The Day the World Went Away (3)

Her footsteps echoed sharply across the tile as she hurried forward, scanning each darkened storefront she passed.

“Lilly?” The name left her lips and echoed back from all directions, a betrayal of sound in the hollow space. She tried again, softer. “It’s Reina. I’m here.”

A vise clamped around her lungs. She quickened her steps but kept herself in check—running would only lead to mistakes. As she rounded the corner, darkness shifted and solidified. Reina recoiled, pulse thundering.

“Makabe-san?”

The figure stepped into the weak glow of the emergency lights, palms forward as if approaching a frightened animal. Dirt streaked her face, and what looked like blood darkened her torn sleeve.

“Oh thank god,” she exhaled, shoulders sagging. “I was hoping I’d find someone.”

Reina closed the distance between them in three quick strides. “You’ve been gone for hours. Are you hurt?”

“I was with your sister,” Shion said, the words tumbling out. Her features hardened, jaw clenching as though she’d failed at something important.

“My sister—where is she now?”

Shion’s gaze darted over her shoulder toward the darkened hallway. “We were moving some gear together when they came out of nowhere. A group. Not infected. People.”

Reina felt the floor tilt beneath her.

“They were armed,” Shion whispered, throat working. “They started yelling—demanding the supplies. One of them grabbed at Lilly and she panicked.” A tremor rippled through Shion’s words. “She ran.”

A sharp, cold spike of fear stabbed through Reina’s chest.

“Where?”

Shion pointed toward a shadowed passage. “Down there. I tried to follow her, but—” Her voice caught, shoulders hunching inward. “They outnumbered me.”

A tremor rippled through Reina’s hands as she balled them into fists. Behind her eyelids flashed Lilly—small, terrified, vanishing into blackness where anything could be waiting. Words caught in Reina’s throat. No time for questions now.

Shion’s face, beneath the grime and dried blood, had lost its usual composure. The imperious gaze that once pinned Reina in place was nowhere to be found.

Whatever resentment she had carried dissolved instantly. Without speaking, Reina pivoted toward the shadowed hallway. Shion’s fingers caught the edge of her sleeve.

“Hold on. Going in there alone is suicide.”

“She’s my baby sister,” Reina said.

Something flickered across Shion’s face—a shadow, there and gone. “We go together,” she said finally.

They crept deeper into the mall’s abandoned heart, each footfall a whisper against the tile. Cold air pressed against her skin. The generators’ distant hum faded behind. The passageway constricted around them, emergency lighting reduced to amber ribbons tracing the floor’s edge.

Shion’s voice barely carried through the stillness.

“She can’t be far.”

With each step forward, the temperature dropped further. Her pulse thundered behind her eyes, drowning out everything but her own fear. Until—something scraped against tile. A slick, heavy sound followed, like meat being dragged. Every muscle in Reina’s body locked.

At the corner, darkness erupted into motion—a blur of limbs and torso. Reina’s body jolted backward before her mind could process what she was seeing. The thing slammed full-force into her chest, sending her airborne over the railing. Her back cracked against the floor below, lungs collapsing.

Pain flared—white, blinding, searing. Her mouth stretched wide but no sound emerged. Above her, the creature plummeted, its skull meeting tile with a sickening crack. It twitched once, then stilled.

Reina’s fingers found the source of her agony, pressing against torn fabric where something warm pulsed between her trembling hands. A white-hot blade seemed to slice through her abdomen.

“S-Shion—!”

The name escaped as barely more than air. Nothing answered. Beneath her ribs, something hammered as the truth crystallized in her mind—terrible, inescapable. Her legs trembled beneath her weight, then gave way completely. Another scream died in her throat. Her throat closed as if invisible hands were squeezing it shut.

From somewhere down the corridor came a chorus of guttural clicks.

Reina clawed her way across the floor, each movement sending fresh waves of agony through her torso. Blood bubbled between her lips with every labored breath. A storefront loomed ahead—salvation behind its metal lattice. Her fingers found the gate’s edge, but slipped in her own crimson trail. With each breath, more of her life seeped into the cold tile beneath her.

