Before Sanctuary, Karan's group fought their way through Niraya's collapse, learning hard lessons about survival and leadership. In the present, those lessons are tested when Karan must choose between following orders and doing what's right—a choice that begins with the pull of a handbrake.
THEN (5:20 P.M.)
Karan heard the screaming before he saw what was causing it.
He'd been walking home from the gym. Late afternoon. Normal day. Or what should have been normal.
The street ahead erupted. People running. Cars crashing. Someone on the ground being torn apart by three others who moved wrong. Jerky. Wrong.
Karan's training kicked in immediately. Assess. React. Survive.
He turned. Ran the other direction. Not panic. Controlled movement. Away from the threat.
Behind him, more screaming. More chaos. The sound of the city tearing itself apart.
He ducked into an alley. Caught his breath. Tried to think.
His phone buzzed. Messages flooding in. Emergency alerts. "Stay indoors. Do not engage. Military response incoming."
Military response. That meant it was bad. Really bad.
Karan kept moving. Stayed off main streets. Used alleys. Service roads. Twenty years in the army taught you how to move through hostile territory.
This was hostile territory now.
He made it three blocks before he ran into her.
A woman. Mid-twenties. Police uniform. Gun drawn. She had her back to a wall, facing down two infected that were shambling toward her.
She fired. Missed. Fired again. Hit one in the shoulder. It kept coming.
"Headshots!" Karan shouted.
She spun. Gun coming toward him.
"Friendly!" He raised his hands. "I'm trying to help!"
She looked at him. At the infected. Back at him.
Made a decision.
Turned back to the infected. Aimed. Fired. This time the shot found the head. The infected dropped.
The second one lunged.
Karan grabbed a trash can lid. Not ideal but better than nothing. Slammed it into the infected's face. It stumbled. The woman shot it. Clean headshot this time.
It dropped.
They stood there. Breathing hard. Staring at the bodies.
"Thanks," she said finally.
"You too." Karan lowered the trash can lid. "You military?"
"Police. Meera Khanna." She holstered her gun. "You?"
"Karan Rathod. Army. Retired." He looked at the bodies. "What the hell is happening?"
"I don't know. Got called in for a disturbance. By the time I arrived, half the precinct was already..." She stopped. "Dead. Or worse."
More screaming in the distance. Getting closer.
"We should move," Karan said.
"Where?"
"Anywhere but here."
They moved together. Two people who'd been strangers five minutes ago. Now allies because that's what you did when the world ended.
You found people who could help you survive.
They found Ravi in a hardware store.
The front windows were smashed. The door hung off its hinges. Inside, they could hear movement.
Karan signaled Meera. She nodded. Drew her gun.
They entered carefully. Stepping over broken glass. Past overturned displays.
In the back, near the tool section, an older man was barricading himself behind a counter. He had a crowbar in his hands. Blood on his shirt.
"Don't move!" Meera commanded.
The man froze. Looked at them. "Are you infected?"
"No. Are you?"
"No." He lowered the crowbar slightly. "But they're everywhere out there. I saw them. Dozens of them. Eating people. Tearing them apart."
"We know." Karan moved closer. Checked the man's arms. His neck. No bites. "You hurt?"
"The blood's not mine." Ravi's hands were shaking. "I saw a woman get attacked. Tried to help. Couldn't. The blood—it got on me when I ran past."
"What's your name?"
"Ravi. Ravi Mehta."
"I'm Karan. This is Meera." Karan looked around the hardware store. "You got any weapons here besides that crowbar?"
"There's a hunting section. Two aisles over. Some rifles. Ammunition."
Meera was already moving. "Show me."
They found three rifles. Hunting models. Not military grade but functional. Boxes of ammunition. Karan grabbed one. Checked it. Loaded it.
Felt better with a real weapon in his hands.
"We should take everything," Meera said. "All the ammo. Tools. Anything useful."
"Agreed."
They loaded up. Backpacks from the camping section. Filled them with ammunition. Tools. Rope. Duct tape. Flashlights.
Ravi watched them work. "You've done this before."
"Not this exactly," Karan said. "But I know how to prepare for the field. Same principles apply."
"What field?"
"The one where everything's trying to kill you." Karan shouldered his pack. "You coming with us or staying here?"
Ravi looked at the barricade he'd been building. At the broken windows. At the street outside where infected were shambling past.
"I'm coming."
They found Dev by accident.
Or maybe he found them.
They were moving through a residential area. Trying to get to higher ground. Trying to figure out what came next.
A kid ran out from between houses. Skinny. Maybe twenty-two. Eyes wild with panic.
