The floor was cold. Our backs pressed against the wall, shoulders touching—not for comfort, but to remind ourselves we were still alive. Rainwater and blood seeped through our clothes, indistinguishable now. The silence between us wasn't just exhaustion. It was fear. If we spoke too loud, the world might remember we existed and finish what it started.
Zayn broke first.
"You think they'll even let us in after this?"
Insha didn't answer. Her gaze was fixed on the sealed door ahead, lips pressed into a bloodless line. Aaron's fingers drummed against his knee—tap, tap, tap—a nervous metronome. I hugged my ribs tighter. The adrenaline was fading, and every bruise, every cut, roared to life.
Then—BOOM.
Not an explosion. The reinforced doors shuddered open, flooding the room with harsh white light. Three masked soldiers stepped in, rifles slung across their chests. Behind them, medics in stained scrubs wheeled stretchers down the corridor, their faces hollow with exhaustion.
"On your feet," one soldier ordered. His voice was flat, robotic. "You're being processed."
"Processed?" Aaron echoed.
Zayn let out a weak laugh. "Like canned beans." He winced as he shifted, fresh blood blooming through the bandage on his back.
The soldier didn't react. "Move."
We stumbled into the corridor—and froze.
The airport terminal was a graveyard of the living. Hundreds of people lined the tiled floors, slumped against walls or curled into themselves. Children clutched backpacks like lifelines. A man coughed violently into his sleeve. A woman nearby didn't even flinch.
This wasn't shelter. It was triage.
And every pair of eyes turned toward us.
The soldier led us toward the baggage claim, now converted into a medical bay. White tents, gurneys, buckets of murky water. Two nurses sat behind a folding table, their hands moving mechanically as they drew blood from the line of survivors ahead of us.
"Names?" one nurse asked without looking up.
"Insha. Zayn. Aaron." My voice cracked. "I'm… just me."
She nodded. "Sit."
We obeyed, dropping onto a bench like marionettes with cut strings. The needle pinched my arm, my blood swirling dark in the vial.
Zayn hissed when the nurse checked his wound. "Keep pressure on it," she said, shoving gauze into his hand. "If it gets worse, yell."
"I'm not really a yeller," he muttered.
I rolled my eyes. "You screamed when that rat ran past us."
"That wasn't a rat. That was a demon."
Aaron snorted—a brittle, broken sound. For a second, we almost felt human again.
Then Insha swayed.
Her knees buckled. She hit the floor hard, her body seizing.
"MEDIC!" I screamed, lunging for her.
A nurse dropped beside us, flashlight beam darting across Insha's pupils. "Pulse is steady. She's breathing."
Insha's eyes fluttered open—and locked onto something behind us. Her face twisted in horror.
"Him," she gasped.
We turned.
A man stood a few feet away, swaying. His hoodie was soaked in blood, one eye a ruined socket. His mouth hung slack, strings of saliva glistening.
And his arm—
Bite marks. Fresh. Oozing.
The nurse recoiled. A soldier raised his rifle.
"EVERYONE DOWN!"
Screams erupted. People scrambled, chairs toppling.
The man didn't lunge. Didn't snarl. He just… collapsed.
Dead?
Or turning?
We didn't wait to find out.
The soldier hauled Insha up. "You're moving. Now."
"But he touched me—" she choked out.
"No bites. But you can't stay here."
As they shoved us toward the quarantine wing, I glanced back.
The man's body lay motionless.
Then—his fingers twitched.
The soldier saw it too. In one fluid motion, he drew a kukri blade and swung.
CRACK.
The man's head hit the floor with a wet thud.
No warning. No hesitation.
Zero tolerance.
The soldier wiped his blade, his voice icy. "Welcome to Terminal Zero."