Chapter 15 (Joshua’s POV)

  I struggled to breathe, lungs flaring with each ragged inhale. My heart still pounded so fiercely that every pulse resonated in my ears like a drumbeat. My arms shook from the tension of gripping the war hammer, and my legs wobbled under the weight of the pack. The acrid stench of gore made it impossible to fully catch my breath. Easy, Joshua—settle down. But the aftershocks of adrenaline refused to ease.

  A swirl of wind carried a fresh wave of the rotting smell, teasing bile to the back of my throat again. I forced myself to exhale through clenched teeth. I’d done it—somehow, I’d put down four undead creatures that would’ve happily ripped me apart. My chest felt ready to burst, heartbeat still climbing a rung or two higher than normal. At least I’m alive…

  That thought flashed a sudden, new terror through my mind: Could I be infected? Anxiety prickled under my skin. In old movies, a single bite or scratch from an undead host spelled doom, the victim inevitably turning. Even in Anna’s half-mentions, she’d told me to be wary of roamer saliva, of letting them get close enough to sink their teeth in. But she never fully explained the virus’s rules—maybe because she wasn’t certain herself.

  Clutching the war hammer’s handle, I cautiously patted my torso, arms, shoulders, scanning for tears in my clothes or fresh wounds. My jacket had a couple of scrapes from the roamer’s nails, but I didn’t see deep punctures. On my forearm, however, a faint streak of blackish gore marred the fabric. My pulse lurched at the sight. My breath came in frantic gasps, vision briefly swimming with dread.

  Calm… calm. I had to see if that was just splatter or something more sinister. With trembling hands, I pulled at the sleeve, wincing as the cloth stuck momentarily where dried fluid had begun to cake. Underneath, my skin was intact. No broken flesh, no stinging or raw cut. Just a sticky smear of roamer blood. My body sagged in relief, but the fear refused to quiet. What if the virus is airborne from dried gore? Or what if a microscopic scratch is enough?

  I remembered Anna’s casual mention of how some souls were immune, how the survivors got there through some experimental vaccine. But that had all been second-hand knowledge from her. Did that mean any random person—like me—could still turn if a roamer’s fluid reached an open wound? My lungs grew tight. I can’t think about that now.

  My breathing hissed through parted lips, each exhalation clouded by the city’s rancid air. If the virus were so easily transmissible, Anna wouldn’t have survived, right? She told me she’d encountered roamers a hundred times, spilled their blood. She never turned. Maybe we were both immune. Or maybe we were living on borrowed time.

  Another ragged breath parted my lips, the dryness in my throat making it come out as a wheeze. My heart refused to settle. With the feral’s remains behind me—and the four rotting corpses I’d just dispatched—I was drowning in the reality of this realm: anything could kill me. If the hordes or factions didn’t, maybe some invisible microbe would.

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  Crouching against the ragged, busted shell of a once-glass storefront, I leaned the war hammer carefully to my side, rummaging for a rag in the outer pocket of my pack. My hands shook as I dabbed at the gore on my sleeve, forcibly ignoring the thick, rancid lumps that flaked off. I swallowed, the tang of old blood thick on the wind. Don’t let this break you.

  “Okay,” I muttered to myself. “You’re not bitten, not scratched… just soaked in filth. You’ll be fine.” Maybe I was reciting a mantra, trying to hush the roaring panic that told me I was doomed. But I had no better comfort. All I could do was keep forging ahead, find Anna—hope she’d confirm I wasn’t about to turn into one of those horrors.

  My heart still battered my ribs, but I rose on shaky legs, re-strapping the hammer. The world felt eerily calm again, the hush even more oppressive after the brief fight’s chaos. The wind rattled a loosened sign overhead, scraps of metal clang-ing into each other with each gust. A horde of flies circled the fallen roamers in the distance, their droning hum cutting through the dead air.

  I took one last look at them, lifeless lumps in varying states of destruction—heads caved or jaws snapped. A flood of adrenaline-laced disgust twisted my gut. The smell of curdled gore hung in the corridor, saturating everything. The city had returned to silence, as if this was just another chapter in its endless brutal story.

  Time to move on. My breath stuttered, but I forced one foot in front of the other, continuing my slow trek northeast. The day’s dull, gray light seemed to darken a fraction as I advanced, the high-rises forming a canyon of twisted steel and broken glass. The gloom made every shape uncertain, every half-collapsed building a potential nest of horrors.

  Fatigue prickled at the edges of my nerves—my arms ached from swinging the hammer, my legs from the anxious crouching. But fear prodded me forward, fear that staying put would only let more roamers converge. My mind still buzzed with thoughts of infection. Could a single droplet in my mouth or eye do me in? Anna had never spelled it out. She’d just hammered the point: “Don’t get bitten.” I repeated that in my head like a mantra, scanning for fresh scabs or tears in my gloves.

  Yet, the city gave no answers, only battered streets and a choking hush. The smell of old fires layered under the usual stench of rot made me gag anew, each whiff like a physical blow. My breath came in ragged spurts, my chest tight. I kept glancing at my arms, half expecting to see greenish veins or black lesions forming. Stop it, Joshua. Possibly the virus needed direct contact with blood or something else. Or maybe we were both immune.

  A deep, hollow moan of wind crept through the corridor, stirring up a swirl of dust that clouded my view. In that swirling grit, the aftertaste of death clung to my tongue, forcing me to remember how each blow had spattered gore. As the dust parted, I placed my hand on the short sword’s hilt, feeling a faint spark of confidence from the cold metal. Anxiety wouldn’t keep me alive, but vigilance might.

  Clenching my teeth, I forced myself onward, each step accompanied by the echo of rummaging footsteps in my ears—maybe imaginary, maybe real. I was too strung out to be certain. The city’s battered frames rose on either side, looming like tombstones. Anna had survived here for years. So can I, I told myself, ignoring the throbbing in my arms and the dryness in my mouth.

  Yes, my breathing remained ragged, my heart hammered from that short but bloody fight, and terror still lurked at the edges of my mind about being infected. But none of it mattered if I folded now. Anna was out here, living or dead, and I couldn’t face my guilt if I didn’t at least try to find her.

  Another gust battered me with stinging debris, and I shook my head, forging deeper into the ravaged city, refusing to yield to the panic threatening to drown me