The clock read four-thirty in the morning.131Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiFfbu0xYmx
There was no need for an alarm. The silence that had settled over the shop was so heavy it woke Arya before her time. She opened her eyes into the pitch darkness and felt the cold air beginning to seep through the cracks.
In the opposite corner, a pale gray light was starting to crawl out from behind the shattered metal curtains—like a funeral glow that carried no warmth.
She lifted her head slightly, her eyes adjusting fast.
The survivors hadn't truly slept. Just exhausted bodies lying where they could, broken breaths, hushed whispers, and fingers clenched around crude weapons as if they were lifelines.
The fear hadn't vanished... it had only grown quieter.
In a nearby corner, a man named Kai sat hunched over a small battery-powered radio, pressing the power button with desperate futility.
Tap... tap...
No sound.
He frowned, opened it, changed the channels, then shook it violently and smacked it with the heel of his palm. He tried again.
"Come on... come on..." he muttered under his breath, as if pleading with a piece of metal.
He pressed again.
"Nothing," Kai whispered, his voice trembling. "It worked yesterday. There was that scrambled signal from the emergency station... Now... there's not even static."
A few steps away, a woman named Hanaa was holding a plastic flashlight. She pressed the button once, twice, three times.
No response.
The lens stayed dark as stone.
Someone said quickly, "Maybe the battery's dead?"
"My battery's new. I bought it just a week ago," she said, feeling a shiver run through her voice. "Why won't it work? Did everything else stop too?"
They exchanged lost glances in the dim light.
Then a trembling whisper came from a woman sitting near the wall, clutching her arms as if trying to anchor herself to reality.
"Day one... the electrical devices stopped."
"Day two... the water..."
She paused, swallowed hard, then whispered:
"...And now this? What comes after?"
No one answered her.
Fear began to seep in, not as a scream... but as something slower, deeper, pressing on the chest without being seen.
In the middle of this psychological collapse, Richard appeared.
He showed no confusion. He walked with steady steps into the circle, placing a hand on Kai's shoulder and brushing Hanaa's trembling hand with a calming touch.
"Fear is the real enemy now, not the loss of signals," Richard said, his voice warm, resonating through the abandoned shop like a carefully measured lullaby.
"Listen to me."
His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the silence with ease.
"What's happening... was expected."
A few heads lifted toward him.
"The world is changing. Yes... we're losing things we were used to."
He paused for a moment, as if choosing his words with care.
"But we haven't lost ourselves yet."
Breaths caught.
"We have a goal," he continued calmly. "The safe zone... it's made by the System, so it definitely has what we need to survive."
Then he added, his tone warmer: "If we make it there... we won't need these old things at all."
Hesitant looks began to shift... into something thin, fragile, close to hope.
"All we need right now... is to endure for a few days."
He smiled wider, scanning them like a leader who knew exactly what he was doing. "And we will reach it."
Slowly... the tension began to fracture—not vanishing, but retreating. The fear didn't leave... it just lost its voice. Richard's words began to work like a drug. He was selling them a future he didn't own, and they were buying it because the present was too terrifying to face.
In her corner, Arya watched in silence.
The world... is changing faster than they expected. She analyzed it with terrifying calm.
She understood instantly that the trucks and cars outside were now nothing but metal corpses. Fuel, batteries, operating systems—all part of history now.
Four days left, she thought, touching her metal bow. And after that... the whole world will change. Not just this.
She summoned the System interface with a flicker of thought. The transparent blue light was the only thing still working with precision in this collapse—and it confirmed her certainty: the System wasn't breaking the world. It was replacing it.
She didn't care about the ones trying to work the devices... or the ones who had started whispering in fear. None of that... changed anything.
She lifted her gaze slightly toward the door. The street was quiet.
Too quiet.
She filed that away in her mind... then moved past it.
...That won't change anything.
Whether the devices worked or not—their plan wouldn't change. The same route. The same danger.
