Chapter 2: The Burial
The house was silent.
Only the soft creak of floorboards answered Axel as he walked down the stairs, his boots sticky with blood. The world outside was gone, but inside this house, time had stopped. It smelled like smoke, iron, and old memories.
He didn't cry. He didn't speak.
He just moved.
He found a crowbar in the garage and returned to the living room. With calm, dead eyes, he knelt beside the wooden floor and began prying it up, board by board. The noise echoed through the hollow home like whispers from ghosts.
When the hole was big enough, he went to his mother's body first.
Her skin was cold. Her hair matted with blood.
He didn't flinch as he lifted her gently, like she might wake up if he wasn't careful. He laid her down in the earth beneath the house. Then his father. Heavy. Rigid. Stained red and black.
He placed him beside her.
Then came the hardest part.
Up the stairs again. No hesitation now.
Axel carried what was left of Eli in his arms. His brother's blood soaked into Axel's shirt, into his skin. He didn't care. He didn't blink. He just held him like he used to—like he was carrying him to bed after falling asleep on the couch.
He laid Eli between them.
Three bodies. One grave.
He picked up the shovel, and he began to bury them.
One stroke at a time.
Dirt fell like ash.
First stroke.
His friends had left him. Abandoned him when he needed them most.
Second stroke.
His mother—gone. Her gentle hands, her soft voice, her humming in the kitchen. Silenced.
Third stroke.
His father—dead and destroyed in his own home, unable to protect the people he loved.
Fourth stroke.
Eli. His baby brother. Pure, kind, innocent. Turned into a message by monsters.
Each stroke of the shovel cut deeper than any knife. Each layer of dirt he threw on top of them buried not just his family, but the boy he used to be.
Axel didn't speak.
He didn't scream.
He just buried them.
By the time he finished, the hole was filled, the boards nailed back down, and blood covered his hands. Dirt under his nails. Sweat drying cold on his back.
He stood in the silence.
His hands were no longer shaking.
His eyes were no longer kind.
The house was no longer home.
---
The sun had risen fully now.
Its light poured into the house like it was trying to pretend the world was still normal. Like it wasn't drenched in blood.
Axel didn't care.
He moved through the house with the silence of a shadow.
In his bedroom, he found a medium-sized black bag. He packed only what mattered—first aid kit, water bottles, two cans of food, a flashlight, a lighter, spare batteries, and a pack of cigarettes from his father's nightstand. He slid it all inside with precision, no wasted space, no hesitation.
He didn't know where he was going.
But he knew he couldn't stay here.
Next, he went to the bathroom.
The water was freezing, but it didn't matter. He stood under the stream, washing off the dried blood and pain. The water ran red for a long time, then brown, then finally clear.
He looked in the cracked mirror.
His face was pale. Eyes darker than they'd ever been. Hair still streaked with silver-white, like the grief had carved it into his soul.
He stepped out, dried quickly, and got dressed.
Black shirt. Black jacket. Black jeans. Layers.
He strapped his boots tight and tied a second hoodie around his waist. Every inch of him covered, protected. Armored not just in cloth—but in emptiness.
Before he left, he walked into the living room.
There it was.
The katana.
It had been hanging on the wall for years—his father's old collector's item. Everyone thought it was just decoration. A toy.
Now it belonged to Axel.
He pulled it down from the wall, unsheathed it.
The blade whispered through the air—sharp, clean, deadly.
He slid it into a strap along his back.
Next stop: his parents' bedroom.
He knelt by the bed, his fingers tracing the wood frame until he found it—just like he remembered. A small, nearly invisible crack in the underside. He pried it open with his fingers, slow and steady.
Inside, resting in the dust, was a small reel-action revolver. Cold steel. Five shots.
His father's emergency weapon.
Axel picked it up like it was made for his hand.
Then, from under his own bed, he found the last piece: a military-grade knife, short and sharp, the one he bought just before leaving for college.
It had never tasted blood.
But that was going to change.
He stood in the center of the house—his childhood home turned graveyard.
Bag on his back. Katana strapped behind his shoulder. Knife on his thigh. Gun at his waist.
No goodbyes.
No hesitation.
Only one thought remained:
Survive. Hunt. Never forget.
He stepped out the door into the dead world.
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