Leon moved deeper into the pharmacy at a slow pace, like speeding up might shatter the fragile balance he'd only just regained. His eyes swept over the shelves now, not like someone lost, but like someone determined to drag anything useful out of the wreckage.
Bandages first.
The thought came almost instinctively. He'd seen too much blood today, and in a world like this, even "small" wounds weren't something you could ignore. He pulled a few rolls of elastic bandages off a shelf, not too wide, not the flimsiest kind either, thinking of his knees and ribs. Then he added sterile gauze packs, grabbing more than what felt like a "reasonable minimum," because the last few hours had taught him a simple truth:
Reality didn't care what was reasonable.
"It always ends with not enough," he muttered as he shoved them into his backpack.
He took adhesive bandages next, different sizes, plain and practical, and grabbed scissors from a first-aid kit, because a bandage you couldn't cut was only half a solution. He hesitated over an antibacterial ointment… then tossed it in anyway.
"Even if it doesn't help," he said quietly, "it won't make it worse."
His gaze shifted to the disinfectants.
Leon grimaced at the sight of rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, because he knew exactly how much they were going to sting. But this wasn't a moment for gentleness. He took a small bottle of alcohol, lighter to carry, and an antiseptic spray that looked easier to use, especially if his hands started shaking.
Then came the medicine.
He wasn't a pharmacist. He wasn't a doctor. He wasn't even someone who spent much time in pharmacies. So he followed the simple logic of an ordinary person: painkillers, anti-inflammatories, fever reducers. He grabbed ibuprofen, paracetamol, and something stronger from a locked case, something he wasn't even sure he'd ever dare to use.
He stared at the antibiotics for a moment… then hesitated and left them on the shelf.
"Without a doctor…" he muttered. "That could do more harm than good."
He stood slowly and walked to the small back area with a sink, the same kind of place where someone used to wash their hands after work or fill a kettle. Now it looked like a relic from another life.
He turned the tap carefully, half-expecting nothing to happen.
After a second, a familiar rush of sound came,
Cold water flowed.
Leon held his hands under the stream. Blood washed away in reddish-brown streaks, swirling down the drain. But it didn't feel like enough. The sight of blood was still too present.
He reached for the soap. Ordinary, gray, in a plastic dispenser. He pressed it a few times until foam gathered in his palms and then washed, thoroughly, obsessively, skin against skin, finger against finger, backs of his hands, wrists, like he was trying to scrub away more than dirt.
Like he was trying to scrub away what had happened.
Once his hands finally felt clean enough, he took off the backpack, set the sword on the floor within reach, and rolled up his sleeves.
Forearms first.
He opened the antiseptic spray and hit one of the cuts. The burn punched him instantly, sharp and vicious. Leon hissed, jaw tightening, and turned his face away.
"Yeah," he whispered. "That was going to hurt."
He wasn't fast or smooth about any of it, more careful than skilled, like someone whose "training" came from life, not from manuals. He cleaned the wounds with gauze, too hard in one spot, too gentle in another, then applied ointment and stuck on bandages, trying to make them hold through movement.
His knees were worse.
The fabric of his pants had stuck to dried blood in places, so peeling it back was slow and painful. When he finally exposed the skin, he saw abrasions and small splits, red and swollen. He cleaned them too, this time hissing louder, then wrapped them with elastic bandage. Not pretty, not professional, but tight enough to stay in place.
"It'll do," he muttered, eyeing the result with a critic's frown. "It'll do."
Ribs last.
Here he was careful, because every movement triggered that dull ache that reminded him of being slammed around inside the bus. He didn't see anything serious, no deep cuts, just bruising and shallow scratches, so he disinfected and wrapped lightly, more for reassurance than necessity.
When he finished, he sat in silence for a moment, breathing slowly, feeling exhaustion finally get the space to exist.
The cuts burned. The bandages pinched.
But the pain was… manageable.
"I'm alive," he said under his breath. "For now."
