“Do you have some alcohol left?” Yamada asked, his voice rough, calm—almost amused.
Everyone froze.
J-in blinked.
Masaru stared in disbelief, his knuckles still white around the metal pipe.
Yamada, still soaked in gore.
He didn’t wait for a reply—just moved straight to the broken door and shoved it shut with a grunt.
The thudding resumed. The infected were still pressing from the rear compartments, loud and growing louder.
Masaru snapped out of it first. “How the hell did you—”
“Later,” Yamada cut him off. “Right now, we need to keep that damn door from turning into a welcome sign.”
He turned to Sudo. “You said we’ve got how long until Saitama?”
Sudo checked his watch. “Ninety minutes, maybe eighty-five now.”
Yamada nodded. “Then we need to hold this!”
He moved without waiting for help—dragging a curved steel pipe from the wrecked side compartment, one end rusted, the other jagged from a snapped joint.
With one sharp motion, he jammed it into the handle slot of the rear compartment door, then bent the end of the pipe through the side rail—locking it in place.
The whole thing screeched as metal scraped metal, but it clicked into a position that even the strongest infected couldn’t easily undo.
“Zombies don’t use hands,” he muttered. “They push. They slam. They bite. But they don’t know how to drag a latch sideways.”
Masaru stared at it, impressed.
“You just locked the dead out with plumbing.”
J-in blinked. “Is this guy always this resourceful or is it the alcohol?”
Yamada grinned slightly, wiping sweat from his brow.
“Probably both.”
The pounding continued. The door shook. But it didn’t give.
Sudo stepped beside him, watching the vibrating hinges. “If that thing holds… we might just make it.”
Yamada exhaled. “Guess we’ll find out.”
Then silence.
Not outside—the infected were still hammering—but among the group.
A pause.
A breath.
A moment of uneasy relief.
Masaru lowered his weapon slowly. “Let’s keep moving. Even if the back is blocked, we still don’t know what’s waiting at Saitama.”
The group began pushing forward through the narrow corridor, the dim ceiling lights flickering above them. The steady hum of the train and the dull pounding from the rear created a surreal rhythm.
As they passed into the next compartment—one filled with survivors packed shoulder to shoulder—heads turned.
Whispers spread instantly.
“Is that blood…?”
“Are those people from the rear?”
Then—Kaito froze.
His eyes locked on Yamada, walking calmly beside J-in, axe resting over his shoulder.
Kaito’s voice cracked. “H-He made it?!”
Yamada gave him a sideways glance, no anger in his expression. “Looks like it.”
Kaito’s face tightened. The tension between them was thick—unspoken but heavy.
Masaru stepped between them subtly, shifting the weight of the moment.
“We’re not here to argue,” Masaru said calmly.
“Yamada bought us time. He closed the door. We came to warn you all.” Sudo warned them.
A woman from the crowd stepped forward. “Warn us?”
Sudo nodded, stepping up. “The infected breached the last two compartments. They’re being held off—for now—but the rear door’s under pressure. If it breaks…”
Panic started to ripple.
“No…”
“Are they coming here?!”
Sakura raised her hands. “Please. Stay calm! We have about 80 minutes until we reach Saitama. But if the crowd panics, we’re done before that.”
Yamada added, “We’ve reinforced the door. It’s holding. But this train doesn’t stop again. We have to stay together till then.”
Still, eyes drifted to the axe. The blood. The raw scrape on Yamada’s wrist.
Someone whispered, “He’s infected…”
Yamada heard it—but didn’t flinch.
"No, he is not" both Sudo and Masaru raised their voices.
All eyes turned to them.
J-in threw his hands up dramatically. “For real? He just saved all of you! If he was infected, you’d be chewed on like expired bentō by now!”
A trembling man at the back pointed toward Yamada’s soaked shirt.
“But his clothes… the blood—he’s drenched—”
Yamada glanced down at himself.
Red smeared across his jacket. Splatter ran up his sleeves. His boots were caked.
A little chunk of something was stuck to his collar—he flicked it off.
He met their eyes.
“Yeah. It’s blood,” he said bluntly. “But none of it’s mine.”
The tension tightened.
"Where's the alcohol?" Yamada asked, looking toward J-in.
J-in shoved his hands into the bag, then rolled it over to Yamada.
Yamada raised the bottle of alcohol he rolled, uncapped it, and took a swig like it was water.
Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and, glancing toward the crowd, Yamada said, “If it were mine, I’d already be eating your face. So let’s stop wasting time.”A silence followed—stunned, awkward, but undeniable.
Someone finally muttered, “…He’s got a point.”
Masaru stepped forward. “Look. We’ve reinforced the rear. There’s no breach yet. But if we don’t stay calm and work together, it won’t matter who’s infected or not.”
Sudo added, “We’ve got less than 80 minutes to Saitama. If that back door holds, we’re good. If not—well, we better be ready.”
J-in clapped his hands together. “So, uh… anybody got snacks? Because this is starting to feel like the world’s most intense group project.”
Even Sakura cracked a faint smile.
The tension finally eased.
But Yamada just leaned against the cold wall, staring at nothing.
His hand curled around the axe at his side.
His other gripped the bottle tighter.
Because even if no one else could hear it—
He still could.
The pounding behind the sealed door.
YAMADA:
I didn’t flinch.
They were whispering, staring, calculating. I could feel it in their eyes—like I was something they needed to measure, just in case I turned out to be a monster.
And maybe I was.
My jacket clung to me, damp and cold. Blood soaked into the lining. I wasn’t even sure how much of it had splashed on me, how much had dried. It didn’t matter.
None of it was mine.
I stared down at my boots—sticky red crusted along the soles—and took a slow drink from the bottle I’d been carrying like a damn talisman.
Alcohol. Sharp. Bitter.
But it kept my head from drowning in the noise.
It made me feel something. Something human.
I wiped my mouth and looked up at all of them.
Sakura was standing next to Masaru. Kaito was behind her, stiff as a rod, jaw locked.
J-in was watching me with some strange mix of relief and awe, like I’d just done a magic trick and come back from the dead.
Funny thing is—I kind of had.
“If it were mine,” I said, voice steady, “I’d already be eating your face.”
You know when they people here froze. No one moved. Not a breath.
And then—
someone muttered something about me having a point.
I wanted to laugh.
Not because it was funny.
But because I couldn’t scream.
Instead, I leaned back against the train wall. It was cold, grounding. The axe in my hand was heavy, warm from the swing.
Still dripping a little.
I didn’t want to look at anyone anymore.
Especially not her.
Not Sakura.
Maybe it was better that way.
The train rumbled forward, cutting through the dark veins of the underground like a lifeline in chaos.
Overhead, the dull emergency lights flickered now and then, casting the passengers in a flickering ghost-light. Shadows danced on the walls—long, twitching, and distorted. Every bump on the track made someone jump.
The survivors huddled near the center compartments, weary and watchful. Some whispered prayers. Others stared blankly at the metal floor, trying not to think about the pounding they had heard just minutes ago behind the sealed compartment.
Masaru stood near the front exit door, map clutched tightly in his hand, eyes scanning every stretch of track they passed.
“Ten minutes out,” Sudo murmured, checking the scratched face of his watch. “This train’s holding steady.”
“Let’s hope the brakes do the same,” Masaru replied.
Behind them, Yamada leaned back against the wall, his axe resting beside his leg. Despite the blood still staining his clothes, no one dared approach him with suspicion now—not after what he’d done. Not after what he’d survived.
Kaito, silent and guilt-ridden, sat away from the group. His eyes flickered toward Yamada now and then, but he never said a word.
Sakura glanced between them. The tension hung thick in the air—but so did the relief. For now.
J-in, still gripping his circular saw, sat cross-legged on the floor. His back was against the cold wall of the train car, head tilted slightly to listen.
“You hear that?” he whispered.
Masaru turned. “What?”
“…Nothing,” J-in muttered. “That’s what’s weird.”
The train was silent, aside from its own mechanical hum. No groaning infected. No cries. No banging. Just the tunnel stretching endlessly ahead—and Saitama getting closer with every passing second.
Then, with a mechanical whine, a voice rang from the overhead speaker system:
“Approaching: Saitama Terminal Station. Prepare to disembark.”
Everyone stood slowly.
Hearts pounding harder.
Sudo whispered, “No idea what’s going there?.”
Masaru nodded. “Then we move together.”
And as the light at the tunnel’s end began to grow…
The final descent.
The brakes screeched louder than they should’ve.
A metallic howl echoed through the tunnel as the train rolled into Saitama Station.
Then—
hisssss—click.
The doors slid open.
But nothing greeted them.
No voices.
No emergency personnel.
No crowds.
Not even the sound of distant footsteps.
Just silence.
Uneven. Hollow. Wrong.
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