The room was quiet.
Not the peace-and-warmth kind of quiet — the hollow, choked kind. Like a place that had forgotten how to breathe.
A single bed leaned at a crooked angle near the corner. Its metal frame was rusted, one leg bent inward, barely holding the weight of the figure sprawled across the stained mattress. Cobwebs had colonized the corners of the ceiling. The overhead lights were long dead. The wallpaper peeled down like dead skin.
He lay still, unmoving — a man barely shaped like a man.
Skin stretched too tightly over his bones. A tangle of hair clung to a pale forehead slick with cold sweat. He wore what might have once been a hospital gown, faded blue and fraying at the seams. The cloth hung loose on him, as if he'd shrunk inside it.
Then, he moved.
First, a twitch — a slight shift of fingers that hadn't flexed in years. His eyelids fluttered open, exposing dull, bloodshot eyes that blinked against the darkness.
A dry breath dragged in through cracked lips.
Then came the pain.
Like fire along his spine.
Like knives in every joint.
Like gravity was weighing him down.
He groaned — softly, hoarsely. Tried to move again. His body refused, muscles twitching like they were new to him.
A thought drifted through the fog in his head:
"It feels like… I've been watching myself sleep forever."
He didn't know where that came from. He didn't even know his own name.
Not yet.
He gritted his teeth, pushed himself upright inch by inch. The bed creaked under him, almost collapsing. The air smelled of dust and mold. He coughed — hard — and something bitter rose up his throat.
Finally, he sat up. Breathing fast. Hands trembling.
The room around him looked… wrong. Not like a place that had been left alone for a few days.
More like it had been forgotten.
The floor was cracked, dry blood darkened the tile edges. An overturned medical tray lay near the door, rusted instruments scattered across the ground like discarded bones. Cobwebs. Dust. Silence.
This was a hospital once. Maybe. But it wasn't one anymore.
Slowly — so slowly — he slid his legs off the bed and stood. Or tried to. His knees buckled, legs too weak to hold his weight. He slammed against the bedframe, wheezing, holding himself up.
His heart pounded.
What is this place?
Why am I here?
Where… am I?
He limped to the door, using the wall to stay upright. Each step felt like walking through water — like he hadn't moved in years.
The hallway outside was worse.
Dim. Long. Half-collapsed in some places. Gurneys and wheelchairs scattered like ghosts of something panicked. A shattered IV bag. A flickering EXIT sign — dim red, barely alive.
Then he saw her.
Far down the hallway, lit by a shaft of weak sunlight bleeding in from a broken window.
A woman. Or… the shape of one.
She sat in a chair, her white uniform stained, back to him, unmoving.
A nurse?
"Hey," he called out, voice breaking. "Miss? I… I need help."
She didn't respond.
He squinted, took a step forward, slow and cautious.
Another step.
And another.
Then she moved. Just her head — turning slightly. Not normal.
The motion was wrong. Too smooth. Like a doll rotating on a loose screw.
His stomach twisted.
A prickling crawled across his arms.
She rose from the chair in a single movement — no pause, no effort. Just upright. Her skin was grey. Patchy. Her jaw slightly unhinged. She turned to him.
She didn't smile.
Didn't speak — not at first.
She simply stood there, blank-faced in the hallway ahead, as though she had been waiting. Not hunting.
Just… waiting.
And now that he was here, it was like she had found what she was waiting for.
A shiver traced his spine.
From this distance, something looked wrong with her face. Her skin wasn't just pale — it was tinged grey-blue. Her posture, too stiff. Her arms hung unnaturally straight by her sides.
He squinted.
There — two curved nubs, dark and bone-colored, barely protruding from the space just above her brows. Horns.
His heart dropped.
What… is she?
She tilted her head slightly. Not like a human would — not with confusion. It was mechanical. Like something testing a sense it had forgotten how to use.
Then, she stepped forward.
His breath caught.
He took a step back.
"Wait—" he croaked, instinctively raising a hand. " Are you alright… Miss?"
She kept coming.
Her bare feet dragged across the cracked floor. The lights above flickered. The hallway seemed to stretch.
"Stop," he whispered, voice cracking.
And then—
"…stop…"
The word came from her. Soft. Garbled. Like her mouth wasn't built to say it anymore.
His chest tightened. That voice didn't sound animal. It sounded like a person. A ruined person.
Panic bloomed.
The way she moved — fast now, surging forward with sharp, jerky bursts —
He didn't need memory to understand what this was.
He knew what a zombie was. Something deep in his instincts recognized death chasing life. And he didn't want his brain eaten.
His legs obeyed before his thoughts did. He turned and ran.
She shrieked — not a scream, not a word. A garbled crunch of sound that exploded behind him as she gave chase.
