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Author Note:
' ' = When thinking in mind.
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Lowering his gaze, Kaelthorn studied the dented can of coffee in his hand. It was one of several scattered around the twisted ruin of a vending machine, half-buried under shards of glass and crumpled aluminium. He hadn't taken it because he was thirsty—thirst had nothing to do with it. This was a test.
He turned the can over, his reflection faint in the scuffed metal.
"Best by: August."
He flipped it upright again and pulled the tab.
TSS-KCHAK!
The hiss was flat, almost tired. He brought the opening to his nose and inhaled lightly. One whiff was enough. His arm moved in a fluid motion, discarding the can so it clattered across the asphalt.
'Kaelthorn: It's beyond expired.'
Even sealed, canned coffee had a lifespan of nearly a year. Fresh, it carried a sharp, bitter aroma. Past its prime, the scent dulled—turning musty, lifeless. But this one… this one was acrid, the rot biting through the stale coffee smell so harshly that it screamed of months past expiration.
'Kaelthorn: Vending machines are refilled regularly. For this to be sitting here… more than a year untouched. Which means… It's been over a year since this city—'
BAP!
BAP!
The thought was severed mid-sentence.
Kaelthorn stilled. The sound was faint, measured, soft and deliberate. He moved toward it without haste, his steps a quiet weave between sun-bleached, dust-coated cars. The noise came again.
BAP!
Pause.
BAP!
And then he saw it.
A man stood beside a silver sedan. Or… what used to be a man. The remains wore a torn, crumpled office suit, its tie hanging loose and stiff with grime. An ID badge dangled against a shirt stained a deep, dried brown. His back hunched unnaturally. Skin pale, veined, and marred with a faint grey hue. The face—what little was visible—looked wrong. Lips slightly parted. Eyes milk-white and glassy, as if painted over, their humanity long gone.
Both hands were pressed flat against the driver's side window. Slowly, one hand lifted, knuckles turning outward, and tapped the glass.
BAP.
A breath later, again.
BAP.
The motion repeated. Precise. Mechanical. An endless loop.
He wasn't clawing at the door, wasn't slamming in rage. The tapping had the eerie rhythm of habit, as if somewhere in the husk's fading neural echoes, it was simply waiting to be let in.
But the car was empty—glove box hanging open, a sun-bleached stuffed animal slouched on the dash. Still, the tapping persisted.
'Kaelthorn: Not rage. Not hunger. This is…'
He watched the motion, memorizing its pace.
'Kaelthorn: Muscle memory. A reflex that forgot to die. Or maybe… he's still trying to get to work.'
WHOOSH.
Wind funnelled between the buildings, scattering brittle sheets of paper across the street. The man didn't react. His knuckles rose, fell, rose again.
Kaelthorn began to close the distance, his footfalls quiet—until his boot met a shallow puddle. The rippling splash cut through the street's hush.
The tapping stopped.
The head turned slowly, as if on rusty hinges. The milky eyes found him. The jaw sagged. One hand reached outward.
The lunge was clumsy, but direct.
Kaelthorn stepped aside, smooth as a shadow. The thing stumbled past, pivoted, reached again. This time, he caught its wrist, planted his weight, and hurled it over his shoulder.
BAM!
The body hit the pavement with a wet, dull thud. Limbs twisted, but no cry escaped—only the scraping shuffle of it trying to rise again. Even with joints bent unnaturally and fresh tears in its flesh, there was no flinch, no hesitation.
Kaelthorn dropped a knee into its back, pinning it. His hands locked it in place.
'Kaelthorn: Slow movement, shamble pace. Strength—comparable to, maybe slightly above, a living human. No real coordination. Driven by fragments of memory. Which means…'
He looked at the car window again. Dozens of handprints, all overlapping, all from the same set of hands. The smears were old, the residue long dried.
'Kaelthorn: They don't tire. That's the danger. In a drawn-out fight… they'll outlast you.'
He was about to subdue it for later study when the rain stopped.
Ordinarily, it wouldn't have registered as more than a passing detail. But Kaelthorn felt the air shift—an unnatural stillness bleeding into the street. The man beneath him hesitated for a fraction of a second before resuming its struggles.
From somewhere to his left—
CRUNCH.
Glass underfoot.
He looked up.
A figure emerged from the hollow darkness of a ruined storefront. Then another stepped out from an alley. Then from doorways, collapsed office lobbies, gutted food stalls… more and more shapes took form. They moved with that same hunched gait, clothes in various stages of ruin, their eyes the same clouded void as the man at his feet.
Dozens.
The one he held thrashed harder. The others noticed. Every head turned toward him, like compass needles to a magnet.
And they began to walk.
Kaelthorn's expression didn't change. He rose, releasing the first one—only to drive his boot down.
BURST!
The skull gave way instantly, the pavement spattered with blood, milky fluid, and fragmented bone. He barely glanced at the mess. Something else stole his attention.
From the ruined head, faint motes of pale light drifted upward—firefly-like, weightless. They swirled in the air for the briefest moment, then darted into his body before he could move.
'Kaelthorn: What the…?'
No time to dwell. The crowd was closing in.
He cracked his knuckles.
The nearest reached for him—Kaelthorn seized its wrist, pivoted, and hurled it over the others.
