Time did not skip.
21:42.
Twenty-five minutes after the event.
The city was still burning—but the nature of the burning had changed.
At first, chaos had been screams, running feet, and senseless violence.
Now the noise was thinning, replaced by something lower. Continuous. Rhythmic.
Heavy objects dragging.
Bones grinding.
Breathing patterns that did not belong to humans.
Ethan stood at the edge of the rooftop, looking down.
From above, he was safer.
From above, he saw more.
A bus had veered into a streetlamp. The doors had been forced open—from the inside.
Two officers attempted to establish a perimeter. They were overwhelmed in under thirty seconds.
A figure paused beneath a flickering streetlight—
Then accelerated.
Not a normal sprint.
It was over-coordinated. Explosive. Muscles responding to something more primitive. More efficient.
The system interface flared at the edge of Ethan's vision.
[Target Identified: High-Adaptation Individual]
[Phase Classification: Adapter · Upper Tier]
[Warning: Evolutionary Deviation Detected]
Ethan's throat tightened.
This was not the uncontrolled crowd he had seen earlier.
This had already passed the first filter.
He stepped back.
Remember the location.
Observation mattered more than bravado.
At the Same Time · Marcus
Marcus pulled up in front of a convenience store.
The fuel gauge was below a quarter tank.
Resupply had to happen now.
He had just opened the car door when he heard it.
Not screaming.
Not talking.
Wet chewing.
Marcus didn't draw his gun immediately.
He stepped to the side of the entrance, pressed against the wall, and used the reflection in the glass to look inside.
A young girl had been pinned behind the counter.
Her throat was torn open.
Her body still twitched.
The man attacking her—
The muscles along his back were grotesquely pronounced. His spine visible in unnatural relief. Every movement of his arms was stripped of waste.
Not madness.
Efficiency.
Marcus slowed his breathing.
He had seen battlefields.
He knew when to act.
The gunshot cracked through the night.
The first round struck center mass, passing through.
The man staggered forward—but did not fall.
Second shot.
Third.
Only the fourth, through the head, finally stopped him.
As the body collapsed, Marcus realized—
His hand was shaking.
Not fear.
Adrenaline overload.
He moved inside quickly, then halted again as he approached the body.
The corpse… was moving.
A faint rise and fall in the chest.
A broken hiss in the throat.
Not dead.
Marcus raised the gun.
The back door burst open.
A middle-aged man stumbled in—
Behind him, footsteps.
The same precise, coordinated rhythm.
One.
Two.
Three.
They weren't drawn by the gunshots.
They had tracked him.
Marcus retreated instantly and yanked open the car door.
"Get in!" he shouted at a survivor crawling out from behind a shelf.
A boy. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Face drained white.
The boy lunged for the passenger seat.
At that exact moment, one of the high-adaptation infected surged forward—
Faster than any human should move.
Marcus made his choice.
He slammed the accelerator.
The door wasn't fully closed.
The boy was dragged down, fingers scraping along the frame, leaving streaks of blood.
Marcus didn't look back.
In the rearview mirror, the convenience store disappeared into darkness and tearing sounds.
It was the first time that night he had deliberately abandoned someone who might have lived.
It was also the last time he hesitated.
At the Same Time · Hospital
The emergency hall had fallen.
Not breached from outside.
Collapsed from within.
Lena stood outside the isolation ward, a syringe clenched in her hand. Her knuckles were pale.
Inside the room, the young woman had completely lost control.
Restraints snapped.
Veins beneath her skin had darkened to an unnatural blue-black.
Her eyes reflected light in the dim room.
Not a patient.
A predator.
"She's still alive…" the nurse whispered, voice shaking.
Lena didn't answer.
The heart rate monitor had exceeded known human limits—
And remained stable.
This was no longer medicine.
The isolation door shuddered under impact.
Once.
Twice.
The metal began to bend.
"We have to evacuate!" someone shouted.
"There are still people inside!" another voice cried.
Lena looked at the isolation room.
Then at the chaos advancing down the corridor.
She pressed the emergency lockdown.
Red lights activated.
The isolation chamber sealed completely.
Inside, the woman slammed against the glass. Fingernails tore free, streaking blood across the surface.
Lena turned away.
She did not look back.
That person could not be saved.
Not because there wasn't time.
Not because there wasn't equipment.
But because—
The world no longer allowed that kind of rescue.
Back to Ethan
The rooftop door burst open.
Ethan spun immediately, gripping the fire axe.
A stranger staggered through. Face covered in blood. Breathing hard.
"Please… down there it's all—"
He never finished.
His body locked mid-sentence.
Pupils dilating.
The system warning flashed.
[Warning: Close-Range Threshold Reaction Detected]
Ethan did not hesitate.
The axe came down.
Clean.
Emotionless.
As the body hit the ground, Ethan understood something—
He was already adapting to these choices.
And that was the most dangerous part.
In the distance, another section of the city went dark.
The city was being divided.
Not geographically.
By eligibility.
Ethan leaned back against the wall, breathing slow.
He didn't know what choice Marcus had made.
He didn't know which door Lena had sealed.
But they were all still in the same city.
The same night.
For the first time, truly facing—
High Adaptation.
And the world, for the first time, made something clear:
Not everyone qualified to continue living.