The ground started shaking so hard I nearly bit my tongue in half.
It came like a pulse—no, a tremor from below, like the earth had a heartbeat and it had just flatlined. Trees groaned. Roots cracked. My boots skidded across damp soil and moss as I instinctively braced myself, arms out. I didn't scream. Not because I was brave or anything—I just didn't have the luxury to scream.
Because the moment the air shifted, the noise hit me like a freight train.
That suffocating silence? Gone. Just gone.
Instead, I could hear the snarls. Wet, bone-piercing, gurgled snarls.
I didn't see them.
But I knew they were behind me.
I didn't question it. I just ran. As hard and as fast as I could.
Branches slashed at my arms, the forest blur of grays and dark greens blurring as I sprinted between tree trunks as thick as storage tanks. The forest floor cracked open in places like an old scar tearing wider, and I leapt over them without missing a beat. Something was chasing me—many somethings—and every single one of them wanted me dead.
And then I heard the screams.
All around me.
High-pitched, echoing through the forest like broken flutes—human voices. Other miners. Other fools. Probably those other Tria-rated groups that got here first. It was chaos. Raw, primal chaos.
My feet dug into the ground harder.
But I noticed something—something eerie.
I couldn't hear my companions.
No heavy footsteps behind me. No one calling my name. No panicked "Run!" from Rythe. Nothing.
Just strangers dying in stereo.
And for a split second, this horrible little thought wormed its way in: Why should I care? If anything, they were rude to me at first. They could be dead already, and what? I'd survive. I always survived.
But… no.
I bit the inside of my cheek and forced the thought out. That wasn't me. Not really. Even if they were Tria-rated, and mouthy, and stubborn, they'd started changing. Started trying. I couldn't just write them off like corpses on a battlefield.
Still… the forest wasn't going to wait for me to have a moral crisis.
A massive trunk came crashing down just meters ahead of me—but Phaser's drills kicked in. My body reacted before my brain did. Duck, roll, slide. Left shoulder dipped, and I twisted like a knife through butter under the ancient, moss-covered wood. My muscles burned, lungs starting to ache, but I didn't slow down.
Then something weird happened.
The ABR started to fall.
It trickled through the forest canopy, touching the trees and leaves and hitting my face like snowflakes from a dream.
And the moment it hit me, I felt faster and lighter.
My legs burned a little less. My stride lengthened. My breathing steadied.
Was this some kind of stimulant?
I didn't have time to analyze the effects, but damn, I wasn't gonna complain. I sprinted, darting between roots, hopping over rocks, weaving like I was being chased by death itself—which, to be fair, I was.
But then I saw them in front of me.
Like statues, unmoving, except for the slow, disgusting tilt of their heads and the wet, clotted breathing that reeked of decay.
Rotten humans. Zombies, basically. Two meters tall, skin dripping off like wax from a burnt candle. Their mouths hung open, teeth like yellowed glass, arms swinging ever so slightly.
They smelled like a dumpster left in the sun after a hundred years.
I skidded to a stop, dirt spraying under my boots.
Surrounded.
Six of them in front. More emerging behind. I could hear the squelch of their footsteps. They were cornering me in a half-circle, their nostrils flaring. Some still had remnants of clothing—tattered vests, helmets from the mining crews. One even had a shredded identification badge still clinging to his chest.
I knew the rule. Baldie had hammered it into our skulls.
Do. Not. Move.
But this wasn't a stealth moment anymore.
It was hunting time. They had caught my scent. I could feel their hunger thick in the air like fog.
I didn't scream. I didn't cry. I didn't even curse. I just let out a long, slow sigh… and gripped my pickaxe with both hands.
I could use my threads. I could try. But experimenting with my own life wasn't exactly the game plan for today. I needed something familiar. Something heavy. Something real. And right now? My pickaxe was the only thing between me and becoming undead chow.
And then I charged.
The first one lunged at me with a snarl that sounded like someone gargling glass and bile.
I swung my pickaxe with both hands, more out of sheer terror than skill, and the metal end crunched into its shoulder and through its clavicle. The thing screeched like a dying banshee, but didn't fall. Its rotted face snapped toward mine, mouth gaping wider, leaking black fluid that sizzled against the forest floor.
I yanked my weapon free and kicked it in the chest with every ounce of force I had. It stumbled back. I didn't wait. I turned, spun, and slammed the blunt end of my pickaxe into the head of the second one that had just reached me.
It went down with a wet thunk. My breath caught in my throat.
Did I just… kill one?
My heart was slamming against my ribs. Not in a poetic way though. I genuinely thought it was going to rip itself out and crawl away.
They kept coming.
Another one lunged from the side, faster this time. I ducked by instinct, my reflexes wired by every single torturous lesson Phaser ever put me through. My back arched as the zombie's claws missed my face by inches, tearing fabric off my jacket sleeve. I retaliated with a brutal, overhead swing that cracked its skull clean open.
Its body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
And that's when it hit me. I was…doing it. I was not dying, not screaming but fighting. I wasn't using Flux. No strings, no tricks. Just my muscles, my breath, my legs, my rage. And I was winning.
But victory doesn't come free. I got cocky.
One of them, a bigger one, circled to my blind side. I didn't hear it. I didn't feel it until its bony elbow drove hard into my ribs, lifting me off my feet and slamming me against the trunk of a massive tree. Pain exploded in my side. My lungs seized. I couldn't breathe.
I slid down the bark, vision blurring. Something was warm and wet on my side. My fingers grazed the spot and came away red.
Blood.
I'd been gutted, not fatally but bad enough to scare the hell out of me.
The zombie approached. The scent of rot curled around me like a fog. I gritted my teeth. I didn't have time to panic. I didn't have time to cry.
I would not die here.
I shoved off the tree, ignoring the scream in my ribs, and gripped my pickaxe with blood-slicked hands. I threw my weight into a side swing that slammed the tool into its temple and it crunched. The body dropped.
I collapsed to one knee. Breathing hurt. My side was burning. My arms felt like lead.
But I was alive.
I had killed three of them. With nothing but muscle, instinct, and a goddamn pickaxe. I should have been afraid. And I was.
But I continued running.