Sky Blue Cage

The sky above the abandoned city was a bruised mass of clouds, thick and heavy, blocking out any hint of stars or moonlight. Su Xueqing moved through the rubble with practiced silence, her boots finding purchase on cracked asphalt and twisted metal debris. Each step was measured, deliberate—a survival habit carved into her muscles over weeks of foraging through the corpse of a dead metropolis. The air smelled of dust, rust, and the faint metallic tang of something else she refused to name.

She paused at the corner of a collapsed convenience store, her eyes scanning the jagged silhouette of buildings ahead. Her hand rested on the holster at her hip, fingers brushing the grip of her sidearm. The city was supposed to be empty. The evacuation had been complete, or so the reports said before everything went dark. But emptiness didn't mean safety. In the apocalypse, silence was its own kind of predator.

A flicker of light caught her attention—dim, unsteady, like a candle struggling against a draft. It came from the east, maybe a quarter mile away, near what used to be a municipal park. Her heart quickened, but she forced her breathing to remain even. Light meant people. People meant either salvation or danger. Sometimes both.

She altered her course, moving from shadow to shadow, keeping low behind overturned cars and crumbling walls. As she drew closer, the light resolved into the weak beam of a flashlight, held by a figure in a dark uniform. The silhouette was familiar—broad shoulders, a peaked cap, the stance of someone trained to stand their ground. A police officer.

Su Xueqing stepped into the open, raising one hand in a neutral gesture. "Identify yourself," she called out, her voice flat but loud enough to carry.

The flashlight beam swept toward her, and she squinted against it. The figure behind it tensed, then lowered the light. "Li Hao. Central District Precinct. Who's that?"

"Su Xueqing. Special Weapons and Tactics, Eastern Division." She closed the distance, and soon they stood face to face under the hollow shell of a burned-out bus stop. Li Hao was young—younger than her, maybe mid-twenties. His face was smudged with dirt, and there was a nervous energy in his movements, the way he kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"You're the first person I've seen in days," he said, his voice cracking slightly. "I thought maybe I was the only one left in this sector."

"You're not," she replied, keeping her tone clipped. She didn't have the energy for comfort. "What's your situation? Supplies? Weapons?"

Li Hao gestured vaguely behind him. "I've got a pack with some canned food, a couple of water bottles. My sidearm's got maybe two magazines left. No radio contact since the first week." He paused, looking at her with an expression that hovered between hope and desperation. "Do you know if there's a safe zone? Any evacuation points still active?"

"Nothing that's confirmed," Su Xueqing said. "The city's a graveyard. If there's a functioning command post, it's not here."

Li Hao's shoulders sagged, but he nodded, as if he'd expected that answer. He looked toward the distant northern skyline, where the skeletal remains of high-rises clawed at the clouds. "I was thinking of heading north," he said. "There might be a military depot out past the old highway. Worth checking."

Su Xueqing considered this. The north was more exposed, with longer stretches of open ground. She preferred the central district—denser, more places to hide, more chances to find overlooked supplies. "I'm staying here," she said. "I'll cover the central blocks, check the hospitals and police armories."

"Alright." Li Hao offered a weak smile. "If I find anything—supplies, survivors—I'll send a signal. Three shots, spaced. You do the same?"

"Three shots, spaced," she confirmed. "Don't waste ammo on anything else."

He nodded, and for a moment they stood in silence, two figures in the rubble of a fallen world. Then Li Hao turned and began walking north, his flashlight beam bobbing ahead of him. Su Xueqing watched until the light faded into the gloom, then turned back toward the dark heart of the city.

The weight of loneliness settled back onto her shoulders as she resumed her search. Every doorway was a risk, every window a potential ambush. She checked a collapsed pharmacy, found nothing but broken glass and empty shelves. She moved on.

