Ethan sat on the floor with his back against the bed, hands clasped tightly in his lap.
Across the room, Lucas stood near the door, completely still, as though moving even an inch might draw something in from the other side.
Neither of them spoke.
Everything worth saying had already been said hours ago, when the screaming first started.
Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push the memory back. It didn't work.
"I think they're gone," Lucas whispered. "You think they went to the third floor again? I keep hearing things up there."
For the past hour, sounds had been drifting down from above. Neither of them had dared to investigate. The peephole was as far as either of them was willing to go.
Ethan didn't answer. He kept his head down, his body still trembling faintly.
North University's male dormitory was split into two separate buildings, mirroring the female dormitory on the opposite side of campus. Each building rose three floors, and each floor ran a long central corridor with eighteen rooms lining either side and one at each end.
Two students per room. Forty per floor. One hundred and twenty per building.
Most had lectures that morning. The ones still in the dorm when the rain fell, when the world changed, were the ones who had stayed behind. Ethan and Lucas were two of them. So were Ryan and Mark, one floor above.
A dull thud echoed from above.
Both of them froze.
Ethan's head snapped upward instinctively, his breath catching. Lucas slowly turned, his face draining of color. "Did you hear that?"
Ethan nodded, hands tightening in his lap.
The third floor again. It had to be.
They waited. Minutes passed. Only silence followed.
"Should we go check?" Lucas suggested, then swallowed the rest of his sentence as another sound cut through the quiet.
A sharp crack, like a door being forced open.
Both of them flinched.
Then another. And another.
Click. Creak. Bang.
Doors opening, one after another.
Ethan's heart began to pound.
"That's not normal," Lucas whispered, his voice unsteady now.
Were those things opening doors themselves?
The realization landed on both of them at the same time. Ethan felt cold spread through his entire body.
"If they can open doors…" Lucas trailed off, his breathing turning ragged.
Then nowhere was safe. Not even here.
The sounds continued for several more seconds. Then silence.
It came so suddenly it felt wrong. Ethan frowned, chest rising and falling slowly as he listened. Lucas leaned toward the door without touching it, head tilted, straining to hear something beyond it.
"Why did it stop?" he whispered.
Seconds passed. Then a minute.
Then a soft click from the hallway. Then another. And another. Each one sent a fresh wave of dread through the room.
Then a voice came through the door.
"If anyone's alive, say something."
Both of them went completely still.
A living person?
But after everything they had seen, hope felt dangerous.
Lucas's lips parted slightly. "Do we…"
Ethan raised a hand, cutting him off.
They listened and waited. The voice didn't come again immediately. Just the quiet hallway and the faint sound of rain against the windows.
Then it returned. "If you don't want to come out, fine. I'm not going to force you."
Lucas hesitated for one more heartbeat. Then he moved to the peephole.
Ethan's hand shot out halfway to stop him, but Lucas had already pressed his eye to the opening.
For a second Ethan braced for the worst.
Then Lucas's expression changed. The fear didn't disappear, but something cut through it. Relief, hope, shock, all at once.
"There's actually someone out there," Lucas whispered.
Ethan pushed himself halfway up. "Who?"
Lucas kept staring, barely blinking. "I don't know his name. But I've seen him before. He's a student, I'm sure of it. Upstairs maybe, or the common area."
Ethan got fully to his feet, legs still unsteady. "And he's alive?"
Lucas nodded hard. "Yeah. Alive."
For the first time in hours, something warm pushed through the cold weight sitting in Ethan's chest.
Lucas straightened. "I'm opening it."
Ethan's eyes widened. "Wait"
But Lucas was already reaching for the lock. The door opened.
Standing in the corridor, framed by pale yellow light and dark bloodstains, was a young man Ethan vaguely recognized but couldn't place. His eyes moved past Lucas for a brief moment, scanning the room.
Then Ethan noticed something else. The corridor behind him was empty, which meant this guy hadn't just survived. He had moved through the hallway without dying.
Lucas let out a breath that was dangerously close to a laugh. "You're alive."
The stranger looked at him for a moment. "Yeah," he said simply.
Ryan looked at them both from the doorway.
Before now he had started to think he might be the only one left alive on this floor.
It had taken him a while to get here. After resting long enough to confirm the engraving energy recovered on its own, Ryan had gotten to work. With two ash soldiers alongside him, he spent over two hours running a careful, methodical pattern through the second and third floors. Bait the mutants. Draw them out. Let the soldiers finish it. Repeat.
It wasn't clean. But it worked.
By the end he had filled all five engraving slots and cleared both floors entirely.
He had also checked every room he could open along the way, packing his hiking backpack with whatever supplies he found. His sister and her boyfriend had dragged him into buying it just days ago. He hadn't expected to need it this soon.
Part of him had wanted to believe the world hadn't completely fallen apart, that some sense of normalcy would return in a few days. The strength running through his body didn't make him optimistic.
Most rooms on the second and third floors had been the same. Empty. Or worse.
These two were the first survivors he had found.
[Level 1 Human]
[Level 1 Human]
Both level one, same as him. Though Ryan was certain the similarity ended there.
