Dia didn't know how long she had slept.
When I woke up, the sun was already in the west, hanging diagonally over the city skyline, dyeing the entire sky blood-red. The red color is not like a normal sunset, but more like someone lighting a fire behind the clouds and burning half the sky.
He sat up, his body aching as if he had been run over by a truck. The wound on my left arm had scabbed over – this was not normal, such a wound would take at least a few days to heal, and now it has only been less than a day. But he didn't have time to think about it.
People on the roof are sleeping. The children curled up together, the volunteer aunts leaned next to the solar panels, and Uncle Wang sat on the cover of the access port with an iron pipe in his arms to take a nap. Xiaoyu leaned against the wall, holding Ah Fu in her arms, and both of them still had dried tears on their faces.
Twenty-seven people.
At this time yesterday, there were still thirty-eight people in the welfare home.
Dia stood up and walked to the edge of the roof, overlooking the street below.
In the backyard of the welfare home, the rats have already left. The ground was covered with broken glass, broken wood and unknown wreckage, and the plants in the flower beds were gnawed to the ground, leaving only bare dirt. The old locust tree in the corner of the backyard fell, and its thick trunk was covered with dense tooth marks, as if it had been cut by thousands of knives.
In the distance, a residential building was burning, and black smoke billowed up into the sky, covering half of the sunset. Further away, you can hear intermittent gunshots - is it the military in action, or the police? He didn't know. He only knew that the gunfire was getting farther and farther away.
"Diego."
Xiaoyu's voice came from behind, hoarse and tired. She walked over to him and followed his gaze to the fire in the distance.
"What should we do?" She asked.
Dia was silent for a long time.
What to do?
This question has been swirling in his mind since the moment he woke up. Stay in a welfare home? No, those rats could come back at any time, and the food and water wouldn't last for days. To seek refuge with others? Are there any survivors in nearby residential buildings? Even if they do, are they willing to accept more than twenty children?
"Go downtown." Dia finally spoke.
"City center?" Xiaoyu's eyes widened.
"The army will definitely build a line of defense in the city center." Dia's tone was calm, as if analyzing a math problem, "When the city falls, the government will prioritize protecting the most densely populated and important areas." There are government buildings, hospitals, communication centers in the city center, which must be the focus of defense. "
"But... From here to the city center, it takes more than an hour..."
"That's why I'm going to leave now. While it was still dark, the rats temporarily retreated. "
Xiaoyu bit his lip and didn't speak again. She knew Dia was right, but the fear on her face couldn't be hidden.
Dia patted her on the shoulder: "Go wake everyone up." We set off ten minutes later. "
When they left, they took nothing with them.
It's not that they didn't want to carry things, they just couldn't. Food and water were too heavy and would slow them down; blankets and clothes took up too much space and would hinder movement. Dia only allowed each person to carry a bottle of water and a small piece of dry food, leaving everything else on the roof.
The rats under the maintenance hatch were gone. Dia was the first to jump down, and only after confirming the room was safe did he let the others come down one by one.
The first floor of the welfare institute was already unrecognizable.
The walls were covered in claw marks, the floor had holes gnawed into it, and the tables and chairs were broken into pieces. The refrigerators in the dining hall had been overturned, the food looted, leaving only a few cans rolling in the corners. The corridor walls were streaked with dark red marks—blood, though it was unclear whether it was human or rat blood.
Dia picked up the cans and stuffed them into his bag, then found a bigger knife in the kitchen—a cleaver, much heavier and sharper than a kitchen knife. He weighed it in his hand and fastened it to his belt.
'Let's go.'
They exited through the back door and headed south along an alley. Dia walked in front, Uncle Wang at the back, the children in the middle. Xiaoyu held Afu's hand; Afu's hand was trembling, but he didn't cry.
The alley was full of garbage and broken glass, the air thick with the stench of rot. A garbage bin on the street had been overturned, its contents spilled and rummaged through. In the corner shadows, something moved. Dia gripped his knife tightly, but it was just a feral cat—a normal, non-mutated stray cat. It glanced at them once and then dashed into the darkness.