BAM!
The thrown body collided with the horde, toppling several in its path.
He ducked under a grasping arm, stepped in, and drove a hook across the next one's face.
CRACK!
Bone caved, the corpse flung sideways.
A spin-kick caught another in the ribs. He dropped low, rammed a fist into the gut of the next. It folded forward—he stepped behind, backhanding three more into the pavement. His hand snapped around the neck of the first, twisting sharply until vertebrae popped.
Another came from behind—the one he'd thrown earlier. Kaelthorn swept his leg in a tight circle, cutting them down at the knees before springing upward, delivering a descending punch into the next target.
The fight blurred into a rhythm—strike, pivot, drop, rise, slam. Minutes stretched, breath steady, movements sharp. Not one set of teeth or nails found him.
And then—silence.
He stood alone amid a heap of broken bodies.
Every time one fell, the glowing motes drifted free, only to slip inside him as if pulled by unseen threads. He'd tried avoiding them, but they moved faster than he thought. Still, there was no pain, no change. Yet.
He turned to leave.
HUM.
A vibration in his right arm made him stop. He looked down, then at the corpse beside him.
'Kaelthorn: Something special about this one?'
Crouching, he searched the pockets. Inside the bloodstained jacket—
A receipt.
"September 27 — 18:42"
"2 Onigiri, 1 bottled tea"
"Paid: ¥487"
'Kaelthorn: So… people were still shopping on September 27. Maybe that's when it all fell apart.'
He stripped the body, finding nothing else. The hum in his arm persisted. Which left one option—look inside.
His right hand curved like a blade.
SPLURT!
He tore into the chest cavity, ignoring the cold spray. Blood coated his arm—then, impossibly, the skin drank it in. His arm absorbed every drop, even what pooled inside the body, until the corpse lay emaciated.
The hum stopped.
Noticing this, Kaelthorn narrowed his eyes and looked at others. He then tried another.
Same result.
Then another.
Soon, every corpse lay dry and thin, their blood gone.
He didn't know why. But instinct told him it would matter. He only needed more.
'Kaelthorn: Instead of calling them corpses… let's call them Infected.'
While doing so, three goals took shape in his mind.
Absorb more of the Infected's blood.
Find survivors.
Establish a base.
'Kaelthorn: If I want to live—no, thrive—in this Dark Multiverse, I'll need to create my own force.'
And with that, he left the street behind.
.
.
.
Kaelthorn moved through the gutted streets at a measured pace, each step calculated, as if testing the ground not for stability but for intent—waiting to see if the city would try to bite.
The knife in his hand was crude, just a piece of steel dulled by age and neglect, its edge lined with tiny fractures. Yet, in the weak, ashen sunlight filtering between skeletal buildings, it caught the light like a predator's eye—sharp, cold, watchful. Every so often, it flashed as he passed through broken gaps of daylight, and each flash felt like a silent signal to whatever was still alive here.
The city had been silent for over a year, but this silence was not absence—it was a patient thing, like the held breath before a kill. Every distant creak of metal, every dry whisper of paper against the wind, carried too far and too clearly.
Beneath it all, the sound of the Infected persisted. Sometimes it came as a faint, muffled moaning—like a dream pressing against his skull. Other times, it swelled into a jagged, overlapping chorus that made the air vibrate. The wind shifted constantly, dragging those noises through the streets as if the city was reminding him it was not empty.
When Kaelthorn crossed paths with one or two of them, he ended them with mechanical precision—no wasted motion. The knife slipped across a throat, parted flesh, and slid upward into the skull in one fluid motion. Warmth pulsed into his right arm as the black current drank from their extinguished bodies. Not enough to give him anything new—just enough to replenish what was fading. The warmth never stayed for long.
A swarm, however—a tide of a hundred or more—he let pass, not because of fear, but because in a place like this, killing without purpose was a slow form of suicide.
'Kaelthorn: Until I can summon my real weapons… I should save my strength.'
His thoughts drifted to those weapons. They weren't tools—each was an extension of his will, forged into reality. But now, here, in this fractured Tokyo, it felt as if a thick, unseen weight pressed against him from all sides. His reach into the void was answered by nothing. The connection had been smothered.
So the knife became his shadow.
He came to a two-storey apartment blackened by fire. The walls still breathed faint traces of burnt wood and melted plastic, the scent lingering like an accusation. The air here was strangely clear of groans—whether from the fire's scent or something else, the Infected kept away.
The door was little more than rotted planks holding hands. When he pushed it, the hinges screamed, tearing loose flecks of rust into the air. Inside, the walls bowed under the memory of the flames. Furniture lay broken and skeletal, springs jutting like ribs. Bodies—some blackened beyond recognition—were frozen in the positions they had died in.
Kaelthorn swept the first floor without pause. The staircase had long since been devoured, leaving only a charred scar on the wall. With a low flex of his legs, he rose and landed on the next floor without a sound.
Up here, the air was heavier, thicker, as if it hadn't been disturbed in a year. He scanned the shadows.
Something small lay beneath the warped remains of a bunk bed—a notepad. Its cover was scorched and curled, but enough survived to show faded drawings of flowers and animals. The kind a child draws before they understand that the world can die.
