Zone 6 was not wide.

  That was the first lie my brain kept repeating, like it could calm me down.

  It was not wide on paper. It was not wide on school maps. It was a band between walls, a strip of stone and roads that used to feel like a place you passed through on the way to somewhere else.

  Now it felt like a mouth.

  And we were walking straight through its teeth.

  We moved with our shoulders almost brushing the buildings, staying in the thin shadows where the streetlamps couldn’t fully reach. Every corner felt like a gamble. Every breath sounded too loud in my own ears.

  Nysera’s pants were dark at her thigh where the rusted pole had cut her. She had wrapped a strip of cloth around it. Not pretty, but tight. She kept walking like nothing happened, jaw set, eyes hunting the street ahead.

  My shoulder burned under my sleeve. The scrape I got in the hardware store back there kept sticking to fabric every time I moved my arm. It was not deep enough to slow me down, but it was deep enough to remind me I was not made of steel.

  Lioran limped hard. His swollen ankle made his steps uneven. He tried to hide it. He failed.

  Every few minutes I caught him staring at nothing, like his mind was somewhere else and his body was only following because he didn’t know how to stop.

  Cirellan stayed quiet. Too quiet. Her eyes moved constantly, taking in windows, doors, rooftops, anything that could drop danger on us. But her face looked empty, like her thoughts were locked behind glass.

  Lucien led without making it a speech.

  He did not announce himself as a leader. He did not ask permission.

  He just kept choosing paths, kept raising a hand when we needed to stop, kept moving when we needed to move. Like he was built for this part of the world, even if he hated it.

  Vaelle and Vaeris walked near the middle of the group, close enough that if one of us stumbled, they could catch us. They spoke even less than Cirellan. When they did, it was usually short. Small. Almost childish.

  It should have felt comforting. It didn’t. It felt like they were holding something back.

  We were headed for the wall between Zone 6 and Zone 7.

  It was not a big dream anymore. It was not a plan for the future. It was just a door we needed to reach before the zone fully closed around us.

  Lucien held up a fist.

  Stop.

  We froze in a recessed doorway, pressed close to the brick.

  The street ahead opened into a wider stretch, a small commercial strip that should have been busy with cafes and salons and those stupid little boutiques that sold scarves and scented candles.

  Now it was crowded with infected.

  Not one or two.

  A lot.

  They drifted through the open space in slow, ugly loops. Some stood under a balcony where a banner still hung, faded and torn. Some pressed their faces to glass doors. Some stumbled into each other and did not react, like they didn’t even feel impact.

  “What now?” Nysera whispered.

  Lucien’s eyes flicked left, then right. “We don’t take the open.”

  “Obviously,” Nysera muttered.

  Lucien ignored the tone. He pointed at a side building. A three story apartment with a cracked entrance door and a stairwell visible through it.

  “Through there,” he said.

  Lioran looked up at the building like it was a mountain. “Stairs?”

  “You want the street?” Nysera asked him.

  He swallowed and shook his head.

  We slipped across the road in short bursts, timing our movement between the infected’s slow turns. My heart hammered every time a head tilted in our direction, even if the eyes didn’t truly focus.

  We reached the apartment entrance.

  The door was half off its hinges.

  Inside smelled like dust, old food, and something sour. The kind of smell that sticks to your tongue.

  Lucien went first, blade out.

  I followed him.

  The stairwell was narrow, stone steps chipped at the edges. Handrails missing. The only light came from a window at the second landing where a curtain fluttered in and out like a ghost breathing.

  We climbed.

  Lioran’s ankle made a soft scuff sound on the steps.

  Nysera shot him a look that could have burned him alive.

  He mouthed, sorry.

  Halfway up, something moved on the third floor.

  A shadow slid across the hall.

  Lucien stopped.

  He lifted his hand.

  We held our breath.

  The shadow didn’t come closer.

  It drifted away.

  Cirellan whispered, “We keep moving.”

  Lucien nodded once.

  We reached the third floor.

  An apartment door stood open.

  Inside, chairs were overturned. A family photo frame lay broken on the floor, glass scattered like ice.

  Vaelle stepped around the glass too cleanly. Like she knew where each sharp piece was before she even looked.

  I noticed.

  I pushed it away.

  Lucien led us through the apartment and out onto a narrow connecting hallway that ran along the building’s side, a maintenance path meant for workers and tenants taking out trash.

  From here, I could see the commercial strip below.

  The infected were still drifting, still filling the space. They moved like slow water.

  The wall between zones rose in the distance. Pale stone with iron gate teeth at intervals, like the city had built itself a jaw.