Out of the alley, they reached the main road.
And then they saw hell.
The scenes on both sides of the road made everyone stop in their tracks.
Cars were crookedly stopped in the middle of the road, some crashed into each other, some overturned on the roadside, and some still burning. Windows were shattered, doors open, seats stained with dark red blood, but no people were visible. The road was littered with broken glass, plastic, and debris from unknown objects, crunching underfoot.
A huge plane tree had fallen across the road, its roots lifting and tearing up the pavement. The canopy was entangled with remnants of clothing and—Dia didn't want to look at those things.
"Don't look," he said to the children behind him. "Follow me, don't look to the sides."
They squeezed through the gaps in the tree trunks and kept moving forward. With every step, they saw more horrific scenes. By the roadside, there was a supermarket. The glass doors were shattered, the shelves inside had collapsed, and goods were scattered across the floor, but even more, it was a mess—like something had raged inside. At the supermarket entrance lay a person, motionless, covered by a piece of cloth torn from who knows where. Beneath the cloth, a hand was visible, fingers bent, nails embedded with dirt.
Dia walked over, squatted down, and lifted a corner of the cloth.
It was a middle-aged woman wearing the supermarket's uniform. There was a large wound on her neck, as if something had bitten her—not a rat, rat teeth aren't spaced that far apart. What was it? A dog? Or something else?
He put the cloth down, stood up, and continued walking.
After walking for about twenty minutes, they arrived at an intersection. The traffic lights were out, and all four directions were blocked—some by fallen trees, some by cars piled together, and others by various obstacles.
Dia stopped to observe the surroundings.
The road to the south looked the clearest, but a building alongside it was on fire, with thick smoke drifting in that direction. The road to the east was mostly blocked by an overturned bus, but there was a narrow alley beside it to bypass the obstruction.
"Let's go east," Dia decided.
They walked around the bus and into the narrow alley. On both sides were old residential buildings, with peeling walls and broken windows, clotheslines holding unattended clothes. The alley was very quiet—unnaturally quiet.
Then Dia heard a sound.
It wasn't the sound of rats or the barking of mad dogs.
It was human.
Someone was crying.
Dia raised his hand, signaling the others to stop. He walked forward slowly, turned a corner, and saw the source of the sound.
At the end of the alley, a young woman was crouched on the ground, holding a child in her arms. The child was about three or four years old, motionless, with a pale face. The woman was crying, her voice low, as if afraid someone might hear.
"You..." Dia began.
The woman suddenly lifted her head, her eyes filled with terror. Seeing Dia and the children behind him, her expression shifted from fear to despair.
"Don't come near!" she screamed, clutching the child tighter. "Don't come any closer! Please, I beg you, don't come near!"
"We're not bad people," Dia raised his hands to show he meant no harm. "We're from the welfare center, and we're heading to the city center. Do you need help?"
The woman's gaze swept over them, then she lowered her head, looking at the child in her arms.
"He's dead," her voice was calm, unnervingly calm for a mother who had just lost her child. "He died last night. I don't know why... he suddenly started running a fever, and then... and then..."
She didn't continue.
Dia was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I'm sorry."
The woman did not respond. She hugged the body of her child, leaning against the wall, her eyes staring blankly ahead.
Dia hesitated for a moment, then took a can from his bag and placed it on the ground beside her.
"Take this. We're leaving. You... try to find a way to get out of here too. It's not safe here."
He turned and walked away. After a few steps, he heard the woman's voice behind him, very soft, like she was talking to herself.
"There's nowhere safe anymore. Nowhere is safe."
They continued moving forward.
The closer they got to the city center, the more horrific the scene became.
On an overpass, they saw a row of bodies. They were not killed, but had committed suicide. Seven or eight people had used ropes to hang themselves from the railings of the overpass, their feet suspended in the air, gently swaying in the wind. Their faces showed no pain, only a calmness, as if they were asleep.
A child began to cry. Xiaoyu covered his mouth, but her own tears also could not be stopped.
"Why..." she murmured. "Why would they commit suicide..."