"Help!" he screamed. "Please, they're chasing me!"
Karan turned. Saw them. Four infected. Moving fast. Runners.
"Get behind us!" Karan brought the rifle up. "Now!"
The kid didn't argue. Just ran.
Karan fired. Dropped the first Runner. Meera got the second. The third got close before Ravi smashed it with the crowbar. The fourth lunged at Dev.
The kid grabbed a rock. A fucking rock. Threw it with perfect accuracy. Hit the Runner square in the face. It stumbled.
Karan shot it.
Four bodies. All down.
The kid stood there shaking. "Thank you. Oh god, thank you."
"You hurt?" Meera asked.
"No. I don't think so." He checked himself. "No. I'm clean."
"What's your name?"
"Dev. Dev Sharma." He looked at them. At their weapons. Their supplies. "Who are you?"
"Survivors," Karan said. "Like you. You got somewhere to go?"
"I was trying to get home. To my parents. But the streets—there's too many of them."
"Where do your parents live?"
"North side. Near the university."
Karan looked at Meera. She shook her head. North side was bad. They'd already tried going that direction. It was overrun.
"Kid," Karan said carefully. "North side's not happening. It's completely gone."
Dev's face crumpled. "But my parents—"
"I'm sorry." And Karan meant it. "But if they're there, they're either already dead or turned. You go there, you'll end up the same way."
"You don't know that!"
"I do." Karan's voice was firm but not unkind. "I've seen it. Entire neighborhoods gone in hours. If your parents were smart, they got out. If they didn't..." He trailed off. "You can come with us. Or you can go alone. But I'm telling you right now—alone means dead."
Dev stood there. Tears running down his face. Twenty-two years old and his world had just ended.
"Okay," he said finally. Voice breaking. "Okay. I'll come with you."
They spent the first night in an abandoned apartment building.
Fourth floor. Good vantage point. Multiple exits. They barricaded the stairwell. Set up watches. Tried to sleep.
Karan took first watch. Sat by the window. Watched the city burn.
Meera joined him after an hour. "Can't sleep?"
"Could say the same about you."
She sat down beside him. "I keep thinking about the precinct. My partners. My captain." She paused. "Do you think any of them made it?"
"Some probably did. The ones who reacted fast. The ones who didn't hesitate."
"I hesitated," Meera said quietly. "When I first saw them. I thought they were just high. Or sick. I tried to help. Almost got bitten."
"But you didn't. You learned. You adapted."
"Yeah." She didn't sound convinced.
They sat in silence for a while. Watching fires spread across the skyline. Listening to distant screams.
"You think this is everywhere?" Meera asked. "Or just Niraya?"
"Don't know. No news. No internet. Phones barely work." Karan gestured at the chaos below. "But if it's spreading like this? It's not just us."
"So what do we do?"
"We survive. Day by day. Hour by hour if we have to." Karan looked at her. "We find other survivors. We find somewhere safe. We adapt to whatever this is now."
"That simple?"
"That complicated." He almost smiled. "But we don't have a choice. So we do it anyway."
Meera nodded slowly. "Okay. We survive."
"We survive."
The shopping complex had been Ravi's idea.
"Big place. Multiple stores. Supplies. Food. Medicine. Easy to defend."
It had made sense at the time.
They'd cleared it floor by floor. Killed dozens of infected. Set up in a storage room on the second floor. Stocked up on supplies.
For a day it worked.
Then the infected found a way in through the loading bay.
By the time they realized, it was too late. The complex was overrun.
They fought their way out. Barely.
Lost the supplies. Lost the safe space. Almost lost Dev when a Runner tackled him. Ravi saved him. Crowbar to the skull. They'd been watching each other's backs ever since.
After the complex, they kept moving. Didn't stay anywhere long. Didn't trust anywhere to be safe.
They survived on what they could scavenge. Slept in shifts. Trusted no one but each other.
Until they heard the radio transmission.
Static at first. Then a voice. Broken. Faint.
"...Vaishali district... safe zone... supplies... military protection..."
It cut out.
They tried for hours to get it back. Nothing.
But it was something. A direction. A hope.
"We should go," Dev said.
"Could be a trap," Meera cautioned.
"Could be real," Ravi countered.
Karan thought about it. Weighed the options. "We're dying out here anyway. Slowly. Running out of supplies. Running out of options." He looked at them. "At least this gives us a direction."
They voted. Three to one. Meera was the holdout but she didn't fight it.
They started heading toward Vaishali.
They left at midnight.
