The sun was still high when Alessandro pushed open the door. Noon heat clung to his skin, yet the air felt colder than it should have, tainted, uneasy, as though the world itself was holding its breath. And for the first time since the integration began, he stepped out not as a man running from chaos, but as one who had chosen to meet it.

  His boots struck against the concrete with a deliberate weight. He circled slowly, scanning every corner of his yard and the narrow street beyond. The silence wasn’t empty; it pulsed with distant echoes. Somewhere, not too far, came a harsh metallic crack, the sound of gunfire. Further still, a woman’s voice rose in a shriek—cut short by something he didn’t want to picture. Closer, faint scraping noises whispered from alleyways, he didn’t know if it was some creature, a stray dog or his own imagination.

  Alessandro kept low, his eyes narrowing, every sense sharp. He had his rifle, his body remembered old instincts. Years of hunting trips in rough terrain lent him a physical certainty. He moved along the side of the house, checking windows, corners, the hedge that separated his yard from the neighbour’s. Nothing stirred but a crow lifting into the air with a single, annoyed caw.

  Satisfied, he made for the pickup truck at the end of the drive. Its battered frame stood out starkly against the grey mood of the street. He crouched, listening. For a moment, only his own breathing filled the air. Then, far down the avenue, came a shattering chorus of rifle fire—several shots in rapid succession, followed by answering screams, guttural and inhuman.

  Too far, he told himself. Not my fight. Not yet.

  He reached the truck, pulled open the back, and his hand closed around the smooth walnut case of his rifle. Relief cut through him. He took it quickly and hurried back inside. They have to make the most of the little time they have left because the tutorial won’t leave them alone, that was for certain.

  Laura opened the door before he could knock. She scanned the street behind him, eyes sharp, jaw clenched, then made space to let him inside.

  “You got it?” she asked, closing the lock with a soft click.

  He lifted the case in answer.

  Her face softened—not much, but enough.

  The twins perked up immediately from where they sat near the barricaded window. “Is that for us?” Victor asked, his voice trembling with excitement.

  “This one is for me,” Alessandro said firmly. “And this—” he set the one he had in his hand down between the boys—“is for training. For now.”

  Albert touched the stock reverently, his fingers tracing the worn wood. “We’ll learn,” he promised.

  Laura’s lips tightened into something close to a smile. “Then let’s make sure you learn properly.” She put down her own rifle and took the one for the boys, checked the chamber with practiced hands, while her children’s eyes widened.

  “Mom?” Victor asked. “Since when do you—?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she pulled back the bolt, let it snap into place, and rested the rifle against her shoulder with perfect posture. Only then did she glance at them, a quiet steel in her gaze.

  “Your grandfather taught me,” she said. “Before I even met your father. Don’t look so surprised—I’m Texan.” She said with a half smile. “I was a better shot than your father at twenty.”

  Alessandro raised a brow at her but didn’t argue. A trace of pride stirred in his chest, though he hid it behind a gruff nod.

  “Sit,” Laura ordered the twins. “If you’re going to hold a rifle, you’ll learn how not to blow your foot off first.”

  Alessandro checked the rifle one last time, sliding the bolt with a steady hand before setting it against his shoulder. He looked at Laura, then at the twins.

  “You know what to do,” he said, voice low, more statement than question.

  Laura gave a small nod, her hand resting on the rifle she now held. “We’ll hold here. Don’t worry about us—just come back.”

  He stepped close enough to press a quick kiss to her forehead, then ruffled the twins’ hair in a gesture that was half comfort, half promise. “Stay sharp, listen to your mother. I’ll be back after securing the neighbourhood; with a bit of luck, I can find more people to defend our area.”

  The twins both nodded, wide-eyed, clutching their rifles like lifelines.

  Alessandro lingered only a moment longer, eyes on his family framed by the dim light of the barricaded room, then pulled the door open. “Lock it behind me.”

  And with that, he stepped out into the dangerous silence of the neighbourhood.

  Laura exhaled a long breath, trying not to let the tears flow. She composed herself and then turned around to face her children with a serious expression, trying to mask her fear and anxiety.

  “Let’s see that you don’t end up shooting yourself in the foot.”

  Training began with hands shaking from excitement more than fear. Laura set them one at a time, showing how to brace the butt against their shoulders, how to breathe, how to keep the finger off the trigger until the moment mattered. The twins listened with rapt attention, eager, competitive already.

