Karan's hand went up immediately. Silent command. Everyone stopped moving.
Weapons came up. Samir's pipe. Vikram's crowbar. Taj's knife. Reyan positioned himself in front of his daughter.
Karan motioned to Meera. She nodded. Moved to the window. Peered through a crack in the boards.
Her body went rigid.
"What is it?" Karan whispered.
"Three people. Armed. One woman, two men." Her voice was tight. "They've got guns. Real guns. And they're all wearing—" She stopped. "Glasses. Dark glasses. All of them."
Karan moved to the door. Gripped his rifle. "Everyone stay back. Let me handle this."
He opened the door slowly.
Three figures stood in the street. Maybe twenty feet away. Two men flanking a woman in the center. All of them had rifles. All of them wore dark-tinted glasses that hid their eyes completely.
The woman spoke first. Her voice was calm. Controlled. "Put your weapons down. We don't want to hurt you."
Meera appeared in the doorway beside Karan, her rifle up. "You first."
"That's not how this works," the woman said.
"Then we've got a problem," Meera replied.
The two groups stared at each other. Fingers on triggers. Nobody moving.
"I said put them down," the woman repeated. "Last warning."
"And I said you first," Meera's voice hardened. Her finger moved to the trigger.
"STOP!"
Samir pushed past them both. Stumbled out into the street. His pipe clattered to the ground.
"Nisha?" His voice cracked. "Nisha, is that you?"
The woman went completely still.
Slowly, she reached up and pulled off her dark glasses.
Brown eyes. Wide. Shocked.
"Samir?"
"Oh my God." Samir took a step forward. "Oh my God, you're alive. You're—"
"STOP!" Nisha's rifle came up, pointed directly at his chest. ( pushing her glasses into the place) "Don't move. Don't come any closer."
Samir froze. "Nisha, it's me. It's your brother. I came all this way to find you. We thought—"
"I know who you are." Her voice was different now. Colder. Nothing like the sister he remembered. "But you don't move until we clear you. All of you. Nobody comes out until we say."
Samir stared at her. At the rifle. At the stranger wearing his sister's face.
"Nisha, what—"
"Put your weapons down," she said. Not to him. To the people behind him. "All of you. Now."
Karan looked at Samir. Samir nodded slowly, still staring at his sister.
"Lower weapons," Karan ordered. "Everyone."
One by one, they complied. Meera was the last, rifle dropping with obvious reluctance.
Nisha gestured to one of the men beside her. "Check them. All of them. Standard protocol."
The man moved forward. Tall. Maybe thirty. He approached Karan first. "Arms out. Turn around slowly."
He checked Karan's arms. His neck. Behind his ears. Looking for bite marks. For scratches. For any sign of infection.
"Clear."
He moved to Meera. Then Ravi. Then Dev. One by one, methodically checking each person who emerged from the house.
When he got to Reyan's daughter, he hesitated.
"Her too," Nisha said flatly.
"She's seven years old," Reyan protested.
"Infection doesn't care about age. Check her."
The man did. Gently. Quickly. "Clear."
When everyone had been verified, Nisha finally lowered her rifle. But she didn't let go of it.
Samir moved toward her. "Nisha—"
"Don't." She held up a hand. "Not yet."
But he kept coming. Closed the distance. Pulled her into a hug despite the rifle between them.
For a moment, she stood rigid. Unmoving. Like she'd forgotten how.
Then her free hand came up. Touched his back. Briefly. Before pulling away.
"You shouldn't have come," she said quietly. "It's not safe here. It's not safe anywhere."
"I had to." Samir's voice broke. "You're my sister. I had to know you were alive."
She looked at him. Really looked. And for just a second, something soft showed in her eyes. Something that remembered laughing together. Fighting over the remote. Normal things.
Then it was gone. Replaced by the hard edge of survival.
"You need to come with us," she said, addressing the whole group now. "There's a camp. Safe zone. We have supplies. Shelter. But there are rules. And you have to follow them exactly."
"What kind of rules?" Karan asked.
"The kind that keep people alive." She turned to one of her men. "Give them the glasses."
The man pulled out a bag. Started handing out dark-tinted glasses. The same kind Nisha and her group wore.
When the man reached Taj, he hesitated.
"His are broken," Nisha said. "Give him one."
Taj took the glasses without a word.
"Put these on," Nisha said to everyone now. "And keep them on until we say otherwise."
"Why?" Meera asked, suspicion thick in her voice.
"You'll understand when we get there. For now, just do it."
"That's not an answer," Karan said.
"It's the only one you're getting right now." Nisha's tone left no room for argument. "You want to come to the camp, you wear the glasses. Non-negotiable."
They put them on. One by one. The world turned darker through the tinted lenses.
"And one more thing," Nisha said. She pulled out zip ties from her belt. "Hands behind your backs. You'll be restrained for the journey."
"Absolutely not," Meera said, taking the glasses off. "We're not going anywhere tied up like prisoners."
"You are if you want to reach the camp," Nisha said calmly. "Those are the rules. Everyone who enters gets processed the same way. No exceptions."
"This is insane," Taj muttered.
"The man who was living in this house—the scientist—we took him. He told us things. About the virus. About what caused it. About what it's doing to people." She paused. "The glasses. The restraints. They're not optional. They're necessary."
"Why?" Reyan asked, one arm around his daughter.
She looked directly at Samir ignoring Reyan. "The man in charge of the camp will explain everything. But you have to trust me. Please."
Samir looked at the zip ties. At his sister. At the stranger she'd become.
"Okay," he said quietly. "We'll do it."
"Samir—" Vikram started.