Somewhere to the north, a faint echo of a footstep might have been Li Hao's. Somewhere else, the wind carried the sound of distant scraping. Su Xueqing tightened her jaw and kept walking, her flashlight cutting a narrow path through the endless night.

After three days of scouring the northern edge of the city, Li Hao’s legs felt like lead. His boots had worn thin, and the soles slapped against the cracked asphalt with every step. The sky was a pale gray, the sun hidden behind a permanent haze of dust and smoke. He had found nothing—no survivors, no supplies, not even a hint of movement among the rubble. Just the hollow wind and the distant groan of settling concrete.

Up ahead, a high-rise rose from the ruins, its lower floors charred, windows shattered. But the upper stories looked intact, the glass somehow still holding in a few panes. Li Hao’s throat ached from thirst, and his bladder had been screaming for the past hour. He had refused to stop in the open, paranoid that the infected—or worse, other survivors—might spot him. Now he could barely walk without clenching his thighs.

He pushed through a twisted security gate, the metal screeching in protest. The lobby was dark, the floor littered with debris. He clicked on his flashlight, the beam cutting a narrow path through the gloom. The air smelled of mildew and dry rot. He moved quickly, ignoring the pounding in his temples, heading for a stairwell he spotted at the back.

The stairs groaned under his weight, but they held. He climbed two floors, then three, his breath coming in ragged gasps. On the fourth floor, the hallway stretched before him, lined with doors—some open, some closed. He picked one at random, shoving it open with his shoulder. It was an office, desks overturned, papers scattered like snow. He swung the flashlight around, saw the door marked with a small icon: a stick figure in trousers.

Restroom.

He stumbled inside, the beam wobbling across a row of stalls, a sink with a cracked mirror. The place smelled stale but not foul. He kicked the door shut behind him, then leaned against it, fumbling with his belt. His hands shook. The need was urgent now, a hot pressure low in his belly, pushing downward.

He looked down. The front of his sky-blue skinny jeans was stretched tight, the fabric straining over a distinct bulge that ran the length of his crotch. He had been holding it for so long that his body had swelled against the denim, leaving no room for denial. The outline was unmistakable—thick, curved, pressing against the zipper. A flush of heat climbed his neck. He was alone, but the shame still bit deep.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered, trying to yank the zipper down.

It didn’t move.

He tried again, harder, his fingers slipping on the metal tab. The zipper was stuck—jammed at the base, the teeth locked tight against the fabric. He tugged, and the denim pinched, the pressure making his cock pulse and strain even more. He could feel it swelling, the head pushing against the underside of the zipper, creating a more pronounced ridge.

A low groan escaped him. His lower abdomen ached, a dull throb that made him curl his shoulders forward. He pressed his palm against the bulge, trying to force it down, but that only made the situation worse. The denim grew tighter, the seam biting into his skin.

He looked around the restroom, desperate. Maybe if he tried to pull the jeans down from the waist? But the belt was still cinched, and he could barely move his hands with the pressure in his gut. He leaned against the sink, the cold porcelain biting through his shirt, and tried to work the zipper sideways, prying at the teeth with his fingernails.

Nothing.

The seconds ticked by. He was panting now, a fine sweat breaking out on his forehead. The need was unbearable, a physical ache that drowned out everything else. He could feel the dampness of precome seeping through his underwear, sticking to the fabric. The bulge in his crotch had grown so pronounced that it looked almost obscene, the sky-blue denim stretched to its limit, the outline of the head pressing against the metal zipper.

“Fuck,” he whispered, the word sharp in the silence.

He tried once more, gripping the tab with both hands and yanking with all his strength. The zipper didn’t budge, but the pain from the pressure shot through him, making his eyes water. He let go, his shoulders slumping. The flashlight clattered to the floor, spinning in a circle of light that caught his own reflection in the cracked mirror.

He saw himself—pale, sweating, eyes dark with fear. A young cop who had never been in a real fight, who had hidden during the outbreak, who had watched his partner die while he cowered behind a car. And now he was stuck in a bathroom, his cock so hard it was painful, his bladder screaming, and the zipper refusing to open.

