The walls shook.
Dust rained softly from the ceiling rafters, drifting like falling petals into the dim light of the classroom. The air inside was stifling—sweaty, tense, filled with the scent of blood and singed metal. Makeshift barricades of desks and overturned cabinets lined the windows and doors. The faint flicker of Originium-powered lights blinked in and out of life above.
A dozen students sat huddled in a semi-circle, their uniforms torn and patched, some of them wrapped in cloth strips bearing makeshift triage tags.
They hadn't spoken for minutes.
Not since the last time the singer outside struck the window.
Now, only one student stood—her fingers trembling against the glass as she stared out, chest rising and falling in short, shallow breaths. Her hands, dirtied with ash and dried tears, pressed tightly to the reinforced pane.
"M… Mom?"
Her voice cracked. Her eyes refused to blink.
Outside, just inches from her face, the monster stood tall, swaying gently as it sang. The skin on its face stretched too tightly to form expressions anymore, but… the torn sleeves of the coat it wore—patterned with faded florals—
and the low, humming tune…
It was unmistakable.
It was her mother's lullaby.
The tune she used to hum when the girl had nightmares. The one she sang during long, silent walks home. The one the girl hadn't heard since the outbreak began.
Now, it echoed through the glass. Dissonant. Off-key. But familiar.
"She used to hold me like that," the girl whispered. "Just like that…"
The monster raised its limb again, the long, warped bow-like arm poised to strike the window—one more time.
And then—
A sickening crack echoed through the air, and the monster was violently hurled aside, crashing into a broken fence post like a ragdoll made of wax.
Gasps erupted from the room. The girl staggered back, nearly falling over as the other students scrambled to the windows.
"What was that?!"
"Did it just… get thrown?!"
They pressed against the glass, eyes wide.
In the courtyard below, three figures now stood amidst the broken brick and scorched earth—a monk, an armored man with dual spears, and a younger boy, not much older than they were.
The boy's arms sparked with mechanical pulses as he slammed one of the creatures into the ground, a brief explosion of crimson and ash erupting with the impact.
The monk moved like water, not striking to kill, but redirecting, guiding, his incense rods trailing glowing lines of orange through the air. Each time one of the choir-mutants lunged for him, he'd pull them close, pivot his body, and throw them into the path of another's blow—or straight into the spears of the man beside him.
"I-Is that…"
"That's a kid! That's a kid fighting down there!"
"He's—he's holding his own?!"
One of the younger students—the smallest among them, barely able to hold his practice weapon right—stood up suddenly, fists clenched.
"W-We should go help!"
The room went still again.
Then murmurs. Movement. Comms flared back to life as confidence flickered in the group's eyes for the first time in days.
Back at the front, the girl who had seen her mother—the thing that used to be her mother—wiped her face with her sleeve. She looked back at the monster's crumpled form in the rubble, then down at the monk standing guard near the school's shattered entryway.
Outside, the courtyard was chaos wrapped in music.
Fang moved with seamless grace, pivoting past a lunging monster as if he were wind itself. With one hand, he caught the creature's elongated limb mid-swing, twisted it with a sharp motion, and hurled it over his shoulder—right past the Doctor, who sat slouched in a corner near a collapsed pillar.
The mutant crashed into the pavement just as Kharon stepped forward and drove both polespears down, pinning it to the earth in one clean motion. Ash rose with the exhale of the monster's last note.
Fang turned his head, only slightly, amber eyes flicking toward the Doctor.
"Are you well?"
The Doctor nodded once, still catching his breath, eyes scanning the perimeter. "Fine. Just… watching."
He said it as Fang ducked under another sweeping strike and—without looking—grabbed the attacker's leg and hurled it backwards, the monster skidding across the courtyard floor and straight into Burngear's outstretched fist. A satisfying crack resounded as Burngear's gauntlet pulsed and shattered the creature's face.
"They're swarming," Kharon muttered, back-to-back with Burngear as more mutants emerged from the shattered ruins nearby. "I count at least twelve. The full choir is here now."
"Right on time," the Doctor murmured.
BANG—
The front doors of the school burst open.
A dozen students flooded out in staggered waves, their eyes wide, their weapons trembling in their hands.
Some wore scraps of uniform. Others had armored themselves in makeshift plating. Most were shaking.
But they ran forward anyway.
"W-We're here to fight too!" one of them shouted.
Another screamed, more bravely than he felt.
Fang chuckled gently, stepping forward with both incense rods spinning in a slow, circular motion.
"Good," he said, voice calm beneath the rising noise. "You came exactly when we needed you."
"Tch—You're going to make me sick," Burngear muttered, pouting as his eyes burned bright blue, his arms flaring with energy as he surged forward into the fray beside Kharon.
Kharon didn't say a word, but his spears moved faster—more brutal now, his motions less precise, more visceral. One spear impaled a crawling mutant through the chest while the other swept a second attacker off its legs. Burngear followed up instantly, slamming both fists into the downed beast's chest, releasing a flash of volatile heat that turned it to dust.
The three of them moved like clockwork.
Fang danced between monsters and students, intercepting claws and blades, redirecting attacks meant for the inexperienced young. Every strike he made disarmed. Every throw redirected. The students behind him began to find rhythm—hesitant strikes turning to controlled ones, steps steadier as they realized they were not alone.
But even he wasn't fast enough for all of them.
He turned—too slow—as a shriek pierced the air. A student had tripped. One of the choir mutants loomed above her, its warped limb raised high.
Fang's eye widened—
But then—
"Stop—!"
A cry. The blur of movement.
A young girl, no older than thirteen, rammed her weapon into the monster's back, sobbing as she wrapped her arms around its neck, her voice cracking.
"Mama… mama, please stop…"
The creature froze. Its body trembled.
Its fingers, once sharpened for killing, slowly… reached toward the girl's back—not to strike. But to hold.
To hug.
A soundless, near-human sigh escaped its warped mouth as the body began to crack, splinter, and then fade into dust, leaving only the girl's shaking arms around air.
She crumpled to her knees, clutching nothing, eyes wide and wet with grief. Fang knelt beside her, his voice low, steady.
"…You have done well."
He placed a hand gently on her shoulder, eyes closed.
And then—
From the empty air where the monster had vanished—
A single note rang out.
Low. Deep. Baritone.
Like a father's last lullaby, echoing through a silent chapel.
And then all was still.