The word slipped from her bloodied lips as a prayer.

“Please…”

Metal groaned, then surrendered with a final crash. Her body crumpled against the barrier, a marionette with cut strings. The clicking sounds multiplied, growing louder.

Her world began to fade at its edges. Beyond the lattice, shapes materialized in the corridor—writhing silhouettes that hurled themselves against her fragile sanctuary as consciousness slipped away.

━━━━━━━━━━𝑾𝑪𝑨━━━━━━━━━━

The wrongness hit Midori as they emerged from the service corridor into the terminal’s vast expanse. Dying lights hummed overhead, and something—many somethings—cut faintly in the darkness beyond the platforms.

Above, the vaulted ceiling curved away into darkness, its metal framework an exposed skeleton. Abandoned shops stood sentinel along the perimeter, their metal gates pulled tight.

Before them stretched the monorail platform, a black maw swallowing what little light remained. Beyond it, twin doors gaped into the station’s central hub, harsh fluorescence spilling outward. Near the far end of the platform, a figure materialized from the shadows.

Its silhouette wavered, head lolling at a sickening angle no living person could maintain. A second form emerged beside it, then a third, their movements jerky and disjointed.

His skin prickled, a cold sensation slithering from the base of his neck down each vertebra. With each step forward, the darkness yielded its secrets.

First a few dozen silhouettes materialized, then twice that number, then too many to count. They lined the walls, draped across benches, hung over railings. Shoulder to shoulder, as if waiting for a train that would never arrive. The terminal wasn’t just occupied—it was infested.

What the hell…?

Metal scraped against metal beside him—a weapon’s safety disengaging. Along the line, gloved hands tightened their grip on assault rifles, index fingers hovering just millimeters from triggers.

The vanguard advanced with excruciating precision, makeshift spears extended—knives lashed to broomsticks and chair legs with electrical tape and twine.

Each thrust found its mark in infected flesh. Each kill collapsed to the floor with a muffled impact, the bodies falling so quietly that nearby infected continued their vacant staring, oblivious to the methodical culling happening mere feet away.

Blinding fluorescence exploded across the terminal, bathing every surface in unforgiving light. The station’s PA system crackled to life with a mechanical chime followed by a disembodied voice announcing a train.

The sudden sensory assault transformed the infected instantly—they jerked and contorted, faces tilting upward in unison. Jaws stretched wide, unleashing a cacophony—hundreds of inhuman voices merging into a single, primal howl of hunger.

Midori’s stomach plummeted as if the floor had dissolved beneath him. Cold sweat erupted across his skin while his throat constricted. A thousand glimmering eyes fixed on him at once and in that moment, he understood with terrible clarity what prey feels in its final seconds of awareness.

Someone shouted a command, and suddenly the air filled with noise—portable speakers and cell phones blaring at maximum volume, hurled to shatter against distant windows or clatter across the platform.

The infected mass heaved forward, collided with barriers, crawled over fallen comrades, fingers clawing toward fresh prey. A gun discharged—the crack split reality in two. More shots followed, their reports bouncing off walls as projectiles punched through infected flesh.

They never stood a chance. The infected poured through every opening, trampling the fallen, their own dead crushed beneath a surge of writhing limbs.

Grasping fingers found purchase. Jaws clacked hungrily. Bones snapped beneath.

Midori’s body reacted before his mind could process. He felt only the reverberations up his arm as it connected, the nauseating give of corrupted tissue parting. A vise grip seized his shoulder. He twisted violently away, staggering as his footing betrayed him on the blood-smeared floor.

His name tore through the bedlam, a desperate cry he barely recognized. Commands barked from somewhere to his right dissolved into noise. Reality fractured into disconnected fragments—motion, pain.

Through the chaos, he spotted Haruka, her boots sliding on the slick surface as she fought to stay upright, terror visible even through the smeared plastic of her visor.

His arm reached for her—

He slipped.

The impact drove the wind from his lungs as he crashed hard onto the floor. Bodies toppled around him. He twisted away from grasping hands, muscles screaming as he forced himself upright. A figure lunged. The gun bucked in his grip. A spray of dark matter followed as the body crumpled.

