The William Booth Hospital building stood like a monument to death on a quiet corner of Diponegoro street. Its once pristine white facade was now partially scorched, its broken glass windows gaping like a skull's empty eye sockets. In the front yard, the overturned carcass of an ambulance, overgrown with wild plants, served as a marker that hope had long since abandoned this place. Satria, Cindy, and Tri crouched behind a concrete fence across the street, observing the pitch-black main entrance. "This place smells more strongly of death than the harbor," Tri whispered, his nose wrinkled. As someone used to street life, his instincts screamed to get away. "Hospitals are the worst places when a plague breaks out. Sick people gather, die, then rise and eat their doctors. It's a closed death trap." "We don't have a choice," Satria replied flatly. He tightened the laces on his boots, then checked the commando knife at his wai

Fire is the most ancient cleanser. When Rizal’s first Molotov cocktail struck the main gate of Porong Prison, the world seemed to hold its breath for a moment before exploding into a hissing chaos.CRASH!Glass bottles shattered, spewing a mixture of gasoline and used oil onto the white webbing that covered the five-meter-tall steel gate. Flames erupted with voracious greed. The webbing, made of organic silk protein, proved highly flammable. Its burning sound was not like the crackling of wood, but like thousands of human hairs scorching together, accompanied by a hissing shriek that seemed to emanate from the webbing itself."Fall back!" Satria commanded, raising his arm to shield his face from the searing heat.The fire climbed with terrifying speed, consuming the white curtain that veiled the entrance to their future stronghold. Behind the inferno, a commotion could be heard. The skittering of thousands of tiny feet, running in panic behind the c

"LIFT HIM! DON'T LET HIS HEAD HIT ANYTHING!" Cindy’s scream echoed down the dark corridor connecting the Gym to the Medical Block. Her voice was hoarse, filled with near-hysterical panic. Rizal and Bima, breathing heavily with muscles screaming in pain, hauled Satria’s rigid body. Rizal held Satria under the armpits from behind, while Bima lifted his legs. Satria’s body weight felt unnaturally heavy—far heavier than a normal human—as if the poison were turning his bones into solid lead. "You're so heavy, Boss... hang in there, Boss!" Bima babbled, cold sweat soaking a face grimy with ash from the burning webs. "Faster! Stop talking!" snapped Tri, who ran ahead to clear the path. Her machete, stained with green blood, was still gripped tight, hacking away remnants of webbing blocking the way. "Medical Block on the left! Double white doors!" Indri ran

Three days after the "miracle" of Luis's healing and the gate repairs, the first test of humanity came knocking at the steel fortress of Porong. The midday sun scorched the skin. Dust swirled along the access road leading to the prison, which was now eerily silent, devoid of spiders. Standing before the towering, sturdy main gate was a small family, trembling in fear. They looked pathetic. A gaunt man in a tattered shirt, a woman whose face was dull with road dust clutching a silent, motionless baby, and a little girl gripping her father's pant leg tight. "Please..." the man's voice was hoarse, nearly swallowed by the hot wind. He knocked on the iron gate with a weak fist. "Is anyone inside? We saw smoke... please help us..." Up on the gate's catwalk, Satria stood looking down. Beside him was Rizal, holding his rifle with practiced vigilance, and Tri, whose eyes never left the surrounding perimeter,

The hiss of electric welding and showers of orange sparks filled the makeshift workshop beside Porong Prison's generator room. The smell of hot metal and ozone mixed with the scent of sweat from workers busy reinforcing their new headquarters' defenses. Jaka, the newcomer claiming to be a welder from the nail factory, was working on fixing iron bars for the Block B windows. A welding mask covered his face, hiding eyes that weren't focused on his work, but were darting wildly, observing the surroundings. Beside him, Mr. Harun—the innocent and sincere old mechanic—was busy tightening bolts on the generator frame. "Amazing, isn't it, Sir," Jaka baited, his voice muffled by the welding mask. He turned off his torch for a moment, pretending to rest while opening a water bottle. "A generator this big needs a lot of diesel. How long can our stock really last?" Mr. Harun wiped grease from his fac