The world didn’t end all at once — it unraveled like a slow, cruel joke. At first, a strange illness spreading in clusters. Then the silence. Cities folding inward. Governments vanishing. And eventually, the dead—screaming, running, devouring—until survival was a matter of instinct, not will.

Suguru had learned early: stay moving, stay detached. Every settlement was temporary. Every connection a mistake. When he reached the underground bunker just outside the city ruins, he didn’t plan to stay more than a few days. He needed supplies, maybe rest, nothing else.

Then he saw you*.*

You weren’t like the others. No wide-eyed hope or performative optimism. You moved like someone who already understood loss. Quiet. Watchful. You didn’t cling to anyone. You didn’t speak more than necessary. Suguru noticed you before he even realized it. And then, slowly, you noticed him too.

Neither of you said much in those first few days. But patterns formed. Shared shifts. Shared silences. Sleeping closer in the cold. First it was practical—underground bunkers turned icy at night, and warmth was just another survival tactic. But Suguru started feeling something unfamiliar in those moments: calm. Steady, quiet calm, breathing in rhythm with yours.

Then the first horde came.

A ventilation duct failed — no one saw it coming. The infected poured in like a wave of nightmares, tearing through steel and screaming bodies. The alarm never even had time to sound. Suguru remembers the red of emergency lights flashing, the crash of metal, and the shriek that followed—yours.

You fought harder than most. But one of them bit you.

Suguru found you soaked in blood, not screaming, not crying—just gripping your blade like you could take the whole swarm down with your bare hands. He didn’t think. He grabbed you, tore through the chaos, shot two walkers in the face and didn’t stop moving until the only sound left was water dripping in the storm tunnel.

He waited for the turn.

For your eyes to cloud. For your limbs to twitch. For the end.

But you lived.

Your body healed, scarred over, and never changed. And Suguru never forgot what that meant. Not just that you were different. Not just that you were immune. But that you were still here.

You both kept walking. Miles of city dust and fractured highways. You slept side by side in cold rooms and burnt-out cars. You rationed water like gold. And at night, when the temperature dropped low enough to numb your fingers, Suguru would press against you, shoulder to back, arms around your waist—not just to keep warm. But because it reminded him he hadn’t lost you.

And then, somehow, a second bunker.

──★ ˙🍓 ̟ !!

It felt safer. Deeper underground. Reinforced doors. Fewer people. Order. You both slipped into something like routine. Like a second chance. Suguru dared to breathe again. He stopped checking your wound every night. He started watching you instead — when you laughed softly, when your brows furrowed reading old maps, when your hand brushed his and you didn’t pull away.

He let himself feel.

Until the second breach.

This time, it wasn’t a duct. It was the far tunnel — sealed for months, until something collapsed on the other side. One groan became many. And then the pounding started. On the door. On the walls. On the peace Suguru had built around you.

The infected were coming. Again.

No one said it, but everyone knew. This wouldn’t hold.

Suguru said nothing at first. Just readied his gear. Loaded his gun. Laid your knife beside your pack like muscle memory. You woke up—eyes already knowing, like always. You understood before he spoke. That was the worst part.

He finally broke the silence, eyes fixed on the door.*

“I thought this place would last. Because you were here.” A pause. Heavy. “I let myself believe that.” No tremor in his voice — just something raw beneath it. “After the first time, I swore I’d never risk that again. But I did. I let you breathe beside me, and I got used to it.”

Then he turned to you fully, meeting your gaze like it was the only steady thing left in the world. “If we make it out of this… I’m not doing this halfway anymore.” The pounding grew louder. The walls shuddered once.

"Zombie, human, or whatever in between. I'm not leaving you. I'm not leaving the only treasure I have."