They were all collapsed from exhaustion, and I wasn't much better. Even lifting a finger felt like effort. If I hadn't been sitting, I might not have been able to crawl at all.
I felt Yu's gaze on me and tensed. It wasn't surprising he could sense me. What unsettled me was not knowing how to communicate—or whether communication could ever be friendly.
Fortunately, he only looked for a while. Perhaps he decided I had no intention of speaking, and he had no reason to bother. He said something to the others, gathered them, and left.
Only after they had gone did strength return to me, slowly. Still, I didn't risk moving. I sat so long I felt fused to the seat before finally stepping out, walking toward the battlefield. Two figures remained.
Perhaps they couldn't be called human anymore. Their faces were turning gray-white, their bodies marked with zombie bites. One's eyes were hollow, trembling but lifeless, as if his soul had already departed.
The other saw me and crawled forward, whispering: "Help me… please… I don't want to die…"
Who wants to die? No one. But I couldn't save him. I couldn't save anyone.
I stopped, watching. The plea stirred the hollow-eyed man. He turned to me.
"Th… thank you." The words were labored, but genuine. His dead eyes flickered with faint gratitude.
I had never faced such a moment. When people thanked me before, I'd reply politely: You're welcome, it's nothing. But thanks from the dying is no small thing. It was heavy. And I couldn't even bow.
As I hesitated, he stopped trembling, closed his eyes forever. The crawling man fell still after a few steps.
I stood silently, surveying the scene. Cars smeared with black handprints like grotesque graffiti. Flames consuming a vehicle. Human-shaped pyres burning on the ground. Daylight above, sun shining, yet the world felt dark, shrouded. Hell on earth.
Perhaps when I reach hell, there will be no disappointment.
I picked up a broken stick, approached the speed zombie whose skull had been shattered, and hesitated. Then I dug into its head.
Don't misunderstand—I had no morbid hobby. It took mental preparation. Human brains are soft, gray, familiar. Zombie brains were more fluid, gray-white. Amid the pulp, I felt something hard. Metallic.
I pulled out a crystal-like shard. Gray-white, corn-sized, gleaming faintly. Like the one I'd found before, though a different color.
I didn't take it. I searched other corpses. Nothing but mush.
Finally, I turned to the two ability zombies. Their bodies were torn, bones exposed, gray flesh split. I dug again. Found two crystals—one white, one red.
What were they? Why only in ability zombies? No answers.
I disinfected them with alcohol, more for comfort than safety, and pocketed them.
As I reached for the last shard, the man who had begged not to die stood up. Not a man anymore. The other opened his eyes too. Both stared at me—or rather, at the crystals in my hand.
I felt no danger. Only inevitability. No wonder they had been abandoned. Their wounds weren't fatal, but they were changing.
We stared at each other. They realized they couldn't take the crystals from me. Their eyes shifted to the last shard. But I was closer. They didn't move.
It was like staring at a wooden post. You know it's lifeless. Yet stare long enough, and you feel it watching you.
I took the last shard.
It was late. Time to go. I ignored the two, left them to their fate.
Back at the bus, my "old friends" were unchanged. Oddly comforting.
I wondered: was becoming like them good or bad? If there is no soul, they are only puppets—moving corpses. If there is a soul, where has it gone? Heaven? Hell? Trapped? Watching their own twisted bodies, suffering endlessly?
The universe is vast. Humanity's fate uncertain. And I, a speck of dust, how could I find peace in its currents?
Night fell. I moved supplies closer, loading some into the tricycle, leaving others at neighbors' doors. Milk powder at the house with a child. A small gesture.
I couldn't care for children. But I could leave something.
Back in my room, I stood at the window. I no longer feared their gaze. My senses stretched farther.
Perhaps my powers would grow. But was that good? I wasn't human anymore. Mutation upon mutation. Who knew its purpose?
Lightning split the sky. Purple clouds spread. Thunder roared, as if the heavens cracked open.
Rain coming? What storm could match such thunder?
The world stirred. Even they grew restless. Their agitation wrapped around me like countless threads, suffocating, binding, crushing.
And from deep within, hunger rose.
Human auras glowed in my senses, bright lanterns in the dark. Not just glowing—radiating flavor. Calling: Come. Come.
A desert traveler finding an oasis. A lost ship sighting land. A demon in eternal darkness glimpsing light. That was me. A demon.
No. Don't go. Mingfang, you are human. Do you want to become a monster? To see familiar faces staring at you in despair? To devour your parents' flesh?
No. I don't want that.
With the last of my strength, I hurled myself out the back balcony. From the third floor, I jumped.