Leon stood there for a long time,maybe fifteen minutes, maybe only a few. Time had stopped having clean edges in a place like this. He focused on his breathing, because it was still too fast, too shallow, like his body hadn't gotten the memo that the immediate danger was over.
Finally, he tightened his grip on the sword's hilt as if he needed the physical anchor, then drew in a deep, forced breath. He filled his lungs all the way, held it for a beat, and let it out slowly,deliberately. Again. And again.
Little by little, the chaos in his eyes sharpened into something more focused.
He began scanning the store not like a cornered fugitive, but like someone trying to assess space, threats, and consequences.
One look at the floor made his stomach tighten anyway.
The zombie corpses were still where they'd fallen.
From a distance they still resembled people, in that warped, deeply wrong way. But the longer he stared, the more details surfaced,and each one brought the urge to vomit back twice as strong. In several places the bodies had been gnawed on, as if something had torn away chunks of flesh without any finesse, leaving ragged edges of skin and exposed bone. In other places the anatomy was simply… wrong. Distorted. Like the body no longer belonged to the same category as human.
He stepped closer, slowly,carefully,as if the corpses might move if he got too near.
For a few minutes, he did nothing but look.
He saw the sword wound in one skull: an irregular hole, thick dark blood leaking from it, mixed with remnants of brain matter splattered across the shelves and tiles in a pattern that was the direct result of his own panicked strike. He saw the other one's chest, split and stabbed through, the place where the blade had gone too deep, leaving a torn opening that still oozed blood, seeping across the floor like the body hadn't fully accepted that it was over.
His breathing sped up again.
His heartbeat climbed. That familiar burn rose in his throat,warning him that another panic wave was coming. Leon bit his lip hard enough to taste metal and started whispering to himself in broken, uneven phrases, like someone balancing on the edge of sanity.
"So this is it… from now on," he breathed. "This is… my life."
His eyes drifted to the sword. Every few seconds a drop of blood fell from the blade and hit the tile with a soft sound that was irritatingly, brutally clear. Then he looked down at his own clothes,heavy with old stains and fresh ones,and something inside him tightened. Not only disgust.
Awareness.
"Killing… blood… scenes like this," he murmured, half to himself, like a chant. "Either me… or them…"
He took another deep breath,slower this time, longer,and forced himself to look again without flinching. Without turning away. Letting the images burn themselves into memory.
Only then did he say it out loud, quieter, but steadier.
"I have to accept it. I have to."
He stood there until his breathing eased and the trembling in his hands dulled,never fully disappearing. Even now, staring at torn flesh and scattered remains, his stomach still protested, a quiet reminder that he wasn't a machine.
But he was changing.
Leon drew one final deep breath, straightened his posture, and started examining the store more carefully,slower, more deliberately. Like someone who had stopped pretending this was a temporary nightmare and started treating it as part of a new reality. A world where survival wasn't about comfort or normalcy, but about how fast you could adapt.
He dragged a hand down his face, feeling sweat and dried blood under his fingers, then looked again at the shelves loaded with food, the refrigerators, the back room.
And he said to himself, low and practical, as if forcing the moment to resemble something normal.
"I need supplies… food, water… anything."
It was the first thought that wasn't about fear or death,just about the future, even if that future only meant the next few hours.
That alone was new.
By reflex, he reached back to tug his student backpack off his shoulders,the same one he wore every day to campus, stuffed with notebooks, his laptop, and whatever small purchases he made along the way.
He felt nothing.
His hand closed on empty air.
He froze for a second,then his face twisted with sudden realization so sharp he slapped his own forehead.
"Shit…" he growled under his breath.
The bus snapped back into his mind: screams, explosions, the vehicle flipping, crawling out through the shattered window, that blind, desperate rush forward without looking back.
The backpack was still there,somewhere between the seats, forgotten the moment survival became the only thought that mattered.
For a brief moment, anger flared hot and ugly,directed inward.
"Idiot," he muttered, teeth clenched.
Then the thought fell apart.
He exhaled through his nose and shook his head.
