Yamada led the group into the back room. The old desktop hummed, the screen already aglow with a browser window left open.

The moment the homepage loaded—
Everything changed.

Sakura gasped.
J-in’s jaw slackened.
Masaru’s hand slowly curled into a fist.

BREAKING NEWS banners flashed across the screen.

“OUTBREAK ZONES CONFIRMED IN MULTIPLE CITIES”
“GOVERNMENT DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN KANSAI REGION”
“KYOTO UNDER MARTIAL LOCKDOWN – PUBLIC ADVISED TO STAY INDOORS”

Dozens of live streams flickered on a feed.

One stream showed a hospital in Osaka, half its windows shattered. Helicopters hovered overhead, their spotlights cutting through black smoke. Flames licked up from the emergency ward, patients and staff scrambling for the exits—some covered in blood, others crawling.

Another window showed a shopping mall in Fukuoka mid-evacuation. Screaming civilians trampled over one another in a desperate surge toward the exits. In the chaos, figures collapsed—seizing, twitching—and then, impossibly, began to rise again. Onlookers screamed as the newly reanimated moved into the crowd, biting, clawing, tearing.

The news anchor’s scream pierced the broadcast.

In the middle of his sentence, a dark figure lunged into frame and tackled him. The camera toppled. A muffled struggle. Then—static.
The feed went black.

Sakura gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. “This is… all over.”

Masaru shook his head, eyes locked on the screen. “No,” he said quietly. “This is bigger than that.”

J-in clicked rapidly, opening a live outbreak tracker map.

The screen filled with red pulses—zones of confirmed infection.

Tokyo.
Nagoya.
Hiroshima.

Then Kyoto blinked—bright, steady crimson—the center of something far worse. One by one, smaller red dots appeared, scattered through the countryside. Villages. Mountain towns.

Each flash was another outbreak.

“We’re surrounded,” Kaito said, stepping back, his face pale. 

But Yamada was already scrolling. “That’s not the worst part,” he muttered grimly.

He clicked open another tab:
[GOVERNMENT EMERGENCY BULLETINS – ACCESS GRANTED VIA BROADBAND]

The loading icon spun. A pause.
Then the page began to load.

And everything changed.

A document opened. A decrypted scan from what looked like a military terminal.

“Operation Sealfall initiated. Cities beyond Stage 3 Containment Level to be neutralized via Aerial Sanitation Protocols.”

J-in stared. “Neutralized?”

Masaru read further, voice flat. “They’re going to bomb everything. Every zone that passes containment threshold.”

J-in blinked. “Wait—neutralize? Like… talk it down? Convince it to be chill?”

Kaito frowned. “No, no, neutralize doesn’t have to mean ‘blow it up.’ It could mean… I don’t know, quarantine? Maybe they just cut power or something?”

Sakura chimed in, eyes hopeful. “Yeah, like neutralizing a chemical reaction. Not violent. Just... balanced.”

Yamada raised a brow. “You guys ever heard of a gentle government neutralization?”

Masaru sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Alright, listen.”

He pointed dramatically at the laptop screen like a tired teacher.

He pointed dramatically at the laptop screen like a tired teacher.

“In every military movie I’ve ever seen—and I mean every single one—‘neutralize’ means ‘turn it into ash from the sky.’ It’s code for: ‘We’re done playing nice.’”

J-in crossed his arms. “Yeah, but maybe this time it’s metaphorical?”

Masaru deadpanned. “You ever seen a metaphor flatten a city?”

Kaito threw up his hands. “So you’re telling me we’re standing in a ‘soon-to-be-metaphor’ zone?!”

Yamada, still holding a half-filled bottle of alcohol.

Kaito laughed once—dry, nervous. “So we’re inside a ticking time bomb.”

Yamada’s voice was quieter now. “There's one more update.”

He clicked one final link. A live government feed showing:
“Safe Zones Last Updated: 04:12 JST”

There were only three green lights on the entire map.

One was in Sapporo. One in Fukushima's mountain shelters.
And the third… was marked “T.S. - Kyoto Underground.”

“What’s T.S.?” Sakura asked.

Yamada squinted. “…Takashiro Station.”

Masaru turned sharply. “The old abandoned train line?”

J-in exhaled, “That’s… beneath us.”

Silence fell over them again.

Then Masaru said calmly, “Pack everything. We move before sundown.”

The store had gone quiet—too quiet. Only the occasional creak of a shelf settling or the hum of the old ceiling fan.

Masaru was at the door, watching the street like a hawk.
Sakura packed dried food and first-aid kits into an old hiking bag.
Kaito checked the windows with a broken bat in hand.

And in the back room—

Yamada stood over the counter, pouring leftover bottles of osake and cheap liquor into empty liquor bottles they’d found in a side cabinet.

J-in, crouched beside him, held a funnel steady. “Remind me again why we’re doing this?”

Yamada didn’t look up. “Two reasons. One, it’ll help sterilize wounds if we get bitten or scratched. Two…” he glanced at his wrist—the bite mark, now slightly red and angry—“I might need to flush this crap out of my blood before it decides to bloom.”

J-in raised a brow. “And drinking alcohol works like that?”

Yamada shrugged. “It works in anime.”

“…Fair enough.”

The two of them worked in silence for a moment, pouring and sealing what bottles they could. The smell of alcohol was sharp in the air—raw, bitter.

They clinked two full bottles like a toast.

Behind them, Masaru’s voice called out, low and firm:
“Five minutes. Everyone, gear up.”

