Reese's lungs burned as he pulled himself through the last meters of the submerged passage, hands scraping against slime-covered concrete. Twenty meters of swimming through human waste while holding his breath felt like an eternity. He kept his eyes clamped shut, not just to protect them from the filth, but because opening them would serve no purpose. The tunnel was pitch black.

  His hand broke the surface first. Then his head. He gasped—the air tasted of decay and shit, making him gag even as he gulped it down. Weak yellow halos from the emergency strips barely cut the gloom, revealing water that was only marginally cleaner. It was black oil, carrying the residue of everything dumped from the other side.

  Reese dragged himself onto the concrete ledge. His arms shook. He wiped his face, but it only smeared the filth. He turned back to the water, scanning the surface.

  Nothing.

  "Jake?" Reese called out, his voice echoing strangely in the maintenance tunnel. "Jake!"

  He scanned the water's surface desperately. The water was black as oil, reflecting the dim emergency lights like a broken mirror. No bubbles rose to disturb the surface. No desperate splashing. Just stillness and silence.

  "Fuck," Reese swore, his chest tightening with something that might have been panic. Without giving himself time to think, he dove back into the filthy water.

  The world became muffled blackness. He forced his eyes open but it made no difference. He couldn't see anything. He swam with broad sweeping movements, arms extended like a blind man searching for a wall, trying to cover as much area as possible.

  Still nothing.

  Reese stop thrashing and tried to calm down. He couldn’t let himself drown in panic. He had to be careful or he might get lost as well in this darkness. He had to stay calm and listen. Through the muddy liquid, he heard it: the distant groan of metal pipes somewhere above.

  He swam upward, following the sound until his hands found the cold surface of industrial piping. The metal was rough with decades of corrosion, sharp edges catching at his fingertips. He followed the pipes through the darkness, using them as a guide while his lungs began to burn.

  That's when he felt frantic thrashing ahead. Reese reached out and grabbed fabric.

  Immediately, something struck him hard in the face. Knuckles or an elbow, he couldn't tell. More blows followed, wild and uncoordinated but powered by terror and primal instinct.

  He wrapped both arms around the struggling figure, pulling him close with all his remaining strength while absorbing the desperate weakening punches that rained down on his head and shoulders.

  There was no time for gentle reassurance. Reese simply held on and kicked for the surface, dragging Jake's increasingly limp weight through the black water. His lungs felt like they might burst now as his chest spasmed involuntarily, demanding air he couldn't give it.

  They finally broke the surface together, both gasping and choking. Jake immediately doubled over, retching up the dirty water he'd swallowed during his panic. Reese slumped beside him, fighting to control his own breathing, ignoring the way his chest rattled with each inhalation.

  The emergency lighting cast their shadows long and distorted against the tunnel walls, making them look like broken things. Which wasn't far from the truth.

  Finally, Jake spoke. "Thank you." His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. "I thought I was going to die down there."

  Jake's face was pale and drawn, water still dripping from his hair. His eyes found Reese and his expression collapsed. Fresh blood was streaming from Reese's nose, dark rivulets cutting paths through the grime on his face, mixing with the sewage water that still clung to his skin.

  Jake's eyes fell to the floor, "Because of me, you—"

  "Stop fucking talking." Reese's voice was low and dangerous. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, blood smearing across his face. "I'm already trying my best not to punch your sad puppy face."

  "But without Vincent—"

  "Get your shit together, conductor. This is survival! We are not here to make friends or sing together around fucking dead rat soup. You think Vincent would have healed me? Nobody cares. Didn't you see it for yourself? Everything in the camp was transactional, everything had a price. They only healed the ones they wanted, the ones who were useful. They don't give a fuck about anyone else."

  "So stop expecting people to clean your ass every time you fart." He pointed back at the dark water they'd just escaped. "This is the last time I move a finger for you. Starting now it's kill, or be the next one to die! It's time you stop hiding behind everyone."