  We crossed the maintenance path and entered the next building through a broken window.

  My shoulder scraped the frame and pain flared again. I gritted my teeth and kept moving.

  Inside this second building, the hall was darker.

  Lucien stopped again, listening.

  I heard it too.

  A faint tapping.

  Not footsteps.

  Not teeth.

  Something small hitting metal.

  Then a soft whine.

  Lioran whispered, “Please don’t be another alarm.”

  Nysera muttered, “If it is, I’m throwing you into it.”

  He gave a weak, crooked smile that died immediately. “Fair.”

  Lucien held up two fingers and pointed.

  A door at the end of the hall had a loose sign hanging from it. It tapped the door as the wind pushed through a broken window.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Not dangerous.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But it made every nerve in my body jump anyway.

  We moved past it.

  Down another stairwell.

  Out a side exit.

  Back onto the street.

  Zone 6 hit us again.

  The air outside felt heavier, like it was full of wet cloth. Smoke from the inner rings drifted above rooftops like a bruise that wouldn’t fade.

  We stayed tight to the wall, moving between parked cars and broken carts.

  At one corner, a pile of bodies blocked half the alley. Some were dead. Some were not.

  One head lifted slightly as we passed.

  Its eyes were cloudy.

  Its mouth opened.

  A low sound crawled out.

  Lioran froze.

  I grabbed his sleeve and yanked him forward.

  He stumbled, caught himself, and kept limping.

  We reached a wider road and saw the remains of a checkpoint.

  Sandbags. Broken barricade. A metal sign that once read SAFE ROUTE in bright paint, now bent and smeared.

  The infected density here was worse.

  This was closer to the gate district.

  People must have tried to get out.

  They must have flooded toward the wall.

  And then the wall didn’t open.

  Or it opened and closed again.

  Or it never mattered.

  Nysera whispered, “Look.”

  She pointed to a bridge above the road, a raised walkway connecting two buildings.

  It was packed with infected.

  Not moving much, just crowding it like they were stuck.

  Under the bridge, more infected drifted in circles.

  Lucien’s gaze went hard. “We can’t go under. Too many.”

  Cirellan’s voice was tight. “So we go over?”

  Lucien looked up at the bridge. Then at the stairwell leading to it. “Yes.”

  Nysera frowned. “You want us to climb into them?”

  “Not into them,” Lucien said. “Around them.”

  He pointed to the building on the left. “We get inside, take the upper corridor, exit on the other side.”

  Nysera opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. There wasn’t time.

  We slipped into the building.

  It was a school.

  Zone 6 youth academy. The kind with banners about excellence and future leadership.

  The hall was lined with posters. Smiling student faces. Sport teams. A list of scholarship winners from last year.

  Someone had smeared blood across one poster like a handprint.

  I looked away fast.

  The gym doors were open.

  Inside, the basketball court was covered in footprints, and the smell hit like a punch. Sweat, blood, and the sour rot that made my stomach twist.

  A pile of backpacks sat near the bleachers like someone had dropped them and never came back.

  Lioran whispered, “We were supposed to be in school.”

  Nysera shot him a look, but her face softened for half a second. “Yeah.”

  Lucien moved ahead, taking us through the gym and out into a side corridor.

  We climbed a staircase that smelled like old cleaning chemicals.

  At the top, the upper corridor connected to the bridge walkway.

  Lucien cracked the door open just enough to look.

  The bridge was packed, but most of them were clustered toward the center, drawn by something we couldn’t hear anymore.

  Lucien whispered, “We stick to the far wall. No touching.”

  Nysera muttered, “Easy.”

  We slipped out onto the bridge.

  The infected were close enough that I could hear their breathing. Wet. Thick. Like someone drowning slowly.

  I kept my eyes forward.

  One brushed against the railing and turned slightly.

  My heart climbed into my throat.

  Nysera held her rod ready, but she didn’t swing. She didn’t want the noise.

  We moved like shadows along the far edge, squeezing past bodies that swayed.

  My shoulder scraped the stone wall again. I wanted to scream. I did not.

  Lioran’s limp made him slower.

  Vaeris moved behind him and quietly supported his elbow, just enough to steady him without making it obvious.

  We reached the far end.

  Lucien pushed the exit door open and we spilled into the next building’s upper hallway.

  I exhaled so hard I almost choked.

  Nysera leaned against the wall for one second, then straightened again like she refused to show weakness.

  We descended another stairwell.

  Every stairwell in Zone 6 felt like a throat.

  We came out into an alley that ran straight toward the wall.

  The main gate was visible now, towering above the street like a giant mouth.

  And it was packed.

