Chapter Text
The world had narrowed to a pane of tempered glass. Julian knelt on the abrasive pavement, paralyzed as the grit of construction debris bit into his palms.
The thud from inside the vehicle repeated. He stared into the darkened interior, eyes stinging. The silhouette slumped against the steering wheel was unmistakable, though the stillness had claimed him even within his steel tomb. His father's eyes were wide, bulging, and fixed in a state of terminal terror.
“Why?”
Julian reached out, hand trembling so violently it nearly made him lose balance. He pressed a palm against the cold window, a ghost of a gesture toward the man who had warned him not to make a sound.
Inside, his father’s mouth hung open, breath fogging the glass in a rhythmic, frantic pulse. The boy realized with a sickening lurch of his stomach that his father was a trigger, and every muffled slap of the man's hand against the glass was a countdown.
Behind Julian, the silence of the parking lot shifted.
Two figures scattered across the lawn and between the skewed cars whom he had not noticed were still left behind. Eyes already locked onto him when looking back.
A mere whimper left his throat, shrinking even more as those things started stumbling like drunk people trying to sprint in his direction.
Fist curled around the door handle. One sharp crack of the window would be a flare in the dark. He was caught between the slow rot of silence or the violent end of a noise.
In the distance, the industrial throb of the PA system finally died out, leaving the night to the sounds of unnerving breathing and the metallic tick of a world winding down. Julian let out a shaky, short breath, air hot and thick with the salt of his own panic.
Static hissed through the campus loudspeakers, a jagged sound that tore through the quad. The voice of the girl from before, Lara, but the steady composure was gone, replaced by a ragged franticness.
"If you’re making your way towards the library, please turn around!” the voice shrieked, the feedback looping into a piercing whine. "The seals didn't hold. It’s not safe! If you’re outside, stay exactly where you are.”
The transmission cut out with a definitive end.
For a moment, the world seemed to be holding back its breath. Before the screaming began.
It wasn't a human cry, but a primal, lung-bursting howl of predatory rage. From the shadows of the library’s shattered foyer, the first of them erupted. They moved with a twitching fluidity that defied biology, limbs pumping with a frantic, caloric burn. Veins like dark purple ink pulsed beneath pale skin; eyes wide and hemorrhaging fixed on the slightest movement.
The sound vibrated in Julian’s marrow. Fingers trembling so violently they clattered against the door handle. The broadcast had worked—the pack at the periphery of the lot was turning, drawn toward the library's main exits.
Haru.
The name hit like a physical blow. If those things were moving at that speed, the window of time wasn't just closing—it was gone.
Julian’s fingers cramped around the door handle, knuckles white. To stay was death, to leave was a betrayal. But he knew the only option left was to kill the hope before it killed him.
Reached for the latch, praying for a silent entry. But as his fingers pulled, the car’s security system glitched.
The horn began to blare.
"No, no, no!" Julian fumbled with the handle, eyes locking onto his father’s through the glass. The man was no longer static. He was a coiled spring, reacting to the rhythm of the alarm.
Before he could pull the door wide, the frame exploded outward. His father slammed into him from the inside, the momentum throwing them both onto the abrasive asphalt.
The impact drove the air from Julian’s lungs. Scrambled for purchase on the grit, looking up into a face he had loved his entire life, now rendered unrecognizable. His father’s eyes were shattered windows of ruptured capillaries, jaw working with a frantic, clicking hunger.
The weight pinned the boy down. His father screamed directly into his face—a high-pitched, vibrating howl of pure rage that sprayed Julian with hot, foul breath.
“Dad! Please!”
The plea was swallowed by the rhythmic blaring of the horn. Julian wasn't fighting a man, he was pinned beneath a machine of primal rage.
Thick, white froth leaked from his father’s mouth, threading down in ropy strands that splattered onto Julian’s cheeks. It was warm. It smelled of iron.
Vision blurred by sweat and tears, Julian felt fingers clawing at his throat, nails digging into his skin. With a guttural cry, bucked his hips and shoved his forearms against his father’s chest.
