Jin drank his water slowly this time.
He stood at the kitchen counter with the glass in both hands and stared out the little window at the street below. A bus pulled up. People got on. A man on a bicycle stopped at the light and checked his phone. In two hours, all of it would be gone.
Inside wasn't safe. Outside was worse.
So where did that leave them?
He thought about the first time. The real first time, four months ago, when he hadn't known anything. How had they made it? Not by being clever. Not by fighting. He'd barely been able to fight. They'd made it because they'd kept moving, floor by floor, and when they found somewhere that wasn't crawling with monsters, they'd hidden. They'd stayed quiet. They hadn't drawn attention. They'd let the worst of it pass them by.
That was the answer. Not running outside. Not going down the stairs with a crowd of hundreds. Staying put, staying quiet, and staying together.
The problem was the same one he'd had from the start.
