The detention cell is barely six feet by six feet. A concrete box with a single barred window. I sit on the cold floor, back against the wall, mind racing. If they're really going to execute me for a crime I didn't commit, I'll have to escape. Take Sommy, Brixen, and Elsie and run. Again. Always running. What would Hugh have done differently? The thought comes unbidden. Hugh is the man who saved and guided me and Sommy to Bulwark's gates only to be shot and left for the infected. He would've found a way. He always did. How I wish I can see him one last time? Hopefully he survived that after that day. Should I instead go out and look for him? Where will I start? I could use my undead. Summon them as a distraction, fight my way out og here, but turn, they might make Sommy take up the punishment. Honestly, I don't know, but I'm not ready to find out. I guess waiting is the ideal plan. Let me see how the trial plays out to know my next move. The place is archaic in compariso

The air outside the shelter's gate is a freezing blade, cutting through my lungs with every ragged breath. I don't look back at the shelter, but I can feel the weight of a thousand terrified eyes on my spine. I have to lead her away. If she stays here, the blast radius of her shadow-tongues will turn the assembly hall into a butcher shop. The Shadow Herald doesn't walk; she ripples. She is a glitch in reality, a smudge of ink on a pristine photograph. Every time her feet touch the ground, the dirts blacken and crumble as if burnt for a hundred years in a second. “You run well,” her voice echoes, not in my ears, but directly in the center of my skull. It tastes like cold copper and tastes of nothing. “But the dead cannot outrun the shadow that creates them.” A lash of darkness whips out, faster than a bullet. I twist, my boots skidding on loose gravel. The shadow catches the edge of my jacket, and the heavy fabric evaporates. The heat of the friction scorches my ribs. I am out of

The sun beats down on the white polymer of the Globe, but inside the assembly hall, the air is cold and stagnant. Fred stands atop his podium of cement sacks, his voice booming through the speakers, but it’s the silence that follows his words that feels like a physical weight. "I'm afraid I have a grey announcement," Fred begins, his jaw set. "We are going back out, this time with all the able-bodied men." The silence snaps, then a roar of defiance erupts from the crowd, that instantly vibrates in my chest. I can smell the sudden, sharp tang of collective fear and adrenaline. "You're sending them to die!" a woman screams from the front row, her voice cracking. "We've lost enough!" a man bellows, shaking a fist. "I’d rather starve in this hole than watch my boy head to his death!" The tension is a live wire, ready to spark into a riot. Fred tries to speak, promising "handsome rewards" and extra rations, but his words are swallowed by the frenzy. It feels like the she

The tension in the atmosphere feels cold and thick. The silence that follows last exactly three seconds before panic erupt. "We’re going to die here!" someone shrieked, the sound echoing off the wet stone. "I should’ve listened to my mother," another man sobs, his voice wet with mucus. "I should've listened to my mother and faked a fever." another blurts out. I stand in the center of the chaos, my pulse a steady, cold rhythm against the frantic beating of everyone else’s hearts. I'm not ready for a direct fight with anything, let alone a tier three. "I need to find an exit fast." I mute. Fred is red-faced, his military posture crumbling as he tries to shout over the panic. "Quit panicking and let's keep moving forward!" All eyes turn to him. "To where?" someone spits, stepping out of the line. He looks at Hugh with eyes full of betrayal. "You told us this was a rescue mission. You led us into a slaughterhouse, Hugh!" Hugh didn't answer. Instead, his eyes dart fro

"We need to get out this place!" I roar, my voice cracking with desperation. "Leave it! It’s a trap! Get out now!" The man looks up, holding a tin of peaches in his both hands, a confused grin on his face. "Did you hit your head hard somewhere? Or you've forgotten that our only exit is completely sealed. Look at all this—" The ceiling doesn't fall. It opens. A massive, obsidian-black limb, tipped with a blade of chitinous bone, slams into the floor between me and the group. The shockwave throws me backward, my head hitting the stone with a sickening thud. Through the ringing in my ears, I see the "treasure" beginning to sink into the floor, the crates being pulled down into the fleshy membrane like they were never there. "Leave it! All of it! We have to go now!" I roar, the sound tearing through my throat. He doesn't even look up. He’s clutching a crate of medical supplies to his chest like a long-lost child. Around him, the other men are frantically stuffing their bags with