Chapter Text
The Bazaar loomed against the city skyline, its walls stitched together from scrap metal, plywood, and chain-link fencing. A sprawl of UV lamps buzzed overhead, casting sterile blue halos across the perimeter.
Rumi reached the outer gate just as the final edge of sun dipped beneath the ruins of the skyline. She was trying to put her, now shortened, purple hair into a ponytail. She had cut it after a run in with a zombie and a vent.
The guards were already starting to shut it down.
"Wait!" Mira called out, breathless, jogging the last few steps beside her. "She's with me. Let us in."
A pair of guys stood at the entry: one short and square-shouldered, the other tall with his sleeves rolled up past sun-scarred elbows. They glanced down from the watch deck.
“Show me your biomarkers.”
What is that? Rumi thought to herself.
“You see my face. You know I’ve been here before.” Mira gritted out, trying to push her way in. The door was being blocked by a third person, burly and short hair.
“Shouldn’t have a problem showing me then.”
Mira raised her arm, showing off her bracelet glowing green.
“Alright now the other one.”
“Come on, I’ll vouch for her.” Mira’s eyes glared at the guy blocking the door.
The guards exchanged a look.
“No biomarker, no entrance.”
The gate slammed shut.
Mira kicked the door. “Fuckers!”
A moment of silence followed.
Then the UV lights were shut off.
“Oh fuck.” Mira whispered, more to herself than to Rumi.
They both turned at once—back to the street, back to the dark.
The night was here.
And something was already moving towards them.
~
They ran.
Hard.
Fast.
Through tight alleys and rubble-choked intersections. Past husks of humans to the top of the roofs. Mira took the lead, calling out turns as they raced to a safe house.
A shriek tore through the air behind them.
Not a biter. Not a Howler.
Something worse.
The sound curled down Rumi’s spine like ice water.
She didn’t have to look back to know what it was.
A Volatile.
And it was close.
Mira cursed, pulled sharply into a narrow corridor between two collapsed apartment blocks, and vaulted over a fallen steel door. Rumi followed, breathing ragged, boots skidding on broken glass.
They emerged onto a low rooftop and then froze.
On the far side of the building, under a shattered skylight, stood the Volatile.
It hunched, twitching. Sniffing the air.
And it had already seen them.
Rumi’s mouth went dry. She would never get over seeing them. Its frame had exposed bone and muscle, with a mandible jaw.
Mira whispered, “We have to move. Now.”
The thing turned its head.
Then it screamed.
And it charged.
“Go!” Mira shouted, shoving Rumi toward a metal ladder. “Go now—don’t stop!”
But the Volatile was faster than either of them expected.
It was on the roof in seconds—clearing the gap with a single leap. Concrete cracked beneath its claws.
Mira swung her machete.
The blow landed.
But the thing barely flinched. It lunged, jaws wide.
Rumi didn’t think, she just moved.
She tackled Mira to the side, just as the Volatile’s claws carved through the air where her chest had been. The two of them hit the ground hard, Mira cursing, Rumi rolling to her feet between them and the creature.
“Move!” Rumi shouted. “Get to the ladder!”
Mira hesitated.
“Go!”
Then she ran.
The Volatile swiped at Rumi—fast and wild. She ducked. Countered. Swung the pipe two-handed into its ribs. It let out a roar and reeled back, just long enough for Rumi to pivot and sprint after Mira.
Mira scrambled down the ladder.
Rumi however didn’t have time for that, just as she got to the edge of the roof. She spotted it.
A beat up old van.
She jumped.
For a few weightless seconds, Rumi breathed.
Then she tucked and rolled, the van’s roof denting under her weight.
The Volatile landed on the ledge above, shrieking.
Its claws scraped the bricks.
They hit the ground and kept running.
The safe house was just ahead now. Mira fumbled for the lock on the metal door, fingers trembling.
“Three, nine, seven—shit—five—”
The Volatile was on the street now.
Too fast.
Too close.
“Got it!” Mira yanked the door open.
Rumi spun just as the creature lunged.