"She's my sister. If she says this is necessary, I believe her."
One by one, they turned around. Let Nisha's men secure their hands behind their backs. The zip ties weren't tight enough to hurt, but there was no getting out of them. Then dark cloth slid over their eyes, stealing the room from view.
"This way," Nisha said.
They were led to two trucks parked a block away. Larger than Ravi's flatbed. Canvas covering the back.
Nisha's men hauled their bags and supplies onto the trucks. Everything they'd brought went with them—just out of reach, reminders that nothing here was theirs anymore.
"Get in," one of Nisha's men said. "Watch your step."
They climbed into the back. It was dark under the canvas. Cramped. Eleven people squeezed onto two bench seats facing each other.
"Remember. Keep the glasses on. Don't try to remove the restraints. We'll reach the camp in about twenty minutes."
"Nisha," Samir said. "Are you—"
"I'm fine." She said. "I've been fine. You're the one who crossed half a dead city for nothing."
"Not for nothing. I found you."
She didn't respond. Just stared at him through those dark glasses that hid everything. She pulled the truck's canvas shut.
The truck engine started. They lurched forward.
The ride was rough. The truck bounced over debris. Swerved around obstacles. Nobody spoke for the first few minutes.
Then Taj broke the silence. "So. Anyone else think this might be a terrible idea?"
"Little late for that," Vikram muttered.
"I'm just saying. We're tied up in the back of a truck, blindfolded, the mysterious glasses hooked into the collars of our T-shirts, being taken to a mysterious camp. This is literally how people get murdered in horror movies."
"Shut up, Taj," Samir said quietly.
"I'm processing fear through humor. It's my thing."
Reyan's daughter shifted closer to him. Blindfolded, he couldn't see her, and with his hands tied he couldn't hold her, but he pressed his shoulder against hers. "It's okay," he whispered. "We're okay."
"Are we?" she whispered back.
He didn't answer. Didn't know what to say.
The truck hit a particularly hard bump. Everyone jolted. Arjun, who'd been silent since they'd been tied up, finally spoke. "My wife died three days ago. Turned right in front of me. I've been hiding in a furniture store eating nothing, drinking dirty water, waiting to die." His voice was hollow. "Whatever this camp is, whatever the rules are, it's better than that. So I'll keep my hands tied. I'll do whatever I have to do. Because at least it's something."
Nobody argued with that.
The truck drove on.
Minutes passed. Could have been ten. Could have been twenty. Time felt strange in the dark.
Then the truck slowed. Stopped.
Voices outside. Talking. Too muffled to make out words.
The engine cut off.
Footsteps. The canvas at the back of the truck was pulled aside. Sunlight filtered faintly through the blindfold, a dull glow pressing against his eyes.
"We're here," Nisha said. "Everyone out. Slowly. Don't try to run."
Blindfolded, they climbed out one by one, awkward with their hands tied, stumbling as they hit the ground.
Hands moved to his face. The blindfold came off.
Reyan turned his head, trying to orient himself.
"Glasses. Now," Nisha said. "All of you."
They were in a large open space.
Concrete underfoot. A high ceiling overhead. The air carried the hollow echo of something industrial—too wide, too bare to be anything else. A warehouse, maybe. A factory.
What he could see were the lights.
Rows of fluorescent tubes burned overhead, stretching into the distance. Not flickering. Not failing. Running. Powered.
Still lit.
This was the place.
The map from the kitchen table came back to him uninvited—the coffee-ringed paper, creased and worn. Black marker cutting across Niraya's faded streets. Vaishali District circled thickly. The shopping complex crossed out at the western edge.
And farther east, where the city thinned and the buildings spread apart, the square.
Clean lines. Measured. Traced twice to make it darker than the rest. Bigger than any other mark.
An entrance.
A small check beside it. No label. No explanation.
Only two words, written smaller than the rest.
Still lit.
The map hadn't been a theory. Or a memory.
It had been a destination.
"This way," Nisha said.
They were led through the space. Past people working. Past tables covered with equipment. Past guards with rifles who watched them pass with expressionless faces.
All of them wearing the same dark glasses.
"Kneel," Nisha said.
They were in some kind of processing area now. A large open room. Concrete floor. Bright lights overhead.
"Down. All of you. Knees on the floor."
They knelt. One by one. No choice. No argument left.
Nisha moved to the front of the room.
"You can look up now," she said.
They looked up.
And saw him.
Standing at the front of the room. Wearing the same dark glasses everyone else wore. White coat. Tired eyes.
Ahmed.
The scientist from the house. The one who'd left everything behind.
He looked at them. At the eleven new arrivals kneeling on the concrete floor.
Nisha's men moved quickly behind them, rifling through bags, pockets, and whatever they'd brought. When they were done, all supplies—food, weapons, anything of value—were gone. Nothing remained with the kneeling group.
Ahmed stepped forward. Removed his glasses.
"My name is Ahmed Ansari," he said. "And I'm the reason this world ended."
"I… I was also brought here ," he said, voice low. "She's the one who brought me. I don't run this place but you need to listen carefully. Someone else is in charge. He'll be here in minutes."
His voice trembled. "When he arrives, you follow his rules. Every rule. No exceptions. No excuses. Anyone who doesn't… doesn't leave this room alive."
He paused. Let that sink in.
He looked at each of them. One by one.
"Welcome to Sanctuary. We have a lot to talk about."
The lights hummed overhead.
Outside, the infected roamed.
Inside, eleven people knelt on concrete, hands tied, glasses removed, staring at the man who'd destroyed everything.
And waiting to hear if there was any hope left.
Any hope at all.
END OF VOLUME 2