  Jake's mouth fell open, confusion and hurt warring across his features. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "It means you've spent this entire nightmare looking for someone else to follow like a fucking dog. First Mike, then Dana, and now me. When are you going to grow a pair and start doing shit for yourself?"

  "I don't—"

  "You don't what?" Reese coughed, tasting blood mixing with the disgusting water he'd swallowed, but kept going because this needed to be said. "Face it, Jake. You're a fucking coward."

  "What about you then?" Jake's voice was shaking with emotion, all pretense of politeness abandoned. "Mister let-me-guide-everyone-to-their-death and somehow walked away with a spot on Jarret's team like it was a fucking reward for your amazing results! Awesome survival skills, you prick."

  The accusation hit harder than Reese expected, carrying enough truth to make his chest tighten with something that felt disturbingly like shame. The faces of those seventeen people flashed through his mind. And their screams...

  But he wasn't backing down. "At least I tried, instead of waiting for someone else to—"

  "Ahhh, It's easy to be brave when you don't give a fuck!"

  "Better than being a spineless piece of shit who—"

  That did it. Jake's face went white with rage, all the accumulated frustration, grief and terror of the past days finally finding a target. He lunged at him with a sloppy, telegraphed wild swing. No technique, only fury behind it.

  Reese ducked easily despite his weakening condition. His body moved on instinct. He caught Jake with a solid right hook to the jaw, putting his shoulder into the motion.

  Thud.

  Jake dropped like a sack of wet cement, his head bouncing off the tunnel floor with a sickening thud that echoed through their small space.

  "Shit," Reese muttered, immediately kneeling beside the unconscious conductor. He checked Jake's pulse, relieved to find it steady.

  Reese sat back on his heels, letting exhaustion take its toll. The adrenaline was fading rapidly, leaving behind the constant ache in his chest.

  He stared at Jake's unconscious form, at the pinkish bruise already forming on his jaw in the exact shape of Reese's knuckles, and tried to make sense of his own choices.

  Why did he do that? Why did he decide to help this hopeless man and risk his comfortable life at Vincent's camp?

  ‘Don't kid yourself.’

  He knew the camp was over for him the second he pulled the trigger on Jarret. That gunshot had shifted something fundamental inside him. He couldn't go back to pretending. He was done surviving at any cost.

  On his way back to the camp, his feet had moved on their own, pulling him to Dana’s tent like gravity. What the hell had he wanted? To apologize? To beg for pity? Just to be near her?

  He didn't know.

  Maybe it was the slap. He still vividly remembers the way she’d stood up to him, her eyes locked on his, completely fearless.

  Maybe it was simply how beautiful she was. and he hated the fact that his body was traitorous enough to react even now that she was gone.

  But it felt like more. It felt like a deeper connection.

  ‘Doesn't matter now.’

  Reese forced himself up, gritting his teeth as his chest screamed in protest. Jake’s voice was still ringing in his ears, louder than the pain.

  ‘You led people to their deaths.’

  Yeah. He had.

  *****

  Jake woke to the smell of searing, fatty meat. Followed by the orange pulse of firelight against his eyelids.

  He tried to shift, but his jaw gave a sickening throb that echoed through his skull. When he tried to sit up, a jagged spike of pain bolted through his ribs. He gasped, freezing mid-motion, his hand flying to his side. Every breath felt like sliding a blade between his lungs.

  He forced himself upright through grit alone, but the sight waiting for him made him wish he’d stayed unconscious.

  Massive, dog-sized rat carcasses littered the concrete like a battlefield. Some were still twitching, nerves firing in final, pathetic spasms. The blood pooling beneath them was thick and congealing into black oil. They were nightmares in the flesh, teeth bared in permanent snarls, claws extended as if they were still trying to tear the world apart.

  Reese sat with his back to the carnage, hunched over a small fire built from splintered crates. He was tending to two rats skewered on metal pipes.