"No," he said more quietly. "Who the hell would be thinking about a damn backpack in that situation?"
It wasn't a forced excuse. Just a cold fact. If he'd hesitated, if he'd gone back for anything, he'd probably be lying dead with the rest of the passengers.
The backpack was a loss.
But he was alive.
He flicked his hand as if shooing away the last of the frustration and moved deeper into the store, feeling his thoughts begin to arrange themselves into something more structured.
"Next time…" he told himself as he walked between aisles. "…even in panic, I have to think. At least a little. I can't let fear take the wheel completely."
It didn't sound heroic. More like a mental note from someone who had just been taught a lesson the hard way.
He searched for anything he could use to carry food,bags, a sack, a crate,until his mind drifted back to the earlier scene, to the spot where the giant wasp had been feeding.
The memory was disgusting.
But it was also… useful.
And the fact that he could even think that way was another sign his brain was already rewiring itself.
He approached carefully.
The zombie's body was still where it had fallen after the wasp's attack, but it was hard to call it a body anymore. The head had been almost completely eaten, leaving only jagged bone and scraps of skin, like something had hollowed it out from the inside. The neck ended in a ragged, torn edge. The torso was punctured clean through in multiple places,holes that were too perfectly round, too neat to be accidental.
Exactly the kind of wounds a stinger would leave, striking at full speed.
Around the wounds, dried blood was mixed with something darker,almost black. The remaining muscle looked torn from within rather than sliced.
Leon stared without looking away, even as his stomach churned.
This wasn't just horrifying anymore.
It was… instructive.
The world he'd been thrown into didn't kill gently. It didn't leave room for illusions or aesthetics. And Leon was beginning to understand,more clearly with every minute,that if he wanted to survive, he'd have to learn to see things like this not only as nightmare fuel, but as information.
He crouched near the remains without touching them, leaning in just enough to study the black, sticky substance dried around the wounds. His eyes narrowed as he connected the dots automatically, coldly,like his mind had begun switching into a different operating mode.
"That stinger…" he murmured. "It had to be venom."
The black residue didn't look like normal blood, or anything he'd seen in biology class or movies. It was too thick. Too uniform. Like something had burned the tissue from the inside and left behind a poisoned, dead smear.
Leon stood slowly and scanned the store,the shelves, the counter, the back room he'd only glanced at before.
"If that was the owner…" he said under his breath, glancing back at the mangled body, "…he had to have his own stuff. Supplies. A bag. Somewhere he kept things."
It was a simple thought.
But it was the kind of thought that mattered now, because this world wasn't going to reward survival-by-luck forever.
Leon moved toward the door leading to the back, nudging it open with his foot,ready to jump back if anything shifted in the darkness.
The back room was exactly what you'd expect from a small neighborhood shop, only frozen in the moment it had been abandoned.
A narrow, long space with a concrete floor and raw gray walls. Yellowed sheets of paper were pinned up,delivery schedules, work hours. The air smelled like dust, paper, and the faint sour trace of stored goods.
Metal shelving lined one side, stacked with cardboard boxes. Some had been torn open and left half-unsealed, like someone had been grabbing things in a hurry. Others were still neatly arranged, labeled in marker: "drinks," "cleaning," "candy." In one corner sat shrink-wrapped packs of water, a few crates of canned goods, and spare paper towels. Nearby were bundles of plastic shopping bags,white, rustling, rolled tight and ready for use, but useless for anything long-term.
Leon eyed them with quiet skepticism.
"Plastic bags won't work," he muttered. "I need something I can wear."
Something that didn't take his hands. Something that left his body free to run.
He walked a few steps farther, sweeping the room with his gaze,until it caught on something by the wall near a low cabinet, as if it had been dropped in a rush.
A backpack.
A heavy-duty work backpack,the kind a shop owner would use. Thick, dark fabric. Wide reinforced straps. Multiple pockets with chunky zippers. Scuffed in places, like it had been worn every day for years.
It lay on its side, slightly unzipped, a flashlight and a roll of receipt paper sticking out.
Leon stepped closer and stared at it for a moment in silence.