The Rotten Fang King lay dead at their feet, its grotesque body dissolving into the corrupted earth. The stench of decay clung to the air, thick and suffocating, yet none of them moved. Their bodies were sore, their breaths ragged. But the plan had worked.
For once, it had felt like they were in control. Like they were strong enough to survive this world.
Then came the voice.
Clap. Clap.
A slow, mocking applause.
"Well done," a man sneered, stepping out from the shadows with a group of survivors behind him. His grin was a sickle moon in the gloom. "Didn't think you'd actually manage to kill that thing. You guys are strong. Want to team up?"
The man stepped closer, his boots crunching over brittle bones embedded in the soil. "Name's AJ."
Tilus said nothing. Names didn't matter here—only the hungry glint in AJ's eyes as he sized up Jasmine's quiver, Leon's jeweled dagger, the faint glow of William's enchanted blade.
Leon scoffed. "You mean carry your dead weight?"
AJ's face twitched. A flicker of annoyance, quickly masked. "Watch your words," he warned, thumbing the serrated edge of his knife. "You wouldn't want to end up like that rat you just killed."
He took a step forward, his men shifting with him, a silent show of intent. A pack of hyenas circling a wounded lion.
"But it's fine if you don't want to team up," AJ continued. His voice dripped with false camaraderie. "Just hand over the loot. You've got enough, right? Sharing is only fair."
Tilus exhaled slowly. The stench of sweat and rusted metal rolled off AJ's group—the sour tang of desperation. Predators who've become prey, he thought. But desperate men were the most dangerous kind.
"So what if I don't?"
"Sorry," AJ said, voice flat. "Did I give you the impression you had an option?"
His smirk faded as he gestured to their trembling hands, their bloodied armor. "You're barely standing. Unless you want to die, I suggest you think carefully."
Tilus glanced at his team. "Barely standing?" He sighed, like he'd heard this script before. "Ben?"
Ben let out a tired sigh and pulled a bottle from his inventory. "Tilus, I told you, man. Sometimes you overthink too much."
He downed a stamina potion.
The rest followed.
The air changed.
AJ's grin faltered as color flooded back into Ben's face, as Leon rolled his shoulders with renewed vigor. "What… what did you just—?"
Leon grinned, stretching his arms. "Oh, just something to kick your ass."
"Last chance," AJ hissed, twirling his knife. "Join or bleed."
Leon spat blood on the ground. "How about you kiss my—"
The hulking brute moved first—AJ's lieutenant charging William with a roar that shook sparrows from the trees. What happened next was too fast for untrained eyes: William sidestepped, his pommel cracking the man's temple with a wet crunch. Two others lunged at Ben, only to freeze as Jasmine's arrows thudded into the dirt between their feet.
"Next ones go through your knees," she said, voice steady despite her shaking hands.
AJ laughed—a hollow, scraping sound. "Cute. But arrows run out." He snapped his fingers.
The ambush came from the trees. Three more survivors descended with rusted pipes, their eyes wild and starved. Tilus met the first mid-air, his blade shearing through the pipe and the man's collarbone in a spray of crimson. The second attacker swung wildly at Leon, who danced back with a smirk.
"Yikes. Ever heard of footwork?" Leon taunted before disarming him with a twist of his wrist. The man's scream curdled as Leon's dagger found his thigh.
But the third landed a lucky strike on Ben's ribs.
Crack.
Ben staggered, breath whistling through clenched teeth. AJ seized the opening—his knife flashing toward Ben's throat like a silver viper.
Tilus' sword met AJ's blade in a shower of sparks. "I said," Tilus growled, shoving him back until AJ's boots carved furrows in the dirt, "your opponent is me."
For a heartbeat, AJ's cocky mask slipped, revealing the feral calculus beneath. Then he grinned. "You're good. Let's trade scars."
Their duel was short, brutal. AJ fought dirty—kicking up gravel, feigning a stumble, pulling a handful of ash from his pocket to fling at Tilus' eyes. But Tilus moved like water, anticipating every trick. When he disarmed AJ with a flick of his wrist, the knife spiraling into the weeds, the remaining followers broke.
"Kill me," AJ panted, blood dripping from a split lip. "Or you'll regret it."
Tilus pressed his blade to AJ's throat. The man's carotid pulsed against cold steel. One thrust. One less monster.
"Tilus." William's voice cut through the haze. "They lost. Leave it."
"They'll come back to bite us."
"Then we'll deal with them when they do." William's hand closed over Tilus' wrist. "This isn't how we do things."
