2025-07-05 03:51:11Jonah stood alone in the hallway, his chest rising and falling with each anxious breath. The flickering lights above made the silence even more terrifying.
Every creak, every faint gust of air made his skin crawl. The monsters could be anywhere. And he didn’t plan on waiting around to find out where.
“Why did Clara run off like that?” he muttered under his breath. “I know she’s scared. We all are. But splitting up? That’s a death sentence in a place like this.”
The tension in the air was thick, like a storm about to break. Jonah tightened his grip on the rusty axe in his hand. If he made one mistake, just one noise too loud, one step too fast, those creatures would be on him in seconds.
He bolted for the second fire escape.
The first one had been a nightmare, zombies crawling all over it like ants on sugar. But maybe this one… just maybe…
Jonah moved fast, nearly tripping as he rounded the corner. His heart pounded like a drum inside his chest. This was it. If this fire escape was blocked too, he didn’t know what he’d do.
The stairs were narrow and dusty. Part of the building was still under renovation. Exposed pipes jutted out from the walls, wires hung like vines, and broken planks littered the ground. It was a mess, but all Jonah could think about was getting out.
“I’m not dying here,” he whispered.
He darted through the sixth floor, breath shallow, listening for anything that might give away the monsters' presence.
Then he froze. The fifth floor.
It was supposed to be his chance to escape. But the hallway was a nightmare. Zombies crowded the corridor, hunched over a man whose screams had already gone silent.
Jonah stepped back slowly. The creatures didn’t notice him.
Wait… why not?
Then he remembered. The zombies hunted by sound. They didn’t see, they heard.
His thoughts drifted to home. Warm meals. His mom’s laughter. His father’s silent strength. His little sister’s playful voice. He hadn’t seen them in months. He had taken this job to help them, to give them a better life.
And now? He might not even live to say goodbye.
He shook the thoughts away and crept forward. Each step was torture. The groans of the creatures, the wet tearing of flesh, it all echoed around him.
Then he saw it. The fire escape door.
But three zombies were blocking it, gnawing on a half-eaten corpse. No way through.
Unless…Jonah took the axe and tapped it lightly on the railing.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
It wasn’t loud. But it was enough.
The zombies stopped eating. Their heads slowly turned toward the sound. A second later, they began to shuffle away from the door, hunting the echo like predators chasing prey.
It worked.
Jonah ran down the stairs, leading them away. But the lower floors were worse. Wires scattered everywhere, some sparking with electricity. Construction materials blocked parts of the hallway. He dodged around them, hoping to stay one step ahead.
He stopped to listen. Nothing.
He looked back. “That’s strange,” he whispered. “They didn’t follow me…”
But he didn’t have time to think. He reached the next door and pushed it open and froze.
More zombies.
Five of them.
They turned at once. Their heads jerked in his direction. Sniffing. Snarling.
Jonah tried to shut the door, but they were faster. Bony hands shoved through the opening. Groaning, growling, snapping jaws. The weight of them pressed against him as he struggled to keep the door shut.
“Damn it!” he yelled. “I’m not going to die like this!”
But he couldn’t hold it forever.
He let go and sprinted down the hallway, his boots slamming on the tiled floor. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. The sound of snarling behind him was enough.
He turned the corner, lungs burning, heart thundering.
Then he heard voices. Real human voices.
“Did you hear that?” someone whispered. “Someone’s out there…”
“He won’t last long,” another replied.
Jonah rushed to the door they were hiding behind.
“Hey! Are you guys from the company upstairs?” he shouted, desperation in his voice. “Please! I need help!”
A pause. Then a reply. “Who are you? Why are you talking to us?”
“My name is Jonah Summers! I work on the seventh floor. Please, let me stay with you.”
Silence.
Then the voice came back, hard and cold. “No way. I don’t know if you’re one of them. You could be tricking us.”
Jonah felt like the ground dropped beneath his feet. “I’m human! I have an axe, I’ve been running all day just to survive!”
“Don’t care,” the voice said. “You’ll lead them right to us. Go away before you get us killed.”
Jonah stood there, stunned.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.
In movies, people helped each other. But here? Everyone was too scared to care. Humanity was tearing itself apart, not because of monsters, but because of fear.
He turned away from the door. “I hope you all make it,” he whispered bitterly.
Then he ran again.
He found another room. The door was half open, and he slipped inside, not even checking to see if it was safe.
That was a mistake.
The room was a mess. Tools scattered across the floor. Live wires sparkled with blue electricity. Jonah stepped forward, and something clicked beneath his boot.
BZZZZZT!
A shock ripped through his body.
He screamed.
His muscles seized. The axe dropped from his hands. He fell to the floor, twitching, gasping. His vision blurred. Darkness crept in at the corners.
And then… he heard it. A voice. Cold. Robotic. Clear as day.
“SYSTEM HOST FOUND.”
“INITIATING SYSTEM ACTIVATION.”
Jonah’s eyes flew open. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak.
But something inside him was waking up.
Something powerful. Something… not human.