She turned the pipe in her hands, waited for the lunge, and then—sidestepped, slammed the pipe across its face, and kicked the thing straight into the stack of rusted shopping carts outside the store.
It shrieked.
But she was already inside.
Mira slammed the door shut.
Locked it.
UV lights flared to life from the ceiling—dim, battery-fed, but bright enough to bathe the entryway in safe blue glow.
Outside, the Volatile rammed the door once.
Twice.
Then it was gone.
The street fell silent.
Rumi slid down the wall, heart still racing.
Mira sat beside her, panting, arms braced on her knees.
For a while, they didn’t say anything.
Just breathed.
Listened to the hum of the old UV lights.
Then finally, Mira turned her head.
“…You saved me.”
Rumi didn’t look at her. “Yeah. I noticed.”
“You could’ve left me.”
“Should’ve.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Rumi shrugged. “You’re housing me for the night.”
~
The next day they made it to the hospital.
Saint Joseph Hospital was a cathedral of rot.
Its skeletal frame stretched high over the ruins of the Old Town, gutted by fire and time. Charred curtains fluttered from busted windows. UV lamps once strung along the entry had long since shattered — their glass fragments scattered like salt on the bloodstained pavement.
Rumi eyed the entrance from behind a half-buried ambulance, breathing slow through her scarf. "Looks abandoned."
“It is,” Mira said, crouched beside her. “But the lab inside still works. Parts of it. You want a biomarker? This is where we get one.”
Rumi didn’t reply. She just glanced at the sky — dim, darkening. The last band of orange was already bleeding out behind the rooftops. She adjusted her grip on the rusted pipe in her hand.
Mira tapped her forearm. “We go in, stick together, and get out. Quiet.”
“Copy that,” Rumi said, then under her breath: “Bossy.”
Mira smirked once, quick and dry, before leading the way.
~
The interior of the hospital was suffocatingly dark, broken only by their flashlights — a low, humming beam that made the spores glow. The walls were covered in graffiti, some of it warnings, some of it prayers.
Don’t Wake Them.
Stay Low.
UV or Die.
The first few corridors were quiet — eerily so. Shufflers moved in slow patterns beyond cracked windows and open rooms. The infected didn’t react to the light — not yet.
But the real danger came three floors up.
They hit the old surgical ward, where dozens of infected crouched motionless in the shadows — bent double like broken scarecrows. Their bodies twitched every few seconds. Not asleep. Not awake.
Waiting.
Rumi froze. Her hand gripped the edge of a broken gurney, her knuckles white.
“Mira…” she whispered.
“Yeah. I see them.”
They moved slowly now — slower than before. One step. Pause. One breath. Another.
A bottle shattered in a distant hallway.
Every crouched body twitched.
A long, sickening inhale echoed through the darkness.
But no one moved. No one rose.
Rumi’s breath stayed locked in her chest. She could feel her biomarker-less wrist aching with heat. She needed out of here.
Mira motioned toward a stairwell. “That’s the lab. Just ahead. Come on.”
They slid past a bent-over corpse in scrubs. Its eyes were open.
It didn’t blink.
~
The lab was trashed — overturned chairs, flickering monitors, empty IV bags swinging from cords. But there, in the center of the room, under a still-working UV lamp, was a storage case. Mira unlocked it with a small key she’d kept looped through her necklace.
Inside: three biomarkers. Dusty, but sealed.
She took one, brushed it off, and turned to Rumi. “Wrist.”
Rumi hesitated. Something about the moment made her stomach twist.
Mira looked up at her, calm but sharp. “You’ll turn without it. This keeps track of your infection. This buys you time. Trust me.”
Rumi slowly extended her arm.
The bracelet clicked into place — snug, cold.
“Sorry.”
White pain overtook her sight.
“Ah fuck!”
But then.
It pulsed once — yellow.
Still human.
Still time.
~
They didn’t get far.
The stairwell down to the ground floor was jammed with collapsed debris, so Mira led them toward the elevator shaft — the only vertical shortcut left.
“You first,” she whispered, hooking her rope to an old maintenance loop.