  “Sleeping beauty is finally awake." Reese muttered with irritation. "I was starting to think you’d gone brain dead. One more hour and I would have throw you into the water."

  Jake stared at the bodies, his stomach turning. "What happened?"

  "Rats happened while you were taking your little nap." Reese turned one of the spits, fat dripping into the fire with a hiss.

  "Why didn't you wake me up?"

  "I fucking tried man!" Reese snapped, his voice cracking with exhaustion. "I screamed until I was hoarse. I even kicked the shit out of you to get you moving. You were out cold."

  Jake’s hand pressed harder against his side. The bruised ribs suddenly made a lot more sense.

  "I don't know what to say, I—"

  "Save it." Reese cut him off. "This is the first and last meal I'm making for you. Starting now, you hunt for both of us."

  Jake opened his mouth to argue, but the words died when he saw Reese’s left arm. It was pinned awkwardly against his torso, wrapped in a filthy rag already saturated with deep, wet crimson. The obviously broken limb hung at an unnatural angle.

  "Jesus, Reese." Jake moved closer before Reese could protest.

  He began peeling back the makeshift bandage, revealing deep, ragged puncture wounds that were still weeping. Reese had tried to tie it off one-handed; the knot was loose, the fabric bunched and useless.

  Jake worked with a sudden, quiet competence. He cleaned the grit from the wounds and tore strips from his own shirt to rebind the arm. His movements were gentle and practiced. He wasn’t as good as Nathan but he had been through quite a lot of first aid training as part of his conductor certification.

  "You said you wouldn't save me again," Jake said quietly, his eyes on the bandage. "So why didn't you just leave me and run?"

  "Shut the fuck up man. I do whatever the fuck I want, okay?" Reese hissed. "Why are you so obsessed with finding a reason for everything?"

  Jake finished the wrap and pulled the final knot. He yanked it tight—harder than he had to.

  "Ow! Fuck!" Reese recoiled, glaring. "Watch it!"

  "That’s for punching me," Jake muttered, unable to hide the small, tired grin tugging at his mouth.

  They fell into a heavy silence, their eyes fixed on the rat carcasses sizzling over the embers. The air between them thick but no longer toxic.

  ‘I do whatever the fuck I want.’ Jake turned the phrase over in his head. It was the same excuse Reese used to help him hide Dana's body. It was a life philosophy Jake had never even entertained. It felt arrogant, reckless and completely illogical.

  Jake had spent his life coloring inside the lines. He was the responsible one, for his parents, at his job. He was the reliable conductor who followed procedures and protocols. He’d never even questioned if the lines made sense.

  Reese didn't even see the lines. He seemed to live by a code that was fundamentally different to what he was supposed to do.

  But standing there in the dark, surrounded by blood and filth, Jake found the words inexplicably charismatic coming from Reese.

  Jake didn't know if he was horrified by the idea or admired it. Maybe both.

  They moved through the tunnels in silence, Reese led the way, his good hand white-knuckled around a rusted pipe. Every step he took looked like an act of war against his own body. Their goal was simple: find somewhere safe where they could rest for the “night.”

  But the tunnels had other plans.

  Three shapes emerged from the shadows ahead, low to the ground and moving with unsettling coordination. Rats. Each one easily the size of a large cat, their eyes catching the weak light and reflecting it back with terrifying intelligence.

  Their fur was matted and diseased-looking, patches of bare skin visible where the hair had fallen out. But it was their teeth that held Jake's attention. Long, yellowed incisors that jutted from their mouths even when closed, designed for tearing through flesh and bone.

  Jake's heart hammered against his ribs, so hard he could feel the pulse in his throat, in his temples, in his fingertips. His breathing quickened despite his efforts to control it.

  “Stay close. Don't make any sudden movements." Reese said quietly, his voice tired but steady.

  The rats paused in front of them. They tilted their heads in unison, evaluating the two humans. Then, they split up strategically. One scrambled up the concrete wall. The other two fanned out to the left and right. These weren't mindless animals operating on pure instinct. They were thinking, planning and working together.

