Day 15.
I woke to sunlight.
Not the corrupted amber glow of the entity's influence. Real sunlight, streaming through the window of the room Min-Tong and I had claimed in the compound's main building. Golden and warm and absolutely ordinary.
I lay there for a moment, just breathing.
In. Out.
No cold death-presence lurking in my chest. No fifteen thousand minds humming at the edges of my consciousness. No ancient memories whispering about civilizations long dead.
Just me.
Just silence.
It was the loneliest I'd ever felt.
------------------------------
Min-Tong was already awake, sitting by the window.
"Couldn't sleep?" I asked.
"Slept fine." She turned to look at me. "You're the one who kept waking up."
"Did I?"
"Every hour or so. Reaching for something that isn't there anymore." Her expression was gentle but sad. "You keep trying to check the network."
I sat up slowly. My body ached—normal human aching, from muscles that had been pushed too hard and bones that had taken too many impacts. No supernatural healing. No dead-energy accelerating recovery.
"It's strange," I admitted. "Fifteen thousand minds. For weeks, they were always there. Background noise. And now..."
"Now it's quiet."
"Too quiet."
She crossed to the bed, sat beside me.
"It'll take time. You just lost a part of yourself—a big part. That kind of adjustment doesn't happen overnight."
"I know."
"But you're still here. Still you. Still the man who saved the world."
I laughed—tired, rough.
"The man who's about to have a very uncomfortable meeting with people who relied on a god-king and got a regular human instead."
------------------------------
The inner circle gathered in the War Room.
They looked at me differently now. Not with fear or awe—those had faded the moment my power disappeared. But with something else. Uncertainty, maybe. Concern.
Max Yang spoke first.
"So. The Zombie King is... retired?"
"Something like that."
"And the zombies?"
"Free. Independent. Currently organizing themselves under Vanguard and Ursa." I pulled up the map—Morgan's equipment had survived, barely—and pointed to the territories my former army controlled. "They're not hostile. At least not to us. But they're also not under anyone's command anymore."
Rachel leaned forward.
"Fifteen thousand intelligent zombies with no leadership except what they create themselves. That's... that's not a small problem."
"No. But it's not a crisis either." I looked around the table. "Vanguard led my forces during battles. He knows how to organize. How to coordinate. And he chose to kneel yesterday—not because I commanded it, but because he wanted to."
"What does that mean for us, though?" Harold asked. "Practically speaking?"
"It means we have an alliance instead of an army. We can't order them. Can't control them. But we can work with them. Negotiate. Cooperate."
Drake snorted.
"Negotiating with zombies. Never thought I'd see the day."
"Neither did anyone else. That's why we have to figure it out."
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The meeting lasted three hours.
We discussed supplies—still limited, but more accessible now that the entity's corruption was fading. Discussed territory—the compound's immediate area was secure, but the rest of Seattle was still dangerous. Discussed the other survivors—Morgan's people, the scattered groups Rachel's scouts had identified, the inevitable conflicts that would arise as humanity tried to rebuild.
And we discussed me.
"People are going to notice," Rachel said carefully. "That you're... different. The compound residents, the awakened, everyone who saw you at the height of your power. When they realize you're human again..."
"Some will leave," I finished. "Some will question. Some will panic."
"Yes."
I'd thought about this. All night, between the moments of reaching for connections that no longer existed, I'd thought about it.
"Then we tell them the truth. All of it. What I was. What I sacrificed. Why."
Max raised an eyebrow.
"You think honesty is the best approach?"
"I think lies will poison everything we're trying to build. The entity controlled through secrets and manipulation. If we start doing the same thing..." I shook my head. "We're better than that. We have to be."
Morgan spoke for the first time.
"For what it's worth, I agree. Transparency builds trust. And trust is the only currency that matters now."
------------------------------
I addressed the compound after lunch.
All two hundred survivors, gathered in the courtyard. Faces I'd grown to know over the past two weeks—Max's original group, the Bellevue survivors, the awakened from Rachel's network, Morgan's facility personnel.
And beyond the walls, the zombies. Thousands of them, standing in silent witness.
"You deserve to know what happened," I said. "All of it."
I told them about the entity. About the ten-thousand-year cycle. About the first Zombie King who had split his soul to fight back. About the power I'd inherited, and the choice I'd made.
