(Ethan)
The world was burning. Not with fire, but with teeth.
I dragged the survivors through the corridor, boots splashing through blood and glass. The hospital lights flickered overhead, shadows stuttering across walls slick with handprints. Somewhere behind us, the barricade had fallen. The groans of the horde filled every empty space, a sound thick as tar.
Becca clung to my arm, stumbling every few steps. Dr. Martinez kept pace, jaw set, one hand clutching the blood-soaked kit she'd refused to abandon. Every breath burned. Every step felt like a gamble.
I risked a glance back.
That's when I saw her.
Aria.
She lay twisted on the floor where the bodies had fallen, Leo's corpse beside her like a broken sentinel. For a moment, I thought she was gone. Her skin was chalk-pale, lips blue. But then her hand twitched. Her chest rose shallow, wrong. Her eyes snapped open, bright and hungry, and the world tilted.
"Aria—"
The word ripped from my throat before I could stop it. Three hours ago I'd told her I loved her. Now she was—
A survivor behind me screamed. Not just a yelp, not just fear—full-throated panic. It split the air like a flare in the dark.
The horde answered.
The groans surged into a roar, bodies slamming into walls and doors, drawn like sharks to blood. I turned, already moving, already too late.
The screaming man—a kid really, couldn't have been more than twenty—was backed against a broken gurney. His eyes rolled white, hands flailing as the dead closed in. He locked on me, begging without words, his voice cracking with the sound of someone who still thought rescue was possible.
"Help me! Please, God, help me!"
I had seconds.
Becca's grip tightened on me. Sarah's eyes met mine, steady, waiting for the call. The kid stretched his hand toward us, fingers clawing air.
I could save him. Or I could save them. Not both.
My hands clenched. My body screamed to move. To fight. To tear through the crowd and drag him free. But Aria's face burned in my vision—those eyes that had snapped open wrong, hungry, lost.
If she was still alive in there—if there was any chance—
"Go!" I shoved Sarah forward, yanking Becca with me. The kid's scream followed, high and shrill, slicing into my spine as I turned my back. "Ethan! Don't leave me! Don't—"
His voice broke into wet gurgles, then nothing but chewing.
Becca sobbed, relief mixing with horror. She clutched my arm tighter, like she needed proof I wouldn't let her go. "Thank you," she gasped. "Thank you for choosing us."
I didn't answer. Couldn't. The kid's blood was on my hands now, same as Leo's. Same as Aria's.
The hallway narrowed, chaos funneled around us. Bodies slammed against the walls, their fingers clawing, mouths gnashing. I swung the pipe I carried, steel cracking bone, clearing just enough space to shove the others through. Blood painted the tile in slick arcs.
"Move, move!" Sarah barked, medical training keeping her sharp even as the world collapsed. "Exit's fifty yards!"
Every strike was Leo's death all over again. The sound of his neck snapping under those teeth. The way Aria had screamed his name—then made that sound, that growl that wasn't human.
Every groan sounded like her voice calling my name.
The emergency exit door hung crooked on its hinges, red light bleeding through the crack. Twenty feet. Ten. Almost there.
I risked one last look back, and my chest caved in.
She was gone.
The place where she'd fallen was empty, Leo's corpse already buried beneath the swarm. The blood was there, the handprints smeared across the floor, but not her. Not anymore.
The dead had taken her. Or she'd joined them.
And yet—I felt it.
Eyes on me. Cold. Patient. Familiar.
Watching.
"Ethan!" Becca yanked me toward the door. "We have to go!"
I stumbled after them, but something made me turn one more time. In the chaos of bodies and blood, something pale moved differently than the rest. Fluid. Purposeful. It slipped between the shuffling corpses like smoke through fingers.
For a heartbeat, I could have sworn it looked back at me.
The emergency door slammed shut behind us. Cool night air hit my face like a slap. The city sprawled below, half the windows dark, half burning. Sirens wailed in the distance. Helicopters carved paths through smoke-stained sky.
"Where do we go?" Becca asked, voice small. Her hand still gripped my arm, knuckles white.
Sarah checked her kit, taking inventory. "My apartment's six blocks north. Medical supplies. Food." She looked up at me. "What about your friend? Aria?"
The question hit like a physical blow. I stared back at the hospital, at the shadows moving behind broken windows.
"She's gone," I said. The words tasted like ash.
But even as I said it, I didn't believe it. Not completely. Something in those eyes when they'd snapped open—something that was still her. Still fighting.
"I'm sorry," Sarah said quietly. "About her. About Leo."
Becca's grip loosened, and I realized she was studying my face. Reading the grief there. The guilt. Maybe seeing more than I wanted her to.
"We should move," I said, shouldering the pack I'd grabbed. "Before more of them come."
We started down the fire escape, metal clanging under our boots. The city spread out below us like a wound, bleeding light and shadow. I tried not to think about Aria lying in that blood. Tried not to picture her opening those wrong eyes and seeing me abandon her.
Tried not to remember her confession from three hours ago—how she'd looked when I'd finally told her I loved her. The way her eyes had gone wide, uncertain. The way she'd started to say something before the sirens began.
Now I'd never know what she would have said.
Behind us, something howled. Not human. Not animal. Something between.
Becca shuddered. "What was that?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't. Because somewhere in that inhuman sound, I'd heard an echo of a voice I knew.
The dead swarmed closer in the distance, and we ran.
But the feeling of being watched followed us into the dark.