Inside, the handwriting was jagged, each letter pressed into the paper as though the writer's hands had been shaking:
"Day 4: Still no power. Mom says we'll go tomorrow."
"Day 11: The neighbours are gone. We're the last ones here."
The last entry was uneven, almost scratched in:
"Day 29: Something is wrong with Mom's eyes."
He turned back to the first page—September 30. By the final entry, it was late October.
Beneath the bed, two burnt corpses lay locked together. The smaller was curled into the larger's side. The larger's skull was blackened and hollow, but enough remained in the bone structure to confirm what the child had written. The infection had reached the mother before the fire did.
Room after room told the same story—burnt bodies, doors locked from the outside. Whoever had done this had decided fire was cleaner than letting the infection claim them. None of the dead here had been given a choice.
Kaelthorn stood still for a long moment before turning toward the window—
SHATTER!
THUD!
He dropped from the first floor and landed on an Infected below. Bone splintered beneath the impact. The knife slid through its skull before its body hit the ground.
Another came from his left, its mouth split wide. Kaelthorn turned with an economy of motion, stabbing upward under the chin, the blade slicing into brain matter. Blood dripped warm and steady down the blade, pattering onto the pavement before being drawn into him.
He kept walking.
.
.
The next building was an abandoned office. Dust hung in the air like a fog of decay, disturbed by each step he took. Desks sat broken, computer screens shattered into spiderweb fractures. A calendar drooped from the wall—October's first nineteen days crossed out in red. The rest of the month stood untouched, frozen in time.
'Kaelthorn: Whoever was here… didn't see autumn end.'
.
.
A nearby clinic was worse. The air was saturated with the faint, sweet rot of old blood. Behind the reception desk, he found a nurse's logbook. The writing was tight and rushed:
"October 9, 22:00 – Generator failure. Power cut."
"October 10, 04:15 – Patient #14 expired."
"October 10, 07:40 – No response of help from outside."
There were no further entries.
.
.
Outside, a torn sheet of newspaper clung to a chain-link fence, rattling in the wind. Kaelthorn peeled it free.
"Tokyo Daily, September 29 – Hospitals overwhelmed by flu-like outbreak."
"Massive traffic accidents…"
"Violence at shopping mall…"
"Passengers walk onto train tracks…"
"Rail traffic halted."
'Kaelthorn: The infection started around September 25. By early October… Tokyo was already drowning. The question is…'
He lifted his gaze to the skeletal skyline.
'Kaelthorn: Was this just here… or everywhere? In the Dark Multiverse, assume the worst. If it was global, no one's coming. And after a year… any survivors are ghosts. That's why I haven't found any.'
His search through the city had not been aimless—it was a systematic sweep for signs of human life. But every lead ended the same: stripped shelves, dried blood, silence.
He remembered the looted bookstore. Ninety-three tally marks carved into the back room wall—three groups of thirty, then three lone cuts. Someone had survived here for ninety-three days. Long enough for hope to rot into madness.
Then they had stepped outside.
'Kaelthorn: Change of plans. Forget survivors. First, I need a base—a place the city can't reach.'
And so, he kept walking deeper into the carcass of Tokyo, as the wind carried the quiet, rattling breath of the dead behind him.
.
.
.
Kaelthorn stood before the shattered facade of a five-story mall, its once-pristine walls now weathered by rain, smoke, and the slow, patient rot of abandonment. Wind slid through the broken windows like a thief, carrying with it the distant groans of the Infected. He should have already secured a base before scavenging for supplies — a calculated error by his own standards. Yet, when his gaze had first fallen upon this building, something in its scale, its possibilities, had made him stop.
The mall loomed like a hollow carcass of consumerism, its gaping entrance revealing nothing but shadows.
He lowered his head, inspecting the glass door that had been smashed inward — the jagged remnants now nothing more than teeth in a long-dead mouth. Without hesitation, he stepped inside.
The air was stagnant, stale with the smell of dust, mildew, and faint copper. And yet… movement. The slow, dragging shuffle of the Infected echoed in the cavernous space. Above, the ceiling lights hung dead, and in the corner, a piano sat by the frozen escalator — its black-and-white keys coated in a film of grey. Tables, chairs, and garden parasols remained improbably in place, as though abandoned mid-afternoon tea.
Kaelthorn moved forward with a knife in hand — not for intimidation, but for precision. He navigated the ground floor with silent efficiency, slipping between the drifting husks. Each time he passed one, his hand moved almost lazily — a flick, a thrust — and another body collapsed without a sound. He did not fight them. He removed them.
Minutes bled away. Soon, the ground floor was silent again, save for the whisper of dust settling. The blood he had absorbed from the fallen simmered faintly beneath his skin, but he ignored it. His attention was on the real prize.
He searched the shops with a predator's patience, ignoring useless debris until he found the one that mattered:
Hardware & Home Goods Store.
Pushing inside, he scanned the room with sharp, dissecting eyes. No movement. No sound save the faint creak of a cracked wall leaking pale daylight into the gloom. Dust clung to tools on the shelves, broken glass crunched underfoot, and in the far corner, where other scavengers had ignored the stock, lay untouched supplies.
He closed the shutter behind him. The dim silence wrapped around him like a coffin lid.
