The scream echoed again, closer this time — a raw, wet sound that didn’t belong to anything human.

  Kira tensed, her instincts screaming at her to run.

  Draven’s jaw tightened as he shoved the last of the scavenged supplies into his battered pack.

  “Move,” he said — no argument, no plan, just pure survival.

  Kira didn’t need telling twice. She sprinted after him, boots pounding over cracked tiles, heart hammering in her ears. The hallway blurred into shifting shadows and flickering lights, and somewhere behind them, something massive was crashing through the ruins, metal shrieking under its weight.

  Whatever it was, it was fast.

  They ducked down a side passage just as a bulk of living nightmare burst into view at the far end of the hall — a twisted shape, slick and wrong, like a man who had been melted and rebuilt by something that didn’t understand human anatomy.

  It smelled of rot and rage.

  Kira barely caught a glimpse: long limbs, glistening flesh, a mouth that didn’t seem to stop at the edges of its face. Then Draven yanked her through a half-collapsed door, dragging her into deeper darkness.

  “What the hell is that?” she hissed as they crouched behind an overturned vending machine.

  “Zoneborn,” he muttered. “Mutation from the Cataclysm fallout. Smart enough to hunt. Hungry enough to never stop.”

  “Perfect,” Kira said, her voice shaking with adrenaline.

  They waited, barely breathing, as the Zoneborn prowled the hallway, sniffing the air. The thing’s breathing was ragged, wet. It dragged something behind it — a corpse maybe, or the shattered remains of another scavenger who hadn’t been fast enough.

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  Kira’s hand ached to tighten around her knife, but she forced herself still.

  Fighting that thing head-on would be suicide.

  Draven tapped her wrist twice — a signal — then pointed upward.

  Above them, a twisted service ladder climbed to a broken catwalk. It led toward a shattered skylight, and maybe, just maybe, a way out.

  Kira nodded once.

  Silence. Speed. No mistakes.

  They moved.

  Slow at first, then faster, racing up the ladder with quiet desperation. Kira’s muscles burned, her injured shoulder screaming protest, but she didn’t dare stop.

  Below, the Zoneborn stiffened — it had heard something.

  With a low, guttural roar, it lunged at the ladder just as Kira and Draven reached the catwalk. Its clawed fingers scraped the bottom rungs, shaking the whole frame with terrifying strength.

  Draven didn’t hesitate.

  He pulled a grenade from his belt — an old, dented relic of a war nobody remembered — yanked the pin, and hurled it down.

  “Gift from the past,” he muttered.

  The blast ripped through the hallway with bone-rattling force. Shrapnel screamed through the air.

  Kira shielded her face as dust and blood rained up toward the skylight.

  When the world stopped shaking, she peeked over the edge.

  The Zoneborn lay in pieces, its slick flesh torn and steaming. The stink of burnt meat filled the air.

  Draven wiped soot from his face and met her wide-eyed stare with a grim smile.

  “Rule number one,” he said. “Big things die harder.”

  Kira let out a shaky breath, half-laugh, half-sob.

  For the first time, she realized how close she had come to dying — how close she always was, living in this broken world.

  They didn’t speak again as they crossed the catwalk, pushed through the shattered skylight, and stumbled out into the choking daylight.

  The ruins stretched out before them, endless and cruel.

  Kira tightened the straps on her scavenger pack and glanced sideways at Draven.

  “Where now?” she asked.

  He checked the battered map tucked into his jacket — a mess of zones, deadlands, and forbidden territories.

  “Zone P,” he said simply.

  Kira’s stomach twisted. She’d heard whispers of Zone P.

  No-man’s land.

  A place even scavengers feared to tread.

  A place where the old world’s last sins were still festering.

  And now… they were heading straight into its heart.

  Kira swallowed hard.

  Trust was still a weapon. But maybe, just maybe, Draven was a weapon she could wield — for now.

  They set off into the wasteland.

  The ash swallowed their footprints behind them.

  The world of the Zones doesn’t care if you’re strong, smart, or desperate.

  It only cares if you’re fast enough to survive the things that should never have existed.

  Kira and Draven just faced their first real nightmare together — but the worst parts of this wasteland aren’t the monsters that crawl through it.

  It’s the things still left alive inside them.

  The secrets. The betrayals. The choices they’ll have to make.

  The deeper they go into Zone P, the more they’ll realize:

  survival is easy.

  Trust is the real battle.

  See you in the next chapter, if you dare.