The West Underpass was already Talia's nightmare before she even reached it.
The tunnel mouth yawned open — a black, echoing gullet swallowing sound, light, and sanity. Floodlights flickered at the entrance, throwing jagged shadows across the road. Deeper in, the darkness pressed thick and alive, broken only by erratic helmet lamps and the guttering glow of torches wedged along the walls.
Roars echoed like something enormous was breathing through the tunnel.
Talia rolled up, boots hitting asphalt as she pulled the bike to a stop. Her whole body throbbed — her thigh and shoulder burned sharply with the fresh memory of being nearly swallowed by a hole.
"There better not be moles," she muttered, limping forward. "If there are moles, I'm running. They have officially become my trauma mascot. Damn holes. Damn moles."
The underpass carried two lanes. Nothing more.
Just wide enough for death to come straight at you —
and narrow enough you couldn't avoid it.
Perfect kill density. Terrible survival odds.
Her kill count pulsed on her HUD.
[Kill Count: 1000+]
She exhaled once, steady.
"Last blockade I want to get under control. If I can."
Crossing under the massive arch, the smell hit her.
A wall of stink: fur, blood, burning rubber.
Then the noise struck — amplified, distorted, multiplied. Every claw scrape sounded like twenty. Every snarl ricocheted in impossible directions. The acoustics turned the place into a haunted maze.
Body bags were scattered along the first fifty meters, or what counted as body bags — blankets, jackets, tarps, anything. One poor soul was covered by a car door.
Talia's jaw clenched.
Farther in, the sounds sharpened. The battle line was about 300 meters in.
Firefighters and police braced in a wedge near an overturned sedan, shields up, holding back a three-beast choke point. Two teenagers with torches and homemade spears flanked them. A paramedic knelt behind the line, wrist-deep in someone's open wound.
About thirty people were cramped together. They were exhausted but holding — mostly because the narrow choke-point prevented the beasts from swarming.
Her eye twitched — tunnel fighting was chaos, tunnel fighting was chaos, but this was an organised kind of mess… still a mess, though.
Her recent experience had sky-rocketed her battlefield intelligence. Even limping, her mind was mapping flows, choke angles, fatigue patterns.
One teenager spotted her. The instant he recognised her, relief rippled through him.
"Thank god — Talia! Over here!"
She blinked.
"How do you—oh. East Blockade, right? You still have that bat?"
He grinned. "I'm Luke. And nah, it's memorabilia now. I upgraded."
He raised a wicked spiked mace overhead like he'd just unlocked it in a gacha roll.
She snorted, despite the ache running from her thigh up into her spine.
Luke burst out laughing. "Got a lucky drop. I play club baseball — or… did. Maces aren't too far off a bat."
"Hey! Are you here to help or flirt? Move it!" someone shouted.
Talia shook herself, grabbed a metal roadworks panel half-buried under debris, heaved it upright, shoulder and thigh protesting at the weight, and wedged it between two pillars — a narrow funnel, one-beast-wide.
"Sorry. Quick briefing — what's happening? Is it always this frantic?" she asked, just as a feral goat slammed into the new barrier hard enough to ring the metal like a church bell, and rock her,
Stars shone for an instant while pain and fire struck her limbs and her ears rang sharply, muting the chaos for a heartbeat. Luckily a helper came over to brace the door.
Talia stabbed down with her spear, clean and fast.
[Kill Count: 1001]
A wolf lunged through the gap.
Her shoulder twinged on the twist, but she pinned it against a pillar and finished it.
[Kill Count: 1002]
Veteran defenders whistled.
"Smooth."
"Told you — she's a war goddess," Luke bragged.
Talia found it a little amusing that they had to shout over the warped echoes, but everyone here had gotten used to it. She guessed most of them probably had learned to read lips by now — the echoes made normal conversation almost useless..
The blockade leader opened his mouth —
"Bear beast incoming!" a spotter yelled.
The blockade leader tried again, "Dom, you're up"
A massive man stood from the shadows near the wall. Over two metres tall, built like a strongman statue come to life. A system two-handed sword across his back and four-piece armor set. Over a hundred kills.
The first non-family high-tier fighter she'd seen.
'There's always someone around to stop me getting a big head,' she thought.
He — Dom — nodded at her in recognition and stepped into the funnel.
The bear thundered toward the shield wall.
Dust sifted from the ceiling with every impact, faint tremors running through the asphalt.
Dom lifted the huge sword slowly. A breath. Then brought it down the instant the bear entered range.
