The scanner's screen dimmed.
Bio-signal detected: Subject 217 active nearby. Data sync incomplete.
Arin stared at the message, the cold blue glow casting shadows across her face.
Subject 217… That name wasn't for her. She hadn't been given a number. Not yet.
But someone out there had.
She shoved the device into her backpack just as a low groan echoed from the hallway.
Her muscles tensed.
The infected had arrived.
No someone had led them here.
Her system whispered.
[Alert: Hostile entities approaching.]
Estimated count: 6
Distance: 12 meters
Threat level: Medium-high
Recommendation: Engage or escape.
"Guess it was too quiet anyway," she murmured, tightening her grip on the crowbar.
Her stomach clenched not with fear, but tension.
That old instinct, the one that had only sharpened since she came back, took over.
She slipped behind the bleachers, breath even, steps light.
The gym door creaked.
And they entered.
Not monsters.
Not strangers.
Her classmates.
Or what was left of them.
Lena the girl who always borrowed her charger but never remembered her name. Her mouth twisted open in a permanent scream now, jaw half-hinged, eyes glazed and bloodshot.
Jeremiah the drama club boy who once wept during Romeo's monologue. His arm dangled unnaturally, broken at the elbow, bone poking out like ivory.
They weren't people anymore.
But Arin remembered.
And that made it worse
The system pinged gently.
[System Activated: Target Assist On]
Critical strike zones: Skull (high), Spine (moderate)
Bonus XP for first hostile takedown
She didn't hesitate.
She moved like water silent, sudden.
The crowbar came down hard on Lena's head with a sickening crack. She didn't scream. Didn't freeze.
Another turned. Arin spun, using her body weight to drive the metal edge through Jeremiah's temple.
+20 XP.
+15 XP.
Blood sprayed, thick and warm.
Her heart thudded.
But she didn't flinch.
Two more lurched toward her. She ducked a wild clawed hand, kicked a desk into the third, and drove the crowbar into the knee of the fourth, collapsing it.
She stood over it.
Its face twitched.
For a moment, it almost looked like—
"Arin?"
The voice came from behind her.
Real.
Uninfected.
Alive.
She turned sharply.
---
Tasha.
Her seatmate in math. Nose ring. Sharp mouth. Smart eyes.
Bleeding from her shoulder. Backed into a wall, clutching a fire extinguisher like a weapon she didn't know how to use.
"I—I followed the noise," Tasha stammered. "I thought someone—" She looked at the bodies. "Oh my god, is that… Lena?"
"Was," Arin said flatly. "Get behind something."
Tasha blinked at her. "What the hell happened to you?"
Arin didn't answer.
Another groan came from the hallway.
Four more infected.
And at the back of the group… a girl with long black hair.
Alive. Clean. Smiling.
Watching.
Not helping.
Zara.
Her stepsister.
Not real.
A memory.
No, worse a hallucination conjured by exhaustion, fear, and rage.
Zara wasn't here.
Not yet.
But her smirk burned in Arin's vision anyway, the same way it had the night she died.
The poison.
The laughter.
The whisper: "You were never meant to survive me.
The system pulsed harder.
[Stamina dropping. Heart rate spiking. Hallucination risk: Mild.]
"Arin!"
Tasha's shout dragged her back.
One of the infected had gotten too close.
She barely had time to spin, knocking it back with the crowbar's edge.
But she was losing momentum. Her arms screamed from effort.
She turned to Tasha. "If you're not gonna fight, run!"
Tasha stood, trembling.
Then threw the fire extinguisher like a baseball bat into the infected's face.
It screamed, stumbled.
Arin finished it.
They stood in silence, panting, blood drying in streaks on their skin.
Then:
"Are you… military?" Tasha asked weakly.
Arin huffed. "Do I look like military?"
"No. You look like you've already lived through this before."
---
She didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
[System Update]
XP reached: 125 / 100
LEVEL UP!
New Skill Unlocked: "Adrenal Surge I"
New Passive: "Reflex Precision"
Bonus: Choose one system reward
Options blinked before her:
1. Weapon upgrade: Crowbar → Reinforced Tactical Blade
2. Stealth boost: +15% evasion in dark environments
3. Random reward crate (unidentified item)
She didn't hesitate.
Option 1 selected.
---
The crowbar in her hand shimmered and reformed.
Sleeker. Sharper. Balanced.
It felt right.
She spun it once in her palm. "We can't stay here."
Tasha nodded shakily. "Where then?"
"The chemistry lab. It has tools. Maybe gas burners we can use to keep them back. Barricade the doors."
They slipped into the hall, leaving the blood and shadows behind.
But behind them, unseen on the rooftop, someone watched.
Not infected.
Not hallucination.
Real.
The boy with sharp eyes and the quiet, lethal aura.
He'd seen her again.