Rumi nodded and began her descent. The rope groaned. Rust flaked off the wall. Her boots scraped the metal rungs, careful, careful—
Then the wall gave way.
A panel snapped free.
The rope slipped.
Rumi dropped.
She hit a landing hard — ribs slamming into metal — then rolled over the edge and fell the last fifteen feet.
Her shoulder cracked against the floor.
Everything went black for a second.
~
When she opened her eyes, she was alone.
The light from above was dim, and the shaft was silent except for the hum of Mira’s panicked voice through the broken walkie on her shoulder.
“Rumi? Rumi, do you copy?”
Rumi coughed, wincing. “Still here.”
“Shit. You’re two floors down. I’m coming—just hang on.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
Rumi sat up, pushing through the pain. “Don’t come down. You won’t make it back up.”
Silence.
Mira’s next words were tighter. “Then haul ass. Now.”
Rumi got to her feet. Her pipe was gone. Her knees felt like shattered glass.
But the biomarker on her wrist blinked yellow and it was already fading toward orange.
That was all the motivation she needed.
She pushed through the hallway, moving fast, shouldering through a broken door—
And froze.
At the end of the corridor, standing in the weak shaft of moonlight leaking through a collapsed wall—
A Volatile.
Its head twitched toward her.
Rumi didn’t breathe.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t move.
The thing dropped to all fours.
And screamed.
~
She ran.
Blood pounding in her ears. Boots slapping against tile and bone and glass. The halls twisted, unlit and unmarked, the map in her head flickering with panic.
Behind her, claws raked against the walls.
A table flipped as the thing leapt.
She ducked into a stairwell, hit the first landing, and kept going.
The beast howled behind her — faster than it should be, louder than it had to be.
The last door was rusted half-shut.
She barreled through it shoulder-first.
Outside.
Concrete and smoke and the sky — just beginning to bloom with color.
The sun.
It was rising.
The Volatile burst from the stairwell, screaming.
But Rumi was already in the open, already sprinting.
Light crept over the rooftops.
The creature slowed — hissed — then reeled back.
Smoke curled from its flesh.
One more step, and it would’ve had her.
Instead, it retreated, vanishing into the darkness like a phantom swallowed by time.
Rumi collapsed onto the ground, gasping.
Above, Mira’s silhouette moved along a broken scaffold. “You alive down there?”
“…Barely.”
The Bazaar felt different from the rooftops.
Louder. Hotter. Closer.
Down here, under the rusted catwalks and patchwork tents, it was all motion — tools clanking, kids shouting, steam hissing from the mechanic’s rigged-up boilers. Smelled like grease, meat, and too many people breathing the same stale air.
Rumi stuck close behind Mira as they passed through the main corridor, but didn’t try to match her stride. Mira moved like someone used to being watched, used to being followed. Rumi moved like someone who wasn’t sure she’d be staying.
“You good?” Mira asked over her shoulder.
“Depends on your definition.”
Mira gave a dry smile and kept walking.
They turned past the communal kitchen — a few heads turned, but no one spoke — and climbed the metal stairs to the upper level. At the top, a rust-streaked door creaked open without a knock.
Inside was Sophie.
Leaning against the wall beside a map cluttered with pinholes and faded ink. Arms crossed. Her stare was more weight than weapon — quiet, sharp, and built to cut without ever drawing blood.
“You made a friend,” she said to Mira, eyes never leaving Rumi.
Mira’s answer was quiet but steady. “We ran into a Volatile. She saved my life.”
Sophie raised an eyebrow. “Was it mutual?”
“Barely.”
“Then that makes you even,” Sophie said, stepping forward. “So. Who are you?”
“Rumi,” she answered. “I’m just passing through.”
Sophie tilted her head. “People who say that usually don’t.”
Rumi shrugged. “Maybe I’m not people.”
Something flickered in Sophie’s eyes, it was hard to tell what. “And you’re looking for what, exactly? Food? Shelter? A flag to stand under?”
“None of those,” Rumi said. “But I could use work.”
Sophie glanced at Mira.
