After an unsettling night of sleep they slowly wake up. The light of dawn didn't bring hope; it only revealed the scale of the nightmare.
From their vantage point on the fourth-floor bridge, the group watched in a heavy,
suffocating silence. The parking lot near the exit was a sea of sluggish, grey-fleshed shapes. The helicopter from the night before had done their job too well; the noise had drawn every walker on the Westbridge University to the parking lot.
"They're still there," Aisha whispered, her fingers white-knuckled as she gripped the railing. "They aren't leaving."
"Neither are we if we stay here," Corvin said, his voice raspy. He adjusted the grip on his pipe wrench, the weight a comfort. "The noise from the helicopter pulled them to the lot, but thanks to that the buildings will be relatively clear. If we move now through the interconnected halls, we can bypass the horde."
They packed their belongings and started moving along the upper floors using the connecting bridges. The door to the other dorm building opened with a big creak.
Corvin stepped out first, fingers tight around the metal pipe wrench. The hallway of the dorm was dim, lit only by a flickering emergency light that painted everything in a weak, pulsing grey. It made the walls look destroyed.
"Stay close," Aisha whispered, already moving ahead, her posture low, ready.
Behind them, the others followed in a tight cluster. No one spoke. Even Priya, who usually filled silence like it offended her, said nothing.
The air smelled wrong. Not just stale. Not just dusty. But rotten.
Then a zombie came out of a room. It wasn't loud or dramatic. Everyone froze.
Corvin squinted, "Is that...?"
It lunged toward Corvin who was in front. Corvin hesitated a little bit. But Aisha moved first; she slammed the zombie in the shoulder hoping to push it back.
Corvin finally snapped into action. As soon as Aisha removed her pipe and moved back, he swung his wrench as hard as he could.
The impact landed with a crunch. The sound vibrated in Corvin's ear. The impact was nothing like in movies; it is always shown as a clean swing with a thud or crunch.
But reality was far disturbing. The impact made a very sickly squelch. The hit smashed the zombie's skull and killed it, but Corvin, who experienced it for the first time, almost puked.
"It seems we established one rule: Go for the head," said Mei Lin.
Suddenly, they heard a lot of footsteps. Uneven, dragging. Echoing from side corridors. Everyone gripped their weapons tighter. About seven zombies were rushing toward the group.
Corvin, Aisha, and Mei Lin removed their backpacks to be able to move freely. Mei Lin stepped forward; she readied herself. She brought the fire axe down in a heavy vertical arc. It caught the zombie squarely at the crown of its head with a sickening 'thwack.'
But the axe was stuck in the zombie's skull. Aisha kicks the zombie on the chest which forcefully brings the axe loose.
No one spoke during the fight; everyone understood a single thing without needing to be said: "Fight or die."
There were many close calls. Corvin missed a swing and before he could recover his balance, the zombie almost bit him. He finally saw it in detail: the torn skin, the teeth moving with an obsession to bite.
Aisha smashed the head of the zombies with a swing to the side of its face. Astrid backed into a wall, staring, her hands over her ears like it would block it out. "They're not—they're not dead—they're not dead."
"Astrid!" Marco grabbed her, forcing her to look at him. "Stay with me. Stay with me!"
Priya was worse. She had pressed herself into a corner, eyes wide, shaking violently. "They're coming—They're coming!"
One of the zombies snaked past the three and rushed toward Priya. Dimitri dropped his extra duffle bag and grabbed a crowbar and defended her.
Another attacked Astrid. She didn't move, or rather she couldn't due to fear. Mei Lin swung and killed it before it reached her.
Mei Lin went back to fight other zombies and this zombie fell halfway against Astrid's leg. She froze; the zombie twitched just a little but it scared the hell out of her. She let out a strangled sound and kicked herself free.
And then... Silence. Not dead silence, but enough to breathe.
Eight bodies were lying there. If you can call them that. No one moved for a long moment.
Corvin bent forward, hands on his knees, trying not to throw up. His whole body finally reacting to the brutality of his actions.
Aisha was breathing hard, staring at her metal pipe drenched in blood and then at her hands, unsure if it was still her.
Mei Lin looked the most calm by far. She wiped her weapon with a loose cloth, but her movements were slower now as if deep in thought.
Behind them, Astrid broke the silence. A sharp inhale—then she turned away and retched, her entire body folding in on itself. "I can't—I can't do this—I can't—"
Dimitri was calming Priya down by reassuring her, "I won't let anything happen to you."
Mei Lin was the first to force herself back together. "We have to keep moving," she said quietly. Her expression a mix of determination and fear.
Aisha nodded after a moment, though her jaw tightened. "Second buildings not far."