  "Jake," Reese's voice was sharp with warning. "The one on the left is coming for you. Get ready."

  Jake found himself staring into the purple, oily eyes of the creature. It had cut off his retreat. Reese was already pivoting toward the other two, his pipe raised, his breathing ragged and wet.

  The rat crouched, its haunches tensing for the spring. Jake’s knees didn't just shake; they buckled. A violent tremor took over his legs. Tears blurred his vision, a helpless physical response to a level of terror he couldn't process. His hands were slick with sweat, their only knife sliding in his grip.

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  He tried to raise the blade, but his arm felt like it was made of lead.

  The rat lunged.

  Jake’s entire world locked up. He was paralyzed, a statue of meat and fear. He couldn't dodge, couldn't even flinch as the creature flew through the air toward his chest.

  The rat hit him like a bowling ball. Its weight and momentum knocked him backward, his feet leaving the ground. Jake hit the ground hard, the impact driving what little air remained in his lungs out in a painful whoosh.

  The rat jumped on top of him, scrambling for purchase. Claws scraped across his chest, tearing through his shirt like paper, scoring lines of fire across his skin. The creature's teeth snapped inches from his face, close enough that he could smell the rot on its breath, could see individual whiskers twitching as it tried to reach his throat.

  "Move, goddammit! Swing the fucking knife!" Reese’s voice exploded through the panic.

  Jake swung wildly, it wasn't a strike; it was a desperate, clumsy flail. The blade glanced off the rat’s tough, leathery hide. It didn't even draw blood.

  The rat’s head whipped around. Its teeth found Jake’s forearm and sank in with a wet, sickening crunch.

  Jake screamed.

  The rat let go to reposition for his throat this time. Jake had to roll away to protect himself, but his body wouldn't obey. His limbs felt disconnected from his brain.

  Then the weight was suddenly gone. The rat flew sideways with a sickening crack as Reese's pipe connected with its skull. The creature hit the tunnel wall and went limp, its body sliding down to leave a smear of blood on the concrete.

  "Get up!" Reese grabbed Jake’s collar and hauled him to his feet. "Get up already before more come!"

  Jake stumbled upright on legs that felt like jelly. His whole body was shaking, trembling so violently that his teeth chattered. Blood ran from the bite on his forearm, warm and slick, dripping onto the tunnel floor. "I froze. I couldn't move."

  "Yeah, no kidding." Reese spat. His tone was harsh. Not offering any comfort. just stating facts without judgment or comfort. Blood was seeping through his bandages again, Fresh blood was already soaking through the bandages on his arm. "Move. Now."

  The attacks became a broken record after that. Rats were drawn by the scent of blood, Jake would freeze. His body betraying him until Reese would step in. Each encounter followed the same brutal pattern.

  Again and again, Reese positioned himself between Jake and death.

  By the second day, the infection had turned Reese’s skin a necrotic grey color. His injured arm had swollen to nearly double its original size, the bandage stretched tight over the grotesque mass beneath. The entire limb hung useless at his side, but there was one mercy: all sensation was completely gone now. Reese could slam the arm against walls, could let rats tear at it, and feel absolutely nothing. The nerve damage was so severe that pain no longer registered.

  Jake had his own collection of injuries now. Deep bites on both arms and both legs. Scratches across his face and neck. A gash on his shoulder where a rat had almost finished him. The wounds stung and burned, but they weren't life-threatening.

  The shame was worse. He watched Reese’s decline with a hollow feeling in his gut. At the start of the first day, Reese had screamed at him, calling him every name in the book, his voice full of a fiery, desperate rage.

  But as the hours bled into the second day, the shouting stopped. Reese still swore at him, but the fire was gone. His voice was a low, rasping ghost of what it had been. He didn't have the energy to be angry anymore.