He slumped against the sink, the cold metal digging into his hip. The ache in his abdomen intensified, spreading in waves. He closed his eyes, trying to breathe through it, but his body wouldn’t obey. The pressure built and built, and he knew he couldn’t hold it much longer.

The bulge in his jeans pulsed, the fabric straining with every heartbeat. He could feel the heat of his own skin, the dampness spreading. A small, desperate sound escaped his throat.

He was trapped.

Li Hao’s breath hitched. The silence of the corridor was absolute, save for the faint drip of water somewhere in the darkness. He had been moving cautiously, his flashlight beam cutting a nervous swath across the cracked linoleum floor. Then he heard it—a soft scrape, like a shoe dragging on concrete, coming from behind him.

His hand flew to his hip. The holster was empty. He had left his sidearm on the desk when he’d scrambled to help Su Xueqing with the barricade. Panic flooded his chest, hot and sharp. He spun around, the flashlight wobbling in his sweaty grip.

The beam landed on a figure standing not three meters away. An old man. His face was a mask of leathery skin, tufted with a wild, unkempt beard that jutted in all directions. His eyes were black pits, sunken and unblinking. He wore a tattered coat stained with something dark that glistened wetly in the light. He did not move. He only stared.

Li Hao’s throat closed. The flashlight trembled. “Please,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I don’t have anything. I’m just trying to survive. Please, I’ll leave. I’ll go.”

The old man took a step forward. His movement was silent, unhurried. Li Hao backed up until his shoulders hit the wall. The concrete was cold through his shirt. He could feel his own heartbeat in his ears, a wild drumming.

“I’m begging you,” Li Hao said, his words tumbling out. “I’m nobody. I’m just a cop. I have a mother. She’s sick. She needs me.” Tears burned his eyes. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

The old man closed the distance. His hand shot out—fingers gnarled, nails yellowed—and clamped onto Li Hao’s crotch through the thick denim of his jeans. The pressure was sudden and brutal. Li Hao screamed, a high, animal sound. His body convulsed against the wall, but the old man’s grip was like iron.

“No! Let go! Please, God, let go!” Li Hao clawed at the old man’s wrist, but the fingers only tightened, squeezing until white-hot pain shot through his groin. He could feel his testicles mashed against his pubic bone, the fabric of his jeans grinding into the soft flesh.

The old man’s other hand moved. A flash of silver, a blade Li Hao hadn’t seen, swept down in a single, fluid arc. There was a wet tearing sound, the screech of denim parting, and then a searing, unimaginable agony as everything was separated from him in one swift cut.

Li Hao’s scream died in his throat. He stared down, his mind refusing to process the dark flood of blood that soaked his jeans, the thing that fell loosely against his thigh before dropping to the floor with a damp thud. The old man released him and stepped back into the shadows, silent as a ghost, and vanished beyond the reach of the fallen flashlight.

Li Hao collapsed to his knees, then onto his side. His hands went to the wound, but they came away slick and hot. Blood pulsed between his fingers, pooling on the linoleum, spreading in a widening stain. The pain was a white roar that swallowed all thought. He tried to scream again, but only a wet gurgle came out.

He rolled onto his back, staring up at the water-stained ceiling. The flashlight had rolled a few feet away, its beam casting a pale circle on the wall. He thought of his mother. He thought of Su Xueqing, somewhere in the building, probably still alive. He thought of nothing but the cold spreading through his limbs and the warmth draining from his body.

His vision dimmed, the edges turning black. He blinked once, twice, and then the light went out. His chest rose one last time, a shallow flutter, and fell still. The blood continued to pool, dark and quiet, as the building settled into silence around him.