Dia did not answer. But he was clear in his mind—fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of mutations, fear of the apocalypse. Some people would rather end their lives themselves than be bitten by those things or be turned into those things.
They quickened their pace, crossing the overpass.
After walking for about forty minutes, they finally saw the outline of the city center.
The tall buildings were still standing, but many windows were shattered, and the exterior walls bore scorch marks. The streets were wider, but more congested—the army had set up checkpoints with trucks and armored vehicles at major intersections, with soldiers patrolling behind the barricades.
"We're here!" Uncle Wang's voice was filled with the joy of surviving a disaster. "We've arrived!"
Dia did not feel happy.
He noticed the situation behind those barricades.
The soldiers were holding their guns up. The muzzles were not pointed outward but inward—toward people like them who wanted to get in.
In front of the barricades, hundreds of people had already gathered. They were in tattered clothes, bloodstained, their faces full of fear and exhaustion. Some were injured, some were holding dead relatives, some were kneeling on the ground, crying and shouting.
"Let us in! Please, let us in!"
"My son is injured, he needs a doctor! Please!"
"Those things outside will kill us! Let us in!"
But the soldiers did not move. Their expressions were stiff, as if they were carrying out an order that made them uncomfortable themselves.
A man who looked like an officer stood behind the barricade, holding a loudspeaker; his voice was hoarse and tired.
"Citizens, please remain calm. The quarantine zone is full and cannot accommodate any more people. Please proceed to other relocation points—"
"Where are these other relocation points!" a man shouted, "The entire city has fallen! Only this place is safe!"
"We've been waiting here for three hours! You can't just watch us die!"
"My wife is pregnant! She needs to go to the hospital! Step aside!"
The crowd began to stir, some pushing forward, some shoving the barricade. The soldiers tensed, their gun barrels aimed at the crowd.
"Step back!" the officer's voice became stern, "Everyone step back! Otherwise, we will take compulsory measures!"
"Are you going to shoot?" an old lady screamed, "Shoot ordinary citizens?"
The officer's expression twitched, but he did not lower the loudspeaker.
"This is an order. The quarantine zone is saturated and no more people can enter. Please understand—"
His words were interrupted by a scream.
Behind the crowd, a man collapsed to the ground, convulsing, foam coming from his mouth. His eyes rolled back, and something seemed to be wriggling under his skin, like a snake swimming through his blood vessels.
"He... he's infected too!" someone shouted, "Stay away from him!"
The crowd scattered like a tide, leaving the man alone on the ground. His convulsions grew more violent, his body arched into an unnatural curve, joints cracking.
Then, he stopped.
He lay motionless on the ground, as if dead.
Everyone held their breath.
A few seconds later, he moved.
But not a normal movement. His body rose in a way that defied human anatomy—first the head and neck, then the shoulders and back, finally the legs. His joints bent in the opposite direction, as if turned inside out. His eyes turned gray-white, black liquid dripped from his mouth, and he let out a roar that no human could make.
"Zombie!" someone screamed, "He's turned into a zombie!"
The thing—which could no longer be called a "person"—pounced on the nearest person. It was fast, so fast that it didn't look like something that had just stood up. It bit a woman's shoulder, tore off a large piece of flesh, and blood splattered on the wall next to it.
The crowd was completely out of control.
People screamed, cried, pushed and pushed forward. The barricades were knocked down and the soldiers were scattered. Someone stepped on a compatriot who fell to the ground, someone was pushed to the wall, someone was thrown down by the zombie.
Dia stood behind the crowd, holding Ah Fu in her arms, and watched it all happen.
His mind went blank.
Not fear, not anger, but something deeper, colder consuming him. He saw what human nature can become in the most extreme situations - not unity, not mutual assistance, but everyone only cares about themselves, stepping on other people's corpses and climbing forward.
A young mother was squeezed down by the crowd with her child in her arms, she knelt on the ground and screamed, but no one stopped to help her. An old man was pushed to the wall, hit his head against the brick wall, and bleeded all over the floor. Several young people stepped on other people's shoulders and climbed over the barricades, and then ran away without looking back.