[Status — Ryan Ashford | Level: 1 | EXP: 47%]
[Strength: 22 (+14) | Agility: 21 (+14) | Vitality: 12 (+3) | Focus: 10 (+3)]
[Skill: Undead Engraving Lv.1 | Basic Detection | Engravings: 5/5]
This was the result fromkilling more than twenty mutated humans.
Lucas moved first. The relief on his face overwhelmed caution, and before Ethan could stop him he reached out with both hands, trying to pull Ryan fully inside the room.
"Get in, get in."
His hands closed around Ryan's arm and stopped. Lucas's expression changed instantly. He pulled harder.
Ryan did not move, not even an inch. It was like trying to drag a metal post rooted into the ground.
Lucas let go quickly, as though only then realizing how strange that had been.
Ryan noticed the reaction but didn't comment. He kept his voice low and calm. "I'm not here to hide. I just wanted to check if anyone else was still alive."
Lucas blinked. The words clearly hadn't been what he expected.
Ryan's eyes moved between them. "Do either of you have a signal on your device?"
Both reached for their phones instinctively. Lucas checked first. No bars. Ethan had already known hours ago, but he looked anyway. Nothing.
"No," Lucas said. Ethan shook his head.
Ryan let out a slow breath through his nose. "So it's still dead."
Lucas swallowed. Up close, Ryan looked even stranger than he had through the peephole. Not monstrous. Not visibly wrong. But something about him felt off in a way Lucas couldn't name.
"I'm just relieved to see someone alive," Lucas said, his voice shaking slightly despite his effort to stay quiet. "But how did you get here?" He hesitated, then added more carefully, "How did you get rid of them?"
The room fell quiet. Ethan's eyes stayed fixed on Ryan.
Ryan took a breath. "I killed them."
Lucas stared. For a moment he looked like he genuinely didn't understand the words.
Lucas gave a weak laugh that died almost immediately. "You mean one or two, right?"
Ryan looked at him for a second, then shook his head once. "No. All of them on the second and third floors."
The silence that followed was absolute. Lucas's mouth opened slightly but no sound came out.
All of them. That was impossible. Even with most students away at lectures, there should have been dozens of people in the dorms when everything happened. Dozens who could have turned.
And Ryan was saying he had killed them all.
"That's not possible," Lucas said slowly.
Ryan didn't argue. "Believe whatever you want."
That shut Lucas up.
Ethan found his voice first. "You cleared both floors?"
Ryan's gaze shifted to him. "Yes."
Something about the way he answered made Ethan believe him more than he wanted to.
"If that's true," Lucas said slowly, "then how are you still okay?"
"Don't you have the system?" Ryan said.
Lucas blinked. Ethan frowned slightly.
"The panel," Ryan added. "The stats. The level. You saw it, right?"
Both nodded slowly.
"We did," Ethan said. "But it didn't really change anything. We're still level one."
"You can level up," Ryan said. "You saw the EXP bar."
"Yeah," Lucas said, more uncertain now. "But you haven't leveled up either."
Ryan paused for half a second, then gave a small nod. "Not yet."
They could see his level too, apparently.
"I have my methods," he said. "That's not the point." His tone shifted slightly. "The world isn't normal anymore. If what the system said about Earth is true, this isn't just happening here."
Lucas's face paled. "You mean this could be everywhere?"
"The whole world could be like this?" Ethan said quietly.
Ryan gave a small nod. "Yes."
Lucas let out a shaky breath. "Like the apocalypse?"
Ryan glanced at him, seemed to consider the word, then said, "Yeah. That fits."
It settled heavily in the room. The word sounded ridiculous. It sounded unreal. And yet nothing about the past few hours had been normal.
Lucas ran a hand through his hair. "No, that doesn't make sense. The government wouldn't just collapse like that. Right?"
"I don't know," Ryan said honestly. "Maybe they're still holding things together somewhere." He paused. "But for now, that doesn't matter. Worry about yourselves first."
He turned slightly, as if already preparing to leave.
That was when Ethan spoke. "I'll come with you."
Both Ryan and Lucas looked at him. Lucas's eyes widened. "What?"
Out of the two of them, Ethan had always been the more cautious one. The quieter one. The one who hesitated the longest. And yet he was the one stepping forward now.
Ethan pushed himself fully to his feet, hands still trembling slightly. Ryan looked at him. "Why?"
Ethan swallowed once. "There's power in numbers."
Ryan studied him for a moment, then gave a small nod. "As long as you don't slow me down."
"I won't."
Ryan adjusted the strap of his backpack. "My goal is to leave the university. Find my family outside."
Ethan's expression shifted. "Same," he said quietly. "I just didn't have the courage until now."
Ryan held his gaze for a second, then nodded once. "Then we work together until then."
Lucas stood there, looking between them both. And suddenly something clicked. They were serious. They were actually leaving without him.
A wave of panic surged through his chest.
"Wait," Lucas said quickly, stepping forward. "I'm coming too."
Both of them looked at him. Lucas swallowed hard but didn't back down. "I'm not staying here alone. I'd rather take my chances out there than sit in this room waiting to die."
The words came out faster than he expected. But once they were out, he didn't take them back.
Ryan watched him for a moment, then gave a small nod. "Fine."
Lucas let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Ryan turned toward the hallway. "Get whatever you need. We move soon."