Street lamps cracked open weeks ago. Most cities are dust. The world seems stuck in twilight even at noon. Centuries-old trees move with wind that smells like burning hair. Yuuto crouches behind a wall that’s only half a wall.
Are you scared of being the last one left? Yuuto isn’t, not yet. He’s got reason to keep going—some would say obsession.
He’s promised his little sister Sachiko, thin and coughing, he’ll bring her medicine. Deep underground, rumors say, old labs hold a cure that stops what’s rotting the air. But that cure is beneath steel doors with symbols burned across them, watched by things that don’t act human. Most days Yuuto stands alone. Today, someone steps into the dying city ahead of him, covered head to toe by a scarred raincoat.
‘Oi,’ Yuuto says. His voice is more rough than he means.
‘Hungry?’ comes a low answer. This newcomer is Rei, wandering medic, carrying both a blade and hope in her worn bag. She tosses Yuuto half a stale chocolate bar. Not sweet, not home, but food.
The ground shivers. Far off, packs roam, whining wrong words into the night. Yuuto asks, ‘Have you ever thought it’d be easier to stop running?’
‘Only when I’m weak,’ Rei says, ‘But you do what you gotta. Why? Thinking of quitting?’
He shakes his head and tries not to smile. Their voices can’t hide the hunger. Have you ever tasted hope sharp as broken glass?
They push into the town’s heart. Windowless houses, sagging faces, banners that read things nobody remembers hang limp in blown sand. 
In a small shop, glass crunches beneath each footfall. Yuuto pauses by faded photos pinned to a shade.
Rei spends half her days patching strangers. The radio scratches to life by her belt.
Mina calls across, ‘Get moving—something down there knows we’re here.’ Mina is their lookout, a former mechanic, fast on rooftops. She never comes down these days.
They find the stairs beneath rubble. Answer me this: Would you dare find out if a cure is worth losing what little safety is left? The doors of the old lab wait. Rei hands Yuuto a flare. It trembles. ‘Stay behind me,’ she says.
The door is still locked by ancient bytes and blood stains. Dozens failed before them. Yuuto tries each code in his worn notebook. His fingers shake. One deep hum, and the beast in the shadows stirs—giant eyes, stitched from scrap and malice.
The beast stays silent except for three words: ‘Who stays, dies.’
Down corridors too snug for hope, they’re chased by its grinding limbs, shadows slashing against flickering tube lights. Maybe you’d have run. They walk—braced for the night, because every calm moment could be stolen in a blink.
In a locked room at last, so small they have to crouch, shelves hold bottles sealed with red rings. Yuuto reaches for the coldest one. Empty, but he sees what matters: an old email on rusted screens. It reveals a second lab—but the city’s center, lost beneath deepest ground.
Too bad, right? Yuuto picks Sachiko’s photo from his coat pocket. He makes up his mind not to cry before Reina’s shoulder rests firm on his. ‘It’s always further than you think,’ she says.
In the walls, the monster thrums a deep tone—louder. They’re not alone, and whatever is in this room wants them out. Suddenly lights go out for good.
A gasp. Mina’s worried voice crackles faint over the radio, full of static: ‘Something’s crawling outside—Yuuto? Rei?!’
The last shot is Rei gripping Yuuto’s hand, ready to move or break, but nobody knows which. The beast, right behind them, raises spidery limbs from broken floods and flickering sparks. Is there time to get to the true cure, or will this night last forever? 
