Reina’s footsteps tapped sharply across the tile as she hurried forward, scanning each darkened storefront she passed. A vise clamped around her lungs. Where are you, Lilly?

  “Reina!” Shion exhaled, shoulders sagging. “Thank God!” Dirt streaked her face, and what looked like blood darkened her torn sleeve. She closed the distance between them in three quick strides.

  “Shion! You’re hurt!”

  “A little. I’ll be fine, though. Did you see Lilly run by?!” Shion asked, the words tumbling out.

  “My sister? No! Is she alright?”

  Her gaze darted over her shoulder toward the darkened hallway. “I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to see. I was fighting for my life. We were moving some gear together when they came out of nowhere. Not infected. People. They were armed. One of them grabbed Lilly, and she panicked and ran, and they turned on me—”

  “Where did she go?”

  A sharp, cold spike of fear stabbed through Reina’s chest.

  Shion pointed toward a shadowed passage. “Down that way, I think. I thought you were her.”

  Reina’s hands balled into fists. Words caught in her throat. Shion’s face, beneath the grime and dried blood, had lost its usual composure. The imperious gaze that once pinned Reina in place was nowhere to be found. Whatever resentment she had carried dissolved instantly. No time for questions now. Reina pivoted toward the shadowed hallway. Shion’s fingers caught the edge of her sleeve. “We go together,” she said.

  They crept deeper into the mall’s abandoned heart, each footfall a whisper against the tile. Cold air pressed against her skin. The generators’ hum faded behind, the passageway constricted around them, emergency lighting reduced to amber ribbons tracing the floor’s edge.

  “She can’t be far.” Shion’s voice barely carried.

  With each step forward, her pulse thundered, drowning out everything but her own fear.

  Something scraped against the tile. A slick, heavy sound followed, like meat being dragged. Every muscle in her body locked.

  Her body jerked.

  Reina jolted forward, her eyes wide, but before her mind could process what happened, the same thing slammed full-force into her side, sending them both airborne over the railing.

  She fell, her back cracked against the floor below, lungs collapsing. Pain flared—blinding, searing pain. Her mouth stretched wide, but no sound emerged. The infected fell right after she did, its skull meeting floor with a sickening crack. Her fingers found the source of her agony, pressing against torn fabric where something warm pulsed between her trembling hands. She felt the thick, jagged piece of glass and groaned. “S-Shion—!” The name escaped as barely more than air.

  No answer.

  Another scream died in her throat, and from somewhere down the corridor came a chorus of guttural clicks. Reina clawed her way across the floor, screaming, each movement sending fresh waves of agony through her. Blood bubbled between her lips with every labored breath.

  A jewelry store loomed ahead. Her fingers found the gate’s edge, but slipped in her own bloody trail. With each breath, more of her life seeped into the cold tile beneath her. The word slipped from her bloodied lips as a prayer.

  “Please…”

  Metal groaned, then surrendered with a final crash. Her body crumpled against the barrier. Beyond the lattice, shapes materialized in the corridor—writhing silhouettes that hurled themselves against her fragile sanctuary as consciousness slipped away.

  * * *

  Twin doors gaped into the station’s central hub, harsh light spilling outward. Near the far end of the platform, a figure materialized from the shadows. Its silhouette wavered, head lolling at a sickening angle no living person could keep. A second one emerged beside it, then a third.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Dozens.

  Hundreds.

  Midori’s skin prickled, a cold sensation slithering from the base of his neck down each vertebra. They lined the walls, draped across benches, hung over railings. Shoulder to shoulder, as if waiting for a train that would never arrive.

  A weapon’s safety disengaging. Along the line, gloved hands tightened their grip on assault rifles, index fingers hovering just millimeters from triggers.

  The vanguard advanced with makeshift spears extended—knives lashed to broomsticks and chair legs with electrical tape and twine. Each thrust found its mark. Each kill collapsed to the floor, the bodies falling so quietly that nearby dead went on, oblivious to the methodical culling happening mere feet away.

  We’re doing well. This might work!

  Blinding fluorescence exploded across the terminal, bathing every surface in unforgivingly bright light. The station’s PA system crackled to life with a mechanical chime followed by a disembodied voice.