Oh... She remembered something. Right. There might be one small change.
---
Richard stepped forward, his look sharper than before. The smile alone wasn't enough anymore.
"Gather," he said calmly, but this time the tone allowed no hesitation.
The survivors began to edge closer, some still clutching their belongings, others looking around as if waiting for something to change... anything.
But nothing changed.
Richard gestured toward the back door.
"Before we move... there's something you need to understand."
One of the men opened the door cautiously, and the cold gray light seeped inside.
In the back yard... the small truck sat exactly where it had been.
The thing that had represented their last lifeline to reach the safe zone.
Yesterday... the truck had been their final hope. After the electromagnetic wave had disabled the modern cars, this one had seemed like it had survived. It had run, even if with difficulty. But this morning... it was nothing but silent scrap.
Samer approached it with hesitant steps, placed his hand on the door, then tried to start it again.
The response was absolute silence.
He repeated the attempt, and this time he didn't even hear the usual grinding sound.
He frowned, clenched his fist, and struck the steering wheel in frustration.
"...It's not working."131Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo8b6u0TSFe
131Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd1OQGkRdjk
It wasn't surprising.
But hearing it spoken aloud... was different.
Samer returned slowly, without looking at anyone.
Silence held for a few seconds. Then Richard spoke, simply and coldly.
"We're walking."
A few heads snapped up fast.
"No fuel... no communications... no vehicles." He continued, his eyes passing over them one by one. "We're completely alone now. And the ground beneath our feet is our only means."
It wasn't a morale-boosting line this time. It was a clear, heavy truth.
The tension began to resurface, but this time in a different form.
Not just fear...
But hesitation.
One man stared at his oversized bag, stuffed with belongings. Clothes... utensils... things that no longer held any meaning.
"...I won't be able to carry this," he muttered under his breath.
Another opened his bag, looked inside for a moment... then began pulling things out one by one.
They fell to the ground, worthless.
A pause... then more.
One after another...
They began to leave behind what they had once thought was important.
It wasn't just about shedding weight... it was about shedding their former lives.
A frantic motion swept through the room.
Arya watched the survivors empty their bags with bitterness; one threw away a photo album, a woman abandoned silver kitchen tools she had carried as a keepsake, another discarded heavy books.
They had to choose between memories and survival.
The more they carried... the slower they'd move. And the slower they moved... the sooner they'd die.
---
Samer hesitated for a moment before closing his bag.
He stayed where he was.
He stared at a small photograph between his fingers.
A man in soiled work clothes stood beside a woman holding a piece of fabric and a sewing needle.
His parents.
Hussam noticed the photo as he passed.
"Your family?"
Samer nodded in silence.
"In the village."
He was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at the photo again.
"I wonder if they're still okay."
Hussam didn't comment.
Samer went on, running his finger along the worn edge of the photo.
"I used to send them most of my salary."
A faint smile crossed his face.
"Now I don't even know if they're alive."
He folded the photo carefully and placed it in his pocket instead of the bag. This time, he didn't throw it away.
He raised his head toward Hussam.
"Do you have anyone out there?"
Hussam shook his head.
"No."
The answer came faster than Samer expected.
He hesitated for a moment. Then he settled for a silent nod.
In the end... that kind of question didn't always need an answer.
---
The words reached Arya without her trying to listen.
Family. Someone waiting for his return. Someone wanting to know if he was still alive.
Things like that no longer meant much to her.
Or so she believed.
Her gaze moved without thought toward the photo Samer had tucked back into his pocket.
Then she remembered something.
Not a face ، Not a voice.
Just an old feeling. The feeling of a small hand clinging to a larger one, afraid it might disappear.
The thought vanished as quickly as it had come.
She turned her eyes away.131Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6baJkXJ6nn
...It doesn't matter.
She said it to herself.
But she didn't look at the photo again.
---
Richard raised his hand at last.
"Time's up."