"To end the cycle permanently, I had to burn everything. The necromancy. The control. The memories of a hundred lifetimes." I held up my hands—ordinary, human. "What you see now is what's left. Just a man. No power. No armies. Just... me."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"Some of you followed the Zombie King. Some of you feared him. Some of you trusted him to protect you from what was coming." I met as many eyes as I could. "That protection is gone now. I can't command the dead anymore. Can't sense danger through thousands of minds. Can't overpower any threat through sheer numbers."
"Then what good are you?"
The voice came from somewhere in the middle of the crowd. Hostile. Frightened.
I didn't flinch.
"I can still fight. Still plan. Still lead, if you'll let me. Everything I learned over the past two weeks—about survival, about tactics, about this new world—that knowledge is still here." I tapped my temple. "I'm not helpless. Just... different."
"Different isn't enough," the same voice said. "We need—"
"What we need," Min-Tong interrupted, stepping forward with her healing light glowing softly, "is each other. The Zombie King saved us from the entity. Now it's our turn to build something that doesn't need a god-king to survive."
She turned to face the crowd.
"Wei gave up everything to protect humanity. Not this compound. Not this group. Humanity. Every future generation that will never have to face what we faced. Every child who will grow up in a world without an ancient evil waiting to consume everything." Her voice grew stronger. "If that sacrifice isn't enough to earn your loyalty, nothing ever will be."
Silence.
Then Max Yang started clapping.
Slowly, others joined. Harold. Rachel. Drake. The awakened. The survivors.
Until the entire courtyard rang with applause.
------------------------------
Not everyone was convinced.
That afternoon, three families announced they were leaving. Heading south, they said, to find other survivors. They didn't trust a powerless leader. Didn't believe the zombies would stay peaceful. Wanted to take their chances elsewhere.
I didn't stop them.
"Be safe," I said as they loaded their supplies onto the vehicles we'd scavenged. "If you find other groups, tell them what happened here. Tell them the entity is gone. Tell them there's hope."
The lead man—a former accountant named Peterson who'd never warmed to me—nodded stiffly.
"We will."
They drove away into the afternoon light.
Rachel stood beside me, watching them go.
"You're just letting them leave?"
"I can't force them to stay. Wouldn't even if I could." I turned toward the compound. "People have to choose. That's the whole point. That's what I gave everything to protect."
"And if they die out there?"
"Then they die free." I started walking. "Which is more than anyone could say before yesterday."
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The zombie delegation arrived at sunset.
Vanguard led them—twelve zombies of varying types, including two of the mutants. They approached the compound gates with careful deliberation, stopping exactly at the boundary we'd established.
"We request audience," Vanguard announced.
I went to meet them.
Standing face to face with my former Elite was strange. He was the same—gray skin, milky eyes, tattered business suit from a life that had ended weeks ago. But his presence was different. More substantial. More real.
"Vanguard."
"Wei." No more 'Master.' The change was deliberate. "We have discussed. Among ourselves. About what comes next."
"And?"
"The army you built—we are still that army. Still organized. Still capable. But we serve no master now." His dead eyes met mine with disconcerting directness. "We choose to serve a purpose instead."
"What purpose?"
"Protection. The living in this compound—they cannot survive alone. The world is still dangerous. Other zombies remain feral. Other threats will emerge." He gestured to the zombies behind him. "We will guard. Patrol. Fight. Not because we are commanded. Because it is... right."
I stared at him.
"You're offering an alliance."
"Alliance. Partnership. Whatever word you prefer." A ghost of expression crossed his dead face—something that might have been a smile. "You freed us. Gave us minds. Gave us purpose. We will not forget. And we will not abandon those you protected."
I turned to look at the compound.
At the survivors gathered by the walls, watching this impossible negotiation. At Min-Tong, her healing light a steady glow of hope. At Drake, whose fire flickered with exhausted determination.
At the future we were trying to build.
"Alliance accepted," I said.
Vanguard extended his hand.
I took it.
Cold dead flesh gripped warm living skin.
And something new began.
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That night, I found Ghost on the compound roof.
She was smaller than I remembered. Without the power connecting us, she was just a cat—gray-streaked fur, one torn ear, intelligent eyes watching me with familiar awareness.
"Hey," I said, sitting beside her.
She didn't respond.
No mental voice. No sent thoughts. Just a cat, staring at me.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I didn't know losing the power would break our bond completely. I thought... I don't know what I thought."
Ghost regarded me for a long moment.
Then she climbed into my lap.
Curled up.
Started purring.
I scratched behind her torn ear.
"I guess some connections don't need magic," I murmured.
She purred louder.
And for the first time since I'd burned my power away, I felt something other than empty.
I felt home.