For a terrifying heartbeat, Talia thought the beast would get a claw into him —
Then it collapsed mid-strike.
Dom stepped back behind the line, rolled his shoulders once, the movement stiff — even he was fraying and without ceremony and sat again.
"Impressive," Talia admitted, spearing another wolf, pain knifed through her leg, but she used the pillar to steady herself.
"Dom's our treasure down here," the leader said. "The Bears, Boars and Bulls — 3Bs. They're the most destructive. If they don't die instantly, we lose people and tunnel structure. He only fights the 3B's unless we're about to be overrun, he needs rest, held the line alone early this morning."
Talia's mind clicked while she kept killing. A sliver of an idea turned over.
"Anyway," the man continued, "I'm Joel. Tunnel security, ex-military, Blockade commander. I heard you have a talent for the unexpected. We'll take whatever help you can give."
Talia didn't comment on whether she could help yet — the idea brewing in her head needed more time.
Joel sighed, "And yes — this is the norm. Constant waves since morning. A lot of sacrifices to get this far. Rotate!"
Fresh fighters stepped in. A blond man relieved her.
"My turn. Rest."
"Thanks."
Talia limped away and leaned against the wall, forcing herself to observe. Terrain. Patterns. Cracks. Flow. The cold concrete kept her awake and steadied her; her leg throbbed with every heartbeat but the pain didn't stop her brain running blueprints in real time.
Others watched her, murmuring. She must have looked a sight, wild hair breaking out of the band, right arm and leg limp, ash and soot covering her body, sweat marked muddy streaks through the soot on her face. If she didn't know better she'd assume she was a 1 year apocalypse veteran.
Then the vision stirred, her control was nearly perfect now. Skim vs Deep. She chose Skim, not in the mood for a deep dive.
Another wave hit the Rowe house at midnight.
Everyone woke up and took their places.
Theo on the backyard wall, crossbow sniping down targets.
Cael guarding two sides by himself, sweat dripping, sword flashing.
Brielle stabbing confidently from the front wall, her kids cheering behind her legs.
Grandma's spade glinting silver — downing beasts with surgical brutality.
Grandpa swinging his axe like a man half his age, thirty kills deep and still going.
Dad bracing the gate shield while sniping happily.
Mum above him on the wall trading weapons, both alive in a way Talia hadn't seen in years.
Dav. surrounded by concrete walls in a parking complex. His squad, trapped in a pincer — beasts pressing from both sides.
Dav moved like a razor in smoke — dragging wounded, giving orders, cutting forward through impossible pressure. His team limped to safety because he refused to die there.
Her stomach twisted and she severed the vision before it dragged her deeper — She snapped back to the tunnel.
Reaching for her water — muscles protesting the sudden shift — she froze.
A mole head poked out of the tunnel wall in the distance.
"Is… that normal?" she pointed, horrified.
"F*** NO. Ranged, take it out!" Joel barked.
Talia shivered violently as trauma lit her nerves like live wire.
"Talia? Hey!"
Joel grabbed her shoulders. "Are you alright?"
She laughed weakly. "No. Those things almost killed me earlier. Still… processing."
Joel's expression sharpened. "Sorry, can you explain. We haven't seen any here. They're dangerous underground."
Talia told them everything — the cabin, the meadow, the battle, the leader mole.
Silence fell.
Respect replaced tension in the eyes around her.
"One question," Breathing under control, she finally asked. "Do we actually need this tunnel anymore?"
Horror. Then contemplation.
Then reluctant agreement.
She spotted another mole further down and Her breath stuttered, fingertips going cold, vision tunneling as every old nerve memory detonated at once.
A huge warm hand covered her eyes. She jolted at the sudden touch, muscles tensing before she recognized the intent.
Dom.
Joel signaled to Ranged who took it out instantly — the tunnel fell silent except for her ragged breathing.
Then the others continued to calmly discuss tunnel destruction while blocking her view.
Slowly she calmed. Her breathing slowed from panicked gasps to shaky inhales as the view disappeared.
Dom lifted his hand and leaned back again.
"Thanks," she breathed — to him and the group.
"What do you all think? Blow it?"
Joel nodded. "We agree. We've sent for an engineer, demolition team and government. Don't want to, but… best to cover all bases. Honestly the Town's debated sealing it for years — structural damage, bad visibility, flooding risk. This just pushed it over."
He turned to the defenders. "Rotate!"
Talia stepped forward again, reclaiming her spot.
"My turn," she said to the blond man. "Take a break."
He nodded, relieved.
Talia set her feet, tightened her grip, and faced the funnel again.