The stairwell smelled of mildew and rot. Su Xueqing pressed her back against the concrete wall, sweeping her flashlight beam across the landing above. Dust motes danced in the pale light. The building had been a supermarket once—shelves overturned, canned goods scattered, a layer of grime over everything like a funeral shroud.

She took a step, and a floorboard groaned.

The sound echoed through the empty corridor. She froze. Silence. Then—a wet, rattling breath from somewhere to her left.

Her hand went to the holster at her hip. Nine rounds left. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

She moved toward the produce section, where the smell of decay was strongest. Maybe there was a back exit. Maybe there was food that hadn't rotted. Maybe there was anything but this endless, sucking emptiness.

The first zombie came from behind a display of moldy potatoes. It lunged with arms outstretched, mouth agape, a guttural moan tearing from its throat. Su Xueqing sidestepped, drew her pistol, and fired. The shot punched through its temple. It collapsed in a heap.

But the sound drew more.

They came from the dairy aisle, from behind the checkout counters, from the shattered windows of the deli. A dozen. Then twenty. Their shuffling feet scraped across the tile floor like a tide of broken glass.

She fired again. Two more dropped. Then three. The slide locked back on an empty magazine.

She didn't have time to reload.

She ran.

Her boots pounded through the aisles as she vaulted a fallen shelf, slid past a freezer case, and ducked into the employee-only corridor. The door slammed behind her. She jammed a metal cart against the handle. It wouldn't hold long.

The corridor led into a stockroom. Crumpled boxes, a broken pallet, a single grimy window that looked out onto an alley. She threw herself at it, shoved it open, and tumbled out into the daylight.

The alley was narrow, choked with trash bins and rusted pipes. She scrambled over a pile of debris, her heart hammering so hard she thought it might crack her ribs. Behind her, the door splintered. The moans grew louder.

She found a gap between two dumpsters, a pocket of shadow barely wide enough for her shoulders. She squeezed inside, pressed her knees to her chest, and held her breath.

The zombies shambled past. One stopped inches from her hiding spot, its head cocked, its dead eyes scanning. She could smell it—the rot, the damp earth, the copper tang of old blood. It let out a low, wet growl, then shuffled on.

She counted to sixty. Then to sixty again. When she finally dared to breathe, her lungs ached with the effort.

She stayed there for a long time, listening to the distant, aimless moans, the scrape of feet on asphalt, the creak of the building settling around her. When she was certain they had moved on, she crawled out.

Her hands were shaking. She leaned against the dumpster and forced herself to reload, one bullet at a time, her fingers clumsy with adrenaline. The magazine clicked into place. She had nine rounds. Nine.

She found a rooftop access ladder and climbed. The roof was flat, covered in gravel and bird droppings. The sun was beginning to set, painting the ruins of the city in shades of orange and gray. She sat down with her back against an air conditioning unit, her pistol in her lap, and stared out at the skyline.

She had been searching for days. Searching for survivors, for supplies, for some sign that she wasn't the last person left in this dead world. She had found nothing. Not a voice on the radio. Not a light in the windows. Not a single living soul.

The loneliness pressed in on her like the walls of a tomb. She thought about her apartment, the one she'd rented before everything fell apart. The tiny kitchen where she'd made coffee every morning. The bed she'd never let anyone share. The life she'd built to keep everyone at arm's length.

Now there was no one to keep out. No one at all.

She didn't cry. She was too tired for tears. She just sat there, watching the shadows lengthen, listening to the sporadic moans rise and fall like a broken lullaby, and felt the last shreds of hope slip away.

Tomorrow she would search again. She had no choice. But tonight, she let herself be still, let the darkness close in, and waited for whatever came next.

The afternoon sun hung low and pale behind the gray haze, casting long shadows through the shattered windows of the abandoned office building. Su Xueqing moved through the corridor with measured steps, her boots crunching over debris and broken glass. Every muscle in her body screamed for rest, but more than that—her throat burned with a dry, relentless fire. Three days. Three days without clean water, scraping by on half-empty canteens and the occasional rainwater caught in a broken cup.