  “Feet apart. Don’t hunch. And stop grinning like idiots—this isn’t a game, and this isn’t a controller.” Laura chided, though her voice softened when she caught their nervous glances.

  “It’s a tool for killing, it’s heavy, loud and has a recoil, I know you know this in theory, given all the shooting you do in your videogames, but you never experienced it yet, so listen closely to what I tell you…”

  She went on with her lesson, explaining the ins and outs of shooting with a hunting rifle. After each demonstration she asked her children to do the same as she did, they took at it like a fish to water, the excitement in the room was palpable despite the situation.

  They hadn’t even chambered a round when a noise outside snapped every head toward the barricaded window. A dragging sound, wet and deliberate.

  Victor stiffened. “What was that?”

  Laura lifted a hand for silence. She moved to the window, peered through the narrow slit between planks, and froze.

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  A shape staggered into view. Its body was unnaturally thin and tall, but hunched forward, its skin was a strange orange-red. Arms too long dragged against the ground, dirty claws clicking faintly against stone. Its head jerked, twitching like something half-broken, and when its face turned toward the house, it growled with an ugly, wet sound.

  “Stay back,” Laura whispered.

  The twins didn’t move. They watched as she raised the rifle, breath steady, aim unwavering. The creature shuffled closer, it was moving directly to them, as if it knew they were. Its mouth open in a soundless snarl—

  The rifle cracked. The monster’s skull snapped to the side, and it crumpled without another step.

  Smoke curled from the barrel. Laura exhaled slowly, lowering the weapon.

  The twins jerked, startled by the loud noise. But even with ears ringing they stared at her, mouths half open.

  She was trying hard not to show shock or fear. That thing terrified her, the System even more, but she couldn’t allow it to stop her, not when she had to protect her children.

  It’s not different than shooting a deer. It’s not different… I just need to not miss, I can’t miss. Another exhale. She centered herself and turned around to look at her children. I won’t.

  “You—” Albert swallowed. “You killed it.”

  “If I didn’t, it would have come for us.” Her tone cut sharp, but not unkind. She looked at them squarely. “That’s what it means to use this. You aim, you breathe, and you shoot. Fast. Or you might not have another chance”

  Something shifted in their expressions then. Not fear—something closer to awe. They had never seen their mother like this.

  Victor’s hands tightened around the training rifle. “Show us again,” he said.

  Alessandro didn’t hear the shot from inside. He was already several streets away, moving with the rifle slung across his chest, eyes darting from shadow to shadow. The quiet of earlier had broken. Screams echoed faintly between houses, some human, others not.

  At the corner, he stumbled across his first body: a neighbour he half-knew, sprawled face down on the pavement, a jagged tear running down his back. His hand still clutched a kitchen knife slick with blood. Dark blood, not human for sure.

  Alessandro swallowed hard, forced himself to keep moving.

  Ahead, the sharp bark of a shotgun broke the air, followed by a furious curse. Alessandro jogged toward it, rounding a hedge—and found an old man braced in the doorway of a house, pumping another shell into his double barrel.

  “Alessandro?” the man barked, squinting. His hair was white, his face weathered but fierce.

  “Mister Rinaldi?”

  The old man gave a curt nod. “Monsters are thick as flies. There’s one behind the door, I’m going to open, you shoot.”

  More scraping and smashing sounds came from behind the door just to confirm his words.

  Alessandro watched the man, not an ounce of fear in his eyes. “Got it.” He answered.

  Rinaldi moved out of the way while keeping a foot at the base of the door to block it, from the inside the creature was trying to bash it open without success.

  “Three. Two. One. NOW!”

  The door was flung open by the monster, all red skin and vicious intention, it stumbled in the porch after the lack of resistance and received a hole in his chest a moment after. Alessandro chambered another round quickly but the creature was already dead, spilling black blood on the doormat.

  Mister Rinaldi muttered a blasphemy. “This is going to be worse than shit to clean. I think I need a new mat, and a new door.” He said after looking at the condition on the inside, multiple scratches and furrows in the wood made the door nearly ready for kindling.

  “You’ve seen where they’re coming from?” Alessandro asked.

  Rinaldi spat to the side. “Plaza. Whole damn nest of them. If we don’t cut them off there, they’ll bleed the town dry.”

  Even as he spoke, another creature skittered from the shadows, smaller than the one Alessandro just shot but faster, its limbs moving spider-like. Rinaldi lifted his shotgun and blasted it mid-leap.

  He moved to the side while the body hit the ground near him, it was still twitching. And was about to rise again when Alessandro put another bullet in his head.