  Every time Reese saved him, Jake felt smaller. He was the reason the man was dying.

  *****

  They stumbled through the tunnels, two ghosts of men barely holding onto their legs. Jake carried the still-warm corpse of a rat they’d managed to kill a few minutes ago. Its blood soaked into his shirt, sticky and cooling, when he saw movement at the far end of the passage.

  A figure emerged. It walked toward them with a relaxed, almost casual gait that sent a sudden, sharp chill down Jake’s spine.

  "Hello?" Jake called out. His voice echoed, thin and brittle, against the damp concrete.

  There was no answer. Just the steady, unhurried sound of footsteps. They were methodical. Confident.

  "Don't move," Reese whispered.

  His good hand tightened on the pipe. Despite the fever burning in his eyes and the way his body sagged, Reese’s posture shifted. He became a predator again, wary and coiled.

  The figure drew closer, stepping into a pool of weak yellow light.

  It was a tall man, dressed in what had once been a sharp business suit. The jacket was charcoal, worn over a shirt that might have been white once, but it was now a stiff, crackling canvas of red.

  Jake tried to speak again, but the air died in his lungs as the man’s face came into focus.

  The man’s jaw was gone. A gunshot wound had entered under his chin and detonated through the lower half of his face. What remained of his jaw hung at an impossible angle, tethered by grey strips of tissue and skin that swayed with every step. Jake could see the teeth, the violet tongue, and the dark cavern of the throat. Fresh blood seeped from the ruin, dripping onto the already sodden shirt.

  The eyes were the worst part. They were purple. It was that same color as the old grandpa Gerald, but still completely different.

  The man kept coming. He didn't growl. He didn't lunge. He just walked with a terrifying, automated rhythm.

  Jake’s knees began to tremble. His heart was a frantic animal trapped in his ribs, beating so hard he could taste the copper in the back of his throat. His vision began to tunnel, the edges blurring into black as his body prepared to fail.

  Tears tracked through the grime on his cheeks. He could hear Reese saying something behind him but the words sounded like they were drifting through deep water.

  The Suit Man reached them.

  The smell hit first. It was the scent of meat rotting from the inside out, mixed with the metallic tang of the tunnel.

  The purple eyes flicked to Jake. It was a brief, mechanical registration of an obstacle. There was no hate in that gaze. No hunger. No humanity. It was just a sensor pulse, cold and indifferent. His eyes were empty.

  Jake’s legs gave out. He lost his balance and hit the floor hard, the dead rat tumbling from his hands. He landed on his rear, his muscles locking into a state of paralysis so profound it felt like drowning in ice.

  The Suit Man’s eyes tracked the fall with that same hollow interest. Then, the gaze shifted back to the darkness ahead. The man stepped beside Jake’s sprawled form and continued walking. His footsteps faded into the distance, steady and rhythmic, until the silence of the tunnel swallowed them whole.

  Jake gasped, his lungs burning as if he’d been underwater for minutes. His whole body shook with the aftershocks of the encounter.

  Reese’s hand settled on his shoulder. He pulled Jake to his feet with a gentleness that was entirely unexpected.

  "We saw a lot of them during our hunt," Reese said quietly. "As long as you don't try to stop them or get in their way, they never touch you. They’re just... walking. God knows where."

  Jake knew where. The catacombs.

  The image of Gerald jumping into the deep to join thousands of others made his skin crawl and still hunted his dreams.

  Reese looked at Jake’s terrified face. Something in his expression softened, the hard lines around his mouth twitching as if he wanted to laugh but didn't have the energy.

  "Let's take a break here," Reese said. The words came out reluctantly, a rare admission of his own exhaustion. "Catch your breath. Then we’ll see if your cooking is still as hopeless as your fighting."

  They settled against a damp wall, the yellow emergency light barely reaching the floor. Jake picked up the rat corpse, its body still radiating a faint, dying heat.