She pushed open a door to a small room—what looked like a former break area, with overturned chairs and a counter stained with grime. The air smelled of dust and decay. Her eyes scanned the space, searching for any sign of danger. Nothing moved. No sounds but the distant groan of settling concrete.

She leaned against the wall, pressing her palm to her forehead. Sweat dripped down her temple, leaving a trail of salt. Her lips were cracked, her tongue thick and heavy. The need for water devoured her thoughts.

Then she saw it. A sink. The faucet hung loose from the wall, but beneath it, a small trickle of water pooled in the basin—murky, with a faint brownish tint. It looked wrong. It felt wrong. But the thirst was a monster that clawed at her reason. She had been trained to avoid contaminated sources, to purify every drop. But that training warred with the raw, animal desperation that had set in after three days with nothing.

She unslung her rifle, set it against the counter, and cupped her hands under the flow. The water was cold. She brought it to her lips, hesitated for only a second, then drank. The liquid coated her parched throat, offering a brief, painful relief. Greedily, she took more—three, four handfuls. Her stomach churned at the sudden intake, but she forced herself to swallow.

For a few moments, she stood there, breathing heavily, the water's metallic taste lingering on her tongue. She closed her eyes, trying to summon the calm she had once worn like a shield. *Stay focused. You need to find shelter. Darkness is coming.*

But then a cramp seized her abdomen. She doubled over, clutching her stomach, a low groan escaping her lips. The pain twisted, sharp and insistent. She knew the feeling immediately—contaminated water, bacteria, or something worse. Her bowels cramped again, and a hot urgency pressed against her lower belly.

"No," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "Not now."

She staggered toward the door, one hand pressed to her stomach, the other gripping the wall for balance. Her vision swam. The need became unbearable—a pressure that demanded release. She stumbled into the corridor, searching frantically for a spot—anywhere hidden, anywhere she could lower herself without being seen. The building felt vast and empty, but the paranoia of surveillance, of anyone watching, gripped her.

A narrow door to her left. She shoved it open. It was a small storage closet, maybe a janitor's room. Dim light filtered through a grimy window high on the wall, casting a sickly yellow glow over boxes of cleaning supplies and a mop bucket. No windows to the outside. No obvious hiding places for threats. It would have to do.

Her fingers fumbled with the buckle of her duty belt. She was sweating now, every muscle tense. The cramping grew worse, an urgent pressure that pulsed in waves. She unbuckled the belt, let it clatter to the floor, then hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her sky-blue skinny jeans. The denim was tight, sticky against her skin. She pushed them down to her thighs, along with the black fabric of her underwear, and lowered herself into a squat, her back against the wall, her knees trembling.

The action was humiliating. Survival stripped away dignity, but it still stung. She hung her head, her jaw clenched, as her body expelled the contaminated water in a hot, liquid rush. The sound was loud in the small room—splashing against the concrete floor. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to breathe through the shame.

*This is what you have become,* she thought. *A scared animal, drinking poison and shitting on floors.*

The cramps eased, but only slightly. She stayed there, squatting, her bare thighs pressed against the cold denim. After a long moment, she reached for a rag from a nearby box—stiff with dust, but dry. She used it as best she could, then pulled up her jeans, fastening the buckle with shaking hands. The room smelled of rust and waste. She couldn't stay.

She picked up her rifle, opened the door, and slipped back into the corridor. Her legs felt weak, her stomach still churning. She had to find water—clean water—before her body gave out entirely. But for now, she needed to find a corner to rest, to let the worst pass.

As she moved deeper into the building, the silence seemed to press in on her. She was alone. Utterly alone. And the loneliness was a kind of death all its own.