He tore through the hallway, half-limping, half-sprinting. Pain lashed through his joints. His lungs screamed. But the only thing louder was her footsteps — fast, too fast, echoing like claws on glass.
Think.
Think!
Then — a break in the corridor up ahead.
The floor was partially collapsed, crumbled inward. A jagged gap tore through the hallway like a gaping mouth, falling straight down into the darkness below. The other side was barely connected — just a single metal beam and half-broken concrete edge.
Niko's eyes locked on it.
That's it.
A trap.
He didn't have weapons. He barely had strength.
But he had timing. He had distance. And for some reason, his brain felt sharp, slicing through panic with cold logic.
He ran full speed. As fast as his legs could carry him.
The gap got closer.
He leapt.
His feet hit the beam. It creaked — but held. He flung himself across and hit the other side hard, rolling into a half-collapse.
Behind him — .
She didn't hesitate. Didn't stop. Just followed, almost gliding—She didn't see the edge. The floor under her cracked, and with a sickening lurch — she plummeted.
She hit the floor with a sickening crunch.
He didn't cheer. He didn't even breathe. He just stood at the edge, shaking, staring down four stories at the heap of limbs below.
One leg was twisted under her back. Her arm folded inward like it had no bones at all. He wanted to believe she was dead.
But something about her — something still gnawed at the back of his skull. He had to be sure.
He turned and found the stairwell. It was cold and shadowy, the railing rusted and peeling. He grabbed it with trembling fingers, leaning most of his weight into it as he limped his way down.
Each step burned.
His legs barely moved in rhythm. More than once, his knees buckled, and he had to clutch the railing like it was the only thing keeping him alive. Dust clung to his sweat-drenched skin. Every stair creaked under him, as though even the building wanted him to stay still.
It felt like years before he reached the first floor.
The hallway was dim and quiet. The air was heavier here — thicker, like the blood on the floor had a weight to it.
There she was.
Collapsed at the center of the room. A broken shape surrounded by red. He crept closer, chest heaving.
Stay dead.
Stay dead, please.
Then—
A twitch.
Her arm jerked suddenly, unnaturally — like a puppet string had been yanked. Her spine shifted with a crack, arching up slightly. Her legs began to bend back into place, bones moving beneath skin.
Niko gasped and stumbled back.
"No—"
His foot slipped. He hit the ground hard. She turned her head. And looked right at him.
Her eyes were wide. Not crazed. Not monstrous.
Just… faint.
Like there was still someone inside.
Her mouth moved. Broken lips parting, tongue dragging against dried blood.
"You're…"
The rest was nothing. A whisper eaten by silence.
And then—
A flicker of something. Not in her voice. In her face. A twitch at the edge of her lips.
Was that… a smile?
He scrambled back, hands searching blindly, blindly— Metal—His fingers closed around a bent rod — cool, heavy, sharp-edged. He turned back to her. Her chest was starting to rise and fall again.
His heart felt like it was trying to tear out of his chest.
He didn't think—He didn't breathe—He swung the rod.
Once.
Again.
Again.
Blood sprayed—Her skull cracked.
She stopped moving.
He stood over her, gasping, the iron rod clanging to the ground beside him. Then he fell to his knees, hard. Staring. Shaking.
"Did I just…" His voice broke. "…kill a person?"
The silence that followed felt colder than the room.
And then— A sound. Not from her. From inside him.
Like wires fraying. Like whispers crawling behind his ears. Like an old screen blinking back to life.
---
— SOUL'S REFLECTION —
Essentia Log: [Fragmented Soul Core]
Stability: 41%
[Nullborn Has Been Dispatched]
Type: Stray Null – Grade: Eta (Η)
Essentia Acquired: "Mercy in Panic"
Grade: Yod (י)
Type: Reflective – Instinctual Fracture
Effect: Emotional resonance with dying Nullborns allows explosive bursts of strength when finishing them with empathy.
Note: "Strength born of mercy turns brittle in doubt."
Active Essentia Count: 1 / ∞
---
The glowing text hung in the air, faint and broken like it wasn't meant to be seen. He blinked.
"Nullborn…?" he whispered. "So that's what she was…"
His voice cracked.
"But she… she felt so human."
His breathing quickened. Loud. Ragged. He stared at his hands. Blood on his knuckles. Sweat on his palms.
"That wasn't a zombie. That…"
His head dipped.
"Felt like killing a person."
He looked back at the projection.
"Essentia…? What is this? Is this… an Ability?"
His vision swam. His thoughts didn't line up. Nothing made sense anymore.
His heartbeat was the only thing that stayed real.
"What's… going on?"
CHAPTER END.
Preview—Next: Chapter 2 – Someone Waiting —
He walks alone, into the ruins of memory and silence.
But not all strangers are monsters.
Some… are waiting.
"He's with me."