  Not just packed. Choked.

  A mass of infected pressed against it. Some reached through iron bars. Some were crushed at the base. Some were wedged between spikes like meat on a fork.

  The sound was constant.

  Metal scraping.

  Hands hitting iron.

  A low chorus of wrong voices.

  Cirellan whispered, “No.”

  Nysera whispered, “We can’t.”

  Lucien didn’t waste words. He scanned the wall to the right, eyes narrowing.

  “There,” he said.

  The backup evacuation door.

  Half hidden behind fallen scaffolding and broken crates.

  It looked smaller than the main gate, but still heavy. Still reinforced. Still meant to hold.

  We moved along the edge of the wall, keeping close to the stone where shadows were deeper.

  The closer we got to the backup door, the worse the air smelled. The wall corner was a trap. Bodies piled there. Some dead. Some moving.

  Nysera stepped wrong on a loose plank. It shifted. Her foot slipped.

  She caught herself, but the motion scraped her injured thigh against a rusted pole again.

  She hissed, breath sharp.

  Blood darkened the cloth wrap.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, voice tight.

  Lucien didn’t argue. He just gestured. “Keep moving.”

  We reached the door.

  Lucien grabbed the wheel lock and twisted.

  It did not move.

  “Help,” he said.

  I grabbed it too. Nysera shoved from the side, face hard with pain.

  The wheel groaned.

  Then stopped.

  Lucien adjusted his grip. “Again.”

  We pushed.

  The wheel turned a fraction.

  Behind us, the gate crowd shifted louder.

  And then the sound changed.

  Not the crowd.

  Something else.

  Sharp footsteps.

  Fast.

  Too fast.

  I turned.

  It stood on the edge of the fallen scaffolding like a predator on a ledge.

  The runner.

  Up close, the purple skin looked worse than I imagined. Not like paint. Like bruising that spread across its entire body. Like the color of something dead that kept moving anyway.

  Its legs were bent like a sprinter’s, but wrong. Its ankles were higher. Its feet were narrow, curved, almost paw-like, built to grip stone.

  It tilted its head as if it was curious.

  Then it made that sound again.

  A thin, high whistle that cut through the air like a blade.

  Lucien stepped between it and us.

  “Hold,” he said.

  Nysera raised her rod.

  Cirellan backed up, hand over her mouth.

  Lioran’s breath hitched.

  Vaelle and Vaeris moved a half step apart, quiet and ready, like they didn’t even know they were doing it.

  The runner leaned forward.

  Then it exploded into motion.

  It crossed ten meters in a heartbeat.

  Nysera swung.

  The runner ducked under the rod without losing speed.

  It launched upward.

  Straight at Nysera’s head.

  I saw teeth.

  I saw Nysera’s eyes widen.

  I saw the angle of impact.

  There was no time.

  Then something flashed.

  A thin silver line cut across the space and snapped tight around the runner’s torso mid-leap.

  The runner jerked sideways like it hit a wall in the air.

  It slammed into the stone with a brutal thud.

  Dust burst from the bricks.

  The line tightened.

  Thread.

  Vaelle and Vaeris each held an end, arms locked, eyes sharp. They didn’t look like scared juniors anymore. They looked like people who had done this before.

  The runner shrieked, that high whistle twisting into something closer to a scream.

  It thrashed violently, dragging them a step forward.

  Vaeris planted her foot and pulled hard.

  The runner slammed into the wall again.

  Lucien lunged.

  Blade out.

  He drove it into the runner’s side.

  The runner kicked backward and hit Lucien in the ribs.

  Lucien staggered but stayed up.

  Nysera came in from the other side and slammed her rod into the runner’s knee.

  Crack.

  The leg bent wrong.

  The runner still fought.

  It dropped to one side, then surged forward on its hands.

  Fast even injured.

  It lunged toward Vaeris.

  I moved without thinking, grabbing its arm.

  It felt like grabbing a cable wrapped in wet skin.

  The runner jerked and yanked me forward.

  My scraped shoulder slammed into the scaffolding pole.

  Pain exploded white in my vision.

  The runner snapped its mouth toward my face.

  I threw my head back, barely avoiding it.

  Its breath hit my cheek, hot and rotten.

  Vaelle yanked the thread hard, pulling the runner sideways off my line.

  Nysera swung again, hitting the runner’s head.

  It staggered, then snapped back too fast, like its neck had springs.

  The runner’s eyes locked on Nysera.

  It lunged again.

  Vaeris twisted her wrist and the thread slid up, catching the runner under the jaw.

  It jerked, trying to bite the line.

  Its teeth scraped the thread.