Terror lent him an unrecognizable strength. He heaved the weight off, hearing a sickening crack as his father’s skull met the pavement. The man didn't flinch. He was already rebounding, limbs twitching as he coiled to spring again.
Julian scrambled backward on his hands and knees, breath hitching in a sob that nearly choked him. Reached the driver’s side, fingers catching the metal frame just as his father launched forward on all fours with terrifying, insect-like speed.
Julian swung into the seat. Pale fingers caught the edge of the door; white foam sprayed across the interior plastic.
“Get away!”
Julian lashed out with a heavy boot, catching his father squarely in the chest.
“Fuck!”
The blow sent the man reeling back into the path of another shadow sprinting from the gloom. Julian slammed the door and punched the lock.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The frame shuddered as bodies collided with the glass. Outside, the screaming reached a fever pitch—a dozen voices joining in a discordant choir of madness.
Julian’s hands were frantic, trembling animals. The keys scraped against the steering column in a desperate, clinking rhythm as the shadows multiplied outside the glass.
Twisted the ignition. Engine groaning, before sputtering, and failing.
"Please," he gasped, chest heaving in shallow, useless gulps.
Tunnel vision set in, the edges of the dashboard sparking with silver light. His father was supposed to teach him over the summer; they’d joked about his clumsy feet.
Now, his father was a snarling silhouette slamming a forehead against the driver’s side window, leaving streaks of foam and blood on the pane.
Julian twisted the key again. This time, the engine roared to life with a jagged, metallic whine.
Left is brake. Right is gas. He grabbed the gear shift—a heavy, alien lever—and yanked it back. The car lurched into Reverse with a shudder that snapped his head against the rest.
The sedan shot backward. A concrete planter caught the rear bumper with a bone-jarring impact, throwing Julian’s chest against the steering wheel. The horn let out one long, continuous scream.
"Move!" he shrieked at himself, his voice a broken sob.
Jammed the shifter into drive and buried his foot. The tires spun, smoking and screaming, before finally finding purchase.
The car fishtailed wildly, the back end clipping a stray shopping cart that vanished into the dark.
Steering wheel fought Julian with every clumsy, overcompensating jerk. He wasn't driving, but aiming a weapon he didn't know how to fire. The car hopped the curb, jolting violently as it swerved back onto the main campus artery.
Headlights caught them. Dozens sprinted down the center of the road, drawn by the roar and the glare. They moved like a pack of wolves—low to the ground, limbs pumping in a rhythmic, predatory blur.
A tremor in Julian’s foot caused the car to lurch in uneven bursts. Tears and sweat stung the scratches on his face, blurring the road. The sedan clipped a parked car, the grind of metal echoing through the cabin, but he didn't stop. He couldn't.
The exit gate loomed—a narrow bottleneck between brick pillars. Two of them were already there. Their bodies collided with the hood as he tore through, followed by a sickening thud-thud beneath the tires—the sensation of driving over something soft and yielding.
He refused to look back. With eyes locked on the road and breath coming in ragged, wet hitches, he left the screams of the university behind, bleeding out into the silent streets of an unknown world.
The adrenaline was a dying fire, leaving a cold, hollow ache in Julian’s joints. He drove until the campus was nothing but a smudge of smoke in the rearview mirror. Hands remained fused to the wheel in a painful grip.
His breathing hadn't slowed as the night passed, it had evolved. Every inhalation was a rhythmic, wet hitch. A pressurized heat began to throb behind his eyes, a dull pulse that synchronized with the ticking of the cooling engine as the car coasted onto a wooded shoulder of the highway.
Dawn was breaking—a sickly, bruised purple light filtering through the trees.
The night had been a blur of asphalt and fear. Julian had driven until the campus was a distant memory, his mind locked in a state of catatonic shock. Didn't stop for gas, didn't check the mirrors. He simply moved, a ghost behind the wheel, guided by the singular, desperate need to put miles between himself and the screaming.
Now, in the sickly light of dawn, his skin felt strangely sensitized. Every nerve ending vibrated just beneath the surface. A hand reached up to push his hair back, and a low, breathy groan escaped his throat.
