Elias didn't move right away.
He stood in the doorway, fingers resting lightly on the edge of the rusting handle, eyes half-lidded and still—not looking, but feeling. It wasn't superstition. It wasn't instinct either. It was something new. Something sharpened by survival and shaped by the system—Tendon Sense whispering its low, invisible warning through the tension in his limbs.
The world outside the garage smelled like a hospital left to rot. The stench of bleach, sweat, and something far worse. He knew that scent now—rotting blood soaked into concrete, sun-baked tissue spread too thin across broken pavement. It was the perfume of failure. The cologne of collapse.
He didn't know what day it was anymore. The system didn't bother keeping time. Maybe it didn't matter. The days bled together now. Measured not by sunrises but by whether he woke up breathing.
Max was still asleep behind him, curled under a torn survival blanket near the corner, hugging that stupid aluminum flashlight like it was a stuffed animal. Elias watched him for a moment. Watched the slow rise and fall of his chest. The kid was thinner than before. Paler. But alive.
For now.
Elias adjusted the straps on his backpack. Tight. Balanced. Not overloaded. Every item inside had been weighed, tested, debated with himself until his jaw hurt from clenching.
No noise.
No smell.
No weight he couldn't run with.
He crouched next to the bench one last time, checked the pistol again. Still five rounds. The clip clinked softly when he reinserted it. He hated that sound. Hated how it echoed in his ears like a promise he didn't want to keep.
He didn't trust the gun. It was a last breath, not a first punch. Noise brought attention. Attention brought death.
The crowbar stayed looped through his belt. Reliable. Ugly. Honest.
Outside, the wind kicked a loose paper across the street. Elias crouched lower, barely cracking the door open, scanning every inch of sidewalk, driveway, rooftop. No movement. But Tendon Sense was humming, like distant thunder waiting to be real.
He waited.
Waited until the air tasted empty again.
Then he slipped out.
The garage door closed behind him with a soft thud, masked by the wind. He didn't look back. Couldn't. Looking back felt too close to regret, and regret made you hesitate. Hesitation was death.
The neighborhood had changed.
Not in layout. But in texture.
Shattered glass glittered under the grey morning light. Not fresh. But not old either. A burned car sat half-submerged in a front lawn. No smell of smoke left. But the echo of fire still clung to it. Elias didn't need to check the inside. He knew what he'd see—melted seats, maybe a half-mummified corpse, its jaw fused open in a scream no one heard.
He moved quickly, staying low, sticking to shadows and side alleys. Every corner he turned was a coin toss. No maps mattered now. The city was no longer built for the living.
His goal wasn't food. Not water. Not even weapons.
It was information.
Because the last time he went outside, the zombies had been slower.
Dumber.
But now… now he wasn't sure.
The one near the checkpoint. The one with too many joints in its arms. The one that looked at him.
It had changed something.
He just didn't know what yet.
The school was five blocks east. Or what was left of it. He'd avoided it so far. The memories there hurt in a way fists didn't. But if there were answers anywhere in this part of the city, that place might have them.
Or corpses.
Probably both.
He paused behind a collapsed fence and scanned the intersection ahead. His new skill pulsed again—vibrations through the ground, like plucking invisible strings that ran under his feet.
Two infected.
One limping. The other crawling.
No attention yet.
He didn't move.
They weren't the problem.
The problem was silence.
Too much of it.
No birds. No dogs. No cars.
Just wind. Always wind.
Then the crawling one stopped.
Its head snapped around—too fast. Too sharp.
And then it rose.
Not all the way. Just onto its feet.
No moaning. No stumble.
It stood.
Like it remembered how.
Elias didn't breathe.
The infected tilted its head. Sniffed. Turned slowly.
He held still.
One heartbeat. Two.
It moved on.
Dragging a foot. Not fast.
But deliberate.
That wasn't instinct.
That was choice.
Elias stayed frozen for another minute. Then he shifted back, keeping to the wall, cutting down a side alley he hadn't used before. His thoughts screamed behind his eyes.
They're learning.
It wasn't a guess anymore.
The manual had told him. And now he'd seen it.
The apocalypse wasn't static. It was evolving.
And he wasn't sure he could evolve fast enough.
He reached the school fence. It had been cut—wire sheared like someone had used a bolt cutter. Not zombies. People.
The yard was empty. A dead vending machine lay smashed open near the gym doors. The air tasted like metal and mildew.
He stepped inside.
The hallway still had fragments of posters clinging to the walls. STUDENT OF THE MONTH. GO WILDCATS. PROM NIGHT CANCELLED DUE TO CURFEW.
The last one had red spray paint over it—WE'RE ALL CANCELLED NOW.
Elias moved slowly, checking doors, watching corners. His eyes adjusted fast now. He didn't need to think. His body knew how to scan a room.
The classrooms had been ransacked.
Desks overturned. Cabinets torn open. Backpacks looted or left to rot.
One desk still had a laptop on it.
Dead. No power.
He took it anyway. Plugging it into the Crafting Bench later might tell him something. Even if it was only names.
Room by room, he found fragments.
Blood trails. Bullet casings. A lunch tray with a single moldy sandwich still sitting on it.
But no people.
No infected either.
Not yet.
He reached the nurse's office.
Door locked.
That mattered.
Zombies didn't lock doors.
He crouched low. Pressed an ear to the metal. Nothing.
Picked the handle with a multitool.
The door opened slow.
The smell hit him first.
Not rot.
Disinfectant.
Someone had cleaned this place.
Recently.
A cot. Blood-stained sheets. IV bag still swinging gently. A stack of supplies on a tray—antibiotics, gauze, even painkillers.
Someone had tried to save someone here.
Or maybe failed.
But more than that—someone had survived here.
And maybe still was.
That's when he heard it.
Not a growl.
Not a moan.
A whisper.
Not in his ears.
In his head.
"You are not the only reader."
Elias staggered back. Nearly dropped the crowbar.
"What—"
Nothing answered.
Just the quiet. Just the wind.
But something had spoken. Not the system.
Not instructions.
Not guidance.
It was the same tone, the same eerie coldness—but not directed at him.
Like… like he'd overheard something he wasn't meant to hear.
He closed the door fast.
And left.
Didn't run. Just walked. Quiet. Controlled.
But his heartbeat was a gunshot in his chest.
He didn't go straight back to the garage. He circled. Waited. Watched. Made sure he wasn't being followed.
And even when he finally closed the shelter door behind him and locked it, he didn't feel safe.
Because if that voice was right—
He wasn't the only one with a manual.