  “I’m working with bird shots here…” The old man said as if to defend himself. “I was going home to get something better. Come with me. And call me Gino.”

  They entered the house together, the two moved quietly and checking every corner, Mister Rinaldi went to the garage, fishing equipment, a ton of old tools and an old Fiat 500 occupied most of the space, he went to a corner and put down the shotgun.

  “Can you get me that wooden box up there in the corner? You’re tall and I lent the damn ladder to my nephew.”

  Alessandro moved the rifle to his back and proceeded to get the box down, it was heavy, very heavy.

  After putting it down, the old timer opened it to reveal boxes of ammunition, two very old but well cared for rifles, a helmet, beret and army fatigues.

  Gino started to put out boxes and weapons, checking magazines and filling them. The old man was preparing for war.

  “I’ve served with your father you know… But he was smart enough to quit after our first mission, while I didn’t know any better.” He put the magazine in, checking the slide, it was oiled and smooth. “We didn’t agree on many things, but he was a good man, he would have been out and gunning were he still with us.”

  “Take this” Gino said, passing him one of the rifles. “This is a M1 Garand it has..”

  “Eight rounds, an en bloc clip and the best ‘ping’ in the world.” Said Alessandro, eyes glued to the gun.

  Gino watched him with a pleasantly surprised expression. “I see that old fart taught you something good at least.”

  “I got to try it a couple of times, but it’s a bit too powerful for small game.”

  “Well then it’s good that we are not hunting hares.” Replied the old man with a grin.

  The old man holstered a gun on his hip. Then they finished getting ready, knives and ammunition secured, they proceeded out of the house.

  “My wife and kids are barricaded inside, I’m here to kill these monstrosities and secure the neighborhood, to start.”

  “My girl lives in Denmark, too far away to reach her now. But if this shitty floating smartphone is not lying I can get the means to get to her and my nephews if I kill enough of these things.”

  Alessandro raised his new rifle. “Then we clean the streets. Together.”

  Rinaldi’s mouth curved into something almost like a grin. “Your father would’ve liked that answer.”

  Back at the house, time turned into a rhythm of fear and practice. More monsters came, drawn by noise or scent, clawing at the doors and windows. She killed two more before the incessant pleas from the boys made her relent. Laura let the twins take turns, guiding their breathing, adjusting their stances, correcting them when a shot went wide. And downing any monster they didn’t kill with the first shot. She was always a moment behind, ready to eliminate any threats to her family. Honestly, after the first moments of fear and shock, the monsters weren’t really hard to kill. They walked slow towards them, while they were protected by the barricaded house, these creatures were completely exposed. And not very smart either. Laura saw how they looked at the bodies of their own kin on the ground and still approached the house. They were practically fish in a barrel. But that was for the best given that her sons were in the middle of this, and even if she was constantly worried for her husband and older child, she was starting to think that there was a chance they were going to make it.

  While she was worrying the twins were living a different reality, each kill sent a rush through the boys—terror and exhilaration mingled. Their faces flushed with adrenaline, their hands steadier each time. Between shots, they whispered fiercely to each other, comparing who dropped one cleaner, who reloaded faster.

  “Don’t make it a contest,” Laura warned, though her eyes softened when she saw the spark in them. For all the horror outside, for all the danger, they were learning, they were surviving. It was enough, for now.

  And as the hours stretched, they began to notice something else.

  The attacks slowed. Fewer shadows stalked the yard. The silence between encounters grew longer.

  Victor lowered his rifle after his last shot and glanced at the bodies outside. “Do you think… it’s because of Dad?”

  Albert nodded, voice hushed. “He’s out there fighting. He has to be.”

  Laura said nothing, but her heart clenched. She reloaded the rifle in silence, then looked at her sons, her voice calm but firm. “Then we’ll hold here until he comes back.”

  Meanwhile, Alessandro and Rinaldi gathered others. Some wounded, some armed with little more than pipes or knives, but all unwilling to sit and wait for death. Together they fought house by house, thinning the monsters, pushing them back toward the plaza where their numbers swelled.

  Each kill hardened Alessandro’s resolve. Each scream he silenced was a step toward making the town livable again. And somewhere deep in his chest, he carried the image of Laura and the twins behind the windows, rifles steady, waiting for him.

  By dusk, the plaza loomed ahead—a churning pit of snarls and shadows.

  But the people of Brenta weren’t divided anymore, a small army of men and women stood beside him. The real fight was only beginning.