Su Xueqing leaned against the cold concrete wall, her breath slowly evening out. The patrol had been grueling, two hours of picking through abandoned storefronts and overturned cars, her finger never leaving the trigger. She had held it together, projecting calm and control for Li Hao, who had been trembling at her side the entire time. She let out a long, shaky sigh of relief, the tension bleeding from her shoulders.

She looked down at her crotch, the weight of her silence pressing on her chest. Her pants were unzipped, the fabric gaping open. She had been so focused on survival, on being the perfect officer, that she had ignored the ache building inside her for weeks. Now, alone in the dim light of a back room, she surrendered.

Her vulva was hidden beneath a thick, dark bush of pubic hair, wiry and untamed. She parted the hair with two fingers, exposing the slick pink folds beneath. The sight stirred something primal in her. She had never experienced sex, never let anyone touch her, her body a fortress she guarded even from herself. But here, in the apocalypse, the rules were gone.

She spread her thick labia with her fingertips, the flesh warm and sensitive against the cool air. Her other hand descended, fingers pressing together before slipping inside her cunt. She inhaled sharply at the sudden intrusion, the feeling foreign and electric. She began to thrust, slow at first, then faster, the wet sound filling the silence.

Her eyes fluttered shut. She bit her lower lip, a seductive, lascivious expression creeping across her face. The fear that had knotted her stomach dissolved into a low, rolling pleasure. Soft moans escaped her throat, raw and unfiltered. "Just this once," she muttered to herself, her voice a broken whisper. "Just this once, I need to feel something else." Her fingers curled, searching for more.

Then a floorboard creaked in the hallway. Her eyes snapped open. Reality crashed back. She yanked her hand free, wiped it on her thigh, and stood in one swift motion. She yanked up her pants and fastened the button, her face flushed but composed by the time Li Hao’s tentative knock came at the door.

"Clear?" he called.

"Yeah," she said, her voice steady. "Coming."

The hospital loomed before her like a skeletal jaw, its shattered windows gaping darkly against the gray overcast sky. Su Xueqing moved through the main entrance with practiced caution, her silenced pistol held low, her boots barely disturbing the debris that littered the floor. The air was thick with the smell of decay—old blood, rotting fabric, the faint chemical tang of antiseptic long evaporated. She had come for supplies: medical gauze, antiseptic, maybe some painkillers if she was lucky. Things were running low. The team needed them.

She passed through the lobby, past overturned gurneys and abandoned wheelchairs. A reception desk lay on its side, its computer monitors cracked and dark. The silence was absolute, broken only by the occasional drip from a broken pipe somewhere deep in the building. Su’s chest tightened. She hated hospitals. Even before the world ended, she had hated them. The sterile white walls, the smell of sickness, the way every corner felt like a waiting room for bad news. Now they were just tombs.

She forced herself forward, checking each doorway, each corridor intersection. The second floor was worse: patient rooms with doors dangling open, their beds stripped of sheets, walls splattered with dried brown streaks that could have been anything. She found a supply closet intact, but the contents were meager—a few rolls of gauze, a box of expired splints, nothing that would help. She stuffed the gauze into her bag and moved on.

The stairwell leading to the third floor was half-blocked by a fallen beam. She squeezed through, heart hammering, and emerged into a long hallway lined with examination rooms. The light was dimmer here, the windows painted over with grime and dust. She checked her flashlight, clicked it on, and swept the beam down the hall. Everything was still. She exhaled slowly.

It was the third room on the left. She pushed the door open with her foot, scanned the interior—empty, cabinets open, drawers pulled out. A medical chart lay on the floor, its pages curled and yellowed. She bent to pick it up, then stopped. To her right, against the wall, stood a metal bucket. Old, dented, filled with what looked like rusty hardware and bent syringes. She should have stepped around it. She knew better. But her foot caught the edge as she turned, and the bucket clattered against the baseboard with a sound like a gunshot in the silence.

The noise slammed into Su’s ears and ricocheted through her skull. She froze, one hand on the door frame, the other gripping her pistol. The echo died, and then the new sounds began.

