"Why the hell did you leave me here?"
Vale dropped his gloves on the floor like I hadn't spoken.
"We had to move fast," Mizuki said, voice level. "You'd have slowed us down as usual.
Was that concern or an insult? Hard to tell with her.
"You went hunting?" I asked.
"Yeah," Zai replied, unwrapping a bundle. Two birds small, feathered, still twitching from leftover nerves. "Caught them near the ravine. Had to wait 'til they came down from the trees. Took forever."
Mizuki walked past me, wiped her bloodied blade on her sleeve, and dropped it on the table.
"There," she said. "Learn to use it or die without it."
I looked at the knife. It looked lighter than it felt. Funny how metal always feels heavier when it decides your life.
"Yo," Vale said, cracking his neck. "We should train you. You're dead weight like this."
Zai rinsed his hands in a bowl of cloudy water. "What's your name again?"
I hesitated. "I don't want to say."
He nodded once. "Smart. Keep it that way."
๐ ๐๐ ๐ซ๐
Weeks passed.
We stopped counting the days. The sun kept rising, the birds kept screaming. Sometimes, something deeper screamed too closer to human, but not quite.
Vale started training me. Kind of. Mostly he just hit me until I figured out where my bones were.
"Chin down," he said. "You flinch, you die. Again. Chin. Down."
I took the hits. My ribs hated me. My knuckles cracked like dry wood. But I showed up every time.
Mizuki was worse.
She didn't teach me she just attacked. A hand around my throat, a sweep of the leg, and I was on the ground again, lungs burning.
"You're not fast," she said, crouching beside me. "So be precise."
I coughed. "What were you before this?"
She just stood and walked off.
๐ ๐๐ ๐ซ๐
Zai never trained. He just talked.
"If this were Ghost Grid Protocol," he said, tightening wire across the doorway, "we'd be on fortification loop by now. Not this nomad crap."
"What's Ghost Grid Protocol?"
"Urban collapse doctrine. Hypothetical. Turns out, not so hypothetical.
He always had theories. About the outbreak. About why the satellites went dark. About why we were still alive.
It makes me feel stupid. I didn't understand a single thing.
"Maybe we're not supposed to be," he murmured once, slicing open a bird. "Maybe the dead zones aren't places. Maybe they're just us."
๐ ๐๐ ๐ซ
We boiled the birds.
They tasted like rubber and bad luck. But it was food. That was enough.
They taught me how to clean them, gut them, snap the bones for hooks. Everything had a use now. Even the awful parts.
I'd never done anything like it before.
Back then, the worst thing was how quiet the house had gotten. My parents never yelled. That was the scary part. The silence. Now, every time I cracked open a bird's skull or heard something snarl past the trees, I thought about them.
Were they still out there?
Were they infected?
Were they dragging themselves through some half-lit street, smelling for me?
๐ ๐๐ ๐ซ๐
We caught two infected. Locked them in the cellar of one of the old houses. Mizuki's idea.
"We don't kill them," she said, quiet but firm. "Not yet. There might be a cure."
She finally listened to me. I smiled to myself.
Zai made a face. "You saw the guy on the road. No mouth left. Still tried to talk."
"Exactly," she snapped. "Something's still in there. Until we know what, we don't kill them."
"No saliva. No exposure. That's the rule."
The cellar thumped softly beneath us. Like they were knocking, politely.
I sat with my back to the wall, arms wrapped around my knees.
I didn't want to look weak, but in my head?
In my head I was twelve again.
Waiting by the window. Watching shadows move across the lawn.
Hoping someone would come home.
๐ ๐๐ ๐ซ๐
The knock came just after dusk.
Three sharp raps. Then again faster and desperate.
Zai grabbed the bat from beside the window without a word.
Mizuki's knife froze mid-sharpen. "Nobody knocks anymore."
"No one alive," Vale muttered, already striding toward the door.
"Waitโ" I started, but too late. He flung it open like he wanted a fight.
The man on the porch staggered back a step, eyes wide.
No way.
He looked ancient, skin pale and smeared with dirt, his face hollowed by hunger, fear, or both. His clothes hung off him in torn layers, filthy and rotting at the seams, barely held together. One shoe was gone; the other was tied with a strip of plastic. He smelled like sweat, metal, and smoke.
But there was no blood.
No foam.
No bite.
Just a shaking old man, arms raised in surrender, lips moving without sound.
