Chapter 93: The Cost of Leaving
The vault hissed closed behind them. Sealed in silence.
Aria stood for a long time, hand still raised toward the control panel, her fingers slightly trembling. It wasn't exhaustion — she'd rested, eaten, even smiled. No, this tremor was different. It came from something deeper.
Something moral.
Selene noticed. She always noticed.
"You alright?"
Aria blinked, lips parted like she meant to say something else, then settled for, "Yeah. Just… it feels wrong to take so much. Like I'm robbing someone's dream."
Selene tilted her head. Her face was unreadable as ever, but something flickered behind her eyes. "The dream was already dead."
She said it with that cold confidence of hers — like the world was simple if you only stopped caring. But Aria did care. That was the problem. That was always the problem.
The walk back through the main hall felt longer than before. Their boots echoed too loud in the sterile quiet. Boxes were sealed and stacked like fortresses, vacuum - sealed pouches suspended in midair inside Aria's dimensional rift — perfectly ordered, labeled, organized. A shrine to survival, curated by necessity. Preserved decadence now burdened with purpose.
The air was colder now. Not just from the open fridges, but from something else.
A weight. A pressure.
The kind that crawled up your spine and whispered run before your brain caught up.
Selene paused, eyes narrowing. Aria didn't even need to ask.
They were not alone anymore.
Aria crouched near a small pile of things she hadn't packed yet — more slabs of salami, a bin of duck bacon, a bag of marinated rabbit jerky. She bent down to retrieve them. That's when she heard it.
Not a growl. Not the usual stuttered drag of one or two loners outside.
This was something else.
A sound like waves — wet, guttural, relentless. Groaning voices folding over each other, rising from the tree line beyond the field like a storm tide. It rolled across the land like thunder dragged through sludge.
Aria froze. "Selene."
Selene had already drawn her blade.
They turned toward the slitted windows that ringed the upper wall. Outside, across the frostbitten fields, shadows moved.
Not dozens.
Hundreds.
Their skin peeled, their limbs unsteady. They stumbled and convulsed in unnatural patterns, clawing over old fences and rusted machinery. Torn shirts flapped like flags. Some still bore faint signs of old uniforms — firemen, nurses, civilians.
Selene's voice was steel. "They're coming fast."
"How did we miss this? They weren't anywhere near us when we arrived —"
"They weren't," Selene said. "Something drew them."
They didn't need to guess what.
The vault. The blood. The faint warmth of meat, even frozen, might've carried on the wind like a whisper of life in a dead world.
Aria shoved the last of the bags into her rift, breath shallow. "We have to go. Now."
Selene was already pulling open the main door. The sun outside had dulled behind thick clouds. Shadows stretched long across the dirt road that led away from Miller's. But the escape path was still clear — for now.
They ran.
Boots crunching on gravel, breath catching in their throats. Aria kept one eye on the trees. Selene watched their flanks. The horde behind them was relentless but not fast. Yet. But they were spreading — like a stain across the field, widening.
As they reached the outer gates of the plant, Aria paused.
Something caught her eye.
A glint of glass, half-buried under a collapsed rack near the old loading dock. Something she'd missed before.
"Selene—wait!"
The woman turned, eyes sharp. "We don't have time."
"I know — but —" Aria darted back, ducking under twisted metal and debris.
It wasn't just glass.
It was a bottle. A sealed crate.
Inside: vials.
Stoppers still intact. Labels hand - written, faded but legible.
"Compound 19X – Trial Suspended: Requires Isolation"
"Lot #47 – Immune Complex: Stabilized for Long-Term Use"
"Recombinant Blood Factor – Freeze Immediately"
Some glowed faintly in the dim light — clear, amber, or milky. No dust. No leaks. Just a quiet, clinical stillness. Each vial rested in molded foam, secured like relics. Aria brushed her gloved fingers across a tag.
Tiny annotations lined the sides: Fever suppression. Autoimmune regulation. Anti-inflammatory response. Injectable vitamin profiles. Gen IV trial - ready.
Selene stepped closer, crouching to examine the foam. "No more labs. No more production lines. This might be the last batch of its kind."
Vaccines. Fever breakers. Immune boosters designed for a future no one wanted to imagine. Not for outbreak — but for erosion. For the slow rot of time. Meant to hold back the inevitable when the world's machines stopped turning.
"These weren't meant for now," Aria whispered. "They were meant for after."
Selene nodded once. "Someone planned farther than we did."
And for the first time, what they found wasn't indulgence.
It was defiance.
Aria's breath hitched.
"Medical," she said aloud, lifting the box. "Experimental. Maybe a cure — or an immunity booster. I don't know, but this… this matters."
Selene looked over her shoulder. The undead were closing in — maybe a minute out. Close enough to smell. The sound of clawing. Splintering wood. Groaning hunger.
"Grab it."
Aria didn't hesitate.
They sprinted.
The horde roared behind them now, shrieking as they collided with the walls of Miller's. Hands clawed at steel siding. Teeth snapped against locked gates. The chorus of death rose behind them, thick with rot and rage.
But Aria and Selene had already cleared the back fence. Their bikes were waiting beneath the broken billboard where they'd first parked days ago, half - buried in leaves and dust, almost forgotten in the adrenaline and chaos.
Selene mounted fast, her sword still drawn. "Rift it."
Aria opened the dimensional pocket one last time, dropped the serum crate inside, and sealed it with a flick of her fingers.
Then they rode.
The wheels tore through mud and gravel, the trees whipping past in streaks of gray and green. Behind them, the walls of the plant groaned under the pressure of the living dead. Screams cracked through the air—human once, twisted now.
They didn't stop for nearly a mile — until the only sound was the wind through the broken trees, and the rush of their own blood in their ears.
Selene finally glanced back. Her expression was unreadable. "Close."
"Too close," Aria breathed. Her hands were still shaking, but her grip was firm. She glanced down at her rift. "We almost left it. That serum. That crate — it could be everything."
Selene didn't respond right away.
Then, quietly: "Or it could be nothing."
Aria looked up at her. "It's still something," she said, her voice soft but certain. "Something human."
There was a silence between them. A real one. Not tension. Not distrust. Just weight. The kind that settles after too many losses, too many hard calls. They'd both made them. But this one felt different.
Miller's was behind them now — its secrets, its grotesque abundance, its ghosts.
What they carried forward wasn't just food or gear or stolen comforts.
It was memory. Hope. A box full of serums and handwritten labels and dead scientists' dreams.
The cost of leaving wasn't measured in danger or distance.
It was measured in what they chose to carry.
Selene's fingers tightened around the handlebars. Her knuckles pale.
She finally nodded. "You did good."
And Aria, for the first time in a long time, let herself feel the weight of that.
Not pride.
But purpose.
They rode on.
Into the unknown.