One by one, he began cataloguing. Not in haste — in order. Every object was assessed for longevity, versatility, and tactical application. When he found cardboard boxes — some speckled with old blood — he didn't flinch. He simply packed.
Box One — Hand Tools.
The backbone of survival in a powerless world: hammers for force and destruction, screwdrivers for dismantling or crafting, wrenches and spanners for repairs, handsaws for construction and barricades, crowbars for leverage and close-combat brutality, chisels for shaping or trapping, pliers for precision work. Tools to reshape his environment into a fortress or a trap.
Box Two — Fasteners & Binding Materials.
Nails, screws, bolts, hooks, and wire. The sinew and ligaments of his future base.
Box Three — Adhesives.
Duct tape, super glue, sealants. Not simply for repairs, but for sabotage — gluing handles, sealing vents, coating floors in treacherous slick.
Box Four — Securing & Locking Items.
Chains, padlocks, rope, paracord. The ability to deny entry, bind a prisoner, or rig a choke point.
Box Five — Shelter & Weatherproofing Supplies.
Tarps, plastic sheeting, insulation. In the hands of the unprepared, simple protection. In his hands, camouflage from thermal scans, sound dampening for executions.
Box Six — Lighting.
Flashlights, crank lanterns, glow sticks, candles. Light could expose, but it could also mislead.
Box Seven — Cleaning Supplies.
Buckets, bleach, brushes. Cleanliness was not sentiment — it was prevention of disease and control of scent.
Box Eight — Paint & Marking Tools.
Spray paint, rollers, chalk. Territory markers, misdirection signs, the illusion of activity where there was none.
Box Nine — Construction Materials.
Wood, pipes, cement. The skeleton and armour of a stronghold.
Box Ten — Miscellaneous.
Measuring tools, protective gear, and workbenches. The infrastructure of efficiency.
When the last box was sealed, he straightened. A full day had passed — the sun outside would already be tilting into evening — but he felt no waste in the effort.
He stood still for a moment, eyes moving over the shadowed aisles.
'Kaelthorn: This mall is a vault waiting to be gutted. While I remain here, I will strip it to the bone.'
He lifted the shutter, the sound rattling in the air like a warning bell. His gaze travelled upward, to the upper floors where dim silhouettes still wandered.
'Kaelthorn: I will need time. And I will take it.'
And time went by.
.
.
.
Six months had passed.
In that time, Kaelthorn had transformed the mall into a silent hunting ground, a warehouse of spoils claimed through patience and ruthless efficiency. Day by day, floor by floor, he had stripped it of anything that could be of use to him. The ground floor had been the bloodiest—Infected had poured from every corridor and shopfront, their dull eyes and rotting flesh swarming toward the sound of his movements. He had cut them down without hesitation, stacking their corpses like barricades before moving on. The upper floors, however, had required no such culling.
Not because they were empty.
Because he chose to leave them alive.
He understood the value of fear as a wall. The Infected—slow, shambling, and mindlessly territorial—were a deterrent no human barricade could match. If survivors came, they would never risk braving a floor seething with those things, especially when they didn't know what lay beyond. That ignorance was his armour. And until he found a proper base to fortify, this mall would serve as his vault.
THUD!
The last heavy box landed with a muffled echo on the cold floor. Kaelthorn straightened, drawing in a slow, measured breath, his expression unreadable. A faint film of sweat clung to his brow, but his movements remained deliberate as he lowered the shutter and locked it into place.
Around him, the storehouse was no longer a room—it was a bunker of abundance. Piles of crates and scavenged boxes formed uneven walls, packed so tightly that the air smelled faintly of dust, cardboard, and old electronics.
This was the storehouse of an electronics retailer on the third floor. He had selected it for a precise reason: it lay in the heart of the most dangerous zone in the building. Here, the Infected were thickest—lumbering shadows moving somewhere just beyond the walls, their faint groans seeping through the metal shutters and thin plaster. As one ascended the building, their numbers thinned, but the fourth floor had birthed the swarm that now haunted this level.
From his earlier observations, it had begun in the theatre above. One infection, contained too late, had bloomed into a massacre behind locked doors. The bodies trapped inside had risen, pacing in darkness, until someone—likely desperate, likely doomed—had opened that door. What followed was inevitable. The theatre had emptied, its audience of corpses spilling down the stairs and pooling onto the third floor.
Kaelthorn had seen opportunity where others would see certain death. Before moving his supplies here, he had secured the room, transferred everything from the lower floors, and then deliberately herded a portion of the fourth-floor horde onto this level. Now, the third floor crawled with sentries who would never sleep, never question, never betray him.
'Kaelthorn: The most dangerous place is the safest.'
After his routine inspection—checking for moisture damage, pest intrusion, or signs of tampering—he finally turned toward the true reason this room had been chosen.
At the far wall, beneath a hanging lightbulb, a heavy cabinet stood flush against the plaster. Its weight alone would have discouraged casual movers. Kaelthorn grasped it with both hands and slid it aside in a slow, scraping grind. Behind it, a door emerged—its frame concealed beneath layers of makeshift barricades, planks, and scrap metal.
Someone, long ago, had gone to great lengths to ensure it remained unseen.