J-in grabbed the last sealed bottle and tucked it into his jacket.
Yamada adjusted the straps on his satchel, glancing again at his wrist—still bitten, still unclear.

Then he muttered under his breath:
“If I change… don’t let me touch her.”

J-in looked up, more serious now. “You... what?”

“Just promise me.”

“I promise,” he said. "Do you know here?" 

Yamada gave a small, tired smile—not one of comfort, but of quiet resignation.

He patted J-in lightly on the shoulder.

“…Let’s go.”

Masaru slowly pushed the main door up.. Sharp and too dazzling sunlight spilt in. A bike was breaking down on the other side, and some signs were still flickering in the strangely quiet Shopping district. A car alarm went out in the distance, then suddenly stopped working.

Masaru looked over his shoulder.

“Keep tight. We stay in a line—no wandering, no talking loud.”

Sakura adjusted the strap on her backpack, standing beside Kaito. She looked at Yamada, still unsure of who he was exactly, but something about his calmness made her nod silently.

Kaito didn’t look as composed. His eyes were constantly darting, shoulders tense, one hand gripping the metal pipe they had found behind the store.

J-in checked his pockets one last time. Bottles. Lighter. Knife.

“Alright,” he whispered, mostly to himself.

Masaru led the way out.

Yamada followed next.

Sakura, then Kaito.

And finally, J-in.

Yamada kept a cautious pace, his eyes darting between alleys and rooftops, gripping the half-filled alcohol bottle like it was holy water. Not far ahead, J-in walked with quiet determination, occasionally looking the bandaged bite on Yamada's wrist. Sakura stuck close to Kaito, who scanned each corner with a survivor’s instinct. Masaru, tense and jittery, walked behind them. Kaito still not quite comfortable with Yamada’s presence… or the growing closeness between him and Sakura.

The group moved like shadows between the buildings. They were heading east—toward the Takashiro Station, an old metro hub that, if Masaru was right, would lead them to a maintenance tunnel under Kyoto. 

The air was dry. Still. No birds, no distant engines. Just the crunch of broken glass underfoot and the low hum of a city holding its breath.

They passed the burnt-out husk of a van—its doors flung open, charred clothes inside. A child’s toy lay in the gutter beside it.

Nobody said a word.

Finally, they reached a rusted stairwell that spiraled down into the shadows—Takashiro Station’s side entrance. The main building had long since been blocked off. But Masaru knew places like this.

He stopped at the top of the stairwell, turning to the group.

“From here, it’s dark. Flashlights only. Quiet from now on. No screaming, no splitting up. If something moves—don’t run first. Look first.”

Everyone nodded, except J-in who whispered, “No promises.”

They descended.

The stairwell moaned with every step.

Concrete swallowed them. The deeper they went, the colder it became. Dampness crept into their clothes, and the distant echo of dripping water was the only sound for minutes.

At the bottom, a set of sliding gates blocked their path—bent and rusted, but not locked.

Masaru shoved them aside with a grunt.

Beyond was the abandoned platform—flickering ceiling lights buzzed to life with an unstable hum as they entered. Pillars stretched across the cavernous room, and rats scattered as their flashlights swept through.

“This way,” Masaru whispered. “Maintenance door should be down at the end of this platform.”

They walked single file, staying close to the yellow safety line.

Sakura’s voice, barely a breath:

“It’s like… a tomb.”

J-in added, “Let’s hope it’s not ours.”

Suddenly, Yamada froze.

His flashlight caught movement.

Something down the tunnel—twisting, crawling.

A shape.

No sound. No breath.

Just the scrape of skin against concrete.

Masaru stepped forward, hand raised.

“Lights off.”

One by one, their flashlights blinked out.

And then—

Silence.

Thick, suffocating silence.

No footsteps. No whispers. Just the distant plink-plink of water dripping from rusted pipes above.
Masaru didn’t move. Neither did the others.

Somewhere down the tunnel, something shifted. A silhouette—crawling, hunched, unnatural.

J-in whispered, barely audible.

“If it breathes weird, moves weird, or looks weird… it’s probably weird.”

Masaru gave him a sharp glance through the dark.

“You think?”

Sakura’s voice trembled.

“Can it… see us?”

Yamada responded, calm but tense.

“Not if we stay still. Most of them—if they’ve turned—are movement-based. Like blind dogs.”

Kaito exhaled sharply, trying to calm his nerves.

But then—clink.

His foot knocked a loose pebble.

Sakura flinched. Masaru immediately hissed.

“Don’t. Move.”

Too late.

A low growl echoed down the tunnel. Followed by something worse—scratching. Wet, snapping sounds, like nails raking against bone and concrete.

The thing had noticed them.

It started running.

Fast.

Masaru’s voice cracked the silence.

“GO!”

Flashlights snapped on. The tunnel exploded in light.

They ran.

J-in stumbled but caught himself. Kaito reached the old maintenance door Masaru had mentioned and shoved it open.

Sakura was the first through. Then Masaru. Then Yamada. Then—

J-in.

He dove through and slammed the steel door shut behind him, flipping the rusted latch down with a hard click.

BANG!

The thing hit the other side of the door.

Then again.

The metal dented, groaned under the weight.

Everyone stood still, backs to the door, chest heaving. Their hearts pounding in sync with the banging.

J-in panted, gripping the wall for balance.

“Well… it definitely looked weird.”

Masaru kept staring at the door.

“That's just infected.” 

Masaru turned toward the tunnel ahead—narrow, dark, and long.

Whatever it was behind them, it wasn’t their biggest problem anymore.

He took a step forward.

“We move. Now.”

And they did.

One by one.

Disappearing into the black.