Kael Voss returned to the living room and glanced at the woman, shaking his head. He had half a mind to ignore her, but a flicker of sympathy stirred within him.
With a quiet sigh, he turned and opened the reinforced security door. The neighboring flats across the hall were tightly shut. He climbed up to the third floor and found one door slightly ajar. Clearing his throat, he pushed it open.
"Urghhh..."
Two zombies immediately lunged from within, screeching with guttural howls. Kael didn't hesitate—one swift slash each, and both fell, lifeless.
He swept the apartment for any remaining threats, found it clear, then descended and returned to the woman's flat. Half-carrying, half-dragging her, he brought her up to the newly secured third-floor flat.
A change of environment, he thought, would be better for her. Watching her husband's corpse rot on the floor day after day—anyone would lose their mind.
He'd also noticed that the kitchen in this apartment still had a decent stockpile of rice and noodles. In this apocalypse, survival was all about scraping by—one more day alive was still a win.
He glanced at her. She was slumped on the sofa, staring blankly, murmuring to herself like a broken doll.
Kael left her be and paced the room. His gaze drifted out the window toward the massive shell of the Hanglow Tower across the street, mind working over how to get there.
That's when he saw it: a thick rope angled downward from the rooftop of his own building, reaching across to an open window on the tenth floor of the Hanglow Tower.
Kael's eyes narrowed. Who had secured that rope?
Most likely a survivor, he guessed. Whatever the reason, it was conveniently in his favor.
A twinge of worry struck him—Scout Finch had gone to the tower. What if she was in trouble? He didn't let himself think further.
Looking back at the woman, he said, "This is as much as I can do for you."
Without checking if she understood, he turned, stepped outside, locked the reinforced door behind him, and made his way up to the rooftop.
There, the rope was tied securely to the iron railing lining the rooftop edge. Kael gave it a strong tug. It held fast.
Though not easily rattled, his stomach flipped. The plan was to zip-line from the fifteenth floor to the tenth floor of a tower across the street. If he slipped mid-air, the drop—even into water—would kill him just as surely as landing on concrete.
Truthfully, if not for Scout, he wouldn't take such a risk. Exploring an unfamiliar building in the middle of a zombie-infested apocalypse was a gamble few would survive.
But Scout... She might've been young, but she was sharp, trustworthy. And in a world like this, finding someone you could trust was like finding gold in rubble.
The memory of Sylvan Viper's betrayal still twisted in his chest like a knife. That scar had yet to heal.
He descended via the rope, landing through the open window into what looked like an executive office. The rope was tied to a wide oak desk, still solid. Dust layered the floor—not thick, but undisturbed, signaling months of abandonment.
Once on his feet, Kael adjusted his gear and slung his crossbow off his back, holding it at the ready. Slowly, he opened the office door a crack. A staircase lay just beyond—dark, narrow, and ominous.
He widened the gap, enough to stick his head out and scan both sides.
A dim corridor stretched in both directions, lined with closed doors to mirrored offices. No overhead lights. Only the end windows and some slightly open rooms allowed slivers of dusk light to seep into the hallway.
The silence was suffocating. Kael could hear his own breathing.
Satisfied there was no immediate threat, he flicked on his headlamp. The beam illuminated the drab green carpet as he crept along, knocking lightly on doors, calling out Scout's name as he went.
Step by step, knock by knock, until he reached another staircase at the corridor's far end.
He paused. If Scout wasn't on this floor, where should he search next—up or down?
It didn't take long to decide: up.
Lyra Solis had mentioned a biotech lab on the 21st floor—Wanhae Pharmaceuticals. Maybe Scout had gone there. Plus, Kael needed to retrieve a hard drive rumored to contain the prototype drug's formula.
Also, the woman he encountered on the shopping centre's platform had described a pentagram somewhere in the tower. She hadn't said which floor, but Kael doubted it was low down.
In the post-apocalypse, the lower floors of any building were always swarming with the infected. If he were a survivor, he'd start clearing the top levels first, slowly working his way down to reclaim the building.
That logic might not apply to everyone—but it felt right to Kael.
He took the stairs. The next floor resembled the one below—silent offices and shadowed hallways. He moved from door to door, knocking softly.
Most rooms were dead quiet. A few let out low zombie growls from within.
Each time one howled, silence quickly returned. Judging by how few of the infected he'd encountered so far, Kael guessed the building had been partially evacuated during the outbreak.
Still, the eerie quiet got under his skin. He kept his breath shallow, his senses high-strung.
Lyra had warned him—something was off about this place. Strange zombies. Mutated beasts. It had been days since that warning, but who knew what still lurked in these walls?
He continued upwards, floor by floor. By the time he reached the fifteenth, he was winded, hands on his knees, chest heaving—not just from exertion, but from the tension that drained both body and mind.
"Tap tap tap…"
Suddenly, footsteps echoed from the stairwell above.
Kael ducked into the hallway's shadows.
A group of zombies stumbled down the stairs, swaying in mindless rhythm. At the landing, they paused, then turned and headed back upward again, senseless and unthinking.
The hallway was growing darker by the minute. Kael looked through a nearby window—night had fallen.
He slipped into an office, tore open a ration bar, ate quickly, and pushed upward once more.
The tower had been chilling before, but now—under cover of night—it radiated a cold, eerie dread. The air was thick with it, like the building itself was haunted.
He climbed to the next floor, nudged open the fire door—and three zombies immediately staggered from the left-hand corridor. Their dead eyes locked on him, hunger ignited.
They charged.
Kael reacted on instinct. One shot—steel ball through the skull. The second, he met with a thrust from his Gladius—a short Roman-style blade he favored in tight spaces. The third he cut down with a backhanded slash.
Sixteenth floor.
It was clearly a larger office space than the lower levels—open, sprawling. As he moved down the corridor, he encountered and dispatched four or five more zombies.
To his right, he passed five marked offices—the signs indicated this had once been a public service hall.
Two of the doors had U-locks affixed from the outside. The third and fourth were wide open, dark and empty.
He was about to move on, when—
Kael froze.
He stopped mid-step and tilted his head.
Listening.