A low, guttural moan from somewhere below. Another, closer. Then footsteps—shuffling, uneven, many of them—beginning to drum against the floors below. Su’s blood turned cold. She backed into the room, her eyes fixed on the hallway. The first shapes appeared at the far end: a man in a bloodstained doctor’s coat, his jaw hanging at an unnatural angle, dragging one leg behind him. Behind him came another, a woman in a nurse’s uniform, her hair matted with gore, her fingers twitching. And then more. A crowd. A tide of rot and hunger pouring up the stairs, through the corridors, filling the hallway with the wet slap of decaying feet and the chorus of their desperate, starving groans.

Su swore under her breath and ran.

She sprinted back the way she came, but the beam had shifted in her absence—the stairwell was now blocked by a group of zombies pushing through, their arms reaching, their mouths working. She turned, ran deeper into the wing. The hallway branched left and right. She chose left, her boots pounding, her breath ragged. Another dead end. A fire door, rusted shut, its handle frozen. She yanked, again, again, but it wouldn’t budge. The horde was closing in, their sounds growing louder, the floor vibrating with their approach.

She saw a small door to her right. A supply closet. She threw it open, slipped inside, and pulled it shut. The room was little more than a cubicle, shelves stacked with boxes of gloves and linens, barely enough space for her to stand. She pressed herself against the wall, pistol aimed at the door, trying to control her breathing. The moans swelled, filling the hallway outside. The zombies shuffled past, some of them bumping against the door, their hands scraping the painted wood. Su squeezed her eyes shut, prayed. *Don’t stop. Don’t notice. Keep going.*

But they stopped.

A low growl, right outside the door. She heard the snuffling sound of a nose pressing against the crack. Her hand trembled on the pistol. The door rattled as something heavy slammed against it. Then another slam. The hinges groaned. She fired through the wood, once, twice. A scream, then more growls. The door burst open, and the first zombie tumbled in, a woman with half her face missing, her mouth stretched into a silent howl. Su fired again, hitting her in the chest, but the thing kept coming, driven by nothing but hunger. She kicked it, pushed it back, but more poured through the gap. They filled the doorway, then the room, their bodies crushing against her, pressing her into the shelves, into the wall.

She screamed. The sound tore out of her, raw and hopeless. “HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!” But there was no one. She was alone in the hospital, alone in the apocalypse, alone with her terror. Tears streamed down her face as the zombies’ hands tore at her, their nails ripping through her shirt, her pants. She felt the sting of flesh tearing, the wet warmth of blood trickling down her arms, her shoulders. She kept firing until the pistol clicked empty, and then she only had her hands, her feet, her voice, but they were useless, they were nothing against the endless press of rotting bodies.

One of them—a tall, broad-shouldered zombie in a security guard’s uniform—pushed through the throng, its eyes milky, its mouth open and dripping. It grabbed her from behind, spinning her around, and sank its teeth into her right buttock, where the tight sky-blue denim of her jeans stretched over her flesh. The fabric tore with a sound like ripping paper, and the tooth-soaked pain exploded through her body, a white-hot fire that shot up her spine and down her leg. She shrieked, bucking, trying to throw it off, but the zombie held fast, grinding its jaws into the meat of her, chewing, swallowing. The others closed in, their hands clawing at her stomach, her chest, her face. She could feel their mouths on her skin, their teeth scraping, biting, tearing chunks away. Her vision blurred. The ceiling flickered with a pale, watery light.

*This is it*, she thought. *This is how I die.*

But the thought was not that of surrender. It was a strange, detached acceptance, the sudden overwhelming knowledge that fear and doubt had finally caught up with her, and there was no escape, no future, no sky-blue horizon she could run toward. Only this: the smell of rot in her nostrils, the taste of copper on her lips, and the endless, gnawing pain.

She stopped screaming. Her body went slack. The zombies fed on, indifferent.