  "Start with the belly this time," Reese instructed. His voice was a thin rasp. "Clean cut from the sternum to the pelvis. And don't tear the organs!"

  Jake made the first incision. It was too shallow, barely parting the fur.

  "Cut deeper. It's already dead, you're not going to hurt it."

  The second attempt was better, but Jake’s hands wouldn't stop shaking. The memory of the Suit Man’s purple eyes was still vibrating in his skull. The knife slipped, tearing through skin and muscle in a jagged, uncontrolled slash.

  "For fuck's sake," Reese muttered. "You're destroying more meat than you're saving. Look at that. This whole section is ruined."

  "I'm trying—"

  "Try better. We can't afford to waste food because you have the shakes."

  Jake forced his fingers to lock around the hilt. He cut deeper, but the blade caught on a rib. When he jerked it free, the edge sliced straight through the intestinal wall. A foul, nauseating stench immediately filled the small space.

  "Jesus Christ." Reese’s voice was sharp with a jagged frustration. "How many times do I have to tell you? Watch the organs."

  "Stop yelling at me!" Jake's own frustration finally broke through the fear and exhaustion. "I'm doing the best I can.”

  "Then learn faster!" Reese shot back. "Shit, I'm gonna die soon, the least you can do is not fuck up my last meals."

  Their voices bounced off the concrete, loud and bitter. Jake’s hands were slick with viscera, his movements becoming aggressive and sloppy. Reese opened his mouth to deliver another cutting remark, but the sound died in his throat.

  They both froze.

  Fifteen meters down the tunnel, where the yellow light dissolved into shadow, something moved. It was large. It was four-legged. And it was absolutely massive.

  The creature that emerged made the rats look like adorable pets. The size of a lion, with a lean, feline muscular frame built. Its fur was a mottled, diseased mess of blood and sickly grey. The head was broad, but the proportions were a nightmare, twisted by mutation. The jaw was hinged too wide, capable of opening far beyond the limits of nature. Its eyes reflected the dim light with an oily, hypnotic purple gleam.

  The creature had caught the scent of the rat Jake was butchering. Fresh blood. Warm meat.

  The purple eyes locked onto them.

  The creature swiveled toward them, moving like a ghost through the tunnel despite its massive size.

  Jake’s heart hammered so hard he was sure the beast could hear it. The knife in his hand felt like a toothpick.

  It launched at them, covering the distance in only two blurring, powerful bounds, a streak of razor teeth aimed straight for Jake’s throat who was frozen in terror.

  Reese moved with a speed that defied his broken body. He threw himself sideways, his shoulder slamming into Jake, sprawling him across the concrete.

  Everything happened in the span of a heartbeat.

  And the massive jaws snapped shut on Reese’s injured arm instead. Teeth sank through the necrotic flesh and into the bone with a wet, splintering crunch that made Jake's stomach lurch.

  "Get the fuck out!" Reese screamed. The sound was raw, filled with tears in his throat. "Run! Get out of here!"

  Jake fell hard from Reese's shove, landing on his side a few meters away. The impact drove the air from his lungs. When he managed to push himself upright, he saw Reese on the floor, his injured arm still clamped in the creature's jaws. The creature was shaking its head, trying to tear the limb free while Reese screamed.

  Jake scrambled upright, his lungs burning from hyperventilation. He could see the beast shaking its head, trying to violently tear the limb from its shoulder while Reese shrieked in agony.

  Jake’s knees tremble uncontrollably. His vision blurred with tears. The knife felt a tone heavier in his hands covered by sweat and rat blood. Reese would die if he didn't do something.

  Actually, Reese was dying anyway. The infection had doomed him days ago. Jake knew it. Reese knew it. Everyone knew it.

  Every instinct he possessed told him to turn and disappear into the dark. Reese had bought him precious seconds to escape. The logical thing to do was respect his sacrifice and not waste this opportunity.

  It was the logical choice. That's what he should do.

