beneath someone’s boots. Then sensation—rough fabric against her cheek, the solid warmth of a shoulder rising and falling.

“Ren…?” Her voice was a rasp, barely there. Pain bloomed in places she didn’t know existed.

He turned slightly, moonlight cutting the edge of his profile. His expression gave nothing away. Ahead, the road went on between silent houses—windows shattered, doors yawning like open mouths. Far off, the mountain still pulsed like a failing heart. “Welcome back,” he murmured.

Her lips cracked as she forced the words out. “The others?”

Ren hesitated long enough that she already knew. “There was an explosion. We lost everyone in the chaos.”

She lifted her head, searching the horizon where the glow still smoldered. “What about Lilly?”

His jaw tightened. His focus never left the road. “I don’t know.”

Her chest collapsed like a house of cards. Images flashed—the farmhouse engulfed, flames licking at weathered boards, smoke choking the night air. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the vision burned behind her lids. Breathe. Just breathe. Lilly had survived worse. She was quick, resourceful. Someone would have grabbed her hand, pulled her through the chaos. Reina’s fingers curled into fists.

Her little sister was alive. She had to be.

The wind carried faint groans—perhaps branches shifting, or something worse. Reina’s chest tightened. “You saved me again, didn’t you?” she whispered.

He didn’t reply.

They moved through the dark, Ren’s breath shallow and uneven, the whisper of falling ash the only sound between them. Reina fought the undertow of sleep when his stride faltered. His knee found asphalt with a dull thud, sending her sliding off. She caught herself, grit biting her palms.

“Ren?!”

Under the moon, his face was wrong—paper-pale, lips drained of color. Blood traced a slow line from nose to chin. Each breath sounded like tearing cloth.

“Your nose—what’s happening to you? Are you hurt?”

He wiped it away with the back of his hand. “It’s nothing,” he lied. “Just… need to rest. Think you can walk now?”

Despite the fear knotting her stomach, she let out a shaky breath that almost became a laugh. “Even now, you’re still trying to act tough.” It should’ve annoyed her. Instead, it steadied her hands.

“I just need a moment.”

Reina scanned the street. Tall hedges, iron gates, long drives vanishing into shadow. Even through smoke she recognized Suiren Gaoka—the old district. Weekend drives, gates that never opened. Reina knew this hill. Houses built like monuments, now empty. The mall sat downhill like a catch basin for that wealth; this neighborhood always fed down to it.

A glint tugged her eye: a bicycle half-buried under branches. The front wheel was bent but still turned in the breeze, spinning out a soft metallic whine.

“Don’t move,” she said.

Ren blinked, unfocused. “Reina, I can’t—”

She set a finger to his lips. “Save your strength. I’ve got this.”

Working quickly, she threaded her cardigan sleeves through the bike’s frame and tore shirts from her bag and whatever she could find into strips she could knot together. The contraption sagged under its own weight, but it would do. She eased him onto it—carefully—and began to push. The fabric strained, whispering over the cracked asphalt as she dragged him forward.

Ren lay back, staring into a star-starved sky. The warped wheel squealed at every turn, its uneven rhythm becoming the only sound in a world gone silent.

Reina’s breath hitched as she worked, every step sending jolts through her exhausted legs. Wind sighed through the broken hedges, carrying the mingled scents of smoke. Shadows stretched long beneath the streetlights—thin, trembling things that moved when she did.

“What do we do now?” she asked finally, her voice barely rising above the whisper of the wheel.

“I don’t know,” he said.

She tilted her head back, following his gaze. Above, a handful of stars still pierced the haze, stubborn and faint, like they refused to hide even after everything else had. She kept the bicycle moving, the rhythm giving her something to cling to when something caught her eye. Ahead, through the mist and smoke, a faint glow pulsed behind glass.

A light.

The shape of a house loomed behind it, rising out of the dark like the ghost of a dream. Its steep gables and wide veranda were silhouetted against the gray sky. Iron gates hung crooked at the base of its driveway.

Reina slowed to a stop. “There’s a light up there,” she whispered.

Ren didn’t answer.

The wheel gave one last tired squeak before falling still. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. The glow remained steady in the window above—golden and still, as if it had been waiting for them all along.

It didn’t flicker.

It watched.