The world outside was silent.
The beasts from the surrounding neighborhood that were still alive were lying low. Some had sated their hunger, some were just not taking chances after so many died.
But inside the shelter, the atmosphere was vibrating with chatter, weeping, sobbing, and excitement. A volatile mixture of emotions.
Nando was sitting on the floor, leaning against the barricade, chest heaving, axe resting on the cracked asphalt. His forearms were splattered with blood, his knuckles skinned raw from gripping the handle too hard.
Clara approached him, still holding Lu's spear in her hand.
"So, miracle fighter. I've been hearing the boys murmur in awe at your earlier display. Please, tell us, how did you hold the line against ten dogs and survive?"
Nando's smile was strained and painful.
"I awakened a class seed. It happened when I saw that dog biting the lancer girl. The system said that it was born from my desire to not let anyone of my pack be hurt. And yet, I failed to protect Caetano…"
Clara sat down at his side, laughing.
"Stop right there, miracley. You didn't fail to protect Caetano. You succeeded in protecting every one of us who are still here. Tell me. How many do you think would have died if those dogs went up the barricades without Lu to hold the line?"
He breathed hard, not finding a word to retort to that logic.
"It was your standing there that gave me the idea of the phalanx, and that gave the boys the courage to play along. So, no survivor's guilt, okay?"
Clara nudged his shoulder, giving it a soft punch.
He sighed, trying to smile. A combination that wasn't very effective.
"Okay. I'll try."
"Oh, by the way, what's the name of your class? From what I've seen, the system is very creative with its naming."
"…"
"What?"
"… Riot Butcher…"
The laughter that echoed then was louder than anything else that shelter had heard since the apocalypse began.
***
"Clara! Can you organize those people? The space is too crowded, and I have my hands full with the wounded."
Julia's voice cut through the noise, ending their chat.
"On it!"
Clara stood up, already partitioning the space.
"Right now, we have three problems. Bleeding, sickness, and stupidity. We solve them in that order."
A few people flinched at her words.
Good. Flinching means they're listening.
Noara was a bit behind, still dizzy, but with her mana starting to recover. She watched the shelter, measuring the emotional pressure. She watched how the fear pooled in corners, as if a vacuum pulled it from people's hearts.
So that's how those shadows are made… That's the reason for the system's warning. If you freak out, you die.
Meanwhile, Clara was giving orders, organizing, and structuring the shelter into a functioning unit.
"First: wounded go there. Julia runs that room, Sara and Daniele assist. Their words are law inside it. Anyone who thinks they're fine but is dizzy, nauseous, or feverish sits there. Julia will tend to the injured first, but you'll be treated as well."
A man with a torn shirt opened his mouth.
"But I'm well. This is just a scratch…"
"A scratch can kill you with tetanus or rabies. Or whatever infectious diseases a mutated dog might have. If you collapse later, you become a problem we have to carry, literally. You don't want to give us more work with grave digging, do you?"
He shut up and stepped into line.
"Second: sanitation. The bar has only two bathrooms still working, but they are working. If anyone pisses behind the barricade again, I will personally throw you into the street."
A ripple of nervous laughter moved through the group.
"Third: movement rules."
Clara paused, inhaled, then spoke, slower and precise.
"No lone wandering. If you need to go somewhere, you go in groups. If you need to use stairs, you call it out. No surprises. We are not doing horror movie behavior in a city that wants to eat us."
Nobody complained at that one.
She turned, pointing at the staircase inside the bar.
"We'll build an evacuation route. Marcos, you're on duty on that as soon as dawn breaks. Anyone who wants to work in the engineering team, report to him by then."
She then looked at Davi.
"You, game designer. You do inventory and armory counts."
Davi blinked twice.
"Armory?"
"Yes. Axes, knives, spears, anything sharp, and anything that can be turned into sharp. Traps too - how many are still usable as is, and how many we can just reset."
The guy nodded, already opening the backpack and taking a notebook and a pen.
"Okay. Yeah, I can do that."
"But you sleep first. Counting begins at dawn. You, miracle fighter."
She turned to Nando.
"Yes?"
"Congratulations on your new class. You'll be in charge of the watch. Organize the shifts so all watchers can have their sleep, including yourself."
"Understood."
"Everyone else, I will organize the 'beds' in a way that they don't hinder passage. You, pull your mattress a bit to the left. You three there, leave this passage open! I want a straight corridor between the bar interior and the opposite end of the bar. Move!"
When she finished, the shelter felt different.
The people were still scared and exhausted, but now they had a sense of structure and a bittersweet victory to commemorate.
***
In the infirmary room, Julia worked with ruthless calm - cleaning, re-wrapping, checking pupils, forcing bottles of water into trembling hands. She wasn't a bartender anymore. She had completed her transition into a war medic.
Lu sat upright despite the lingering pain that returned after the effect of Julia's skill ended. It wasn't as bad as before, for the healing process had advanced and she had taken painkillers, but it was still there, underneath the numbness.
"You're going to sleep."
Noara approached her and stood at her side, gently brushing her hair with her fingers.
"I'm not sleeping while my arm is-"
"While your arm is alive. Because Julia made it alive. Don't waste her work by going into the doom spiral."
Noara corrected her gently, crouching and whispering into her ear.
"You're still a weapon. But weapons need maintenance. Even the pretty ones."
That finally got a reaction, making old Lu's expression appear on her face again.
"Did you just call me pretty?"
Noara's lips curved slightly.
"It's the apocalypse. I'm trying new hobbies. Now, be a good girl and lie down on that blanket that Julia prepared for you."
Lu exhaled, then, reluctantly, lowered herself to the blanket and rested her head on the improvised pillow of old clothes.
Noara stood and moved on.
Every time she saw someone with their emotions more troubled, she would stop and have a little conversation.
She held the hand of a teenage girl until she fell asleep, heard a story from someone who was worried about their family, and eased the fears of an old lady.
At one point, a woman's eyes snapped to her.
"He died because we-"
Noara's eyes softened, holding the woman's hand.
"And we honor him by not following him."
Bit by bit, she untangled the pools of coagulated fear that she had noticed earlier, dissipating them before the shadows could form.
***
When dawn arrived, the shelter was already full of movement.
Marcos was with a specialized team working on the evacuation route, Davi was running the inventory, and the rest were burying the dogs under Clara's directions.
There were fewer dogs than there were people the day before, and Marcos had already cleared a patch of land from asphalt and concrete. And this time they had experience.
The people took turns using the scavenged shovels to dig. With only three shovels, it was better if the ones handling them weren't tired.
The moment the first sunrays landed on Noara's skin, she felt it.
She was in her turn digging, and the shovel froze mid-movement. The other diggers also sensed it and stopped.
"Something's not right…"
She looked back at the shelter.
It was wrong.
The building was… misplaced.
Not dramatically. It was wrong by just a few centimeters, angled off, the frame subtly tilted over the next building. It was a change too small to notice if you weren't looking for it, but big enough to make the building uncanny.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Sector Boundaries Forming. (Continuity unstable.)
Local Sector Registered: AUGUSTA-01
Warning: Boundary crossings may rewrite routes and misalign doorways.