Corvin didn't reply right away. He glanced at what they left behind, then immediately looked away. "Let's just go," he muttered, grabbing the backpack he dropped earlier.
No one argued.
They picked up their backpacks and the duffle bags and started making their way to the connecting bridge on the other side of the building.
They moved again, closer this time. Not just physically. And none of them said it out loud, but something in them had already changed.
The bridge to the lecture hall stretched ahead like a vein between two silent bodies of concrete.
As they were crossing the bridge, Chase slowed down then he snapped his fingers softly. "Wait. Idea."
Everyone slowly turned toward Chase.
"We barricade this," he said, pointing. "One side from here, one side from the lecture building. Leave the supplies in the middle."
Aisha frowned. "Why?"
"I am sure you noticed, but to fight effectively you guys had to drop the bags so that they don't weigh you down. So if we leave them here and barricade it, we can come back and get supplies after clearing the lecture hall," replied Chase.
Aisha adjusted the strap on her shoulder, feeling the ache in her arms. The idea landed immediately. "That is actually a good idea."
Mei Lin and Corvin also understood the benefits and agreed to it.
Astrid shook her head instantly. "No. Absolutely not."
They all look at her.
"We aren't going into another building without supplies," she said, voice tight. "What if something happens? What if we get trapped? That's everything we have."
Priya hesitated. "She's not wrong..."
"I want to fight," Dimitri said suddenly.
He stepped forward, quieter than usual but steady. "Back there... I couldn't do anything. I won't survive like that."
He looked at Astrid, then Priya. "If we carry everything, we're slow. If we're slower, we die."
Priya's lips parted, unsure.
"It's temporary," Dimitri added. "We're not abandoning it. Just… setting it aside."
Astrid still looked unconvinced, her grip tightening around her bag.
Marco exhaled slowly, then crouched slightly to meet her eye level. His voice was softer than anyone had heard it before.
"Astrid… if something goes wrong in there, do you want Corvin struggling to swing because of weight? Or Aisha tripping because she's carrying half her body in supplies?"
She didn't answer.
"We get in, get what we need, get out," Marco continued. "Fast. Clean. Then we come back here. Everything's still ours."
A beat passed.
Then another.
Astrid swallowed, her resistance cracking under logic more than pressure.
"…Fine," she said quietly. "But we don't take long."
They worked quickly.
Chairs, broken metal rods, anything they could drag. One barricade behind them. One waiting to be built from the other side.
Their bags were stacked in the center of the bridge like a small, fragile fortress.
For a moment, no one liked walking away from it. But they did. The lecture hall doors opened with a slow push.
And everything… stopped.
Clean floors.
Unbroken glass.
Chairs neatly arranged.
It looked untouched.
Like the world had ended everywhere else and simply… skipped this place.
Marco let out a quiet, uneasy laugh. "That's worse, right? This is definitely worse."
Corvin nodded faintly. "Yeah… yeah, I don't like this."
Then—
A low groan.
From inside one of the classrooms.
Every muscle in the group tightened.
Mei Lin raised a hand. "Wait."
Another sound.
Movement.
Not one.
Many.
She leaned slightly, peering through the narrow gap of the classroom entrance.
"…Fifteen," she whispered.
Aisha exhaled slowly. "We can take them."
The classroom inside was structured like a maze—rows, partitions, tight spaces.
Mei Lin's eyes sharpened. "We use that. Funnel them."
It started quietly.
One drawn out.
Then another.
But quiet didn't last.
The moment the first body dropped, the rest reacted. The confined space turned violent.
Corvin moved faster this time—not fearless, but less frozen. Each swing still shook him, but he didn't hesitate as long.
Aisha was relentless. Efficient. Controlled.
Mei Lin guided them, cutting angles, pulling threats apart before they overwhelmed.
Dimitri and Chase swung their baseball bats to kill two zombies each.
Astrid tried. She really did.
But when one got too close, she faltered—just for a second—before Aisha stepped in.
"Stay behind me," she said firmly.
The sounds were still there.
The impact. The unnatural movement. But something had shifted. They didn't break the same way. They bent.
When it ended, the room fell into that same fragile silence.
Fifteen.
Gone.
Corvin stood still, chest rising and falling hard, staring at nothing.
"…I hate this," he muttered.
No one disagreed.
The nurse's office was just down the hall.
The door creaked open.
Inside—order, but disturbed.
Cabinets slightly ajar. A few empty shelves.
"Someone's been here," Mei Lin noted.
Astrid moved immediately, slipping into focus like it was the only safe place left. "Not everything's gone… we still have a lot."
Dimitri grabbed a notebook, flipping it open. His voice steadied as he spoke. "We prioritize."