  The sudden sensory assault transformed the infected—they jerked and contorted, faces tilting up, down, left, right. Jaws stretched wide, unleashing a cacophony of inhuman voices merging into a single, primal scream. A thousand glimmering eyes fixed on him at once, and in that moment, Midori understood with terrible clarity what prey feels in its last seconds of life.

  Someone shouted a command, and the air filled with noise. Portable speakers and cell phones blaring at maximum volume, hurled to shatter against distant windows or clatter across the platform. The infected collided with barriers, crawled over fallen comrades, fingers clawing toward fresh prey.

  A gun discharged. More followed, their reports bouncing off walls as projectiles punched through infected flesh. The world dissolved into madness.

  They never stood a chance.

  “Back! Fall back!” someone yelled.

  Grasping fingers found purchase. Jaws clacked hungrily. Midori’s body reacted before his mind could process. He felt only the reverberations up his arm as it connected, the nauseating give of tissue caving. A vise grip seized his shoulder. He twisted violently away, staggering as his footing betrayed him on the blood-smeared floor. Reality fractured into disconnected fragments—motion, pain.

  Through it all, he spotted Haruka, her boots sliding on the slick surface as she fought to stay upright, terror visible even through the smeared plastic of her visor.

  He reached for her—and slipped. He crashed hard onto the floor. Bodies toppled around him, grabbing at him. He twisted away, muscles screaming as he pushed himself upright. The gun bucked in his grip. A spray of dark matter followed as a body crumpled. The station had become a slaughterhouse. It had vanished beneath writhing masses, last cries swallowed by the din. He shut down. He moved on instinct alone, legs carrying him forward through noise and blood and terror, deeper in.

  Every step felt as if he were wading into scalding water. He could barely feel the heat through his gear, sweat slicking his skin beneath the armor. Infected choked every space. They cascaded down stairwells, human waterfalls. The constant thunder of firearms reduced his hearing to a high-pitched whine, and each shot sent fresh waves of agony through his overtaxed muscles.

  He spotted it through the carnage—a monorail car with its doors standing open, the promise of escape beckoned from beyond the bloodbath surrounding them. “There!” The word tore from his throat.

  Haruka’s body lurched sideways as an infected crashed into her shoulder.

  This is my fault.

  The air shattered with more gunfire. Red mist hung suspended in the light. From the churning mass, pale and torn fingers shot out, clamping around Haruka’s forearm. Her scream pierced his ears as she was wrenched violently in, boots scraping uselessly before lifting entirely. Her helmet fell, the back of her skull connected with the platform’s edge—the blow silenced her instantly.

  Midori lunged for her, seized her beneath her shoulders, and dragged her limp form toward the monorail car. Each inch gained felt like a mile as her dead weight threatened to anchor him to the platform. Kurobane’s gun discharged in rapid succession while backing in, but where one fell, more emerged, fingers outstretched, jaws working mechanically in anticipation.

  The monorail doors began their mechanical retreat. His throat tore open with a roar as he heaved Haruka’s limp form inside, positioning himself next to Kurobane as a human barricade against the infected tide.

  Certainty settled in his bones. No help would arrive. No one else drew breath. Their magazines would run dry within moments. The facts of their demise were brutally simple. He could feel their fetid breath now.

  What?

  The impact against his spine sent him careening forward. His boots skidded. He whirled around.

  In that suspended moment, he saw everything. Kurobane’s face contorted with fear and something darker. Anger? Hate? Those eyes, glassy with unshed tears yet burning with resolve. The barrel aimed squarely at Midori’s chest. Understanding crashed through him.

  “You wanted to be the hero.”

  Metal panels slid toward each other with mechanical indifference. Midori’s jaw unhinged in silent protest. His muscles tensed to spring, fingers already imagining the icy edge of the door, body calculating the narrow gap—Haruka’s bloodied face filled his vision—her chest still rising, falling.

  He stopped.

  The car sealed itself with a merciless thud.

  They fell upon him, fingers hooking, nails digging, teeth finding purchase in the soft hollows between tendons. His world became agony, each point of contact igniting in pain, throat locked around unspent sound. As the mass of bodies pulled him under, he caught his best friend’s gaze one final time.