The movement stopped.
"We move now."
A quick glance toward the front.
"Cam."
Cam moved instantly, without a word, and the strongest men followed him.
In silence. As if they had known their roles all along.
"The group in the middle is with me," Richard continued.
Then, a brief moment... a glance toward Arya.
"Arya... the rear is yours."
Arya didn't answer. She just gave a cold nod.
And as the group began to move like a slow serpent emerging from its den, Arya didn't follow the plan Richard had drawn with perfect precision.
Yes, she was at the back. But she wasn't entirely behind them. She moved with measured freedom, slipping between the angles of the shadows. She didn't push forward. She moved to the side—one step here, then another—at a calculated distance. Close enough to see everyone... and far enough... to move on her own.
Her shadow stretched quietly with the gray light. And the Shadow Cat... and the Shadow Wolf... were never far.
Her eyes swept the path ahead... then the rear... then Richard.
She wasn't looking at him as a leader.
She was looking at him as a target.
Then—her eyes stopped for a fraction of a second.
The alley was narrow... yes. Shaded... yes. The light didn't fully enter it, as if the daylight itself was avoiding it.
But—it was too clean.
No bloodstains. No corpses. Not even scratches on the walls.
Something... didn't match.
Her eyes narrowed slowly.
This wasn't a path that had been avoided... it was a path that had been chosen.
She raised her eyes toward Richard.
He was walking calmly... as if he knew exactly where he was going.
...Not because this route is safe.
The thought held still for a moment.
Then it completed itself.
...But because he needs it.
---
The moment the alley swallowed the caravan, everyone understood what Day Three meant.
The air here was trapped, carrying the stench of stagnant, rotting water and old rust. The high walls of the crumbling buildings seemed to draw closer the deeper they went, like a giant jaw slowly closing over their heads.
Tap... tap...
Drops of water fell from broken air conditioners onto the corroded metal roofs, producing dull, rhythmic sounds that, in this immense silence, sounded like the ticking of a countdown clock.
With every step, the tension mounted.
Arya noticed how Samer's shoulder twitched at every sound, and how Lisa clung to Richard's back like a frightened child.
They walked with heavy, unsteady steps, while Arya moved like a ghost. Her feet left almost no sound. Her eyes never left the rooftops.
The difference was staggering. The survivors moved with a muffled group panic—any sudden gust of wind made half of them stop with ragged, choking breaths.
Arya, in contrast, analyzed the angles with cold precision.
The caravan halted abruptly when a woman stumbled over a small stone, producing a metallic clink that echoed through the alley.
Everyone froze in place, their eyes wide, waiting for something to emerge from the darkness.
Nothing came.
Arya looked at the walls. They were truly clean. No blood, no bodies, not even signs of old fighting. In a city that had collapsed into chaos, this kind of cleanliness didn't mean safety—it meant no one had passed through here. Or it meant there was a reason the monsters kept away.
Her gaze shifted to Richard, who was in the middle. He was walking cautiously, his head turning slowly left and right, his eyes tracking the shadows ahead with intense focus.
He wasn't trembling like the others. But his features were tight; he was struggling to maintain his image as a leader in control before the group. The clenched grip of his hand on his weapon betrayed his real tension.
He didn't have a map to safety. He had a plan he hoped would work. And that was what made him dangerous—he was betting their lives on his own calculations.
"We've passed the tightest part," Richard whispered, his voice echoing through the alley to restore a false sense of calm to their hearts. "Keep going. The wall is close now."
Arya didn't respond.
Her eyes were no longer on the path... they were on the ground.
She stopped.
She bent slightly.
There... a mark.
Not from a human foot. Not from a small monster.
A long scratch... deep... stretching across the wall, higher than their heads.
As if... something enormous had passed through here.
Slowly.
She raised her head slowly toward the depths of the alley.
The darkness there... wasn't empty.
...It was waiting.
---131Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2tC5yEHYpl
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