The five scavengers moved in a loose spread down the fractured road, their boots crunching through the film of ash that covered everything. The moon gave them just enough light to see one another's outlines, silver cutting across ash-white ruins.
They walked like men who believed themselves hunters.
"Soon as we find 'em," one said, swinging his shotgun over his shoulder, "I'm taking the pretty one with the scarf." He smirked, showing a row of yellowed teeth. "She'll keep me warm when the fire goes out."
The others snorted, emboldened by the sound of their own cruelty.
"I'll take the big one's knife," another cut in. "Man snaps Mikey's neck like a twig, but even he's gotta sleep sometime. Knife like that'll fetch me more than rags."
"Knife?" a third laughed. "I'll take his arms before he wakes. Sell them too."
The one leading them; a lean man with a face drawn sharp as bone—raised a hand. "Quiet."
They hushed, but only for a moment. The bravado was too easy, too necessary, to stop. In the wasteland, silence was worse than laughter. Silence gave you time to hear what might be following.
It was the youngest of them who broke first. He slowed, head tilted, his shotgun drifting upward.
"…You hear that?"
The others jeered. "Hear what?"
He turned a slow circle. Nothing moved, only ash drifting in faint eddies. But the quiet was wrong. No crows. No wind. Just the faint rasp of their own breath.
The leader's lip curled. "Keep moving. You're spooking yourself."
But his own eyes kept darting upward, to the shattered rooftops and skeletal scaffolding where moonlight cut.
Then it came: a voice, low, measured, spoken without volume yet resonating inside each of their skulls.
"Go back."
They spun as one, guns rising, nerves snapping taut. Ash scattered under their boots.
"Who's there?" one barked, finger twitching on the trigger.
No answer. Only the hiss of their breathing.
"Go back."
This time the syllables rolled, vibrating inside their chests. One scavenger cursed and fired blindly into the dark. The gunshot cracked through the night, echoing between hollow buildings. Ash rained down from the rooftop it struck.
"Idiot!" the leader snapped. "Do you want them hearing us?"
Then one of them froze, arm outstretched. "There. Look."
Up ahead, on the twisted scaffold of a half-collapsed building, a figure stood.
Moonlight traced its outline. Tall. Narrow. Still.
Too still.
No shifting of weight. No flicker of balance. The silhouette might as well have been carved from shadow itself.
"Holy shit…" the youngest whispered.
The figure didn't move, didn't speak. Its stillness was more terrifying than any charge. Predators moved; this thing simply watched.
The leader swallowed, his voice thin despite the sneer he forced onto it. "Just a man. He bleeds like any of us."
One scavenger muttered, "I'll drop him." He lifted his rifle, breath trembling.
The silhouette shifted. Not a step, not even a gesture—just a tilt of the head. The moon caught the angle of his face, pale enough to be mistaken for bone.
Then he fell.
He dropped like a stone, impossibly fast, landing in a crouch amid ash that barely stirred. By the time the rifleman blinked, the shadow was in front of him.
A hand struck out. Fingers too long, nails ridged like claws.
The scavenger didn't even scream. His spine cracked like dry timber. His rifle clattered, useless, as his body folded into the ash.
"Shit!" another shouted, knife flashing free. He lunged in desperation, blade arcing wild.
The shadow caught his wrist mid-swing. The grip tightened. Bones snapped with a sound like splitting fruit. The knife turned, driven backward into the man's own gut. He choked, eyes wide, then sagged as blood welled over his hands.
The youngest scavenger broke. He spun, sprinting toward the alleys. "No! No no no—"
He didn't make it three steps before the shadow blurred, tackling him into the ground. Ash burst upward in a pale cloud, muffling the wet sound that followed. The boy twitched once. Then nothing.
The figure leaned close. It could smell it, salt, copper, fear. The scent hit him harder than gunpowder, hotter than flame. His jaw ached, teeth pressing against his lips. His hesitated for half a breath.
But hunger was louder.
Teeth pressed deep, cutting flesh. Blood filled its mouth. Warmth surged down his throat. The world lit sharp. Every brick, every shard of glass gleamed in impossible detail. His body trembled, muscles alive with lightning.
And then:
[ Corruption: 10.0% ]
[ Threshold exceeded. ]
[ New protocols unlocked. ]
The text burned in his vision. He didn't blink it away fast enough.
"See how strong it feels? How easy?"
The figure staggered, blood dripping down his chin. His claws flexed against the corpse's chest. The heart still fluttered weakly inside, and part of him wanted to tear deeper, to drink until nothing remained.
He bit harder, then froze.
In the corpse's fading face, he didn't see a scavenger. He saw Jonah. Jonah gasping in rubble. Jonah's eyes rolling white as he begged with silence.
The two left alive opened fire in blind panic. Gunshots stuttered, muzzle flashes flaring bright against the ruins. Bullets tore into walls, sparked against rusted metal, blew chunks from concrete. But the shadow was gone from where they aimed.
One screamed, "Where is he? Where the fuck is he?"
The leader snarled, voice cracking with terror he couldn't hide. "Shut up and shoot!"
Their shots rang wild into the night. Ash drifted lazily down.
But the silence that followed wasn't empty. It was heavy. It was waiting.
