The rain had been falling for hours, but somewhere along the line it changed — from something natural into something heavier, almost intentional.
It pressed down on them like a weight, squeezing the air out of their chests with every step. What had once been a street was now a river of gray water reflecting a distorted version of the world: broken lights, shattered windows, the black silhouettes of half-fallen buildings leaning into the storm as if whispering secrets to each other.
Liam carried Eddie on his back, boots slapping against the flooded pavement with a rhythm that didn't quite match his breath. Eddie could feel the tension in Liam's muscles — not the kind that comes from physical strain, but the kind that grows when fear has been held too long without release. Liam was the quiet one, the one who broke only when no one was looking. Eddie could tell... he was like Edna, the one carrying burdens, the one who supports without expecting anything in return. But now, Eddie could tell that Liam was broking down... his arms were going weak...his legs gave in time to time.
Eddie swallowed the lump in his throat, he an extra burden for him.... for all of them. But he couldn't hide the tension in his chest, because his lips kept trembling with each breath.
Then he looked forward, over Liam's shoulder. He saw her.
Melissa led the group, her silhouette sharp and unbending against the storm. She didn't look back, not once. But the stiffness in her neck, the way her shoulders rose just a bit higher every time thunder cracked — that revealed more fear than she ever would willingly show.
Cas was the only one who couldn't pretend. He walked behind them, arms wrapped around himself, face pale under the wet strands of hair glued to his forehead. Every few seconds he muttered something—small, unfinished sentences that dissolved into the wind. Sometimes they were curses. Sometimes they sounded like prayers he didn't believe in.
But Eddie… Eddie wasn't fully with them anymore. Half of him was there — body bruised, leg throbbing, breath shivering against Liam's shoulder — and the other half was lost inside a storm of memories that didn't move forward or backward. They stirred. They tangled. They replayed themselves in pieces that didn't quite fit together.
He was drowning in his ocean of thoughts... his pains.
He remembered the moment his foot slipped through the stairs.
The splitting wood.
The sudden void where the step should have been.
His knee twisting the wrong direction, the pain sttaight to his brain—
Then it was that thing...
That unnatural, collective gasp. And then many of them... hundred lungs inhaling at once through ruined throats.
He didn't even remember how that thing looked like... he was too afraid to kept it in mind. He only remembered the feeling—that he had become a small, flickering flame in a pitch-black room full of hungry eyes. He could smell the death... he as going to die.
And then her hand—hot, furious—swinging the weapon, kicking it of him... grabbing his arm, yanking him out before their fingers brushed his skin.
He remembered her face—
He remembered the pain.
That anger in her moves, it wasn't pure—
There was fear too.
She had been afraid. Just like him. But she was brave, kind. She was kind enough to save a failure like him, he thought.
Now, being carried like this, head resting against Liam's shoulder, he could feel the outline of that moment pressing against the inside of his skull like an ink stain spreading across paper.
His body trembled again, and Liam shifted his grip.
"You're okay?," Liam murmured — quietly, like he was afraid to disturb the storm around them. "Just hold on..."
But Eddie didn't want to hold on.
He felt… scattered.
piece of piece, he was drifting apart in the rain. He couldn't tell reality from his nightmares anymore, all he could do was to be the burden he'd ever been.
The city stretched out behind them, the pass ahead didn't seem to end... night had come... orange lights were on... it seemed like a real nightmare, and it was.
Screams and the strange, broken footsteps of the possessed echoing between the crumbling buildings. It was getting louder. Too loud. The kind of loud that presses against your spine and tells you not to stop, not even for a breath.
Melissa suddenly lifted her hand, signaling them to halt.
Cas stumbled to a stop with a choked noise. "What? What is it? What—"
"Quiet," she whispered sharply.
And that single word sliced through the storm.
The air thickened.
The smell intensified — that rotten sweetness that coated the back of the throat like syrup gone bad.
Eddie felt it before he understood it.
His body recognized the presence long before his mind could shape a coherent thought.
His fingers tightened weakly on Liam's shoulder, nails digging through the fabric. A tremor ran through his back, and Liam felt it—knew it wasn't from the cold.
Cas's breath came quick.
"Okay… okay, they're close—right? They're close? I can smell it—I can smell them—"
Melissa didn't move.
She stood perfectly still, rain dripping from her chin, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead.
Then Eddie heard it.
Not a scream.
Not a growl.
Just movement.
Feet dragging.
Claws tapping.
Bodies brushing against walls.
Slow.
Rhythmic.
Wrong.
He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made the memories surge stronger.
The stairs.
The faces.
