Xu Zhenlan didn't answer right away.
He just stared at the TV, his jaw tight, his coffee forgotten in his hand. The anchor was back, her tone still controlled but with a slight tremor now, like she was reading from a script but didn't quite believe the words.
"Authorities are asking residents in affected areas to stay indoors and avoid contact with anyone exhibiting unusual behavior. If you encounter someone who appears disoriented or aggressive, do not approach them. Call emergency services immediately and move to a safe location."
Zhou Chenghai set his plate down on the side table. "That's new."
"It's precautionary," Zhenlan replied, but he didn't sound convinced. "They're just covering their bases. Better to tell people to stay inside than deal with more incidents."
"Or they know something they're not saying."
Zhenlan didn't respond to that.
I finished the last chip and crumpled the bag, tossing it onto the coffee table. The drama was getting to the good part—the part where the male lead finally confessed his feelings in the most awkward, overwrought way possible. The dialogue was terrible. The acting was worse. I loved it.
The news kept playing. More reports. More footage. More carefully worded statements that said everything and nothing at the same time. The anchors were good at their jobs—they kept their voices steady, their expressions neutral, their language precise. But there were cracks now. Little moments where the mask slipped. A pause that lasted too long. A glance off-camera. A tightness around the eyes.
They knew this was more than what they were being told. They just weren't allowed to say it yet.
Throughout the day, the clips kept coming. The incidents were increasing in frequency—hospitals overwhelmed, police stretched thin, videos showing more and more chaos in different cities. The footage was getting worse too. Less shaky phone cameras, more security footage. More clear images of people moving wrong, attacking without reason, continuing to move even after they should have stopped.
But the tone of the news remained controlled. Calm. Professional.
They were trying very hard to keep people from panicking.
It wasn't going to work. Panic was inevitable. It was just a matter of when.
I grabbed another bag of chips from the kitchen—barbecue this time—and returned to the couch. The drama had moved on to the next episode. The female lead was crying again, this time because the male lead had done something noble and self-sacrificing that she didn't understand. She never understood. That was her whole character.
Zhenlan and Chenghai stayed in the living room, their attention shifting between their phones and the TV. They weren't panicking either, but they were paying attention now. Really paying attention. The casual dismissal from this morning was gone, replaced by something sharper.
Concern.
Calculation.
The beginning of understanding that this might be more than just isolated incidents.
From their perspective, I was ignoring what was happening. Lying on the couch, watching my show, eating snacks while the world outside started to unravel. They probably thought I was oblivious. Or in denial. Or just too young and naive to understand what was happening.
From my perspective, nothing on the screen was new.
I'd seen this before. I knew how it started—the reports, the footage, the careful language that avoided the truth. I knew how it spread—fast, relentless, unstoppable once it reached a certain point. I knew what came next—the panic, the chaos, the collapse of everything people thought was safe and stable.
The only issue I was having was that, despite everything I had been doing, I wasn't fully prepared yet.
I had the weapons in my space...food....water. Everything I'd stolen, everything I'd hidden, everything I'd planned for—it was all for this. For the moment when the world stopped pretending everything was fine and started falling apart.
I was going to be ready when things got going faster. But the majority of the people wouldn't be.
The sun set slowly, the light fading from the windows until the room was dim and shadowy.
Zhenlan turned on a lamp, the warm glow pushing back the darkness, but no one moved to close the curtains or turn off the TV. The news was still playing, still showing footage, still using careful language to avoid saying what everyone was starting to realize.
I queued up another episode and settled deeper into the couch cushions. The female lead was about to make another terrible decision. The male lead was about to brood dramatically. It was comforting in its predictability.
Then, just after nine o'clock, the broadcast changed.
The anchor was mid-sentence when the feed cut to a different camera—a live shot from somewhere downtown. A reporter stood in front of a hospital, her expression tense, her posture rigid. Behind her, the hospital entrance was lit up, people moving in and out in a way that looked frantic even from a distance.
"—we're here at Mercy General where staff are reporting an unprecedented surge in emergency cases," she was saying, her voice tight. "Behind me, you can see—"
She stopped.
Her eyes widened.
The camera swung to the side, catching movement near the hospital entrance. A man stumbled into frame—his clothes torn, his face pale, his movements jerky and wrong. He moved like something broken, like his body didn't quite belong to him anymore.
Someone off-camera shouted—a warning, maybe, or just fear.
The man lunged.
The reporter screamed.
The camera dropped, the image tilting wildly, catching flashes of pavement and sky and movement before cutting to black.
The studio anchor appeared on screen, her face pale, her composure cracking. "We—we're experiencing technical difficulties. We'll return to that report as soon as—"
The feed cut again.
Silence.
Then the anchor was back, her hands shaking slightly as she shuffled papers on the desk in front of her. "We're receiving reports of similar incidents across multiple locations. We are being told by medical staff that this has been a case of human contracted rabies, most likely from a wild animal of somekind. Authorities are urging—"
A breaking news alert flashed across the bottom of the screen.
Red text. Bold letters.
BREAKING: Health officials investigating a possible rabies infection outbreak. Public advised to avoid contact with symptomatic individuals.
The word hung there on the screen, stark and undeniable.
Rabies infection.
Zhenlan sat up straighter, his hand reaching for the remote. He turned the volume up, the anchor's voice filling the room.
Chenghai leaned forward, his gaze locked on the screen, his expression hard.
I didn't move.
I reached for another chip and pressed play on the next episode.
The female lead was crying again.