He started writing. "Bleach. Disinfectant. Insect repellent. Water purifiers… anything for long-term survival."
Corvin glanced at him. "How do you even—"
"I wrote a survival story once," Dimitri said simply, not looking up.
No one questioned it.
They packed quickly.
This time, their hands were steadier.
Still shaken.
But functioning.
When they stepped back onto the bridge, their supplies were exactly where they left them.
Untouched.
A small, quiet relief passed through the group.
They didn't linger.
They gathered everything, rebuilt formation, and moved forward.
Toward the third building and whatever was waiting inside.
----
They had barely cleared the bridge when the sound returned.
A distant thrum at first—low, mechanical, almost easy to ignore.
Then louder. Closer.
Helicopters.
Everyone stopped.
Corvin turned instinctively, eyes scanning the sky as the noise swelled into a heavy roar. Two of them cut across the horizon, moving fast—too fast—coming from the direction of the parking structure.
"…Not again," Priya whispered.
The helicopters didn't slow.
They flew straight past the lecture buildings.
Straight toward the dorms.
The original dorms.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the ground itself seemed to shift.
From streets, alleys, broken pathways—they came. A tide of bodies, drawn like iron to a magnet, flooding toward the sound. Dozens. Then hundreds. More than any of them had seen at once.
The dorm building—their building—was swallowed. Surrounded completely.
Astrid's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my god…"
Marco just stared. "We were… we were there."
No one spoke after that.
They didn't need to.
They all saw it—the version of themselves that stayed behind. Trapped. Gone.
Chase broke the silence, voice dry, a little shaky but still trying. "Yeah… nah. We'd have been absolutely cooked, mate. Properly finished. Like—no sequel, no credits, just done."
A weak breath of something almost like laughter passed through them.
Dimitri looked at Corvin then, expression quiet but sincere. "Your plan… it saved us."
Corvin didn't answer right away. His eyes were still fixed on the distant swarm.
"…We just got lucky," he said finally.
But no one fully believed that.
They turned.
And kept moving toward the third building.
----
They didn't argue this time.
The bridge became their checkpoint again—bags stacked, barricades half-built, the quiet understanding that speed mattered more than comfort.
No one liked leaving their supplies behind, but hesitation had been burned out of them somewhere between the first eight and the fifteen.
Aisha rolled her shoulders, exhaling slowly. "Ten minutes."
No one objected.
They sat where they could—against the cold railing, against each other, anywhere that felt even slightly stable. Water bottles passed from hand to hand. Dry snacks crunched too loudly in the silence.
Corvin stared at his hands while he ate. There were faint stains in the creases of his skin, no matter how much he wiped them earlier. He flexed his fingers, like he didn't fully trust them to respond.
"You good?" Chase asked quietly, sitting beside him.
Corvin gave a small nod. "Yeah. Just… don't feel like mine."
"Yeah," Chase muttered. "Same."
Across from them, Astrid drank slowly, forcing herself to breathe evenly. Priya stayed close, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder like an anchor.
Dimitri flipped through his notebook again, scanning the list he'd made, but his eyes weren't really reading anymore.
Mei Lin stood. "Time."
They taped themselves in silence.
Duct tape wrapped tight around wrists, over sleeves, around ankles, even across fingers for grip. It wasn't elegant. It wasn't perfect.
But it was something.
Aisha tightened the last strip around her palm and flexed. "If they grab, they slip."
"Or we don't let them grab," Corvin replied, though his voice lacked conviction.
Mei Lin glanced at the door to the third building. "Stay sharp. This one will be worse."
Dimitri stepped forward beside her. Not behind but beside like he meant it this time.
The door opened.
And the smell hit first. Rot. Thick and heavy, like the air itself had gone bad.
Then movement.
The hallway stretched long ahead—wide on one side, narrowing toward the far end like a funnel turned backward.
And it was full.
Bodies packed unevenly, some slumped against walls, others standing in slow, broken sways.
Thirty, Maybe more.
One turned. Then another. Then all of them.
The sound came next.
Low. Layered. Hungry.
No one spoke.
Aisha stepped forward.
"So we do it," she said.
Corvin swallowed, tightening his grip. "…We do it."
Mei Lin's voice cut in, sharp and precise. "Formation. Funnel them to the narrow side. Rotate every thirty seconds or on call."
Dimitri nodded, jaw set. "I'll switch with you."
Behind them, Marco forced a breath in. "Rear guard, yeah? We keep anything off your backs."
"Protect Astrid," Mei Lin added.
Astrid shook her head immediately. "No—I can help, I can—"
"No," Aisha said, firm.
"You stay behind," Corvin added, not even looking back. "That's not up for debate."
