Ahmed woke up with sunlight cutting through the gaps in the boarded windows.
For a second, he forgot where he was. Then memory settled back in—the dead doctor's house, the traps, the bell outside.
He sat up. His back ached from sleeping on the couch. The bed upstairs felt wrong somehow. Too personal. Like stealing from the dead.
The gun sat on the nightstand where he'd left it.
Ahmed picked it up. Turned it over in his hands. The metal was cold. Heavy. Real in a way that nothing else felt anymore.
He checked the cylinder again.
One bullet.
The doctor had loaded two. Used one. Left one behind.
Ahmed wondered if the doctor had meant it as a kindness. One last gift for whoever found this place. An escape route when things got too bad.
He set the gun back down.
Not yet.
He still had work to do.
His stomach growled. Loud enough that he winced. Sound carried in this silent world. You learned to hate your own body for the noise it made.
He went to the kitchen. Opened the cabinet.
Seven cans left. He counted them every morning. Seven cans, three bottles of water, crackers going stale, instant noodles he was saving for when things got really desperate.
Two weeks. Maybe less if he didn't ration carefully.
Then what?
Go out. Find more supplies. Risk the streets where the infected wandered and learned and got smarter every day.
Or stay here and starve slowly while his body ate itself.
He grabbed a can of beans. Pulled the tab. Ate them cold standing over the sink. They tasted like metal and salt and desperation.
While he chewed, he thought about the vial.
He'd almost forgotten about it. Shoved it in his bag when he ran from the lab, grabbed it without thinking. Just instinct. A scientist's instinct—preserve the sample, document everything, maybe someone could use it later.
The original compound. Everything he'd need to understand what went wrong. What they'd created. What they'd unleashed.
But understanding it required equipment he didn't have. A microscope. Testing supplies. A proper lab with power and clean instruments and sterile conditions.
All of that was out there. In the city. In buildings full of infected.
Ahmed finished the beans. Set the empty can on the counter with the others. A growing pile of evidence that time was running out.
He looked at the vial in his bag. Then at the window. Then at the gun on the nightstand.
Three options. Three paths. All of them led to death eventually.
Go out now and die fast.
Stay here and die slow.
Or use the gun and choose his own timing.
He was still weighing the options when the bell rang.
The sound cut through everything.
Sharp. Clear. Deliberate.
Someone had rung the bell.
Ahmed's first thought was infected. But no—infected couldn't ring bells. Couldn't process the sign he'd made. Couldn't connect action to consequence.
His second thought was survivor.
His third thought was danger.
Survivors could be worse than infected. Desperate people with weapons and hunger and no rules left to follow. He'd thought about that when he set up the bell. Thought about whether helping someone was worth the risk of being killed for his supplies.
He grabbed the gun from the nightstand and
grabbed the knife from the counter. The chef's knife. The big one. Eight inches of carbon steel sharp enough to split bone.
His hands shook as he moved toward the door.
"Hello?" His voice came out rough. He cleared his throat. "Who's there?"
Silence.
Ahmed's hand hovered over the lock.
This could be a trick. Bait. Someone using fear to get him to open the door. Then they'd take everything. Food. Water. Medicine. The gun. His life.
But what if it wasn't?
What if it was just someone like him? Someone alone and terrified and running out of time?
"Step back from the door," Ahmed said. Trying to sound confident.
"I'm armed. I'm opening the door but if you try anything—"
Ahmed unlocked the door. Opened it a crack. Gun and knife ready.
Ahmed pulled the door open another inch.
And froze.
Whoever stood on the other side wasn't infected. That much registered instantly. No slack jaw. No twitching. No wrongness in the eyes. Just a human shape, breathing, real.
His brain stalled anyway. Shock locking every thought in place.
The gun slipped first. His fingers went numb, useless, and it clattered to the floor. The knife followed a heartbeat later, metal striking tile louder than it should have been.
Ahmed stepped back without meaning to.
Both hands rose slowly, palms open, empty, trembling in the light spilling through the doorway.