  Jake punched his own thighs, forcing the muscles to steady. He didn't run away. He ran forward. He launched himself at the monster, a desperate, clumsy leap.

  He aimed for the eyes, but his coordination failed him. The blade slashed across the creature’s muzzle instead. It wasn't deep, but it drew a thin line of dark blood.

  The creature hissed, releasing Reese’s arm and jumping back. It began to lick its nose, more annoyed by the irritation than hurt. The damage was probably equivalent to a human stubbing their toe on a bed frame.

  Still, a win was a win.

  "Come on! Move!" Jake grabbed Reese by the collar, hauling him up.

  "Why are you still here, motherfucker!" Reese coughed at him angrily, his face a mask of sweat and blood.

  "Shut the fuck up already!" Jake roared, the profanity feeling strange and powerful in his mouth. "I do whatever the fuck I want!"

  Jake didn't give a damn about what he should do anymore.

  He grabbed Reese’s good arm and began to drag him. The creature watched them, its head tilted, but its attention shifted to the discarded rat corpse on the floor. It began to feed on the easy meal, bones snapping like firecrackers in the quiet tunnel.

  They managed twenty meters before the beast finished. The purple eyes found them again. It tensed for a final charge.

  "Faster!" Jake pulled, but Reese was a dead weight.

  The creature charged.

  Jake's feet hit something metallic on the ground and the floor simply vanished beneath them. They fell backward together, Jake losing his grip on Reese as they both tumbled.

  They fell through a hole in the concrete. The drop was only about four meters, but the landing was brutal. Jake’s ribs screamed as he hit the cold, damp earth below.

  Above, the creature’s head appeared at the edge of the hole. The purple eyes stared down, predatory and focused. It prepared to leap down.

  But something changed in its eyes.

  The creature’s ears flattened. Its body language shifted from predator aggression to a pure, primal terror. It made a sound that would haunt Jake's nightmares. A high-pitched, vibrating shriek of genuine dread. It turned and fled, its footsteps frantic as it vanished into the tunnels.

  Jake tried to assess their situation, but the darkness below the opening was absolute. No light penetrated more than a meter from the hole above. Everything beyond was pure black.

  But the darkness wasn't the worst part.

  Jake felt it immediately, it wasn't just the darkness. It was a malevolent pressure that hit him like a tidal wave. It was a horrific sensation of being watched by something ancient and alien. His skin erupted in goosebumps. Every hair on his body stood on end in response to a presence his conscious mind couldn't name.

  His thoughts fragmented into static. The panic was crushing him, a crushing realization that he was standing in the shadow of something that shouldn't exist. It was the frantic, desperate fear of a child running up the basement stairs, convinced that a hand is about to snatch his ankle from the shadows.

  The air in front of him felt thick, almost solid, as if the darkness had a heartbeat of its own. He stared into the void, his breath hitching and sticking in his throat. He knew he had to run. Every cell in his body screamed for him to flee, but he was pinned by a primal, suffocating terror. He was even more terrified to turn his back on that darkness. He felt that if he looked away, if he exposed his spine for even a second, something would reach out and claim him.

  Behind him, a wet, rattling groan broke the silence.

  Reese was stirring, the sound of his struggle cutting through Jake’s stupor. Jake blinked, his gaze snapping away from the void for a fraction of a second. That’s when he saw it. The weak light from the hole above glinted off the rungs of a metal ladder, their way out.

  Hope flooded him, sharp and painful. He tried to call out to Reese, to tell him they had a way out, but the words were stuck like lead in his throat.

  Forcing himself to turn his back to that cold, pulsing darkness, he lunged for Reese with tears streaming down his face. But his legs felt like they were sinking into wet sand. He was giving everything he had, his heart screaming, but he felt himself moving in slow motion. It was the same crushing weight of a nightmare where you try to flee only to find your feet glued to the floor. The harder he pushed, the more the air seemed to thicken around him, holding him in place for the thing in the dark to find him.