Priya squeezed Astrid's arm gently. "Stay with us."
Astrid didn't argue again.
But she didn't look okay.
They moved. Fast. The first contact was explosive.
Aisha slammed into the front line, driving the nearest zombie back into the others, disrupting their balance. Corvin followed, striking hard, forcing space.
"NOW!" Mei Lin called.
They shifted left—toward the narrow side.
The hallway did the rest.
Zombies crowded, tripping over each other, forced into a tighter stream where only a few could reach them at once.
"Hold!" Aisha barked.
Corvin swung. Again and again. Each impact jolted through him, but he didn't stop. He couldn't stop. If he stopped, they got closer.
Too close.
"Switch!" Mei Lin called.
Corvin pulled back, nearly stumbling as Dimitri stepped forward beside Aisha.
Dimitri's first strike was messy. His second wasn't. By the third, there was rhythm—rough, imperfect, but real.
"I've got it," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
Behind them, Marco flinched at every sound.
"God—just—keep them there, keep them there," he muttered, gripping his weapon too tightly.
Chase kept glancing over his shoulder, scanning for anything slipping through. "Nothing behind. We're clear. We're clear—just don't let them break through—"
Priya stayed close to Astrid, who had gone pale.
Astrid's eyes were locked on the fight, wide, unblinking. Her breathing came in shallow bursts.
"They're still people," she whispered. "They're still—"
"They're not," Priya said softly, though her voice shook. "Not anymore."
Astrid didn't respond.
"Switch!" Aisha called.
She and Dimitri pulled back.
Corvin and Mei Lin stepped in.
The rhythm continued.
Forward, strike, hold, fall back, switch.
Rinse and repeat the process.
Time blurred.
Seconds stretched.
Every movement cost something.
Corvin's arms burned, each swing heavier than the last.
Aisha's breathing grew sharper.
Dimitri's hands trembled between rotations, but he kept stepping forward anyway.
Mei Lin stayed precise. Even as fatigue crept in, her movements didn't waste energy.
"Keep the line!" she snapped.
One broke through.
Just one.
It lunged past the front—
"LEFT!" Chase shouted.
Marco reacted on instinct, slamming into it with a panicked strike that barely worked but worked enough.
He stumbled back, staring at it as it fell. "I—I got it—I—"
"You're fine!" Chase said quickly. "You're fine, mate, just—stay with me!"
Marco nodded rapidly, though his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
The hallway thinned.
Thirty became twenty.
Twenty became ten.
But the last ones were the worst.
Closer.
Faster.
Desperate.
Aisha roared as she pushed forward one last time, driving through the final cluster. Corvin followed, striking with everything he had left.
Dimitri stepped in beside them.
Mei Lin covered the angle.
Four at the front.
No rotation.
Just finish it.
And then—
It was over.
No one moved.
The silence felt heavier than the fight.
Bodies lined the hallway, uneven and still.
Corvin dropped his weapon. Not dramatically. Just… let it fall.
Aisha bent forward, hands on her knees, breathing hard.
Dimitri stared ahead, chest rising and falling, eyes distant.
Mei Lin closed her eyes for a brief second.
Behind them, Marco slid down the wall, laughing once—a short, broken sound that didn't mean anything.
Chase sat beside him, quieter now.
Priya kept a steady hand on Astrid, who looked like she might collapse at any second.
"…We did it," Dimitri said finally.
No one celebrated.
They moved again.
Slowly.
The staff kitchen yielded food—sealed, untouched.
The science lab offered tools, chemicals, things Dimitri quietly added to his growing list.
They took what they could. Not everything. Just what was needed.
When they stepped back onto the bridge, their supplies were still there.
Untouched.
It felt unreal.
They gathered everything, heavier now, but steadier too.
The fourth building stood ahead.
Corvin reached the door first and pushed.
It didn't move.
He frowned, pushing harder. Nothing.
"Stuck?" Aisha asked.
"…No," Corvin said slowly. "Something's blocking it. From the inside."
They all went still.
Mei Lin stepped forward, knocking firmly. "Hello? Anyone inside?"
No response.
Chase tried next, louder. "Hey! We're not infected! We just need to get in!"
Silence.
Then—
A faint sound.
Movement.
On the other side.
Marco stepped closer. "Please—just talk to us, yeah? We're not here to hurt anyone."
Seconds dragged.
Then a voice.
Muffled.
Unclear.
But real.
The group exchanged looks—hope, fear, tension all tangled together.
Corvin knocked again. "We're survivors. That's all."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
Then—
A shift.
Something heavy scraping against the floor.
Locks clicking.
The door creaked.
And slowly—
It opened.