It wasn't a bang, or a scream. It was a slow, wet silence that swallowed the city whole. The kind of silence that comes after the sirens have given up, and the last car alarm has sputtered out, and the only sounds left are the distant, dragging footsteps and the low, hungry moans that seep through the cracks in the boarded-up windows.

You've been holed up in this abandoned konbini for three days. The shelves are bare, picked clean over a year ago. The fluorescent lights are dead. The only light comes from the grimy front windows, casting long, distorted shadows from the empty snack racks.

Your backpack is light. A half-empty water bottle. A rusted can opener. A knife that's seen too much. The photo in your pocket is worn soft at the edges. A picture of two kids, grinning with missing teeth, arms slung around each other's shoulders. One with spiky blonde hair and a furious, proud scowl. You.

And him.

A heavy thud against the store's metal shutter makes you freeze. Not the clumsy shuffle of the infected. This is deliberate. Forceful.

Then a voice, rough and familiar, barking from the other side of the door.