Mr. Sato. My math teacher. The one who'd stayed after school every Tuesday to help me with calculus because I kept failing the practice tests. The one who'd told me, "Hajidan, intelligence isn't about getting it right the first time. It's about not giving up."
His glasses were gone, his shirt soaked with blood, but it was definitely him. His mouth opened and that wet, rasping sound came out: "Stu—stu—" Like he was trying to say "students" but couldn't remember how.
For a second, I almost stopped. Almost called out to him. Some stupid part of my brain thought maybe he'd recognize me, maybe there was still something human in there that could be reached.
Then his jaw unhinged impossibly wide, revealing teeth that definitely weren't human anymore.
*I'm sorry, Mr. Sato. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry you wasted all those Tuesdays on someone who can't even save himself.*
I've never run so hard in my life. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. Behind us, the creatures gave chase with that horrible jerky speed, their footsteps irregular and wrong-sounding.
"Fire escape!" Kaito pointed up.
I jammed the crowbar into the neck of the thing reaching through the car window, using the leverage to pull myself upward. 'The roof!' Kaito barked, grabbing my collar and hauling me onto the shingles before the rest of the pack could swarm the vehicle
"Fuck this!" Kaito shouted, and suddenly he was there, kicking at the creatures with a fury that surprised me. "I'm not losing anyone else today! You hear me? NOT TODAY!"
He grabbed a piece of broken glass, slashing at the thing holding my ankle. It howled that terrible almost-human sound, and loosened its grip just enough.
"Pull!" Kaito yelled at Miraza.
Together they hauled me backward through the roof. Kaito kept kicking, kept slashing, his hands bleeding where the glass cut into his palms. One of the creatures lunged at him and he drove the glass shard straight into its eye.
"GO!" he screamed, kicking the beast.
We scrambled back as the creatures tried to come out and touch us through the window of a car. Kaito grabbed a display rack, one of those heavy metal ones, and slammed it across the opening. It wouldn't hold for long, but it bought us seconds.
"That was..." Kaito bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. His palms were shredded, glass still embedded in the flesh. "That was the stupidest thing I've ever done."
"You saved us," Miraza said, her voice shaking.
"Yeah." He looked at his bleeding hands like he couldn't quite believe they were his. "Yeah, I guess I did." Then he laughed, a slightly hysterical sound. "My sister's gonna kill me for being this reckless. If we even... if I can even..."
He didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to.
We all knew the odds of finding his sister alive were getting slimmer by the minute.
The creatures hadn't given up. I could hear them in the shop behind us, tearing through obstacles, hunting. Always hunting.
"We need to keep moving," I said, forcing myself upright despite the pain. "Can you run?"
Kaito wrapped his bleeding hands in strips of fabric torn from his shirt. "Do I have a choice?"
"No."
"Then I guess I can run."
We reached the roof and kept moving. Kaito's parkour experience showed immediately, he read the gaps between buildings, found handholds I never would have seen.
"This way!" He leaped across to the next building. Miraza followed, landing hard but safely. I jumped last, my fingers scraping the edge before I pulled myself up.
From up here, I could see how bad it really was, the true scale of the disaster became visible. The entire city was burning. Smoke columns rose from dozens of locations. In the streets below, hundreds of those things prowled in packs, hunting anything that moved.
"Stay close to me," I gasped to Miraza as we ran. "If I tell you to run, you run. Don't look back."
"What about you?"
"I'll be right behind you."
It was a lie. If it came down to it, I'd make sure she got away first, even if it meant I didn't. She deserved that much.
I pulled out my phone, checking the map. The rally point was on the opposite side of the city.
"We go north first," I said. "My house, then yours, then we cut across to the Civic Center."
"That's going to take us right through downtown," Kaito said, looking over my shoulder at the cracked screen.
"I know."
Downtown was probably the worst place to be right now. Dense population meant more of those things. But it was also the most direct route.
We stood at the edge of the rooftop, looking out over the urban canyon.
"My house is north," I said, checking my phone's GPS. "Eight blocks."
"Mine's northwest," Miraza added. "Six blocks from yours."
"The music store where my sister is..." Kaito traced the route on my cracked screen. "That's another four blocks east from there."
I looked at the path we'd have to take. It cut straight through the densest part of the residential district—which meant the highest concentration of infected.
"We stay on the roofs as long as we can," Kaito commanded, his eyes scanning the ledges and fire escapes. "The ground is a death trap. Follow me, and watch your footing."
He took a breath and leaped across the gap to the neighboring.
I looked back one last time at the community center we'd left behind. A plume of black smoke was rising from the main entrance. We were out of the frying pan, but the entire city was the fire.
Gripping my crowbar tight, I jumped.
We moved from building to building, sometimes making clean jumps, other times barely catching the edge and hauling ourselves up with trembling arms.
Four blocks from my house, a group of survivors caught my attention. Maybe ten people trying to move down the street in formation, armed with whatever they'd found. Baseball bats. Kitchen knives. A fire extinguisher.
They were doing everything right—staying together, watching every direction.
It didn't matter.
The creatures came from everywhere at once. From the buildings, from parked cars, from the sewers. They swarmed the survivors like a wave.
"We have to help them!" Miraza started forward.
I grabbed her arm, my grip probably too tight. "We can't. Look how many there are."
"But—"
"Miraza, look!" I pointed at the horde. Thirty of them at least. "We go down there, we die. We *all* die, and then we can't help our families either."
Her face crumpled, and I hated the coldness in my voice. But I was right.
The screams from below lasted less than a minute.
We moved on in silence, each of us processing what we'd just witnessed. Kaito's jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscles jumping. Miraza kept wiping at her eyes.
Three blocks from my house, we ran out of rooftops.
"Next building is too far," Kaito said, standing at the edge. "We'd never make the jump."
I looked around desperately. "The fire escape takes us to street level. We don't have a choice."
"That side street." Miraza pointed to a narrow passage between buildings. "It looks clear. If we're fast and quiet..."
It was a terrible plan. But it was all we had.
We climbed down, and the moment my feet touched the ground, every instinct screamed danger. Street level felt *wrong*—exposed, vulnerable.
"Stay against the walls," I whispered. "Move quickly but don't run. Running draws attention."
We pressed ourselves against the brick and started moving. Every shadow could hide death. Every sound made us flinch.
We were halfway down the block when I saw it—the blue roof of my house, the one Dad repainted every three years like clockwork. The basketball hoop where Yuna and I played one-on-one every Sunday. The garden where Mom grew tomatoes that never quite tasted right but we ate them anyway because she was so proud.
Home.
My chest tightened. I started moving faster, unable to help myself. Just a hundred meters. Fifty meters. Twenty.
Please be there. Please be safe. Please don't be
"Hajidan, wait!" Kaito's warning came too late.
A figure stepped out from the alley ahead, blocking our path.
At first, all I registered was the tactical gear—black kevlar, utility belt, combat boots. Then I saw the insignia on the shoulder.
Shadow Crane.
I was so relieved till I saw his face.