The two survivors didn't stop to check who was left.
They bolted. Boots pounding on ash, lungs tearing raw with every gasp. The ruins blurred around them, broken glass, toppled bricks, the skeletal arms of burnt streetlamps clawing upward.
Behind them, silence. No footsteps. No chase.
"Keep running!" one barked.
The other stumbled, nearly dropped his shotgun, then clutched it tighter, knuckles white. "What the fuck was that? What the fuck was that?"
"Shut up. Just move."
But they couldn't shut it out. The memory held on like a fever. The figure dropping from the scaffolding. The wet crack of bone. The way their brothers had vanished, screams cut short.
The streets twisted ahead, alleys where shadows only got darker, stairwells that yawned black, every window a hollow skull watching.
A crow shrieked above them. Both men flinched so hard they nearly fell.
"Not human," the second gasped, spittle flying. "Not—he drank him. Drank him like blood—"
The leader shoved him forward, half-carrying, half-dragging. "Shut your mouth. Don't say it. Don't even—"
They plunged into an alley, too narrow, walls looming close. Their boots splashed through black water, foul with rot. The world was all heartbeat and wheezing.
Every echo sounded like pursuit.
But still, silence.
Only their own gasping.
The laundromat was dark but alive. A dozen survivors clustered among gutted washers and dryers, their campfire guttering low in a metal drum.
The steel door slammed open.
Two men crashed inside, half-falling, half-scrambling. One dropped his shotgun, hands shaking too badly to hold it. The other stumbled forward.
The room froze.
"What the hell?" someone muttered.
The scavengers' leader stepped forward. His eyes narrowed. "Where's the rest?"
The survivors doubled over, heaving, words spilling from them like vomit.
"Gone. They're gone. He—he took 'em—"
"Snapped 'em like twigs."
"Not human—"
The leader seized one by the collar, shook him so hard his teeth clacked. "Speak sense. Who?"
The man's face crumpled, eyes wide, wet. "A shadow. Dropped on us. He—he drank him. Lackey's blood—he drank it like water."
A ripple of unease passed through the laundromat. Men glanced at each other, muttering, shifting their grips on knives and pipes. One woman crossed herself.
"Bullshit," someone spat, but his voice cracked.
The leader's scowl deepened, but the flicker in his eyes betrayed something colder than anger. Fear.
The survivors shook their heads, frantic. "No lie. We fired, he wasn't there. He—" Their words tangled into sobbing.
The leader shoved them down, snarled over the noise: "Enough. You're spooked, that's all. Some rat-eater with a knife scared you shitless."
But the room wasn't convinced.
The steel door groaned; just the slow creak of hinges under weight.
Every head in the laundromat snapped toward it.
A draft crawled in, scattering ash across the floor tiles. The fire in the drum guttered low, shadows stretching long over the walls.
The two scavengers who'd returned went white. One scrambled backward, tripping over a dead washing machine. "No, no—he followed—"
The leader raised his pipe rifle, jaw clenched. "Quiet."
The silence that followed was hollow.
A voice slid into that silence. it filled the laundromat, reverberating through bone and marrow:
"...I did warn you."
The survivors froze. The words hadn't come from outside, not entirely. They vibrated inside skulls, spoken too close to the ear though no one had moved.
The doorway darkened.
A silhouette stood framed in the ash-glow; tall, still, almost human. But not quite. His posture was too steady, his head tilted just a fraction too far, like a doll waiting to twitch.
One of the scavengers whimpered. "God save us."
The figure stepped forward. The firelight finally licked across him.
Elias.
His clothes was torn, streaked dark where blood had dried. His claws caught the light faintly, curved. His face; it might have been human if not for the pallor, the stretched hunger around his mouth, the way his gaze didn't quite focus on the living but through them.
He spoke again, and this time the voice was layered. His words came doubled; his own tone, and beneath it, something lower, distorted, like another mouth speaking in tandem.
"I'm sorry. Truly."
The leader barked, forcing bravado into his voice. "Kill him—"
But Elias tilted his head further, almost apologetic.
"You lot… would do me much good."
The leader's finger clenched on the trigger. The crack of the shot split the laundromat.
But the bullet never hit. Elias wasn't there anymore.
A blur passed through the smoke, faster than muscle should move, faster than bone should flex. The rifle clattered across the tiles, its wielder folded in half with a sound like dry sticks breaking.
Screams erupted, overlapping, frantic; not the shouts of fighters but the terror of prey.
Gunfire sprayed blind. Muzzle flashes carved stuttering images of the room:
Elias's silhouette flickering left, then gone.
A man dragged into the dark between washing machines, his scream cut to a wet gargle.
Ash swirling in the firelight like snow shaken in a glass globe.
Someone shouted, "He's in the rafters!" Another cried, "No—behind—" before being drowned in blood.
The two who had escaped before clawed toward the exit, but the door slammed shut as though the air itself had forced it closed. Their palms beat against the steel until bones cracked.
The firelight guttered lower. Shadows stretched long across the walls, swallowing the scavengers one by one.
The last thing anyone saw clearly was Elias's face as the flames flickered, blood shining wet across his mouth, expression unreadable. Almost gentle.
The laundromat went silent.
Then black.