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Chapter 192. Lisa’s Capture
Lisa felt the world tilt the moment the red mist touched her skin. It slid over her like smoke, cold and crawling, and the forest around her twisted into blurry streaks. She tried to reach for her lantern, but her fingers felt numb. The blue flame flickered inside the glass, fighting to stay alive against the spreading red haze.“Stay steady,” she whispered to herself. Her voice sounded thin. The mist swallowed the words. Behind her, boots thudded against broken leaves. Inhuman steps followed soon after, soft and rhythmic, like metal dragging across soil. Lisa ran, even though her legs trembled. Branches whipped her arms. The ground cracked under her boots. She pushed her body harder, faster, refusing to look back.But they followed her without hurry. A calm, steady march. Almost gentle.She burst through a line of dead trees into a clearing. The red tower loomed ahead, rising like a spine of metal and bone. It pulsed with a slow heartbeat that echoed through the ground. Each puls
Chapter 191. The Memory War
Jonah felt the world trembling long before anyone else noticed. It started as a faint shiver under his skin, like a cold hand brushing along his spine. Then the air changed. The hum of the Breath-Born lost its softness. It turned heavy, slow, and full of things that should not be remembered.He stood on one of the city’s high bridges, looking toward the east where the red horizon pulsed like a quiet heartbeat. The sky there moved in a strange rhythm, rising and falling with sound that was not sound. It made him feel sick, but he did not step away.Behind him, three Breath-Born hovered, their pale shapes flickering with worry. They whispered to one another in thin glowing streams, but Jonah understood them without needing translation.“The red song grows.”“The humans sleep standing.”“The memories play.”Jonah closed his eyes. He felt the weight of it all pressing on him like a storm. He whispered, “It is not a song. It is a trap.”The Breath-Born dimmed at his words, as if the trut
Chapter 190. The Red Choir
New Crest usually breathed with soft blue glows from the towers and gentle hums from the Breath-Born. But tonight the sky felt heavy. The air tasted thick, almost metallic. People sensed something wrong long before any sound reached them.Jonah stood on the roof of the north watch post, looking toward the eastern horizon where the red tower pulsed in slow, dark waves. The pulse was different tonight. It was slower and deeper, like a heartbeat struggling to wake.Lisa was still missing. The Breath-Born were restless. The city was breaking into fear again.Jonah whispered, “What are you planning, Echo Core?”He waited for the towers to answer, but the Breath-Born were silent. They trembled beneath his feet like frightened children. Then the first note came.A single low tone rolled across the plains, carried by the wind. It was not loud, but Jonah felt it inside his bones. The sound was deep and cold, almost like distant thunder, but smoother and too perfect to be natural.The note s
Chapter 189. Kevin’s Discovery
Kevin woke before the sun rose. The sky was still dark and blue, and the air felt colder than usual. He sat up on his small sleeping mat and listened. The city was quiet, but not the normal kind of quiet. It was the heavy kind, the kind that made the world feel like it was holding its breath.The faint hum of the towers drifted through the walls. It was soft, almost gentle, but Kevin felt the second tone beneath it, a hidden echo that did not belong to the Breath-Born. It pulsed slow and hungry, like a heart waiting for something to break.Kevin rubbed his hands together and looked toward the sphere resting on the table across the room. It was silent now. Echo was gone. It had faded into dust days ago, leaving only a faint ring of blue powder behind. Kevin had swept it into a jar. He kept it close even though it hurt to look at it.He whispered to the empty room, “I remembered you. I keep remembering.”The wind outside whispered back, brushing against the window.Kevin stood slowly
Chapter 188. Jonah’s Burden
The morning light in New Crest felt thin, almost fragile, as if the sky itself was trying to recover from a long scream. The city’s towers shimmered with soft blue veins, calmer than they had been in weeks, yet every pulse felt strained. Every beat felt heavy.Jonah stood at the center of the rebuilt plaza with his hands pressed against a quiet pillar of light. He let his eyes close. He listened. He always listened now.The breath of the towers flowed through him with every heartbeat. The Breath-Born whispered faintly inside the hum, speaking in soft tones only he could hear. Their voices sounded like wind through glass, gentle but desperate. “Prime Listener, hear us, guide us.”Jonah winced. He opened his eyes slowly. His vision flickered gold, then dimmed. His chest felt tight, hollow, tired. A faint shimmer of light crawled across his arms as if the glow under his skin struggled to stay alive. “Not now,” he whispered. “Please, not now.”A few workers nearby paused and watched
Chapter 187. The City’s Division
New Crest should have felt alive. The sky was blue again. The towers hummed softly in the distance. Children ran in the open streets without flinching at the sound of every little breeze. But beneath all of that peace was something deeper and colder, something that moved silently between people. Fear. Fear of the red tower. Fear of the Breath-Born. Fear of Jonah.It began with whispers, tiny fragments of conversations that drifted from homes and market tents and broken balconies.“He is not the same anymore.”“The blue light changed him.”“Maybe the red tower is the safer one.”“At least it speaks clearly.”Then the whispers grew teeth. By morning, half the city had chosen a side. Lisa felt the tension the moment she stepped into the central square. People stood in two groups divided by a long crack in the ground, as if the earth itself had split to show them how far apart they had grown. Some held blue lanterns carved from scraps of tower dust. Others clutched red ribbons tied ar
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