Intro
Rain slapped rags and broken roads. Natsu Kaito, seventeen, moved between heaps of twisted car steel and pale stone. With each step, he kept close to Hana’s shivering form. She coughed, tried to keep the bag safe on her lap.
It wasn’t always empty, this world. Two months back, no way Kaito would’ve sworn through ten blocks of silence like this, holding a rusted pipe or searching bodies. ‘Why are you moving so slow?’ Kaito whispered. Hana barely lifted her eyes—red-rimmed, swollen. ‘They might hear,’ she mouthed.
The sky creaked above, sick with black cracks and dying color. People’s shadows, thin, flickered beyond corners. Kaito remembered old games and late ramen nights. Would you miss days like those if you’d watched the world fall apart? Do certain memories sting sharper when you’re sure you’ll never get them back?
Protagonist & The Team
Kaito had one thing left—his little brother, Riku. Missing ten days now. Every hour raised a spiked question in his head: alive, or one of them?
Hana, his best friend since grade school, kept calm under pressure. She once drew comics in their homeroom. Her hands still shook, though. There was also Takei—older, sharp-faced, skeptical from the start.
Mizuki spoke less. Her smile seemed wrong, too wide in these halls, yet she moved with careful, deliberate steps. They met her only last week, pulled from rubble in the market district. That chain on her neck jingled in every silent space—Kaito never asked where she got it.
The Horror Unfolds
After the sixth day, sleep became fractured. The monsters weren’t just outside now—they crept into sound and shape.
Kaito woke some nights to voices—his brother’s, sometimes his own. Once Hana screamed, kicking at walls smeared with wet black handprints. Takei found three empty cans and rations, left in a neat bundle by the window souffle. ‘Something is playing with us,’ he said, flat, empty, Monday after moonset.
How much do you trust people after being together in hiding for weeks? Would you tell your dark dreams to anyone, or keep the horror down till it eats what’s left?
Ancient Signal
On a stunted radio, crackled with static like soft paper, they heard it—a signal. Tower 13, fringe of Yagami sector, survivors can send a message noon and dusk. Outside, wet rot and the sound of meat. Takei’s eyes lit—hope bleeding from tensions closed too long.
But the way ran through the zone people feared, where street shrines sat glassy and empty. ‘We move fast,’ said Takei. Hana only bit her wrist’s edge, pensive.
Building Tension
The way drew dark. Their lights—small LED sticks—gave shaky halos on brick.
Mizuki paused deeper into the old mall. ‘It’s coming,’ she whispered before the howl. A nightcreeper—a slick, three-eyed mass—not ten meters ahead.
Kaito acted first, uncaring. Steel pipe flung, glass broke, plastic sheets swung with wind. The team split, instincts raw and snapped.
Hana stumbled, reaching up as claws missed her by handbreadth. Takei flanked; Mizuki threw the field radio. Static grew, loud and thick as syrup. Sweaty, Hanna pressed against a broken appliance, eyes closed tight.
The monster didn’t chase long. Rain fell harder. They regrouped, shaky, bitter edged. Everyone was bleeding somewhere; Hana coughed red into her glove. Wait. ‘Hole in my lung,’ she tried to smile, failing. Silence was the worst pain.
Descent to the Tower
Crushed bikes and upended bins made paths like veins on a dying thing. Each step to Tower 13 risked more.
Kaito led, pipe pressed to his chest. The group stopped three floors up: sign, spraylined—’No light beyond this point.’ Darkness dripped, deep and bone-cold ahead.
They moved anyway. Something jerked at Hana’s pack, something wet. Mizuki’s chain made its sound again. Kaito mumbled Riku’s name, hand sweaty, haunted by the radio burning at his side.
Cliffhanger – Scream & Revelation
At level five, absolute black, Takei hissed, ‘Don’t speak.’
Laughter. Echoed, scared. Each froze. Light scraped the edges—a real face, shining eyes in the dark. Not human. Not monstrous, just that empty in-between. ‘Want to see what you gave up?’ The face asked.
Hana screamed. The radio went dead. Kaito felt Riku’s voice behind the railings.
‘I’m just below,’ the speaker promised.
The floor gave way—three fell through smashed glass, Kaito clinging one-handed for life. Hana slipped into shadow, an arm’s reach from rescue or oblivion. Would you save the friend or chase your last hope? Fade-out. 