“She can handle herself,” Mira said simply.
“And what makes you think we need anyone new?”
Rumi was about to answer when the door behind them slammed open.
Broad shoulders, busted knuckles, the kind of energy that never entered a room quietly.
He walked in like he owned the floorboards. “You’ve got to be kidding. Another one?”
Sophie didn’t even flinch. “Barney, this is Mira’s guest.”
“She doesn’t look like much.”
Rumi didn’t move. Didn’t even blink. Just met his stare with the same exhausted indifference she gave to shrieking virals and swinging blades.
“She just survived Saint Joseph’s,” Mira said evenly.
Barney snorted. “Lucky her.”
“I don’t believe in luck,” Rumi said.
Barney took a step closer. “Then what do you believe in?”
Mira stepped in between them, voice cool. “She’s not here to fight, Barney.”
“Then what’s she here for?” he asked, eyes never leaving Rumi. “We already have too many mouths and not enough clean water. Don’t need another ghost with a pipe and something to prove.”
“She’s asking to work,” Sophie said.
Barney scoffed. “So let her fetch buckets, then. Keep her out of the real shit.”
“Enough,” Sophie snapped. It wasn’t loud, but it hit like a blade against stone.
Silence fell.
She looked at Rumi again. Not quite a test. Not quite mercy. “You still want in?”
“For now,” Rumi said.
“Then I’ve got a job for you. Real simple. You know the Rooftop, school? UV’s been flickering. I want you to check the wiring, replace the coils if they’re shot. After that I need you to set up a safe zone for runners.”
Rumi nodded. “When?”
“Now.”
Mira spoke up. “I’ll go with her.”
“No,” Sophie said quickly. “You’re with Barney on the wall. PK scout routes.”
Barney grinned, almost proud of being an inconvenience. “Can’t wait.”
Sophie ignored him. “Rumi goes alone. You want to prove yourself? Do it quiet. Do it clean. Come back whole.”
Rumi met her gaze. “Copy that.”
She turned and left without waiting for permission. Mira lingered a second, then followed her out into the stairwell.
~
“Sorry about Barney,” Mira said quietly, once the door shut behind them.
“Don’t be,” Rumi replied. “He’s not the worst thing I’ve run into this week.”
Mira leaned against the rail, arms folded. “You sure about doing this solo?”
“No,” Rumi said. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
Mira watched her for a moment. “You ever think about staying?”
Rumi paused. “Not really.”
“You should.”
They stood there in the warm hush of evening, the Bazaar humming quietly beneath them.
Then Rumi turned and walked off into the fading light — toward Sector 5, with a thought on her mind.
“Clean water hmm?”
~
The Goon stood motionless in the middle of the ruined intersection.
Its silhouette was etched in morning haze — a grotesque sculpture of bulk and blood, wrapped in shredded riot gear and bloated muscle. At its side, embedded into cracked asphalt, was its weapon: a massive hammer made from a bent steel beam welded into a slab of concrete, painted faintly with an old Peacekeeper insignia.
From the east watchtower, Sophie leaned forward, elbows braced against the rusted railing. The sun hadn’t fully risen, but already the Bazaar felt tight with unease. Silent. Still.
“I don’t like this,” Sophie muttered.
Mira stood next to her, arms crossed, jaw set hard. Her eyes hadn’t left the Goon once. “It hasn’t moved all night.”
“That thing has been pacing around our gate for three days.” Sophie’s fingers drummed against the metal. “We’ve sent out bait. Noise. Fire. Nothing. It’s waiting.”
Mira narrowed her eyes. “No. It’s watching.”
Below them, the street was empty. All traders had been told to stay back from the eastern wall. Even the guards had taken up higher posts, just in case. The wind pushed faint trails of dust across the square — sunlight bouncing weakly off broken windows.
Then, movement.
One figure, walking alone down the Bazaar’s main walkway.
Mira straightened immediately. “Wait—”
Sophie cursed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
It was Rumi.
No backup. No warning. No plan.
Just her — walking out of the front gate with a bat slung across her shoulders, head tilted like she was sizing up a stubborn chore.