He had discovered it weeks earlier during his sweep of the store. The lock had been old, but not beyond his skill. When he first turned the handle and glimpsed what lay beyond, he had closed it again without a word, filing the knowledge away until his preparations were complete.
Now, his work was done. His supplies were secure. His perimeter was protected.
It was time.
He removed the barricades with meticulous care, letting each piece drop soundlessly to the floor. The door's hinges groaned faintly as he opened it, revealing darkness beyond. Without hesitation, Kaelthorn stepped inside.
.
.
The walls were reinforced with minor insulation, their dull surfaces absorbing the stale air. There were no windows—only the sickly hum of failing artificial lights, most flickering on the brink of death. Shadows clung to the corners. The air carried a faint acrid smell, as if the room itself had once caught fire but refused to burn completely.
Three workstations sat in disarray, their chairs overturned. The laptops on them were wrecks—two blackened by heat damage, one with its casing warped at the hinges. Filing cabinets lined one side of the wall. Many drawers yawned open and empty, while others held scattered remnants of papers. The final drawer stood locked, its handle cold and unyielding. Against another wall, a whiteboard bore ghostly traces of diagrams and fragments of code—erased in haste, leaving behind streaks like claw marks.
A dented steel trash bin rested nearby. The inside was charred, its rim warped by heat. He stepped closer, boots crunching on bits of glass and plastic.
Lowering his head, Kaelthorn crouched and picked up a cracked photo frame from the floor. Dust coated the glass, but the image beneath was clear—four researchers, two women and two men, standing before a lab door. Their ID tags caught the light.
Dr. Hana Kuromi (Behavioral Psychologist)
Taro Nishimura (Field Liaison)
Daisuke Mori (Medical Officer)
Yukari Nomura (Bioengineering Lead)
Flipping it over, he found handwriting.
"Our last day before it began. We thought we were changing the world.
Instead… we watched it collapse from the front row."
Kaelthorn's eyes narrowed, the faintest flicker of thought crossing his face before vanishing. He examined the frame for hidden compartments, then set it down on the nearest table without another glance.
The trash bin yielded more. He sifted through the ash and warped metal with precision—no movement wasted. A half-melted USB. A scorched access log, the timestamps smudged but still legible. He paused, the paper crumbling slightly between his fingers.
Kaelthorn: ...
Silence followed. Only the buzz of the lights and the faint drip of water somewhere beyond the wall filled the space.
A warped employee ID backplate—its name strip burned away. A half-charred memo fragment. He read it twice before slipping it back into the bin.
"…If Chrysalis reaches Phase 4… use THANATOS.
…the world cannot know we used children."
He straightened slowly, his face unreadable.
The filing cabinets offered little—just empty folders with faded tab labels:
"Chrysalis: Field Analysis – ALPHA"
"Subject Observations – Class 2-3"
"Project EUPHEMIA: Prototype Compound Test Logs"
"Incident Report ARK-31 (Confidential)"
The locked drawer yielded under his lockpicks with a soft click. Inside—a double-taped envelope.
From it, he extracted an old 4GB USB stick, its casing scratched from tampering. A hand-drawn map of the city, its streets marked in red, green, and yellow—Zones A, B, and C. A burnt Level 7 access keycard bearing Dr. Hana Kuromi's name. And finally, a vial—glass unbroken, label intact.
'Kaelthorn: 09X-EUPH.'
The letters hung in the air. He turned the vial once, studying the liquid's sluggish movement before placing it in his coat.
'Kaelthorn: Then the only thing left was.'
His gaze drifted to the row of workstations. The first laptop was a blackened husk—its internals fused by heat. The second's casing was intact, but its drive was shattered beyond recovery. The third, however… its power light pulsed faintly, running on some backup system.
Kaelthorn: Let's see what surprises you will give me.
He righted a fallen chair, sat down, and powered it on—his fingers moving with quiet certainty, the machine's faint hum the only sound in the suffocating room.
.
.
Once the laptop's dying fans whirred to life, the screen flickered—a dim, unstable glow struggling against the choking artificial light in the room. A customised OS emerged, minimalistic yet laced with warning tones. At the centre:
Password Required.
Beneath it, in stark, clinical font:
Attempts Left: 1
A single chance. Failure meant the machine would likely self-wipe.
Kaelthorn's gaze didn't waver. His fingers flexed over the keys, movements slow and precise—like a predator aligning its strike. Without hesitation, he began. The moment his commands began cycling, he felt it.
'Kaelthorn: The whole system is encrypted to hell… even multinational conglomerates wouldn't deploy this level of security. Someone wanted this buried.'
His lips curved slightly—amusement without warmth.
Kaelthorn: Still… let's see how long it lasts.
Windows bloomed and died on the screen in rapid succession, each one a digital lock meant to stop lesser hands. His sequences tore through them in a calculated rhythm—an unbroken tempo of precision, speed, and inevitability.
The encryption was dense, layered like a fortress wall, yet every layer fell. The machine resisted, the OS crawling like a dying thing, until finally the last defence gave way.
As the desktop loaded, his thoughts sharpened like glass.
'Kaelthorn: The evolution didn't just strengthen my body… it sharpened my mind. Faster recall. Deeper calculation. Every skill I've ever learned—refined. I am no longer specialised. I am complete.'
