[Win – 4:12 p.m.]
The wind up here doesn't smell like iron.
For weeks, my nose had been filled with the scent of copper and rot—the signature smell of a world that died while we were busy taking midterms. But as the drone's extraction platform lifted us above the forest canopy, the air turned thin and cold. It should have felt clean.
Instead, it felt empty.
Like it was pulling the air out of my lungs.
I looked down.
From this height, the city of Suksa wasn't a home anymore. It was a graveyard of concrete and steel. Streets stretched out like veins, now clogged with the slow, shifting mass of the horde. From up here, the zombies didn't look like people.
They looked like ants.
Endless. Mindless. Everywhere.
A skyscraper stood in the distance, wrapped in vines and smoke, its shattered windows like broken teeth.
The world was gone.
Not just the school. Not just the forest.
Everything.
The Screamers. The Human Locusts crawling across rooftops. This was their world now.
We were just moving through it.
I shifted my gaze.
Palm.
He sat close, looking out over the ruins, his hair whipping in the wind from the drone rotors. He looked normal. He was breathing—I could see it, steady and real.
But my mind kept going back to that moment.
The scratch.
The black fluid.
Black fluid doesn't come from a human body.
The thought wouldn't leave me.
A word formed in my head before I could stop it.
Naï-man.
Not a Naïve.
Not fully gone.
But not human either.
Something in between.
Palm felt me staring. He turned his head. For a moment, everything else faded—the city, the noise, the fear.
His eyes were still his.
Warm. Familiar. Just a little darker now.
He glanced at his arm, then back at me, giving a small, almost invisible nod.
Don't say it. Not here.
I tightened my grip on his hand. His skin was still warm.
But in the back of my mind, I was already wondering how long that would last.
"Nexus Spire."
Vitcha's voice cut through the wind. She stood near the edge of the platform, her hands tight around her rifle.
"I never thought I'd see it again."
I followed her gaze.
The Spire rose in the center of the city, a needle of silver cutting into the sky. Clean. Untouched. Like it didn't belong to this world anymore.
Mae's tower.
The place she chose over home. Over me.
I had always hated that building.
Hated what it stood for.
But now—
Now it was something else.
Answers.
The black fluid.
The immunity in my veins.
Palm.
Mae knew.
She had to.
For years, I kept my distance. It was easier to act like I didn't care than to ask why she was never there. But now… now I didn't have that luxury.
I was going to find her.
And I was going to get the truth.
Even if it broke whatever was left between us.
"Win."
I blinked, pulling myself back.
Best stood a few steps away. He looked exhausted, like the past few weeks hadn't let him rest for even a second.
"Can we talk?" he asked.
Palm nudged my shoulder lightly. I stepped away with Best, moving toward the back of the platform.
"It's a long way down," I said, glancing over the edge at the ruins below.
"Win, I…" Best hesitated, his voice tightening. "I shouldn't have left. Back at the rooftop… when everything went bad. I saw an opening. I ran. I told myself I'd come back, that I'd find another way down. But I didn't. I just… left."
I stayed quiet.
He kept going.
"I left Palm. I left Kao. I left all of you." His voice dropped. "And every step I took after that felt wrong. Like I was walking away from something I couldn't fix."
Below us, a group of Locusts moved across rooftops, fast and unnatural.
"I thought I was surviving," Best said. "But it didn't feel like that. It felt like I was running from it. From you."
I finally looked at him properly.
The guilt was written all over his face.
"You're here now," I said.
"That doesn't erase it," he shot back. "When I saw you guys in the forest, I thought I was losing it. Like my brain was trying to fix things for me."
I exhaled slowly. "We all left something behind, Best."
My voice felt heavier than I expected.
"Kao left more than she admits. I left… a lot of things I didn't even understand yet."
I paused.
"And we all left Lin."
The air went still for a second.
Best looked down, jaw tight.
"Every time we stop like this," he said quietly, "every time we think we have a second to talk, to figure things out… something goes wrong."
I didn't interrupt.
"On the rooftop, we finally started working together—and we lost Lin. In the forest, we found a rhythm—and then everything came at us again. Now we're here."
He glanced toward the others.
Palm was talking to Jay, trying to keep things light. Like he always did.
"I'm scared, Win," Best admitted. "I feel like getting to that tower is going to cost us something. Like it always does."
I didn't have an answer.
Because he wasn't wrong.
Nothing in this world came free anymore.
Not survival.
Not answers.
Not even time.
The drone tilted slightly, descending toward the massive landing bay jutting out from the side of the Spire. The silver walls reflected the orange light of the setting sun.
"We're here," Vitcha said.
The platform locked into place with a sharp hiss.
A heavy door slid open in front of us.
White light spilled out—too clean, too bright.
I looked at Palm.
He met my eyes, his expression shifting, steadying.
We both understood.
This wasn't rescue.
This was something else.
I stepped forward first, my boots hitting the smooth metal floor.
One by one, the others followed.
The door began to close behind us, cutting off the wind, the noise, the distant echoes of the city.
The locks clicked into place with a final, heavy thud.
We were inside.
But as the sound settled, one thought stayed with me—
We made it to the Spire.
But did we just walk into safety… or a cage?
___