It was the sound of profound exhaustion, but it carried a jagged, tonal edge—a rattling vibration that didn't sound his own.
Swallowed hard. His throat felt thick, as if filled with stones.
I’m just tired, told himself, thoughts spinning in slow, dizzying circles. The air is just thin.
He slumped forward, letting his forehead thump against the steering wheel, staying there, eyes squeezed shut, trying to force the image of his father’s foam-flecked face from his mind.
Waited for the relief to come, for the safety to wash over him.
Instead, a buildup of fluid flooded his mouth. His glands ached, pulsing with a sudden, sharp pressure.
He sat up, wiping a thick, viscous string of saliva from his chin with the back of his hand. The tongue felt swollen, a heavy weight behind his teeth.
Then, through the condensation on the windshield, he saw them.
Muffled voices drifted through the glass—low, urgent, and authoritative. A few yards ahead, a dark SUV blocked the road, flanked by men in tactical vests. They moved with a precise, military calm near a temporary barricade.
Standing slightly apart from the soldiers was a figure in a familiar tan jacket.
Julian’s heart skipped. The figure turned, his profile softened by the morning mist.
“Haru?” Julian whispered. The name was a jagged piece of glass in his throat.
The heat behind his eyes intensified, blurring the world into a smear of red and gray. But the shape of the boy was unmistakable. Haru had made it. He had found help.
The door handle was a struggle, his limbs heavy and uncooperative. As he stepped into the cold morning air, his sleeve brushed his chin, coming away damp with a pale, frothy moisture. He didn't look at it. Knees buckled, but the sight of the tan jacket kept him upright.
Took a step, chest heaving. Ready to scream the name that had been his only anchor in the dark, but the world was tilting. The horizon swayed like a ship at sea.
His feet dragged through the gravel, leaving the safety of the car behind. His entire existence had narrowed to that single figure beyond the soldiers.
“Haru...”
The name didn't sound like a word. It was a wet, guttural rasp—a sound of tearing phlegm and clicking teeth.
“Stop right there!” a voice boomed, sharp and metallic. “Do not move another step!”
But Julian didn't stop. He couldn't. He was a shell, driven by a pulse that no longer felt like his own. Soldiers ahead—a ragged mix of National Guard and civilians—wore faces etched with a fatigue that mirrored his own.
They didn't look like saviors, they looked like executioners.
"He's just a kid," someone muttered, the voice thick with sickening pity. "Look at him."
Julian’s head snapped up. For a flickering second, the fog cleared. People behind the barricade weren't looking at him with relief. They were staring with a cold, vibrating terror. Three rifle barrels leveled at his chest.
He blinked, but his vision remained stained a deep, bruised crimson. Something hot and thick slid down his chin—the froth was flowing freely now, staining his collar. His jaw began to twitch rhythmically, a reflex he couldn't identify as fear or something else completely.
Eyes shot back to where Haru had been.
The space was empty now. Only a rusted signpost vibrating in the wind.
A hollow, broken laugh bubbled in Julian’s chest. It all felt so small now. The panic in the library, the weight of his father’s body, the long, dark drive—it was too much to be real. It was a cruel, elaborate joke played by a mind that had reached its limit.
"I'm sorry, kid," a man whispered from behind a rifle. The cocking of the hammer was the loudest thing in the world.
Julian didn't flinch. A serene smile touched his lips even as his teeth began to chatter with the rising heat. A strange, weightless peace settled over him.
"It's okay," he murmured, the words slurring into the foam. "I'm still waiting for the test. I just... I fell asleep after lunch."
He closed his eyes. His mind retreated into a warm, golden memory. He wasn't on a blood-stained highway. He was in the hallway of his house, the scent of garlic and onions wafting from the kitchen. His father was calling his name, telling him that dinner was getting cold, that he shouldn't work so hard.
"I never even left home today," Julian whispered to the silent woods.
Morning light broke over the trees, catching the red in his eyes for one final second.
Then, a single shot echoed through the valley—a sharp, definitive crack that tore through the mist and traveled for miles, until it was the only sound left in the world.