The third floor was chaos.
There were cracked walls and a partially collapsed ceiling. The floor was covered with rubble, shattered glass, and puddles of water.
Leon advanced slowly, testing each step before putting his full body weight down. The building around him emitted deep, metallic sounds, as if it might collapse at any moment.
He searched the floor methodically. Most of it was an open office space, divided by fabric partitions that had collapsed. There were overturned desks, broken computers, and scattered chairs.
He found some papers still intact, pinned under a desk. He picked one up and read it quickly in the faint light coming through the cracked windows.
Kratos Logistics – Transport and Warehousing Solutions
It seemed a logistics company operated there. The entire third floor appeared to be dedicated to administrative offices, but he couldn't find anything useful in the part that remained, just papers and cheap office furniture.
Leon continued exploring. In a room that had largely collapsed, he found a destroyed break room.
After rummaging through the cabinets, he found a few sealed water bottles, packages of cream crackers, and cereal bars, which he placed in his inventory.
Then he heard a sound. It was coming from the break room.
A slow dragging, as if someone were rubbing a wet cloth.
Leon stopped with the crowbar raised.
The sound came from the corridor to his right, where the ceiling had partially collapsed, creating an area of dense shadow.
He advanced slowly, controlling his breath.
He saw an infected person lying on the floor, trapped under a concrete beam that had crushed its entire lower body. Only the torso and arms remained, dragging itself slowly across the soaked floor, leaving a trail of black blood.
The creature turned its bald head toward Leon. Its black veins still pulsed. Its mouth opened in a faint hiss.
Leon didn't hesitate. He approached from the side, raised the crowbar, and brought it down hard on the base of its skull.
CRACK.
The body stopped moving.
[Energy Collected: +1]
[Progress: 18/20]
Leon wiped the tool on the dead man's shirt and continued.
He went up to the fourth floor using the emergency stairs at the end of the corridor. The door was ajar, and the lock was broken.
The fourth floor mirrored the layout of the third, but without the brutal marks of the collision. The environment was intact but overturned by panic: partitions toppled like dominoes, rolling chairs overturned in the corridors, and a carpet of scattered documents covering the floor, freezing in time the desperate escape of those who had worked there.
Leon advanced with redoubled caution; even though the place seemed empty, he kept the crowbar ready for any situation.
At the back of the room, a cold draft stirred the blinds of a broken window. There, silhouetted against the gray light coming from outside, he spotted a figure.
It was a woman, or at least she had been one. She wore the remains of an executive suit, now torn and stained. She stood motionless, staring into the void through the window.
Leon approached from behind, trying to be as silent as possible.
When he was three meters away, the woman turned her head. At an angle of almost 180 degrees.
Leon felt a chill.
The infected woman let out a sharp snarl and lunged, leaping toward him with speed.
Leon barely had time to raise his left arm to protect himself.
The claws only ripped through the jacket sleeve, destroying the thick fabric, but luckily didn't hit him. Leon used the momentum of her leap to his advantage.
He gritted his teeth and pivoted his hips, a sharp movement that made his bruised ribs scream in agony. He dodged, using his arm as a lever to deflect and propel the creature's body in the air, throwing it violently.
"Argh!" Leon grunted through his teeth, his hand going instinctively to his side as his vision blurred for a second.
But he forced his body to lock up again. There was no time to feel pain.
The infected woman's body collided with the wall with a hollow thud. The drywall couldn't withstand the impact and gave way, cracking and sinking under her weight, raising a cloud of white dust.
Normally, that would have broken ribs and stunned a normal person. But she didn't even slow down. Ignoring the impact, the creature was already planting its claws on the floor to push itself back up, snarling.
Leon swallowed the dry groan and lunged before she could get to her feet.
He aimed for the head, but the infected dodged at the last second. The crowbar hit her shoulder, smashing the collarbone with a horrible crack.
The creature didn't even react to the pain and attacked him again.
Leon took a step back to gain distance but tripped on a pile of paper and his foot slid as if on ice.
He fell on his back with a dry thump, feeling the air leave his lungs.
Before he could even try to get up, the infected fell on top of him. Her weight crushed his aching chest, pulling a muffled scream from him. Cold, strong hands closed around his neck, and a mouth full of rotten teeth descended toward his face.