  Panic flared white-hot in his chest as he grabbed Reese with trembling hands, his fingers digging into the man's shirt, and shoved him toward the rungs with a strength born from pure terror.

  Jake pushed with every ounce of his soul, his heart hammering against his ribs as he felt the chills crawling up his spine. The presence was still there, right behind him, looming closer with every second they lingered. He could feel the cold breath of the void on the nape of his neck.

  He scrambled up the ladder right behind Reese, his breathing coming in ragged, panicked bursts. Every step felt like he was pulling his feet out of deep mud, a desperate, frantic climb against an invisible gravity that wanted to drag him back down into the shadow.

  The moment they hauled themselves over the edge and back into the tunnel, Jake’s body rebelled. He crawled away and vomited violently. He stayed on his hands and knees, retching until his stomach was empty, his heart pounding so hard in his throat he thought it might actually burst through his skin.

  He turned to find Reese slumped against the wall. The man’s face was grey. His lips were blue. A faint, dark red stream falling from his eyes.

  But Reese was laughing.

  It was a manic, unhinged sound that echoed through the passage. "I'm a fucking great mentor, right?" Reese wheezed. "You don't need me anymore, padawan."

  "Shut up," Jake said. He knelt by Reese, looking at the ruin of his arm. "You didn't teach me shit. I can't even cook a rat without you so don't even think about dying yet."

  Reese’s laughter dissolved into a rattling cough. "Yeah. About that. Pretty sure I'm not getting my last meal anymore.”

  “Yeah well, my cooking sucks so you are not missing anything.”

  Jake tried his best to tend to Reese injuries. But they both knew the truth. The infection had won.

  “We need a safe place to rest," Jake whispered.

  "Just leave me here. Go find Mike or Vincent or whoever's still alive down here."

  "Mike is dead.. and Vincent is a bigger asshole than you. So no thanks." The word was firm, final. He wasn’t leaving him behind.

  Reese looked at him with something that might have been respect.

  He helped Reese up, taking the man’s full weight. They moved through the dark for minutes that felt like hours. Jake’s muscles burned, but he didn't stop. Stopping felt like an opportunity for the dark to invite itself.

  Finally, they found a metro station. It was becoming a relic of the world before, with dusty benches and faded ads for unnecessary products. The yellow emergency lights gave the platform a ghostly, solemn glow.

  Jake lowered Reese onto a bench, propping his back against the cold wall.

  "This okay?"

  Reese looked at the empty tracks. "Better than a tunnel full of shit."

  He coughed again, the sound thick and heavy. Blood flecked his chin. His eyes were losing their focus.

  Jake sat beside him, not sure what to say or do. He'd never watched someone die before. Never been present for that final transition from life to nothing.

  "Jake." Reese's voice was quieter now, energy fading. "You are not a coward."

  "I'm terrified," Jake admitted. "I don't know if I can do this alone."

  Reese didn't answer. He drifted. His breathing became a jagged, irregular cycle. Jake stayed alert, a silent sentry in the yellow light.

  The end was quiet. There were no grand speeches. Reese’s breath simply grew shallower and shallower until the last one left him, and the silence of the station reclaimed the air.

  Jake realized he was crying. Tears running down his face in steady streams. He'd known Reese for such a short time, and most of that time Reese had been difficult, abrasive, demanding. A terrible teacher in many ways.

  But he'd also been honest in many ways…

  Jake stood up slowly. His body was a map of pain, but his mind was a cold, clear lake. His hand was steady on the hilt of the knife.

  He looked at Reese's still form one last time, at the man who'd saved him more times than he could count. "Thank you," Jake whispered.

  The words felt inadequate, too small to contain everything he wanted to express.

  Then he turned and walked toward the tunnel entrance, leaving the body on the platform where it would rest undisturbed.

  He was terrified in a way he had never been before. But something fundamental had changed in his chest. For the first time since the attack on his train, Jake walked with determination into the shadow, alone, but no longer lost.