The hands reaching.
He could hear his own breath, too loud, too fragile. The storm in his head grew so loud he wasn't sure where the rain ended and the memory began.
Then a flicker — his father's face.
Not moving.
Not speaking.
Just there, standing beside the possessed like a statue that had grown out of the earth. His father's eyes blank, mouth slack, skin turning that pale, stone-like gray.
Eddie's stomach twisted, and something inside him cracked.
He felt exposed — like if he thought about his father too clearly, the darkness around them would somehow hear it, smell it, and come for him.
Liam felt Eddie shiver again.
"You're ok... hold on." he whispered — but there was fear in his voice now.
Not panic.
Fear.
The kind you say out loud mostly to reassure yourself.
Then Melissa spoke, barely audible under the rain:
"There are at least six of them ahead."
Cas sucked in a breath like it hurt.
"Six—six? We can't—we don't have—"
"We keep moving," Melissa said, voice rigid. "Quiet. Fast."
"But Eddie—"
"I've got him," Liam said firmly, tightening his grip.
"But Liam—your arm—your ribs—you're hurt—"
"I've got him."
Melissa didn't argue.
They moved forward.
Slow at first — then faster when the dragging footsteps behind them multiplied.
The storm thickened around them, drops of rain hitting like small, cold hands. The city felt alive, breathing, shifting. Every shadow seemed to twitch. Every sound felt too close.
Eddie tried to focus on Liam's breathing, steady but strained.
He tried to stay present.
Grounded.
Real.
But his mind kept slipping sideways.
Pieces of the past collided with the present like broken glass swirling in water:
Edna tucking his hair behind his ear when he cried as their mother left the house.
His father staring at the front door long after she left.
The silence that grew in their house like mold after Edna never came back.
The way he himself waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The door never opened.
The house decayed.
His father turned colder.
And now—
Now even that ruined place was gone.
Shattered.
Destroyed.
Empty.
Like him.
The more he thought, the more his breath hitched. His vision dimmed at the edges, not from pain but from something heavier — grief threaded with fear until they became indistinguishable.
Liam felt the change.
"Eddie?" he whispered. "Hey—stay awake, stay awake man!"
Eddie swallowed hard, but words wouldn't come.
Up ahead, Melissa stiffened again.
This time it wasn't just her.
Cas froze too.
Even Liam stopped moving for a second.
Because the darkness in the alley shifted.
Not one shape.
Many.
A cluster of them, moving in that slow, disjointed almost-human way. Faces pale. Eyes unfocused. Wet skin reflecting the light like wax.
The possessed didn't scream.
They never screamed.
They just stared.
Eddie turned his head slightly. Just enough to see them.
His breath faltered.
And the world tilted.
For a moment, he wasn't on Liam's back.
He wasn't in the rain.
He wasn't escaping.
He was on the stairs again, trapped.
Frozen.
Watching the shadows take form and walk toward him.
His heart slammed against his ribs...he was going to die, like he deserved... but he couldn't. Not when he haven't found his sister.
Liam felt the sudden tension, the desperate grip on his coat. "Eddie—Eddie, look at me. Don't look at them—hey—hey—stay with me."
Melissa hissed, "Move. Now."
Cas choked out a small sound, something between a sob and a curse.
"I can't—Mel—they're—there's too many—"
"Cas," she snapped quietly, "we move now or we die." she took a long breath "on tip toes, parallel, like last time, ok?"
They moved step by step... never looking away from those things.
They turned slowly as the three moved...
Suddenly a crack... someone stepped in a wrong place—
The possessed stepped forward in unison.
the world fell into a fast motion.
Liam surged forward, water splashing high around his legs.
Cas followed with trembling steps. His hand going up and down in hurry...Screaming .
Melissa kept her small ax. her eyes locked on the approaching figures.
Eddie could hear everything—the footsteps, the water, Liam's heartbeat under his ear—but at the same time he heard nothing.
The storm inside his head was louder.
He thought of Edna's voice, warm and steady.
He thought of his father's silence, cold and final.
He thought of the house collapsing into ruin.
He thought of how small he was in the world.
How breakable.
How replaceable.
And how these three strangers were carrying him anyway.
His chest tightened with a painful, overwhelming mixture of shame and gratitude and fear.
The possessed moved faster.
Cas screamed.
Melissa grabbed his arm and dragged him.
Liam held Eddie so tightly it hurt.
Thunder exploded above them.
The rain became a wall.
And Eddie…
Eddie, for the first time since the outbreak began, felt like he might actually disappear — not die, not turn — but crumble into the storm and be washed away