Tilus exhaled sharply. Somewhere behind them, a twig snapped.
"Fine." He turned away. "It's on you if they come back."
AJ scrambled backward, eyes blazing. "You better prepare yourself next time."
Leon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Great villain speech, dude."
As they cleaned up all the loot, they heard screams
The first scream came from the woods—high-pitched, cut short.
Then the air thickened, sweet and cloying, like rotting fruit left in the sun.
Tilus turned.
The Bloodfeaster.
A fully infected man.
Bone cracked and twisted as the thing lumbered toward them, joints popping in grotesque symphony. Flesh sloughed off its body in putrid ribbons, arms stretching unnaturally long, claws dragging furrows through the pavement. Its head twitched—sniffing—as a fly crawled from its empty eye socket.
Why is it here?
Monsters stayed in their zones. That was the rule.
William stood frozen, sword dangling at his side. In the reflection of his blade, William saw it—the flicker of a memory. William's sister that he saw on television when this world turned to chaos, her screams echoing through the supermarket parking lot.
"Wake the fuck up, William!" Tilus roared. "We need to run. NOW."
They sprinted. The Bloodfeaster's shriek tore at their backs, closer, closer—until Jasmine skidded to a halt.
"The couple!" she gasped, nocking an arrow. "By the oak tree—"
Two figures huddled behind a rotting log, their infant's wails piercing the chaos.
"Jasmine, don't!" Ben lunged as her arrow flew.
The Bloodfeaster turned.
Time fractured.
Tilus saw it in fragments:
The arrow glancing off the monster's ribcage.
The tentacle lashing toward Jasmine's throat.
Ben's body slamming into hers, his armored forearm raised—
Squelch.
The barbed tip punched through Ben's gauntlet, through flesh, stopping a hair's breadth from Jasmine's eye.
"MOVE!" Tilus hauled them up, shoving them forward.
The Bloodfeaster gave chase—until it found easier prey.
By the time they reached the edge of the park, the screams had crescendoed. AJ's men begged, prayed, called for mothers long dead. The Bloodfeaster answered with wet tearing sounds.
We survived.
They didn't.
They collapsed in the hollowed-out husk they called home—a crumbling bookstore with barricaded windows. Ben slumped against the poetry section, probing his bruised ribs. "Guy hit like a toddler. I'm fine."
"Liar." Jasmine pressed a bandage to the oozing puncture in his arm. Her hands no longer shook, but her eyes lingered on the bloodstained children's section. Goodnight Moon lay splayed on the floor, pages torn.
William stood at the shattered window, staring at the blood moon. "The family we met yesterday—the ones sharing apples—they're gone. Found their camp this morning."
Leon snorted. "And? We're all gonna die. That's the fucking point of this game."
"Not all of us." Tilus tossed a broken radio onto the table. "Found this near the east ridge. Someone's been broadcasting 'safe zone' coordinates into the park."
Jasmine paled. "A trap?"
"Bait," William said quietly. "Lure desperate people in, steal their supplies." His thumb brushed a tiny sneaker half-buried in the rubble—neon pink, sequins glinting. "Saw the bones… kids' shoes in the dirt."
Ben smashed his fist into the wall. Plaster rained down. "AJ's work?"
"Does it matter?" Leon traced the scars on his forearm—three jagged lines from a "friendly" survivor who'd tried to trade him to raiders for a box of ammo. "This place turns everyone into monsters. Just some of us fight it harder."
Tilus watched Jasmine inventory their arrows—12 left. Yesterday, she'd wasted three trying to save a stranger being devoured by crawlers. The man had died anyway, and she'd cried over the "wasted" resources. Now, her eyes were dry.
Tomorrow would be harder than today, would they survive this, Tilus spend time in the dark reading the journal again to prepare.
Unseen by the group, AJ dragged himself through the mud, his left arm ending in a cauterized stump. The Bloodfeaster had taken the rest.
"Boss…" A wheeze came from the bushes—one of his men, gutted and bleeding out.
AJ didn't slow. "Should've been faster."
"Please…"
A whimper. A wet gurgle. Then silence.
AJ clutched the charred photo in his remaining hand: a woman and baby he'd failed to protect back in Stage 0. The day the System came, he'd promised Lila he'd find insulin for their diabetic daughter. He'd returned to ashes and a tiny skeleton curled in a crib.
Now, he'd failed again. Because of them.
"Those brats," he rasped to the uncaring night. Blood dripped from his stump, watering the hate taking root in his chest. "This is all your fault."