He packed the remaining meds into his backpack, and stood, slid the backpack onto his shoulders, adjusted the sword in his grip, and headed toward the exit,
Then stopped.
He stood exactly where the outside light cut into the pharmacy in a hard line, like a border between what had been and what was coming next.
He turned his head.
Looked at the woman's body.
Then the head beside it, still, empty now, missing even that one eye that had looked at him moments earlier with fear, hope, and a request that had no "good" answer.
The sight didn't make him nauseous anymore. It didn't trigger panic.
It just left a heavy, silent sting somewhere deep in his chest, like something had settled there and decided to stay.
He exhaled slowly.
"I'm sorry," he said so softly he barely heard himself, no longer sure whether he was speaking to her, to her family, or to the version of himself from a few hours ago.
His hand slid into his pocket on instinct and tightened around the medallion. The cold metal suddenly felt heavier than the sword and the full backpack combined. Her last words came back to him with crystal clarity, and Leon knew they weren't going to leave him.
Not tonight. Not tomorrow.
Maybe never.
He turned away and walked out of the pharmacy.
The door shut behind him with a quiet click, and the city greeted him with the same chaos as before, distant screams, the scrape of feet, and dead silence between them.
But Leon wasn't the same person who'd entered.
He knew what he'd done.
He knew he'd become a killer, even if it had been to protect others. And he knew that from now on, every step forward would carry a similar weight.
He moved down the street with the sword at his side and the backpack on his back, carrying not only supplies and new skills, but someone else's death, and a promise made to someone who no longer had a future.
A few meters from the pharmacy, his careful walk turned into a run. He tightened his grip on the sword and kept scanning the streets, because out in the open the city didn't give him even a second to breathe. He hopped curbs, slipped around abandoned cars, glanced down side alleys,
And at one point his eyes drifted, almost against his will, to the hulking shape of a dorm building visible above the shorter rooftops. A familiar silhouette that had once been nothing more than a place to sleep and study.
"It's close," he muttered.
Then he lifted his gaze to the sun dipping toward the horizon, staining the sky a dirty orange and red, and gave a bitter little smile. In the old world he'd get there in twenty minutes, easy, walking at a normal pace.
Now, looking at streets full of danger, he knew he'd need at least two hours, maybe more, to push through zombies, ruins, and whatever else was out here.
And that's when he realized it wasn't only zombies.
A cat darted between parked cars, but it was too big, too stretched out, its body unnaturally thin, eyes glowing with pale light. Farther down, something that should've been a pigeon waddled along with a bloated body and wings ending in hard, sharp-looking growths. Even the rats that skittered across the road moved wrong, faster, more aggressive, teeth bared.
Leon sped up, trying to get off the open street,
When a low, guttural sound rose behind him, something between a growl and a thin, sharp bark. The hair on his neck lifted.
He snapped his head around.
A dog burst out of a side alley, at least, something that used to be a dog.
It was bigger than any shepherd Leon had ever seen, its limbs too long, its skin stretched so tight it looked almost translucent, muscles outlined too clearly beneath it. Its eyes shone with feral excitement, and long fangs jutted from its mouth, dripping saliva as it launched into a sprint.
Leon bolted, heart slamming like a hammer.
"Shit," he hissed as the rapid, rhythmic slap of paws on asphalt thundered behind him.
For the first few seconds he thought he could outrun it, that adrenaline and his new strength would carry him.
Then reality hit him hard.
That thing was faster.
Much faster.
The distance between them didn't grow. It shrank. His lungs were already burning with every breath.
I won't make it, he thought, coldly.
And in that moment, he stopped running blind.
Forcing himself to stay calm, Leon scanned the environment while moving, his eyes jumping from one option to the next: a narrow gap between two parked cars, a toppled dumpster, a section of fence with bent, missing bars, a tight gate leading into an inner courtyard between old apartment buildings.
There.
He snapped into a hard turn toward the one place that could steal the dog's biggest advantage, speed, knowing that if he chose wrong now, he wouldn't get a second chance.