Darkness didn't feel like nothing. It felt like pressure, like being held just beneath the surface of something he couldn't see, something that wasn't quite water and wasn't quite air, but had weight all the same, pressing in from every direction while his thoughts tried to surface and failed.
Then came sound. Not outside, but inside. A low, steady pulse that didn't match his heartbeat, sitting just beside it, slightly out of sync, like something learning the rhythm rather than following it.
Arty dragged in a breath, and pain followed immediately, sharp and grounding, forcing the world back into place as his eyes snapped open.
Light stabbed in through dust and movement, the scene resolving in broken fragments before pulling together into something he could understand. Dirt. Metal. Blood. The overturned ute beside him. And voices.
"—Arty—"
Leah. Close. Alive.
"Don't move too fast," she said, her tone tight but controlled, one hand already braced against his shoulder as he pushed himself upright.
"I'm fine," he said automatically, even as his body protested every part of that statement.
"You're not," Dale added from somewhere behind him, his voice rough and strained. "But you're breathing, so we'll take it."
Good. Dale was here.
The system didn't speak. That alone felt wrong.
Arty's gaze flicked instinctively toward the wreck, toward the rear where the tray had taken the worst of the impact. There was no movement there, no sound, just twisted metal and stillness.
He didn't say Tom's name. He didn't need to. The absence said enough.
The dragging sound cut through the moment, closer now, always closer.
Arty forced himself fully upright, ignoring the way his balance shifted before settling, his hand tightening reflexively around the crystals still pressed into his palm. Four now. He didn't remember taking the last one, and he didn't question it.
"Up," he said.
Leah nodded immediately, helping Dale steady himself as they moved away from the wreck, putting distance between them and the noise, because distance was survival now and anything else was delay.
The terrain ahead sloped downward into broken ground scattered with scrub and loose stone, uneven enough to slow anything without coordination. It helped, a little.
Behind them, the first shapes emerged, drawn by the crash, by the sound, by them.
"Move," Arty said again, already adjusting his path, angling them toward higher ground instead of deeper into the dip, because getting trapped low was a mistake he wasn't making twice.
Dale kept up, barely. His breathing was heavier, one step slightly off rhythm, but he pushed through it without complaint, and that told Arty everything he needed to know. Injured, not broken. Usable, for now.
The first infected closed faster than the others, just like before. Not all of them moved the same anymore, and that was getting worse.
Arty turned and stepped into its path, the wrench coming up in a tight arc that connected cleanly, dropping it before it could close fully.
The motion was efficient and practiced, but slower than it had been minutes ago, and he felt that, registered it, and didn't have time to fix it.
"Keep moving!" Leah called, already dragging Dale past him without waiting.
Good. They were adapting.
Arty fell back in beside them, not leading by distance anymore but by position, shifting constantly to where he was needed most, because this wasn't a line. It was movement, constant and fragile.
The ground shifted again underfoot, a loose patch sliding slightly as they crossed it, forcing a correction that cost them half a second.
That was enough.
Two more broke through from the left, too close.
Leah reacted first, stepping in and striking with her tire iron that she still carried, the blow messy but effective enough to stagger one back.
Dale followed, slower but committed, grabbing the second and shoving it off balance long enough for Arty to close and finish it with a downward strike of the wrench.
Three of them now. Working. Not clean, but working.
Behind them, more. Always more.
Arty's breathing tightened again, the edges of his vision pulling in before he forced it back, grounding himself in the weight of the wrench, in the pressure of the crystals, in the simple truth that stopping meant ending.
They crested the rise, and for a moment space opened ahead. Not safe, never safe, but clearer.
Arty slowed just enough to reassess, scanning the approach lines, the movement patterns, the way the infected spread, not randomly but in a loose convergence that pointed somewhere beyond them.
Always beyond.
"What are they doing?" Dale asked, voice strained.
"Moving," Arty said.
"Yeah, I can see that," Dale shot back. "I mean where—"
"I don't know."
But he wanted to. Needed to. Because understanding that meant control, and control meant survival.
The pressure in his palm spiked again, sharp and sudden. The crystals pulsed, not visibly, not physically, but he felt it, clearer now, stronger, like something pushing against a boundary from the inside, testing it, waiting for a threshold.
Arty slowed another fraction, just enough to focus.
The world didn't fade this time. It sharpened. Edges pulled into focus, sound separating into layers, movement patterns becoming clearer in a way that didn't feel like normal perception.
Like he was seeing more.
Not everything, not yet, but enough.
A path. Not obvious, not safe, but viable.
He turned.
"This way," he said.
Leah didn't question it. Dale hesitated for half a second, then followed.
They cut right, moving across the slope instead of down it, threading between clusters instead of away from them. The path was tighter, riskier, but somehow cleaner.
Arty didn't think about how he knew. He just moved.
The infected reacted. Some turned. Some didn't. The flow broke slightly, just enough.
They slipped through.
For a moment, it worked.
Then the ground dropped again, steeper this time, unstable.
Arty adjusted too late. His foot slid, balance tipping before he caught himself, barely.
The delay cost them.
A figure surged from the side, fast, too fast.
It hit Dale hard, knocking him sideways.
Leah shouted and moved instantly, but the angle was wrong, the timing off by a fraction.
Arty reacted, closing distance, the wrench coming up.
And missing.
Completely.
The infected turned on him. Distance gone. Time gone. Options gone.
It lunged, hands closing, teeth bared.
Arty felt the impact, felt the weight, felt the moment tip past recovery and the pressure in his hand exploded.
Not outward. Inward.
The crystals flared, and something pushed through.
A voice—familiar, fragmented, strained—flickered at the edge of his thoughts.
[System…]
It wasn't clear. Not like before. Not stable.
Like whatever it was, it hadn't fully caught up to him yet.
Closer than before, a presence, watching, waiting, calculating and for the briefest instant, it recognised him.