EP 25: The Empty Ride

The bike tore through the streets like it was trying to outrun the world.

Kanata leaned forward, engine screaming beneath him, cold air slapping his face hard enough to sting. Streetlights flickered past in broken rhythm. Every shadow looked alive. Every intersection felt like a trap.

Zombies spilled from alleys when they heard the engine.

He didn’t slow down.

One lunged too close. Kanata fired one-handed, the recoil jolting his arm as the body crumpled and rolled across the asphalt. Another clipped the bike. He swerved, cursed, steadied himself.

Focus. Don’t think.

Thinking was dangerous.

He passed an overturned bus, its windows shattered from the inside. Bloody handprints smeared the glass. A sign taped to the door flapped in the wind.

HELP US.

No bodies nearby.

Which meant they’d either escaped… or been taken.

Kanata’s grip tightened.

He rode past an apartment block with ropes hanging from balconies. Some had knots. Some didn’t. He didn’t look up long enough to count.

A laugh escaped his throat. Short. Sharp. Almost hysterical.

“So this is civilization,” he muttered.

The city felt different alone. Louder in its silence. Meaner. Like it was watching him instead of ignoring him.

At a red light still blinking uselessly, he stopped to reload. His hands shook just enough to piss him off.

He thought of Koko’s chalk flowers. Godou’s stupid jokes. Kanami’s maps. Takiya’s eyes when he said no.

And Yuka.

Always Yuka.

“If you’re alive,” he said to no one, “you picked one hell of a place.”

The bike roared back to life.

Then he saw it.

Light.

Real light.

Ahead, rising out of the dark like a promise that shouldn’t exist.

A shopping mall.

Windows glowing. Smoke drifting from rooftop vents. Barricades at the entrances. Movement on the upper levels.

People.

Kanata slowed.

From here, it looked safe. Organized. Alive.

His instincts screamed anyway.

He parked across the street, engine ticking as it cooled, and watched silhouettes move behind the glass. Armed silhouettes. Relaxed. Too relaxed.

He felt it in his gut.

This wasn’t refuge.

It was something pretending to be.

Kanata swung off the bike, gun resting heavy at his side.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “Let’s see what kind of lie you are.”

And he crossed the street alone.