And this time, he'd noticed something more.
A blade that hadn't existed this morning.
A girl who moved like she had no doubts left.
He turned away.
And followed the trail.
The chemistry lab was colder than Arin remembered.
The windows were shattered cracked glass glinted like frost along the floor. Desks were overturned, beakers broken, and the sharp scent of ethanol, ash, and old blood clung to everything.
Arin moved quickly, scanning the room. Every motion was calculated, mechanical.
[System Analysis Complete]
Barricade strength potential: 76%
Available materials: Lab tables, chairs, chemical containers, Bunsen burners
Recommendation: Build trap perimeter and fortified fallback point.
"Grab those chairs," Arin ordered, her voice flat, low.
Tasha blinked at her. "You always sound like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you're… ready to shoot someone for breathing too loud."
Arin didn't answer. She was already dragging a lab desk across the door, bracing it with metal rods she ripped off the shelves.
Tasha obeyed without more questions, stacking supplies, pushing chairs, and tying wires around table legs under Arin's guidance.
A small fire crackled in a glass dish an emergency heat source Arin made with alcohol and a spark from the new tactical blade's tip. The blade hummed faintly as it rested beside her pack.
The system whispered again.
[Survivor support initiated]
Tasha Dren – temporary ally
Status: Wounded (minor), mentally unstable (stable direction possible)
Compatibility: Medium
Combat potential: Developing
Passive unlocked: "Tactical Coordination" – +5% combat efficiency when leading others.
Arin smirked, just faintly. "You're not completely useless," she muttered.
Tasha scoffed. "Was that a compliment?"
"You'll know if it is."
As night fell completely, the shadows outside deepened.
Growls. Moans. Heavy, dragging footsteps.
They were gathering.
Not mindless, not anymore.
Something was pulling them together.
Arin sat by the window, back to the cold wall, eyes trained on the courtyard below. In the orange glow of scattered fires and emergency lights, the landscape looked like a different world.
A body hung from a lamppost.
Someone's backpack lay shredded open on the grass.
A girl in a school uniform barefoot, infected, and limping wandered past, her face half-burned, half-childlike.
Arin didn't look away.
"I hate how quiet it gets," Tasha whispered. "Like… it's holding its breath."
"It is."
Tasha glanced at her. "What did you do before this?"
Arin shrugged. "Lived. Died. Woke up smarter."
Tasha laughed nervously, unsure if it was a joke.
It wasn't.
A clang echoed through the floor. Metal. Loud.
They both froze.
Arin's system chimed:
[Audio anomaly detected – Science Wing basement hatch open]
She stood instantly, blade in hand.
"Stay here. Lock the door behind me."
Tasha grabbed her arm. "Are you crazy? What if it's—"
"Then I'll kill it."
She moved through the hallway like smoke.
The basement stairs yawned open at the end of the hall, dimly lit by flickering backup lights.
Arin descended slowly.
Every creak of the steps was too loud. Every breath echoed.
Her blade pulsed, and the system highlighted faint red footprints on the floor fresh.
Someone had entered recently.
In the shadows, a storage room door was ajar.
She pushed it open.
Inside, everything was overturned. Filing cabinets broken open. A cabinet labeled Specimens: Do Not Touch was empty.
Something hissed.
Arin spun just in time.
A long, thin infected thing once human, now something else entirely leapt from the ceiling.
She ducked. Rolled. Slashed upward.
Its shriek split the air as her blade drove into its ribs, through something wet and hollow.
+35 XP
New Hostile Type Logged: Stalker Variant
Speed: High
Intelligence: Moderate
Tactic: Ambush and lure
Kill method: Vital organ rupture, decapitation preferred
She wiped the blood from her face, panting.
And then another voice.
A male voice. Muffled.
"—shit… I think it's still down there—"
She froze.
Upstairs. Near the lab.
Tasha wasn't alone.
She ran.
Two steps at a time. Pulse thudding.
She burst through the hallway just in time to hear someone shout, "Don't move!"
Tasha stood in the middle of the lab doorway, hands raised.
Three boys stood in front of her rugged, armed, and on edge.
And behind them…
Him.
The same boy Arin kept brushing past. The one who had seen her and said nothing.
Their eyes met for the first time really met.
Cold. Sharp. Quiet power.
Not love. Not fate.
A recognition of something dangerous.
The boy's name was barely audible. One of the others said it.
"Kael."
And Kael said only one word.
"She's the one.
Arin didn't flinch.
She didn't smile. Nor did she move.
But something in the room shifted. Everyone felt it.
Tasha turned toward her, unsure.
Kael didn't draw his weapon. But he didn't lower it either.
He studied Arin like she was a puzzle he almost understood.
And Arin?
She stepped past them all, back into the lab, casually wiping the blade clean on her jeans.
And said:
"Welcome to the edge of the world."