Chapter 4 – The Water Tank Was Never Safe
I sprinted through the half-torn colony gate, iron rod clenched so tight my knuckles ached. Bare feet slapped broken glass and warm blood. Priya's last words still burned in my ears. "We finish it tomorrow." Not a threat. A schedule. Like I was laundry she would fold when she had time.
My lungs burned. Not just from running. The dal I had only pretended to eat still sat heavy in my gut, a faint chemical fog at the edges of my vision. Legs felt a half-second slower than my brain wanted them to be. The poison had not gone quietly.
I ducked behind a parked tempo, chest heaving, and pressed my back to rusted metal. For one stupid second I almost laughed. I had made it out. The house was behind me. The fan was still creaking somewhere in that small room.
Then her voice drifted down from the open balcony two floors above. Calm. Clinical. Like she was giving directions to the milkman.
"He'll head for the water tank first. He always does when he panics. Check there."
My stomach dropped like I had stepped off the balcony again. She wasn't guessing. She wasn't psychic. She simply knew me. Every habit. Every fear. Every place I ran when things got bad. She watched me die.
The thought hit harder than the rod in my hand.
No time. I pushed off the tempo and changed direction instantly—away from the water tank, away from every predictable path. Hunters looked where the prey ran. Not where it hid. I would not be prey tonight.
The colony road stretched left toward the main gate and the flickering streetlights. Too open. Vikram's scooter would eat that distance in seconds. Instead I veered right, toward the low boundary wall that separated our block from the next. The wall was only shoulder height but my legs were already heavy. I jumped, caught the top with one hand, and hauled myself over.
Pain flared across my knee as rough concrete scraped skin raw. Blood welled hot and immediate. The iron rod slipped in my sweaty grip, clanged once against the wall, and I nearly lost it into the open drain on the other side. I snatched it back at the last second, heart slamming against my ribs. One mistake. One tiny sound. That was all it would take.
Behind me, fresh splintering wood cracked from my own building. Multiple wet snarls now. Rajesh was no longer alone. The infected were inside.
I landed hard on the other side and kept moving. No hero sprint. Just ugly, desperate strides. Three quick flashes burned into my eyes as I crossed the narrow lane between blocks.
A woman in a torn nightie dragged her screaming child toward a locked iron gate, banging on it with bloody fists.
An infected man on all fours had his face buried in old Mr. Gupta's stomach, the newspaper uncle's white vest now dark and glistening.
A teenage boy stood under a dying streetlight, biting his own hand like it was someone else's, black foam dripping between his fingers.
I didn't stop to process. I couldn't. The power in the entire colony flickered once, twice, then held. Barely.
My first instinct screamed to run straight for the main road, toward Kanke Road and whatever safe zone the system had mentioned. Open space. Distance. Escape. I took three steps that way before my brain caught up.
Hunters look where the prey runs.
I skidded to a stop, bare feet sliding on gravel. Wrong. Too obvious. Vikram would already be circling that way on his scooter. Priya would have told him exactly which direction I favored when I was terrified. I spun instead and doubled back toward the apartment block directly opposite my own—the one everyone avoided because the staircase had collapsed last monsoon and the ground floor smelled of kerosene and rot.
The entrance was dark. Perfect.
I slipped inside the broken gate and moved along the shadowed corridor. The ground-floor utility room door hung half-open, rusted lock long gone. Old gas cylinders, broken bicycles, and piles of forgotten furniture filled the cramped space. I eased the door almost shut behind me, leaving a finger-width gap for air, and crouched behind a stack of cylinders in the far corner.
Darkness swallowed me. The smell of kerosene and mildew and something sweeter underneath—old blood maybe—clogged my throat. My scraped knee throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I gripped the rod with both hands and tried to breathe through my mouth.
Footsteps.
Not close. Not yet. Somewhere on the staircase above, heavy and deliberate. Vikram's boots. I recognized the rhythm from a hundred evenings when he had come over for "discussions" with Priya while I pretended to sleep.
Then a different sound. Dragging. Wet. Right outside the utility room.
I froze.
Something sniffed loudly at the grille near the bottom of the door. Black foam dripped through the gaps, inches from my bare toes. The infected was on its knees, face pressed to the metal, inhaling like it could taste fear. Its fingers—nails split and black—curled around the grille and pulled. The rusted edge bit into my finger as I pressed it against the door to keep it from opening wider. A thin cut opened. Blood welled. I bit my tongue hard to stop the cough the poison wanted to rip out of me. Copper flooded my mouth.
She watched me die.
The memory flashed again. Her cold eyes. Vikram's low voice on the phone. My legs kicking uselessly on the floor. I stayed perfectly still even as my body screamed to run.
The infected outside growled once, low and frustrated, then dragged itself away down the corridor. The dragging sound faded.
I let out the smallest breath.
My phone in my pocket buzzed once—network dying for good—then went black. At the same time a wave of dizziness rolled through me. The system flickered behind my eyes like bad signal.
[Secondary Quest Triggered: …]
[Hidden Condit—]
It cut out mid-word. Frustrating. Useless. Exactly what I needed right now.
I risked a tiny shift to ease the pressure on my bleeding finger. The utility room felt smaller with every second. Outside, the colony had grown louder. Distant screams layered over each other. A car alarm wailed without stopping. Somewhere closer, glass shattered and a woman started laughing in that same broken, high-pitched way Uncle Rajesh had laughed before he stopped being human.
Priya's voice drifted again, faint but clear through the thin walls. She must have stepped onto the balcony to talk.
"Terrace and water tank first," she said, calm as ever. "If he's smart he'll hide close. He always hated open spaces at night."
Vikram's reply came from somewhere inside the building now, gruff and close enough that I could almost feel the vibration of his boots on the stairs. "I'm checking the block opposite. Stay inside until I clear it."
No anger. No rush. Just retrieval.
The power in the entire colony died for good.
Everything went black except for the faint orange glow of a fire starting two buildings away. I risked a peek through the grille.
Abandoned phones glowed on the ground, screens casting small islands of light across torn throats and spilled intestines. A scooter lay on its side near the tea stall, wheel spinning uselessly. Flames licked the grocery shop shutter. Sirens wailed far away, too far, already giving up.
There was no safe zone 1.8 km north anymore. The system had lied or the world had changed faster than the system could update. Either way, the numbers no longer mattered.
I pulled back from the grille.
The infected that had sniffed at the door earlier had returned. Its head turned toward the utility room with a slow, jerky motion. Milky eyes caught the firelight for one frozen second. It knew I was here.
It took one lurching step forward.
*If I swing, it has to count.*
I tightened my grip on the iron rod, blood from my cut finger making the metal slick.
The fan in that small room was still creaking somewhere behind me.
I wasn't going back.
But the water tank had never been safe.
Nowhere ever was.