The bite came from below, a savage clamp of teeth through the thin denim. Su Xueqing had been stumbling backward, her HK416 empty, her legs shaking from the sprint. She didn't see the crawling corpse—a woman in a shredded floral dress, her spine twisted, dragging herself across the asphalt with broken fingernails. The zombie lunged upward, its jaw gaping, and fastened directly onto the apex of Su Xueqing's thighs.

The pain was immediate and electric. It shot up through her pelvis, wrapped around her lower spine, and detonated in her skull. She screamed, a raw, guttural sound that tore out of her throat before she could stop it. The zombie's teeth ground through the sky-blue denim, through the thin cotton beneath, and into the soft flesh of her groin. Blood surged, hot and sticky, soaking the fabric, running down the inside of her legs.

Su Xueqing looked down. The woman's face was pressed against her crotch, eyes milky white, lips peeled back, working its jaw like a dog worrying a bone. The sight was so wrong, so intimate and grotesque, that her mind short-circuited. She tried to shove the thing away, but her hands were slick with sweat and blood, and her fingers slipped off the grease-caked hair. Each movement sent fresh agony stabbing through her.

"Get off—get off me!" she sobbed, yanking at the zombie's head. The teeth only sank deeper. She felt them scrape against something inside her, a bundle of nerves that made her whole body seize up. A wet, tearing sound. More blood, pulsing out with each heartbeat.

She fell to her knees, the zombie still attached, its body limp and heavy, hanging from her like a terrible child. The sky was gray, the street littered with abandoned cars and the moans of the approaching horde. They were coming from every direction—shambling silhouettes, arms outstretched, drawn by her screams.

Su Xueqing looked down at the thing between her legs, at the dark stain spreading across the pale blue denim, at the blood pooling on the ground beneath her. She could feel the warm trickle running down her perineum, past her anus, soaking the back of her jeans. The pain was not just physical—it was a violation, a mockery of everything she had tried to protect. Her body, her strength, her dignity. All gone.

She started to cry. Not the quiet tears of a soldier, but the broken, hiccupping sobs of a terrified girl. "My cunt... it hurts so much..." she wailed, the words spilling out, raw and unfiltered. She pressed her hands over the bite, trying to stop the bleeding, but the zombie's head was still there, still clamped on, its teeth buried in her. "Wuwuwu... please... someone... anyone..."

The sound of shuffling feet grew louder. From the corner of her eye, she saw the first of the new zombies reach the curb, ten feet away. Then another. Then five. They were converging, drawn by the scent of fresh blood and the sound of her weeping.

No one came. Li Hao was dead—she had seen him dragged into the alley twenty minutes ago, his screams cut short by the wet crunch of his skull. The rest of her squad had scattered, cut off by the horde. She was alone, here in the middle of the street, with a dead woman chewing on her sex and a pack of the living dead closing in.

Su Xueqing rolled onto her side, trying to drag herself away. The zombie came with her, its teeth still locked, scraping against her pubic bone. She felt a pop inside her, something giving way, and a fresh gush of blood. The pain was so intense it blurred her vision, turning the world into a wash of gray and red.

She looked up at the sky. It was blue. A pale, washed-out blue, like the jeans that were now soaked with her life. She thought of all the years she had spent training, the missions, the medals, the nights alone in her apartment drinking cheap wine and pretending she wasn't afraid. And now this. This was the end. Not a hero's death, but a screaming, whimpering, bloody mess, with a corpse between her legs and more corpses shuffling toward her.

The first hand grabbed her ankle. She kicked weakly, but the fingers held. Another hand took her wrist. Then a face loomed over her, mouth open, teeth stained, breath like rotting meat. It leaned down, and she could see her own reflection in its dead eyes.

She didn't scream again. She didn't have the strength. She just whispered, "It hurts... it hurts so much..." as the teeth closed on her throat, and the world went first to red, then to black, then to nothing.