The OS fully loaded. Empty directories greeted him—whole partitions scrubbed clean.
'Kaelthorn: As expected. They erased everything before leaving.'
He chuckled.
'Kaelthorn: Though they would have never imagined… someone like me finding it.'
His hands resumed their dance, running data reconstruction tools with surgical precision. Fragments began to surface—damaged, encrypted, clinging to corrupted sectors. He decrypted them, one after another, a slow unpeeling of a corpse's skin to see what rotted beneath.
At last, the final string was unlocked. He leaned forward, eyes narrowing at the recovered directory name.
Kaelthorn: Show me… what you're hiding… Randall Corporation.
.
.
.
.
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EXECUTIVE ORDER
Randall Corporation – Internal Memorandum
Date: September 13, ■■■
From: Executive Oversight Committee
Effective immediately, all communication with ■■■■■ is suspended under Article 9. Use of "stabilizer vector," "Chrysalis," or "anomaly latency" in any channel is strictly prohibited.
Full data purge scheduled under Protocol: THANATOS.
This is not a failure. It is a correction.
.
.
.
SLIDE DECK – "CHRYALIS FIELD BRIEFING"
Slide 2: Objectives
Stimulate emotional durability in high-risk youth populations
Introduce viral vector PRG09X under observation
Track social cohesion after psychological trauma
.
Slide 3: Test Sites
■■■■■ (ALPHA)
[REDACTED] Medical Facility
"Sanctuary Program" (Terminated)
.
Slide 4: Behavioral Notes
Subjects continue routines post-infection. Teachers maintain role function. Class rituals persist.
"Echoes of structure override biological decay."
.
Slide 5: Protocol Contingencies
SIGMA-BLACK: Quarantine, no rescue
THANATOS: Total data purge + personnel termination
.
.
.
INCIDENT REPORT – ARK-31
Subject: ARK-31
Location: Sector B Containment
Subject exhibited neural activity post-mortem.
Attempted to "attend class."
.
Containment failed. Site sterilized.
Vector mutated into airborne strain via neuropathic spores.
.
Casualties: 4 researchers, 1 missing operative
.
Note: Behavior mimics survival, not actual cognition.
.
"The dead don't know they're dead. That's what makes them dangerous."
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.
.
HANA KUROMI – FRAGMENTED JOURNA
Recovered Auto-save – Speech-to-Text log %^@$(
.
…they said it was for adaptation... not war...
…students still smile… still hold hands… it's not right…
…Taro said the results were "beautiful."
.
I said they were monsters.
.
If you're reading this…
The override isn't a password. It's a song. A frequency.
.
The music room.
That's where they hid it.
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.
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Icarus_Collapse_Report_vFINAL1.9.encr
Classified – For Executive Eyes Only
.
Project Icarus was never about saving lives.
It was about testing the threshold of human identity.
.
When infected mimic routine, survivors struggle to act. They hesitate.
They remember.
.
Empathy becomes the final vector.
-> Suppress memory, or
-> Terminate infected regardless of behavior
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RECOMMENDED ACTION:
-> Deploy THANATOS
-> Destroy all archives
-> Eliminate control groups
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FIELD OBSERVATION LOG: ■■■■■
Group Alpha remains "functional" in observed routines.
Morning meetings, school rules, social hierarchy — all preserved despite infection.
"Routine replaces reality."
Notable subject: ■■■— mild exposure, minimal aggression. Recommend extraction.
(Flagged: Possible latent immunity)
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CITY MAP
Red Zones:
Zone A: Quarantine
Zone B: Chrysalis Test Sites
Zone C: "Failsafe" Detonation Zones
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Note on ■■■:
"Group Alpha – Observe only. Do not engage."
[■■■■■ pinned with green marker]
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The laptop's screen dimmed into nothingness, a black void swallowing its glow as the machine gave its final sigh. Its battery was bled dry, every spark consumed.
Kaelthorn's gaze lingered on the lifeless screen for a long moment, as if memorising the last fragments of light it had offered. Then, he leaned back in the chair, fingers drifting to his chin in a slow, deliberate motion. His thoughts slid into place like the interlocking teeth of a trap.
'Kaelthorn: Randall Corporation… They didn't just cause the apocalypse. They watched it unfold. They observed it, dissected it. Recorded every last twitch. They infected children — not for chaos, but for research. To see if the rot of routine and memory could survive the collapse of the body. A petri dish built from human lives.'
His gaze shifted to the phone lying beside the dead laptop, tethered by a black USB cable — a lifeline between predator and prey. Months earlier, he had plucked the device from the shelves of a luxury mobile shop in the mall. But it was no longer just a phone; it had been remade. Strengthened. Hardened. Enhanced beyond commercial design.
He had tempered its circuits, rewritten its firmware, and paired it with a power bank he had also rebuilt — a parasite for electricity. The device could drain the life from other phones completely, leaving them as cold shells. When he had felled infected in the streets, he had searched their pockets with clinical precision, harvesting their devices, leeching every drop of stored charge into his own reserve. The same parasite could even draw from the deep pulse of car or bike batteries — a scavenger's dream turned into a tactician's weapon.
And the memory — a 2TB SD card — was already heavy with collected secrets.
Now, the screen flashed with a single notification.
Data Copied.
