Night pressed deep and heavy.

  Inside the nursery, only two phone flashlights burned—thin, trembling beams like fragile candles holding back an endless dark. Survivors curled beneath borrowed blankets, their breaths shallow, uneven, drifting in and out of uneasy half-sleep. Now and then, an infant’s wail split the silence, quickly muffled by nurses whose arms shook with exhaustion.

  —This was tonight’s vigil.

  “Logan Carter.” The burly man rapped his plaster cast against his good arm, the knock dull as bone. His voice was blunt, steady, edged with command. “Former Army sergeant. Run a liquor shop now. My fists still work. This arm…” He gave a humorless snort. “Slows me down.”

  “Zhou Zhen.” A bespectacled student pushed up his cracked frames, voice soft, almost apologetic. “Medical student. I… I was the one carrying Dr. Caelestis earlier.”

  “Owen Black.” A stubbled man flexed both hands, palms split and rough as brick dust. “Construction. If it’s heavy, I can move it.”

  “Marcus Doyle.” A stocky man rubbed his brow, forcing a crooked grin. “Supermarket manager. I’m good with numbers. Counting shelves, counting coins… maybe tonight, counting minutes till dawn.”

  Last was a lean Black man. He pressed two fingers to a scar along his shoulder, the ache plain in his voice. “Gabriel Monroe. Gabe. Firefighter. I only came today to visit my wife…” His words snapped off, jagged. Silence filled what he couldn’t finish.

  YiChen listened, gaze sweeping across them—not weighing names or trades, but the steadiness in their eyes. Embers of resolve smoldered there, faint but real.

  “YiChen,” he said simply. His tone brooked no doubt. “The watch runs six shifts. An hour and a half each. I’ll take the first. Then rotate.”

  On a scrap of packaging paper, his pen scored quick lines:

  1. YiChen (Now – 00:30)

  2. Gabe (00:30 – 02:00)

  3. Owen (02:00 – 03:30)

  4. Marcus (03:30 – 05:00)

  5. Zhou Zhen (05:00 – 06:30)

  6. Logan (06:30 – sunrise)

  “If anything happens,” YiChen said, voice low but sharp as a blade, “wake everyone. No hesitation.”

  Final as stone: “Later shifts—sleep. You’ll need the strength.”

  The five men nodded, each finding their place along the wall.

  ?

  YiChen checked his father once more, watching his breathing steady into sleep. Only then did he settle against the far wall, axe across his knees, posture straight despite the weight dragging at his frame.

  The others did not sleep quickly. Weariness pressed heavy, but words pressed heavier. They gravitated toward Logan, voices hushed, as though afraid the dark itself might lean in to listen.

  “That glow on your fist,” Gabe asked at last. “What was it? How’d you hit those things like that?”

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  Logan lifted his knuckles into the beam of light. The skin was bruised, raw—yet beneath, memory of a red pulse still seemed to flicker. “Hell if I know. I was pissed. Watching those things tear people apart… I just wanted to smash ’em. Then my fist burned too.”

  “Anger?” Zhou Zhen frowned, uncertain. “You mean… emotion itself can turn into power?”

  “Something like that.” Logan shrugged. “YiChen called it ‘spirit force.’ Said even regular folks can wield it—so long as they’re not afraid.”

  Owen clenched his fists, veins standing out. “Then I’ll try. My wife’s waiting at home. If all it takes is thinking about her—”

  He grit his teeth, face flushing. Nothing came.

  Marcus chuckled low, clapping him on the shoulder. “Maybe it only shows up when death’s breathing down your neck.”

  A ripple of rough laughter passed through the group. The sound was raw, frayed—but laughter nonetheless. For a fleeting heartbeat, the suffocating air thinned.

  In the corner, YiChen sat unmoving, gaze fixed past the glow of talismans on glass. His thumb brushed the haft of the axe, tracing the faint pulse of silver veins beneath his skin.

  The first watch had only just begun.

  ——————

  Elena tucked the blanket over her father, watching his breathing settle into a slow, steady rhythm.

  Almost without realizing, her gaze drifted across the corridor—toward YiChen.

  He sat alone at the far end, bent over his axe. Fingers moved with calm precision, wiping bloodstains from the haft, tracing every groove as if carving order out of chaos. In the dim glow, his profile sharpened into steel lines; shadows pooled beneath his lashes, and his eyes carried a chill that never wavered.

  —So focused.

  Her chest tightened.

  The air still reeked faintly of iron. Darkness pressed heavy around the barricades. And yet—sitting there, YiChen was like a lantern that refused to be snuffed out.

  Steady. Warm. Something she could lean on.

  A shuffle of crutches broke her reverie.

  A young woman, leg bound in plaster, hobbled toward him. In her hands: a crushed pastry wrapped in paper and a half-filled bottle of water. Her cheeks pink, voice barely more than a whisper.

  “Here… have something to eat.”

  YiChen raised his head. He accepted without hesitation, bowing it slightly. “Thank you.”

  The woman turned back, lips curling into a shy, quiet smile.

  Elena’s chest prickled. A sour ache bloomed.

  —She likes him.

  The thought fell heavy, stirring an envy she hadn’t expected… and a flicker of loss.

  Why hadn’t she stepped forward first?

  Her eyes dropped to her palm. Faint traces of warmth lingered there, spirit still echoing—his touch imprinted like an afterglow.

  He saved me.

  The words whispered inside her like a sigh.

  But it hadn’t only been saving.

  When he leapt before her and her father—axe cleaving that writhing tendril—

  She had seen his back.

  Unyielding. Fierce.

  And in that instant, something pierced her. A yearning.

  Not only to stand behind him.

  But one day—

  to stand beside him.

  ?

  At three-thirty, Marcus stirred awake to Owen’s nudge.

  “Your turn.”

  Owen’s voice was hushed, nodding toward the roster taped on the wall.

  Marcus groaned, rubbing his eyes. It felt as if he had only just closed them. Fatigue pressed against his skull like stone. He grabbed his bottle, gulped, splashed some onto his face, and slapped his cheeks hard.

  Stay sharp, Marcus.

  Dragging heavy steps, he moved to the window.

  The fog outside had thickened. Gray haze swallowed the parking lot and distant streets, blurring every shape. Cars stood abandoned at crooked angles, doors yawning open as if their owners had fled mid-breath.

  At first, he thought it was exhaustion blurring his vision. He blinked—hard.

  And froze.

  The haze moved.

  It writhed.

  Not ordinary mist, but thick and foul, sluggish like oil. It poured across the ground, climbing car roofs, coiling around lamp posts. At times it bulged into vague human forms; other times it splintered into countless tendrils, sniffing at the air like starving beasts.

  —Fiends.

  Bigger. Denser. More solid than anything they had seen.

  All at once, Marcus’s drowsiness shattered. His chest clamped tight. Cold sweat traced his spine.

  Behind him, the clock on the nurse’s desk ticked once.

  03:41.

  The night was far from over.