"Diego!" Xiaoyu grabbed his arm tightly, "What should we do? "
Dia gritted her teeth.
He looked behind the barricade. The soldiers were also dispersed, some maintaining order, and some shooting at the zombie. The officer was shouting something, but the voice was drowned out by screams.
"We don't go through the front door." Dia said.
"Then where to go?"
Dia's gaze swept around and landed on a sewer manhole cover on the side of the road.
Nope. No, it didn't work. Those mice came out of the sewers.
His gaze continued to move and landed on the fire ladder of a building. The building is only separated from the isolation area by an alley, and if you can go up to the roof, you may be able to jump to the other side of the quarantine area.
"Come with me." Dia pulled the light rain and ran in the direction of the building with the children.
They bypassed the chaotic crowd, crossed an alley, and came to the back of the building. The fire ladder is still there, but the bottom section has been put away, more than two meters above the ground.
Dia handed Ah Fu to Xiaoyu, took a few steps back, ran up, jumped - his hand grabbed the bottom crossbar of the fire ladder, hung in the air and shook a few times, and then rolled up.
"One by one!" He stretched out his hand, grabbed Ah Fu's hand, and pulled him up. Then there are other children, one after the other.
Finally, it was Xiao Yu and Uncle Wang. When everyone had climbed up the fire escape, footsteps came from the other end of the alley—not human footsteps, but heavy, dragging ones, as if something were crawling along the ground.
Dia glanced down.
A few zombies were wandering in the alley. They were covered in blood; some were missing arms, some had broken legs, but they were still moving. Their eyes were gray and vacant, staring ahead, and low growls rumbled from their mouths.
"Hurry up!" Dia urged in a low voice.
They climbed onto the rooftop. This building had seven floors, and the rooftop was spacious, filled with debris and solar panels. From here, they could see the entire quarantine zone—the army had surrounded a large area with sandbags and barbed wire, which contained tents, medical stations, and temporary dining areas. Many people were inside; some were lining up for food, some were receiving treatment, and some were just sitting on the ground in a daze.
Outside the barbed wire, those who hadn't made it in were still screaming, crying, and dying.
"Unfair," Xiao Yu said beside Dia, bitterness filled his voice. "Why can they go in, but we can't?"
Dia didn't answer.
He watched the people inside the barbed wire—the "lucky" ones. There was no joy on their faces from surviving; only fear and bewilderment. The only difference between them and the people outside was that they had arrived a step earlier, or had just been a little luckier.
That was all.
"We're not going that way," Dia said.
"Then how do we get in?"
Dia looked toward the other side of the quarantine zone. There was a pile of destroyed ruins, separated from the zone by only a low wall. If they could sneak around from that side of the ruins—
"From there," he pointed at the ruins.
"But there are soldiers guarding that area..."
"So we wait until nightfall."
Dia turned and looked at the people on the rooftop. Twenty-seven survivors, twenty-three of them children. Some were crying, some shivering, and some just sat there blankly, as if their souls had left their bodies.
He squatted down to look into their eyes.
"I know you're scared," his voice was soft but firm. "I'm scared too. But now is not the time to cry, not the time to give up. We have to survive, we must survive. After dark, I will take you in. I promise."
The children looked at him, and a light gradually appeared in their eyes.
Afu walked over, his little hand gripping the hem of Dia's clothes.
"Dia-ge, I believe in you."
Dia patted his head, stood up, and looked into the distance.
The sun was about to set. The sky turned that eerie red color again, as if stained with blood. At the edge of the sky, there were bands of multicolored light flickering, like some kind of signal, and also like some kind of warning.
He remembered what the officer had said.
"The quarantine zone is already full."
Full?
Inside the barbed wire, someone was setting up new tents. There was clearly still space, clearly more people could be accommodated. But they were unwilling. Because they were afraid—afraid that too many people would bring chaos, consume resources, would—
would make them become like those people outside.
This is human nature.
In the most extreme situations, people, in order to protect themselves and those around them, will push others out the door and watch them die.
Dia closed his eyes.
He would not become that kind of person.
He swore.