The corner of his mouth tugged upward — a faint ripple of satisfaction, gone almost as quickly as it appeared.
'Kaelthorn: The decision to come here… worth every second. Now I know the virus's nature. It didn't erase thought — it chained it. It turned emotion into a coffin. It built an illusion, made the infected believe they were still alive… trapped in an echo of themselves. And now… I hold the key they tried to incinerate.'
He closed the dead laptop gently, like sealing a corpse inside its coffin. His thumb slid across his phone's screen, pulling up the decrypted files now stored safely in its depths. One entry caught his attention — locked, but with its name speaking volumes.
"Sanctuary_01 – Subject_TK_Confirmed"
Access: Pending Override Frequency
Beneath it, a second line — more curious.
"Music Room Sequence – Unlocked on Audio Match: Euphemia_Hymn.v1"
A song. Once, it had echoed somewhere in the city's bones. And now… he knew exactly where it had been.
His gaze flicked once more to the closed laptop.
'Kaelthorn: A portable build would be useful. Something self-powered. Solar chargers — enhanced. The kind that outlasts the sun's own patience. That will take… a month or two.'
Time was a resource he could afford to spend.
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Three more months passed under the shadowed skeleton of the mall. The air there grew heavier, the walls seeming to bend inward over time, the silence often broken by the muffled thump of infected bodies colliding with barricades somewhere far below.
When the work was done, Kaelthorn sealed the shutter doors with precision — not just closed, but locked into deterrence. Chains, heavy locks, reinforced metal. A fortress left behind.
It would draw eyes, yes. But it would also draw teeth. Anyone foolish enough to linger in breaking it would find themselves overrun before they even smelled victory.
He packed with cold economy — three bottles of water. Three packets of biscuits. Nothing more. These were not comforts; they were contingencies.
After nine months, Kaelthorn finally stepped out of the mall. The air outside pressed against him, warm and damp with the breath of a city that was no longer human, as if the streets themselves leaned forward to watch him leave.
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The moment Kaelthorn stepped out of the mall's doors, the cold bit at his face. The air carried that lifeless stillness unique to dead cities, broken only by the faint metallic echo of his own footsteps.
Then, movement.
Far down the cracked, weed-choked street, a lone figure emerged—bundled in thick, mismatched layers against the chill, a ragged scarf wrapped around his neck. Beside him padded a large black dog, ribs faintly visible under its coat, tail held stiffly. The man's eyes locked on Kaelthorn almost instantly, and for a fraction of a second, Kaelthorn noticed that his gait didn't quicken with surprise. No stumble of disbelief. No frantic wave. Just a straight, measured walk.
Kaelthorn's own pace slowed, but he didn't stop. He let his eyes scan: heavy boots, decent winter coat, patched at the elbows, a steel rod sharpened into a spear in one hand, a weather-worn backpack strapped to his shoulders.
When they were close enough to make out each other's expressions, the man exhaled sharply—too sharply, Kaelthorn thought.
Man: Finally… someone else. First face I've seen in months.
Kaelthorn kept his voice neutral.
Kaelthorn: Same. Not many left to talk to. This cold makes sure of that.
Man: Yeah. It's… rough. Kurosawa Ren. You?
Kaelthorn: Lex.
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly.
Kurosawa Ren: Lex. A foreigner, huh?
Kaelthorn gave a short nod.
Kaelthorn: Was sightseeing before everything went to hell. Now I'm sightseeing the ruins.
He let a hollow, self-deprecating chuckle slip—just enough to sell it.
Ren's gaze softened in manufactured sympathy.
Kurosawa Ren: Must be hard… being stuck far from your family.
Kaelthorn's eyes lowered, his tone almost wistful.
Kaelthorn: Every damn day. Thinking about my wife… my daughter. It's the only thing that's kept me from losing my mind.
Ren smiled faintly, bending to scratch the dog's neck.
Kurosawa Ren: I get it. This guy—Kuro—he's the reason I'm still sane.
Kaelthorn's eyes flicked over Kuro. Muscular frame under the fur. Strong bite. Dangerous if provoked.
Ren looked him over.
Kurosawa Ren: Nice clothes. You didn't bring those from your trip, did you?
Kaelthorn shook his head.
Kaelthorn: Mall. Just scavenged them.
Ren's eyes shifted past him to the looming shadow of the mall entrance.
Kurosawa Ren: Then there's food in there, too.
Kaelthorn shrugged lightly.
Kaelthorn: Enough. But you'd better watch for the Infected.
Ren tilted his head.
Kurosawa Ren: Infected?
Kaelthorn: I don't like calling them 'them.' Makes it sound like they're people. They're not.
Ren gave a slow nod. Kaelthorn reached into his coat, pulling out a half-full water bottle, and offered it.
Kaelthorn: Thirsty?
Kurosawa Ren: God, yes.
Ren leaned his spear against his side, twisted the cap, and drank greedily—water spilling down his chin as if it were gold.
Ren: Thanks…
But before Kaelthorn could take the bottle back, Ren's arm jerked forward, aiming the bottle's edge at Kaelthorn's face.
Kaelthorn's head tilted just enough—the attack missed by inches. In the same motion, he stepped in and drove his knee upward with precision.
BAM!
