Night returned like a suffocating blanket.
The ruined building Luo and the others had taken shelter in was quiet—too quiet. Outside, the dead groaned faintly, their voices blending into the wind like a distant storm. A small fire burned weakly in the corner, casting long shadows against cracked concrete walls.
Lily slept beside it.
Her breathing was steady now, but faint traces of pain still lingered on her face. Luo sat nearby, his back against the wall, eyes half-closed—but not resting. He couldn't sleep anymore. Every time he closed his eyes, something stirred deep inside him.
Not memories.
Fragments.
Blood.
Rain.
A child's hand gripping his.
A voice he couldn't recognize—yet somehow knew.
His chest tightened.
Across the room, Mia watched him silently.
She waited until Lily shifted in her sleep and turned away from the fire.
Then Mia spoke.
"Luo… can I ask you something?"
He looked up.
"Why," she continued quietly, "did you protect me back then?"
The question landed heavier than she expected.
"When Leo humiliated you. When everyone laughed. When I pushed you away." Her hands trembled slightly. "Why didn't you hate me?"
Luo stared at the flickering fire.
"I don't know," he admitted.
Mia frowned. "That's not true."
He exhaled slowly. "I really don't know. Every time something like that happens… my body reacts before my mind. Like it already decided."
He clenched his fist.
"I've felt that way since I was a kid."
Mia's eyes widened. "Since… childhood?"
Luo nodded. "There are gaps. Years I can't remember properly. Just flashes."
He paused. "And when Lily is near… those feelings get stronger."
Mia followed his gaze toward Lily.
Her jealousy dulled, replaced by something colder.
Fear.
---
Lily stirred in her sleep.
A soft sound escaped her lips.
Suddenly, the air around her changed.
The moisture in the room reacted—condensation forming unnaturally fast along broken pipes, droplets gathering in the air like trembling beads. Water crawled slowly across the floor, spiraling toward her hands.
Luo stood instantly.
"Mia," he whispered. "Do you see that?"
Mia nodded, frozen.
The water trembled—then stilled.
Lily sighed and turned over.
Everything returned to normal.
Silence.
"She's controlling it," Mia whispered.
"Not consciously," Luo replied. "But it's responding to her."
His head throbbed violently.
Another fragment surged forward—
Two children, kneeling.
Blood dripping from their palms.
A symbol carved into the ground.
A promise spoken in trembling voices.
Luo staggered.
Mia caught his arm. "Luo!"
"I remember something," he said, breathing hard. "But not clearly."
---
Earlier that day, Lily had finally told him more.
When the White Hand captured her, they didn't inject her randomly. They called it a failed relic—a purified strain extracted from a Zombie Lord sealed deep in another part of the city.
"It was supposed to overwrite my cells," Lily had said quietly. "Make me obedient. Powerful. Not… me."
"But it didn't work," Luo said.
She nodded. "They said my body rejected it."
She didn't know why.
But Luo was starting to.
---
Back in the present, Mia spoke again, her voice shaking.
"Luo… did you ever wonder why Lily survived when others didn't?"
He didn't answer.
"Or why you're changing—but not losing yourself?"
Luo looked down at his hands.
"I think," he said slowly, "that something was done to us a long time ago."
Mia swallowed. "To both of you?"
"Yes."
He turned toward Lily.
"When she was injected… whatever they put inside her recognized something already there."
Mia's heart pounded. "You mean—"
"A contract," Luo finished softly. "Not written. Not remembered. But sealed."
---
Lily shifted again.
A faint blue glow flickered beneath her skin—just for a second.
Water trembled.
Luo felt a pull in his chest so strong it hurt.
He suddenly understood one thing with terrifying clarity:
His power wasn't awakening.
It was remembering.
And Lily wasn't changing.
She was returning to something she once was meant to become.
---
Far away, deep beneath the city, Aria opened her eyes suddenly.
She felt it too.
Not Luo's power.
But something older.
"Blood contracts don't break," she whispered.
Her team looked at her in confusion.
"They only wait," Aria continued. "For the world to end… so they can be remembered."
---
Back in the ruined shelter, Mia sat quietly beside Luo.
She finally understood why he had protected her.
Not because he was kind.
But because something inside him had already survived one ending.
And it wasn't going to let anyone he cared about die again.
---
END OF CHAPTER 5