That's when they found the truck.
Flatbed. Old. Rusty. But the engine turned over.
"Can you drive this?" Karan asked Meera.
"I can drive anything."
They loaded their supplies into the bed. Their weapons. Everything they had.
Started driving toward Vaishali district.
Toward hope. Or toward death.
Either way, it was better than standing still.
They were two blocks from Vaishali when they heard the screaming.
"Help! PLEASE! SOMEONE HELP ME!"
Karan saw him first.A man. Forty-something. Blood on his pant leg. Running. Limping.Infected spilling out of an alley behind him.
"Stop the truck," Karan said.
"What?" Meera kept driving.
"Stop the truck!"
"Karan, we can't save everyone—"
"I'm not asking," he said. "Stop. The. Truck."
The truck slowed.
Not enough.
The man tripped.
He went down hard.
The infected were on him instantly—hands grabbing, weight crushing, mouths tearing.
Karan was out of his seat, rifle up. He fired. One infected dropped.
Another took its place.
Meera didn't stop.
"Pull over!" Karan shouted.
"Too late," she said.
The man screamed. Once. Then it broke into choking sounds as teeth found his neck.
Karan fired again. Missed. Bodies in the way. Too close.
"Go," Meera said. "Now."
Dev grabbed Karan's arm. "He's done."
The truck accelerated.
In the mirror, the man vanished beneath moving bodies.
Silence filled the cabin.
Karan lowered the rifle. His hands were shaking.
They'd been close enough to save him.
Close enough to watch him die.
Meera stared straight ahead, jaw tight.
She hadn't stopped.
They kept driving. Toward Vaishali. Toward the coordinates from the radio.
Passed through streets full of infected. Abandoned cars. Burning buildings.
Saw other survivors sometimes. Running. Hiding. Dying.
Couldn't save them all. Didn't try.
They just kept moving forward.
Night was loosening its grip, slow and unwilling.
Until they saw the footpath.
A man on his knees. Surrounded by infected. Glasses in his hand. Looking up at parents who weren't there.
Three infected closing in on him.
"Stop!" Karan said immediately.
This time Meera didn't argue. Just stopped.
They jumped out. Weapons ready.
Karan fired. Dropped the closest infected.
Meera got the second.
One shot missed then hit the third one.
The man on the ground blinked. Looked around like he was waking from a dream.
Then another group appeared. Climbing the fence. Running toward them. Man with a little girl on his back. Others following.
And that's how they met Reyan.
NOW
The truck bounced over debris as Manish drove.
Karan sat in the back with Dev and two others from Sanctuary. A supply run. Routine.
Or it should have been routine.
They'd hit two locations already. Convenience store. Apartment building. Both clean. Good haul.
Now they were heading to the third target. A warehouse on the eastern edge of Vaishali.
Manish was the team leader. Experienced runner. Been with Sanctuary from the beginning. Knew the routes. Knew the protocols.
Karan didn't like him much. Too rigid. Too by-the-book.
But he was competent. And that counted for something.
They passed a pharmacy. Boarded up. Looked cleared already.
Then Karan heard it.
"STOP! PLEASE, STOP!"
A voice. Desperate. Coming from near the pharmacy entrance.
"Stop the truck," Karan said.
Manish kept driving.
"I said stop!"
"Not on route." Manish's voice was flat. "We don't deviate."
Karan looked back. Saw them. A man. And a boy. Maybe twelve. Waving frantically. The man was holding the boy's arm. Both looked terrified.
"There are people—"
"I see them." Manish didn't slow down. "Not our problem. We stick to the route."
"We can help them—"
"We can get ourselves killed." Manish glanced back. "We have orders. We have a route. We don't deviate. Those are the rules."
"Fuck the rules," Karan said.
He lunged forward. Grabbed the handbrake. Pulled it hard.
The truck screeched to a halt. Everyone lurched forward. Supplies shifted in the back.
Manish spun on him. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"Saving those people." Karan was already moving. Jumping out of the truck bed. "Dev, with me."
"Karan, if you do this—" Manish started.
"Then I do this." Karan didn't look back. "You can report me to Advait when we get back. Right now, I'm helping them."
He ran toward the pharmacy. Dev followed. The other two runners hesitated. Then followed too.
Manish sat in the truck. Hands gripping the wheel. Jaw clenched.
Then he cursed. Put the truck in reverse. Backed up.
Because whatever else he was, he wasn't going to leave his team.
A groan echoed.
From inside the pharmacy.
Not one infected. Multiple.
They'd heard the truck. Heard the voices.
And they were coming.