Kurosawa Ren: AAAHHH!
Ren collapsed, clutching his groin, gasping like a fish on dry land.
Kuro barked, lunging with bared teeth.
WOOF!
Kaelthorn's hand was already on the black-handled knife. One motion, one downward stab—steel into skull.
STAB!
Warm blood sprayed across Kaelthorn's knuckles as the dog's body went limp. He withdrew the blade cleanly, pushing the corpse aside.
Ren's scream turned ragged.
Kurosawa Ren: No! Kuro!!
Kaelthorn's face was unreadable now—no hint of the faint smile he'd worn before. He walked forward, shadows in his eyes. When Ren reached for his spear, Kaelthorn pinned his hand to the ground with the knife.
STAB!
Ren: ARGH!
Kaelthorn planted his boot on Ren's free hand.
Kaelthorn: We're going to have a conversation. Answer truthfully, and you'll get a quick death. Lie… and I'll make sure you remember every second until you stop breathing.
Ren's teeth clenched, his eyes glassy with pain.
Kurosawa Ren: When… did you figure it out?
Kaelthorn: The second I saw you. No shock in your face. No joy. Just calculation. That's not how someone acts when they see their first human in months.
He picked up the makeshift spear, weighing it in his hand.
Kaelthorn: And the way you attacked… tells me you've done it before. You've killed survivors for their gear, haven't you?
Ren's silence was answer enough.
Kaelthorn punched him, splitting his lip and sending two teeth skittering across the cracked pavement.
Kaelthorn: I'm asking the questions here. First—how long since the outbreak?
Ren hesitated, saw Kaelthorn's knuckles tighten, and blurted.
Kurosawa Ren: T-Twenty-six months.
Kaelthorn: Date?
Kurosawa Ren: November tenth.
Kaelthorn: Government response?
Kurosawa Ren: None… just broadcast shelter locations. Saint Isidore University, Randall Corporation offices.
Kaelthorn's gaze sharpened slightly at the second name.
Kaelthorn: Why aren't you there?
Ren licked the blood from his lip.
Kurosawa Ren: More people means fewer supplies. I'd rather hunt on my own.
The questions kept coming. Fear had done its work—Ren answered without hesitation now.
Kaelthorn: Where were you headed?
Kurosawa Ren: Mall. For supplies.
Kaelthorn's boot pressed harder—bone creaked.
Ren: Okay! A year ago, I saw a military chopper go down. Thought it was a rescue. It wasn't. But there might be weapons there… guns…
Kaelthorn's expression didn't change.
Kaelthorn: Direction?
Ren's eyes darted to his chest pocket. Kaelthorn retrieved the folded, grease-stained map, scanning it silently. For several seconds, only the wind moved.
Kaelthorn: …This right?
Kurosawa Ren: One hundred percent.
Kaelthorn slid the map into his own coat, took the backpack, and finally pulled the knife from Ren's hand. Blood streamed into the dirt.
Ren was still glaring when the groan came from behind him. Then another. Then twenty more.
He turned, color draining from his face. The street was thick with Infected, slow but inexorable, drawn by his screams.
Kurosawa Ren: H-Hey… Lex. Let's call a truce—help me, we'll survive, I'll do whatever you—
Kaelthorn: My name's not Lex.
Before Ren could reply, Kaelthorn slipped between two grasping hands, vanishing into the gaps between bodies like smoke through cracks.
Ren's last sight of him was the flustering cloak disappearing into the distance, before teeth and hands dragged him down.
His screams didn't last long.
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Kaelthorn ignored Kurosawa Ren's desperate pleading behind him as if the man's voice were nothing but background noise. His focus was fixed ahead—every step precise, every turn calculated. His body flowed through the ruined streets like a shadow given speed, weaving around debris, vaulting over collapsed fences, and sliding past jagged rebar that jutted from cracked walls.
A sudden shift in the air warned him before his eyes confirmed it—a horde of Infected swarmed the avenue ahead, their guttural noises clashing in a dissonant, animal chorus.
Without breaking pace, he kicked off a dented street sign, landing on a sagging electricity pole with predatory grace. His boots barely whispered against the rusting metal as he leapt from pole to pole, the gaps between them yawning five or six meters—nothing to him now. Below, the Infected shuffled, tearing into scraps of unidentifiable meat, utterly oblivious to the silent predator passing overhead.
Once the swarm drifted on, he dropped onto the hood of an overturned car. The impact barely bent his knees.
The ruined skyline bled past him in a blur as he resumed his full-speed sprint, the cold air cutting across his face like thin blades. An hour later, he slowed—by choice, not exhaustion.
Ahead lay his destination.
The skeletal remains of a chopper lay within the grounds of a tall, walled compound. The once-proud aircraft was nothing but a burnt husk, its twisted rotors jutting at odd angles like broken limbs. Around it swarmed dozens of Infected, their movements twitchy and erratic, drawn to the carcass of the machine as if it still pulsed with life.
Kaelthorn stood at the front gate, motionless. His eyes swept the interior with detached precision, mapping every route, every cluster of movement, every blind spot. Only when he had catalogued it all did his gaze shift upward, falling on the weathered letters bolted to the wall.
Megurigaoka Private High School.
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*A/N: Please throw some power stones.
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