Mira’s voice turned sharp. “Close the gate. Now.”
“She’s already past it,” Sophie hissed. “She’s not coming back.”
They both turned back toward the street.
The Goon was starting to move.
It was slow at first.
A tilt of the head. A grunt that carried through the street like a rusted engine coughing to life. Then the Goon wrapped its clawed fingers around the haft of the hammer and wrenched it from the ground with a guttural crack of torn stone.
It let the weapon rest on its shoulder.
Then it started forward.
Mira’s heart climbed into her throat. “She’s not ready for that. Not alone.”
Sophie’s fists clenched white around the railing. “She’s going to die.”
“She’s smarter than that.”
“She’s new.”
“She’s a pilgrim, she’s done things we haven’t.”
Mira’s voice was too calm. Too even. It was the tone of someone trying not to panic.
Down below, Rumi moved side to side, baiting distance. Light on her feet. Testing the rhythm.
The Goon answered with violence.
It swung.
The first blow was wide and deep — it hit an abandoned sedan and folded it in half like paper. The car alarm tried to scream but choked out after one desperate honk. Shrapnel showered the ground.
“She’s not fast enough,” Mira whispered. “Sophie—”
“Wait.”
The Goon swung again, this time low. Rumi dodged, just barely — the head of the hammer clipped her shoulder. She stumbled. Caught herself.
Mira flinched. “Shit. She’s hurt.”
Rumi backed up quickly, blinking away dust, blood seeping down her right arm.
The Goon didn’t stop.
It barreled forward, faster than it should’ve been able to — hammer dragging sparks against the pavement, ready to cleave the air in half.
Then Rumi moved.
Not away.
Forward.
“She’s closing distance—” Sophie started.
“Goddammit Rumi,” Mira said through clenched teeth. Why do I care so much?
The Goon swung one last time.
Rumi ducked beneath it — just barely. The hammer shattered the pavement behind her.
And then she rose — bat arcing up like a blur of motion and fury.
The hit landed just beneath the Goon’s jaw.
It reeled back, stunned.
The Goon snarled. Blood — thick, black, and tar-like — spilled from its cracked mouth.
Rumi was already moving again — fast and tight, dodging between its wide swings, landing quick hits to the knees, the neck, the exposed spine. Her bat cracked on each impact, wood flaking away.
One last swing — straight across the temple.
The Goon dropped.
Hammer first.
Then body.
The ground shook.
Silence.
Dust drifted slowly through the morning light. Sophie exhaled like she hadn’t been breathing for five whole minutes.
Mira said nothing.
Rumi stood still in the clearing, shoulders rising and falling fast. Blood smeared across her sleeve. Her left leg buckled slightly, but she didn’t fall.
She turned her head toward the Bazaar. Toward the watchtower.
Even from this height, Mira could see her smirk.
“Get the gate open,” Sophie said, already turning toward the ladder. “And get her a damn medic.”
Mira stayed frozen a moment longer — eyes locked on the girl below.
Then finally, she moved to follow.
A sour wind blew through the broken cars and crumbled storefronts near the east gate, carrying with it the sharp scent of blood and rot. The hammer lay a few feet from the beast’s body, half-sunk in the concrete, its handle cracked.
Bazaar guards had gathered near the gate now, murmuring, eyes wide — watching Rumi from behind the relative safety of barbed fences and UV bulbs.
She didn’t look at them.
Sophie stormed down the ladder from the east watchtower and hit the ground just as the gates were being cranked open. Mira followed, slower, quieter.
Rumi stepped once over the Goon’s corpse, wiped the blood off her bat on her sleeve, and kept walking — not toward the Bazaar, but past it. Toward the city.
“Rumi!” Sophie called out, stepping forward. “Hey—stop!”
She didn’t stop.
Mira narrowed her eyes. “She’s reckless.”
They both watched as Rumi crossed into the fog-drenched street, turning north where the buildings thickened — toward the smoke trails and distant echo of infected somewhere past the playground.
Mira finally called after her. “You’re just going to keep going?”