  For a second my stomach dropped, sure it would snap.

  Vaelle shifted her grip, looped the thread around a broken iron spike in the scaffolding, and pulled.

  The runner’s head jerked sideways violently, pinned by its own momentum.

  Lucien stepped in and drove the blade again, deeper this time.

  The runner screamed and thrashed, clawing at the spike, at the thread, at anything.

  Nysera shoved her rod into its chest and forced it back, trying to keep distance between its mouth and everyone else.

  It lunged low, suddenly, trying to slip under the rod and go for Nysera’s legs.

  Nysera jumped back, but her injured thigh slowed her half a beat.

  The runner’s fingers brushed her pant leg.

  Nysera swore and slammed the rod down hard.

  The runner’s hand hit the stone.

  The rod smashed into it.

  Fingers bent wrong.

  The runner didn’t care.

  It surged up again, snapping toward her throat.

  Vaeris yanked the thread, pulling the runner’s head back.

  Vaelle pulled from the other side.

  The thread tightened across its neck.

  Thin lines of blood appeared where it bit in.

  The runner’s scream turned into a choking rasp.

  It fought harder.

  Its body bucked. Its legs kicked. Its broken knee dragged across stone, leaving a dark smear.

  It tried to spin, to wrap the thread around the spike and break it.

  Vaelle moved with it, stepping around the scaffolding like she had practiced the exact angle.

  Vaeris kept the tension constant, arms shaking but controlled.

  “Lucien!” Nysera shouted. “Finish it!”

  Lucien didn’t hesitate.

  He grabbed the runner’s head from behind, forcing it down.

  The runner’s mouth snapped and missed his arm by inches.

  Its teeth clacked loud enough to make the gate crowd behind us stir.

  Lucien’s face was tight with effort. “Now.”

  Vaelle and Vaeris pulled together.

  The thread tightened. The runner’s choking sound rose into another sharp scream, then broke into a wet gasp.

  Nysera stepped in and swung the rod down onto the runner’s skull again.

  Once.

  Twice.

  The third hit made the runner go still for half a second.

  Lucien drove the blade in a final time, short and precise.

  The runner jerked once.

  Then its body sagged.

  The tension in the thread eased as its strength faded.

  Vaelle held for another beat, just in case.

  Vaeris kept her grip tight.

  The runner did not move.

  Its eyes stayed open, cloudy and wrong.

  But it was done.

  For a moment, none of us spoke.

  The gate crowd behind us was louder now, drawn by the fight noise. Hands scraped iron harder. Bodies pressed forward.

  Nysera stared at the twins, breathing hard. “What the hell was that?”

  Vaelle began winding the thread back around her wrist like it was normal. Like she was rewinding a jump rope.

  Vaeris wiped her hands on her sleeve.

  Neither of them answered.

  Lucien stepped back, chest rising and falling hard. “Later.”

  His voice cut clean through the moment.

  “Door,” he said. “Now.”

  We grabbed the wheel lock again.

  This time it turned.

  The metal groaned and gave.

  The door shifted inward.

  A gap opened into darkness.

  “Inside,” Lucien ordered.

  Cirellan went first, slipping through like a shadow.

  Lioran limped through next, jaw clenched.

  Vaeris went in, then Vaelle.

  Nysera shoved me forward. “Go, Rafa.”

  I stepped through the door, shoulder burning.

  Lucien followed.

  I turned and grabbed the door edge to pull it shut.

  The gate crowd surged toward the sound.

  Hands reached.

  Faces pressed close.

  I slammed the steel door shut with my whole weight.

  Lucien spun the wheel lock from the inside.

  Metal clicked into place.

  Then the door shook as bodies hit it.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  It held.

  For now.

  We stood in a narrow service corridor, unlit, air damp and cold. The walls were stone. The floor was rough concrete. Somewhere deeper inside, water dripped steadily, tapping out a slow, patient rhythm.

  Our breathing filled the dark.

  Sweat cooled on my skin.

  My shoulder throbbed.

  Nysera’s injured thigh left a faint wet trail on the floor.

  Lioran leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, face pale.

  Cirellan hugged herself tightly, like she was keeping her ribs from cracking.

  Lucien looked at the twins in the dim light.

  Not questioning.

  Not yet.

  Just looking.

  Vaelle met his gaze without flinching.

  Vaeris didn’t look away either.

  Lucien finally spoke, voice low. “We find somewhere to lock ourselves in.”

  Nysera swallowed hard and nodded. “Then we talk.”

  We started moving deeper into the corridor, toward Zone 7, with the sound of scraping hands fading behind us and the dark ahead waiting like a new kind of problem.