The smell of rotten flesh invaded his nostrils.
Leon dropped the crowbar and brought both hands to her wrists, locking her outstretched arms in a desperate effort to keep those teeth away.
But she was strong. The infection seemed to have removed human muscular limiters. And Leon, with his bruised ribs and head spinning, felt his arms tremble.
The jaws drew closer. Centimeter by centimeter. The snapping of teeth echoed louder and louder in his ears.
Not like this. Not this damn way.
With a roar of pure rage, Leon arched his back in a violent jerk, ignoring the sharp protest from his ribs, and rolled to the side, using gravity to shift the creature's weight off him.
They fell tangled on the papers and broken glass.
In a movement of pure instinct, Leon's hand closed around a long shard of glass on the carpet. Before the infected could recover, he drove the improvised blade deep into the side of her neck.
Black blood gushed out, covering his hand.
The infected gurgled, and dark liquid foamed from her mouth. Completely ignoring what would be a mortal wound for normal people, she snarled and lunged forward again, her blind claws seeking to tear Leon's face.
But the blow had bought him the second he needed.
Leon had already pulled back and retrieved the crowbar. When she charged, he didn't hesitate. On his knees, he brought the tool down with all the fury he had left.
CRACK! One.
Two.
Three.
On the fourth blow, there was no sound of breaking bone, only the wet noise of something giving way completely. Her skull had become a shapeless mass.
[Energy Collected: +1]
[Progress: 19/20]
Leon knelt, panting, his body trembling with adrenaline and pain. Blood dripped from a new cut on his forearm where the glass had scraped him.
He got up with difficulty, wiping sweat from his eyes.
One more, and he'd reach the energy limit. He was both eager and afraid of what might happen.
But after looking around, he found no more infected on that floor. Leon searched every corner, every room, every cabinet. Nothing but rubble and broken furniture.
After a brief rest, he went up to the fifth floor.
The emergency stairs were partially blocked by debris. He had to climb, each movement sending waves of pain through his bruised ribs.
When he finally pushed open the fifth-floor door, he was met with silence.
Leon entered slowly, scrutinizing the environment meticulously.
The fifth floor was different. It was cleaner. The structure seemed intact, with no serious cracks in the walls or collapsed ceiling. The windows were cracked but hadn't broken completely.
It was the executive floor. There were private rooms with wooden doors, carpet on the floor, and higher-quality furniture.
And most importantly, there was no accumulated water. The floor was dry.
Leon checked room by room. They were all empty. No infected or survivors.
Leon chose the largest room, a former executive boardroom with a long solid wood table and upholstered leather chairs. There was even a small attached break room with a sink and an unplugged microwave.
He returned to the Valkyria II, descending the floors with extra caution, his body already protesting as the adrenaline faded. When he reached the shattered cabin, Aylin was still unconscious, trembling with fever.
Lifting her was torture.
She was light, probably weighed about 65 kilos. However, with his injuries, he felt pain with every breath, and his shoulder throbbed, making it feel like he was carrying twice the weight.
Each step on the emergency stairs was a renewed agony. His muscles burned, sweat ran into his eyes, and his vision darkened at the edges with every conquered step. He had to stop three times, leaning against the cold wall, breathing like a wounded animal, before he could continue.
Leon finally laid Aylin on the boardroom table, which had been transformed into an improvised stretcher with chair cushions. He couldn't take it anymore. His legs gave out and he collapsed into the chair beside her.
He sat there, his head thrown back, panting, sweating cold, his whole body trembling from the excessive effort.
But now they were safe. At least for the moment.
Leon forced his head to turn to the side. Aylin was still trembling on the table, her pale skin glistening with sweat. Her breathing was short and rapid. She needed antibiotics.
He looked through the intact panoramic window on the fifth floor. Outside, under the gray light of late afternoon, the flooded city stretched in all directions. The dark, stagnant water had turned the streets into canals of death, with buildings emerging from the surface like concrete tombstones in a modern necropolis.
Somewhere in that urban cemetery, what he needed certainly existed.
He just had to find it. And survive the journey there.
"Tomorrow," he whispered to the silence of the room.
Leon closed his eyes, his hand still near the gun's holster, and finally let exhaustion overcome him.