That got a reaction — not a word, not a turn of the head — but Rumi raised one hand, palm up, and gave a casual wave behind her back. One flick of the fingers. Then lowered it. And was gone down the alley.
Sophie exhaled hard through her nose. “Unbelievable.”
“Did you give her a job?” Mira said.
“Yeah, for later. Not after she decided to fight a goon. I thought she would go through the other entrance like a normal runner.”
“I see,” Mira said, still watching the corner where Rumi had vanished.
Sophie crossed her arms, eyes dark. “At this point, it’s not even about the job. I try to assign someone to go with her but she ditches them.”
“She only goes alone,” Mira replied.
There was a pause between them.
Then Sophie said, quieter, “She’s going to get herself killed.”
Mira didn’t argue.
Because she thought the same thing.
Because she’d seen that look before — in the eyes of people who didn’t know what to do when they weren’t fighting. People who couldn’t stop moving. Couldn’t sit still. Because stillness meant thinking, and thinking meant remembering, and remembering meant pain.
Sophie shook her head and walked back toward the gate, already barking orders to get the Goon’s corpse burned before nightfall.
Mira stayed at the edge of the wall for a while longer.
Looking out.
The dust hadn’t even settled.
But Rumi was already gone.
~
Rumi sat tied in a chair, looking up at a peacekeeper.
They demanded to know why she was in their territory.
“I’m just passing through,” she says. “Need access to the Central Loop. Heard this was the way.”
Aitor studies her a moment longer than feels comfortable. “We don’t give out access to strangers. Not when our commander’s corpse rots while his killer is running free.”
That word — corpse — hangs heavy in the air. Rumi’s eyes flick to the Peacekeepers moving in the background, their blue armbands flashing like shards of ice. Everyone here walks with the same posture — upright, armed, watching. Loyal.
But behind their order, she can feel it: fear. It smells metallic, sharp, the way blood does before a fight.
Aitor’s gaze sharpens. “Commander Lucas was murdered. The Bazaar people are our main suspects. You want to pass through our territory? Then earn it. Help us find who did it.”
Rumi exhales quietly. The Bazaar. She’d been there earlier — seen their children playing near makeshift stalls, the faces tired but kind. The trust she was building with them was fragile, but true.
And now the Peacekeepers wanted her to hunt them down.
Always the same story, she thinks. Two sides fighting the same hunger, the same fear. Different banners, same blood.
Aloud, she says, “You’re accusing them without proof.”
Aitor’s jaw tightens. “We have reason to believe the killer came from that direction. Lucas’s insignia was cut from his body — his rank tattoo. Whoever did that knew what it meant. We can’t open the tunnels until we find the one responsible. You help us, and I’ll make sure you get to the Loop.”
He leans forward slightly, voice low, more personal. “You’ve seen how bad it is out there. Someone needs to bring order. The Peacekeepers can. But we can’t do that if we let murder slide. Bring us the Lazarus—Lucas’ weapon and we’ll get you through the loop.”
Rumi’s eyes lower to the map spread across the desk — lines and barricades dividing Villedor like scars.
Her fingers curl against the edge of the table.
Order, justice, survival — everyone dresses their war in prettier words.
“I’ll look into it,” she says finally, meeting Aitor’s gaze. “But I’m first in line for the Central Loop.”
Aitor gives a small, approving nod. “Good. I need results. The Bazaar won’t talk to us — maybe they’ll talk to you. Bring me something solid.”
He gestures to a guard. “Give her clearance through the checkpoint. And keep her under watch.”
As the conversation ends, Rumi steps back, heart heavy beneath the calm mask she wears. Outside, the evening sun bleeds across the rooftops — gold against the rust.
Between the Bazaar’s whispers of freedom and the Peacekeepers’ obsession with order. And Rumi, a simple pilgrim, stands in between — balancing on the razor’s edge of their war.
If I help one, I betray the other. But if I do nothing... everyone keeps dying.
She adjusts her weapon strap and walks toward the checkpoint, the setting sun catching her eyes.
Maybe there’s a way to help both?