The station had become a slaughterhouse. It vanished beneath writhing masses, final cries swallowed by the din. The lights convulsed overhead, casting monstrous shadows that swallowed entire sections of the platform.

Midori’s mind shut down. His legs moved on instinct alone, carrying him forward through noise and blood and terror. The press of bodies thickened as they pushed deeper into the station.

Every step forward felt as if he were wading into scalding water. Midori could barely feel the heat through his gear, sweat slicking his skin beneath the armor. Infected choked every space. They cascaded down stairwells. They were human waterfalls. With each step forward, a symphony of horror—hungry animal sounds bubbling from ruined throats, distant screams and gunshots.

With each step, they pushed deeper into the station. A desperate line of shoulders pressed together, weapons extended. Infected lunged with inhuman speed only to collapse in explosions of viscera. The constant thunder of firearms reduced his hearing to a high-pitched whine, and each shot sent fresh waves of agony through his overtaxed muscles.

He spotted it through the carnage—a monorail car with its doors standing open. The interior lay in shadow, but even from this distance he could see it was vacant. The promise of escape beckoned from beyond the bloodbath surrounding them.

“There!” The word tore from his throat, raw with desperate possibility. They surged forward as one, weapons raised. Infected poured at them, the monsters scaling walls, benches, cars. A tide of dead flesh closed around the survivors.

Haruka’s body lurched sideways as an infected crashed into her shoulder. Her boots skidded through the blood and viscera. His fingers clamped around her bicep, yanking her upright with such force that pain shot through his shoulder socket. Each heartbeat detonated in his chest.

This is my fault.

The air shattered with more gunfire. Crimson mist hung suspended in the fluorescent light. From the churning mass of bodies, skeletal fingers shot out, clamping around Haruka’s forearm with impossible strength. Her scream pierced his ears as she was wrenched violently backward, boots scraping uselessly before lifting entirely. The back of her skull connected with the platform’s edge—a wet sound that silenced her instantly as her body surrendered to gravity.

Kurobane’s weapon discharged in rapid succession, each bullet finding its mark in the creature clutching Haruka. The infected dropped, but where one fell, a dozen more emerged, fingers outstretched, jaws working mechanically in anticipation.

Midori lunged for Haruka, seized her beneath her shoulders, and dragged her limp form toward the monorail car. Each inch gained felt like a mile as her dead weight threatened to anchor him to the platform. Crimson streaked across his gloves in abstract patterns.

“Get her inside!” Kurobane’s voice cracked as he squeezed off round after round.

Only meters remained between them and salvation. The monorail doors began their mechanical retreat. His throat tore open with a primal sound as he heaved Haruka’s limp form inside, positioning himself next to Kurobane as a human barricade against the infected tide.

Certainty settled in his bones. No help would arrive—no one else drew breath in this slaughterhouse. Their magazines would run dry within moments. The facts of their demise were brutally simple. He could feel their fetid breath now.

The impact against his spine sent him lurching forward. His boots skidded. He whirled around. Reality seemed to splinter, each fragment moving at its own speed.

In that suspended moment, Midori registered everything—Kurobane’s face contorted with fear and something darker. Those eyes, glassy with unshed tears yet burning with resolve. With hatred. The barrel aimed squarely at Midori’s chest.

“You wanted to be the hero. So be one.”

Understanding crashed through him. 

Metal panels slid toward each other with mechanical indifference.

Midori’s jaw unhinged in silent protest. His muscles tensed to spring, fingers already imagining the cold edge of the door, body calculating the narrow gap—but he remained frozen. For one split second between heartbeats, Haruka’s bloodied face filled his vision—her chest still rising, falling.

The car sealed itself with a merciless thud.

They descended upon him. Fingers hooking, nails piercing, teeth finding purchase in the soft hollows between tendons. His world became a constellation of agony, each point of contact igniting into supernova of pain. His throat locked around unspent sound.

As the mass of bodies pulled him under, he caught his best friend’s gaze one final time.