Then Vale's fist snapped forward, one solid punch to the jaw.
The man collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
"What the hell, Vale?!" I shoved past him, dropping to my knees.
Vale didn't even blink. "Could be infected. Could be bait."
"He knocked. He knocked like a person."
"Could be a trick," Mizuki said. She stayed in the shadow of the hallway, blade still in hand. "They're getting smarter."
"There's no wounds!" I said, inspecting him quickly, no swelling, no cuts, no infection points. His skin was cold with fear, not fever. "No bite marks, no scratches, nothing."
"He could be lying," Vale said. "He could be turning and hiding it."
"Or he's just old and scared out of his mind!" I snapped.
Zai leaned against the doorway, chewing on that same bird-bone toothpick. "Could've been followed. Could be leading others. What if he's not alone?"
The man groaned softly. Still breathing. Still conscious. I tried to meet his eyes, and when I saw nothing just fear.
Then he moved. He raised a shaking hand, slowly, and pointed toward the inside of the house.
Then at the windows. He made a turning motion with his hands. Locking.
"Wait," I said. "I think he wants us to lock the windows."
Mizuki narrowed her eyes. "Or he's stalling."
"He's warning us!" I snapped. "Why would he point that out unlessโ"
"We don't let strangers in," Vale said. "We've made it this far because we don't take risks like this."
"You think I don't know that?" My voice cracked. "You think I'm doing this for fun?"
"You're doing this because you're soft," he shot back. "And soft gets people killed."
I stood. I was shaking too, but not from fear.
"You don't get it," I said. "He's still a person. You all talk like he's cargo, or some infected meat sack waiting to burst. But look at him. He's terrified. He's trying to help and you'd rather beat him unconscious than treat him like he matters."
"Because he doesn't," Mizuki said flatly. "Not to us."
"Then what the hell are we surviving for?" I looked at each of them. "Just to outlive people we've already stopped being?"
Silence.
Vale looked away. Mizuki's grip tightened on her blade.
Zai finally sighed. "He better not be a mistake, kid."
I helped the old man sit up. He winced, eyes fluttering but he didn't flinch away. He just looked at me, tired and grateful. His hand brushed mine. Barely a touch. A thank you.
No words. Iheld onto it like it meant something, because it did.
We pressed him into the far corner of the cabin, between the broken shelves and the rain-damp woodpile. He sat cross-legged, his hands folded neatly in his lap like he was trying not to take up space. Still mute. Still watching.
Vale didn't look at him once.
"Soon as he twitches weird, he's gone," he muttered.
"Say it louder," I shot back. "Maybe he'll understand through the concussion."
Zai crouched beside the man's bag, squinting. "Yoโฆ hold up."
"What?"
"This thing's heavy," Zai said, pulling it toward him. "He's been lugging it like it's nothing."
He unzipped it.
Inside were neatly stacked cans, rusted labels, but still intact. Beans, peaches, tuna and some dog food then nestled between a rolled tarp and a crushed cereal box, a puppy.
Zai blinked. "Okay. Okay. That's new."
The puppy stirred, let out a tiny yawn, and blinked its cloudy blue eyes up at us. Shaggy, starved-looking. But alive.
"โฆYou've been keeping it quiet," I murmured.
The old man met my eyes and nodded. A single, steady nod. Like he'd just revealed a sacred part of himself.
Mizuki leaned over, frowning. "He's been carrying this across god knows what. That's weeks of food."
"Months, if we ration," Zai said. "And the puppy? That's not just sentimental. That's sensor class. Dogs can hear infected before we do. That thing could save us."
Vale scowled. "Or slow us down."
I turned to him. "We've been risking our lives for birds and boiled bones, Vale. And now food just walks through our door and you want to punch it unconscious?"
"I don't trust him."
"You don't trust anyone."
He didn't deny it. Just walked off again, muttering under his breath.
The old man didn't react. Just stroked the puppy's tiny ear with one finger, gentle as a whisper.
"Does it have a name?" I asked.
He pointed at a patch sewn into the puppy's blanket.
The word was faded, stitched in with frayed red thread.
"Mina."
Zai exhaled through his nose. "Well, Mina just bought him a seat at the fire, far as I'm concerned."
Mizuki stayed quiet, arms folded. But she didn't object.
I sat next to the old man again. He didn't look at me, just kept petting Mina like she was all that mattered.