The second half of class dragged on like it was trying to stall the apocalypse.
The teacher had moved on to Meiji-era politics. Gabriel barely tracked any of it. His notes were a mix of mindless lines, escape diagrams, and a crude outline of the school's third floor. The System had gone silent again—no pings, no messages.
[Countdown: 01:13:47]
He shifted in his seat and glanced out the window. The world still looked like it had no idea what was coming.
Then—
CRASH.
A loud, sharp sound echoed down from the upper floor. Not like a chair tipping. Not like a dropped book.
It was sharper. Thicker. Wood or metal. Something slammed.
Students stopped mid-sentence.
Even the teacher paused.
Then came the scream.
It was shrill, short, and cracked halfway through. Not playful. Not theatrical.
Real.
Gabriel was already standing before the teacher could speak.
The System still said nothing, but his legs were moving.
He stepped into the hallway. More students had emerged, faces tilted upward, listening. Murmurs spread.
"Was that from 3-C?"
"Sounded like a fight."
"No way that was a fight."
"I think someone screamed—like, really screamed—"
He started toward the stairs but didn't run.
The higher he climbed, the quieter it got. That was worse.
When he reached the third floor, he saw them.
Two teachers standing outside Room 3-C, blocking the door. A third was crouched beside a girl who was sitting against the lockers, knees pulled to her chest. She was crying—shoulders shaking, hands bloodied.
Not her blood.
Gabe slowed as he approached, sliding in behind a small group of other students trying to gawk from a distance. He kept his expression neutral, eyes locked on the boy inside.
They were dragging him out now.
One teacher gripped his underarms. The other held his legs. The boy wasn't struggling—he looked limp, like he was passed out.
But his left forearm was torn open.
The wound was wet, red, messy. Human teeth marks. Clear, unmistakable.
The hallway smelled like sweat and panic.
One of the teachers glanced back and snapped, "Go back to class! Nothing to see!"
The others started to obey. Some complained, some joked nervously.
But Gabriel just watched.
[Observation Logged: First Bite Detected]
[Kill Count: 0]
[No action required... yet.]
"Yet," Gabriel muttered under his breath.
The girl sobbing against the wall clutched her own arm, which was shaking violently. A few strands of hair stuck to her tear-streaked face.
"I didn't mean to—he just—he just bit him—I didn't think he'd—he just bit him—"
One teacher whispered something in her ear. She nodded numbly.
Another teacher turned and said loudly, "He collapsed and hit a desk. Likely seizure symptoms. Everything is under control."
Gabe said nothing.
He walked away slowly, rejoining the flow of students returning to class.
Behind him, he heard the lock click on Room 3-C's door.
- - - - - -
Lunch came too fast.
It wasn't like the air had changed—no alarms, no lockdowns—but the energy in the room was heavier than before. A little quieter. A little more cautious. People were whispering more, laughing less.
But no one was saying anything directly.
The incident from 3-C had already become a rumor by the time Gabriel returned to 2-B.
"Some guy just collapsed—seizure or something."
"No, he bit someone. I heard it."
"Bullshit. People don't bite people."
"Maybe he was on drugs."
Gabe sat near the window again, eyes on the courtyard below. The System hadn't updated.
No more new messages.
No audio cues.
Just that silent countdown.
[Countdown: 00:58:12]
Still ticking.
He opened the boxed lunch that had come pre-packed in the fridge back at the apartment. Tamago, rice, pickled radish, and one piece of salmon. Standard. Tasted like nothing special. He ate mechanically.
"Yoooo."
A voice cut in—sharp and breezy.
A lunch tray slammed onto the desk next to his.
Marin Kitagawa dropped into the seat beside him like she owned it, grinning like they were old friends.
"You sit alone every day, or is that a transfer student thing?" she asked, popping the lid off her own bento.
He looked at her.
She was already digging through her lunch with chopsticks like she hadn't just witnessed a kid being hauled out of the school with a bite wound less than thirty minutes ago.
"…It's my first day," he said.
"Right, right." She took a bite of karaage and leaned on her elbow. "You're, like, super composed. Most people freak out a little the first week."
"I'm not most people."
"Yeah. No shit." She snorted. "You've got that 'my tragic backstory is classified' energy."
Miku, who was eating just across the aisle, coughed awkwardly.
Marin turned to her, bright-eyed. "Miku-chan, doesn't he totally look like he's hiding a secret past?"
Miku didn't look up. "…Maybe."
Marin turned back to Gabe. "So? Are you, like, secretly a retired assassin or something? Are we in a drama right now?"
Gabe looked at her for a long second. "…Do you always talk this much?"
"Only when I'm interested," she replied without hesitation.
He smirked faintly but said nothing.
Across the room, Nino Nakano narrowed her eyes in their direction, stabbing her fishcake with chopsticks like it owed her money.
The rest of the class kept to themselves. A few joked, a few asked if anyone heard anything from upstairs. The teacher was nowhere to be seen.
Gabe watched all of them like puzzle pieces.
He hadn't seen Takashi or Rei in the halls.
He hadn't seen Saeko since kendo practice.
Something was shifting.
But everyone was pretending they didn't feel it.
Marin jabbed a piece of tamagoyaki toward him. "You keep looking out the window like you're waiting for helicopters or something."
He glanced back at her.
"Maybe I am."
She paused mid-bite, watching him with those wide, glittering eyes.
"…Cool," she said finally.
She meant it.
- - - - -
Fujimi Academy's rooftop was wide, flat, and lined with a mesh-wire fence. No one else had come up—maybe they weren't allowed during lunch, or maybe they just didn't care enough to break the rules.
Gabriel leaned both hands against the fence and stared out over the city.
From up here, the world looked completely… fine.
Cars rolled lazily through intersections. A food cart near the train station was already surrounded by salarymen on break. The rooftop gardens across the street shimmered in the sun. The wind smelled faintly of concrete and blossoms.
The quiet was unnerving.
The kind of quiet that only made sense before something violent.
He scanned the street again, eyes sharp. Nothing stood out. Not yet. But his mind kept replaying the boy in 3-C. The shape of the bite. The way his arm had been hanging limp, like something had gone dead inside.
He pulled out his phone, pretending to scroll through it. No messages. No System warnings.
[Countdown: 00:47:06]
He closed his eyes for a second.
Every instinct told him to act now—gear up, escape, warn someone.
But no one would believe him.
And he still didn't know what exactly was coming first. Where. Who. How fast.
He opened his eyes again.
Movement.
Not in the street—not where he expected.
Behind the school.
Near the faculty building.
He focused his eyes and leaned slightly over the railing.
There—between two dumpsters, near the garden shed.
A girl. Alone.
She was limping, dragging one foot like it wasn't responding to her body. Her uniform was rumpled. Her shoulder had a dark smear. No sound came from her, but her mouth hung open as she walked—no, staggered—slowly toward the building's back entrance.
She wasn't crying.
She wasn't calling for help.
She just kept moving.
Wrong.
All wrong.
No one else was watching. No teachers. No students. She was just… there. Moving like she'd already broken from the world and didn't know it yet.
And then—
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[Quarantine Status: 4% → 7%]
[Zone Compromise Detected: East Rear Courtyard]
[Early Manifestation: Stage-1 Infection Confirmed]
Gabriel stared down at the girl as she stopped, head twitching toward a noise near the stairwell.
A moment later, she disappeared from view—down behind the building.
[No action required.]
He closed his eyes.
"Of course not."