As he looked at Mira, and then at the crowd being pushed through back stairwells, he realized something cruel is going on.
He felt so unlucky that he just been here for some minutes and this world is already in chaos does faith hate him so much... Josh felt like crying.
Students surged up the stairwell in a frantic mass, shoes slipping against the concrete as panic stripped away any sense of order.
Guards shouted commands, trying to keep the line moving, but fear made people deaf.
Josh stayed near the middle, pulling Mira along with him as bodies pressed in from all sides.
Behind them, the sounds of struggle erupted.
A scream rose from the back of the group sharp and sudden, then abruptly cut off. Josh didn't need to look to know what had happened he could already imagine what faith destined for those victims caught, Some of the slower students and those who had hesitated or stumbled, had been caught.
The infected did not stop They never stopped,it looked like they had unlimited stamina to keep moving without getting tired.
Gunfire echoed again, closer this time, followed by desperate shouting. The guards at the rear tried to hold the line, but the crowd surged forward regardless, abandoning anyone who couldn't keep up.
Josh felt a tightness in his chest, not panic, but a grim understanding of how quickly people broke when survival was on the line.
As they climbed higher, someone fell on the ground and started trashing around those individuals closer that tried to help was met with a cruel faith as the one who fell lunged on the student and bit on her. Then came screams as student started running staying far away from them.
The student bitten tried pushing the infected student away but got weaker as it but on her neck till she stopped moving.
Those students escaping saw this and felt panic as they thought that students were normal before but already turned to those things outside.
The chaos behind them remained, but ahead, the stairwell opened into a wide passage bathed in a faint, translucent light. It should have been brighter. This corridor led toward one of the upper emergency exits, a route designed for fast evacuation. Instead, the lighting flickered unevenly, then dimmed further, as if the system powering it was failing.
The group slowed down as they started getting closer to the door passage.
Guards raised their weapons instinctively, signaling everyone to stop. The sudden stillness felt unnatural after the frantic movement. Even the students seemed to sense it, their whispers dying down as they stared ahead.
Josh felt it too as he kept remembering what happened to that student which made him on guard on everyone close to him.
It was like a warning of his sixth sense when he was in the guild when in danger.
Inside his mind, something shifted.....The faint presence he had been aware of since the outbreak sharpened, finally crossing a threshold.
Aegis responded.
The sensation wasn't invasive or overwhelming. It was more like a door opening quietly in the back of his consciousness, information flowing in with unsettling clarity.
Observation data processed.
Threat behavior patterns identified.
Basic intermediate reflex pathways unlocked.
Host response efficiency temporarily increased.
Josh's breathing steadied almost immediately as his awareness expanded widely around him, Movements around him became easier to predict.
Sounds separated themselves more clearly.
His body felt lighter, more responsive, as if it had remembered how to move under pressure.
Mira who held his hand noticed the change in him b
"Josh…?" she whispered shakily.
"I'm here," he said quietly. "Stay close."
One of the guards stepped forward, weapon raised, eyes fixed on the dim passage ahead. The lights flickered again, then went completely still, frozen in a half-lit state that cast long shadows across the floor and walls.
"This isn't right," another guard muttered.
The first guard moved anyway but cautiously...
They watched him walk down the corridor, his footsteps echoing softly.
Ten seconds passed.
Then twenty.
Then a full minute.
He didn't come back, one of the guards tried calling his name but there was no answer.
A low, wet sound drifted from ahead, indistinct and unsettling, like something heavy being dragged slowly across the floor.
A few students backed away instinctively, bumping into others behind them.
Then something brushed against Josh's shoulder.
He turned sharply, reflexes snapping into place faster than he expected, only to see another student who had panicked and reached out blindly. Around them, more people fumbled for their phones, screens lighting up the corridor in uneven patches of white and blue.
Almost everyone had one.
The glow revealed what the emergency lights could not—dark streaks along the floor ahead, smeared and irregular, leading deeper into the passage.
The air carried a stronger scent now, metallic and rotten, thick enough to make several students gag.
Whispers spread.
"Where did he go?"
"Did you hear that?"
"Why isn't the light working?"
Josh raised his phone too, angling the light forward. His pulse remained steady, but every instinct told him they had walked into something worse than the chaos behind them.
It felt dangerous as his hair stands on his back giving him goosebumps as he tries seeing through the pitch black hall.
The sound came again, clearer now, followed by a soft, deliberate movement just beyond the reach of their combined lights. Guards tightened their grips, forming a protective line in front of the students, but Josh could see the tension in their stances.....