“H-hello?” Ave called out tentatively. 

In the oppressing darkness, the person’s face was completely shrouded in inky-black darkness. It was hard to even distinguish whether it belonged to a man or a woman. 

“Are you also a survi…” Nico paused mid-sentence, seemingly unnerved by the other’s strange silence. 

The flashlight continued to flicker waveringly as whoever held it offered no response. It was clear to everyone now that there was something off about the mysterious person—but I could detect a thread of Life within them, so I hesitated to summon my scythe right away. 

Was this person the source of the faint presence I detected back at the station? Could it be that the pile of bodies was their doing? 

“Hey, say something, will you?” Gee finally snapped and took a step forward. 

“What are you doing, you—” Ave was cut off by the hollow sound of metal hitting against metal. 

Plink-clink. The person had dropped their flashlight upon Gee’s sudden outburst, causing it to hit the side of the rail and bounce upwards. For a brief moment, its beam of light fell upon the person’s face—illuminating the congealed blood pooling from the large crack on his forehead. 

She barely let out a shocked gasp before the undead man growled and lunged at her throat. 

“Get down!” I grabbed her arm and pushed her frozen body to the ground. The entire weight of the man slammed into the side of my head; the sheer impact nearly dislodged my jaw, and I tasted blood in my mouth as I threw the man off me.

“Memento mori.” With a flick of my wrist, the man’s body was sliced cleanly into two halves. 

“W-what was that…” Lila’s eyes widened in fright. 

Gee, who was stumbling to her feet, screamed loudly and scampered away from the man. “Guys, l-look at his body!” 

I narrowed my eyes at the gurgling inky-black blood flowing out from the mortal wound. “We should leave now. That isn’t normal blood.” 

“L-let’s go, everyone!” Ave picked up the discarded flashlight and picked Lila up in his arms, while Nico dragged Gee along on his back. 

I took a step forward before spinning around to face the man’s corpse. 

Or it should have been his corpse, but the two reanimated halves slowly rejoined with a sickly squelching noise and the man stood to his feet once again. His lifeless pitch-black eyes bored into me before he opened his mouth to impossible proportions—and out came a hail of blood bullets!

“So now you guys have this move up your sleeves?” I lifted my scythe and slashed it across the width of the tunnel. The sheer gust of wind created from my slash cut into the man’s body in a cross shape and he staggered, but refused to give up.

“What else do you have…?” My narrowed eyes slowly widened. 

Behind his back, a huge swarm of reanimated bodies was fast approaching in our direction. Each one of them had their mouths abnormally wide open just like the man—looking more like ghouls than humans. 

“Mori, what are you—EEK!” Gee screamed till the verge of fainting when she turned her head around and caught sight of the disgusting undead. “WHY IS THERE A HORDE OF ZOMBIES CHASING US?!”

“Z-zombies?” Nico also glanced back and screamed in terror. “Fuck, fuck, this shit ain’t real! Mamaaa!” 

“There’s an emergency exit ahead!” Ave frantically ran towards the metal door recessed into the tunnel wall and yanked it open. “Guys, hurry!” 

As if sensing their prey was getting away, the undead aimed at them in synchronisation and shot out a tremendous barrage of sharp ink-black blood bullets. 

“Sorry, not if I’m here.” 

I tightened my grip on the handle and dug my feet into the gravel. Elongating the length of my blade, I swung my scythe over my head in a flourish. This time, I didn’t cut down the individual bullets, but deflected them upwards to the ceiling of the tunnel instead.

An earthquake-like tremor shook the entire concrete structure, knocking everyone off their feet onto the ground. The resulting cloud of dust and rubble threw the horde off and they stopped momentarily, trying to regain their sense of direction in the confusion. 

“The ceiling is thicker than I thought…” I withdrew my scythe and leapt upwards, aiming my right leg at the crack forming in the cement. 

Kra-aa-ack! 

The damaged section completely gave way from the force of my kick and collapsed upon itself, setting off a chain reaction of gaping holes in the ceiling. 

“M-Mori!” I heard Ave hollering anxiously. “River! Right above us!” 

Just as he said that, a torrent of water burst out from the largest hole. 

“See you guys on the other side.” I smiled at the swarm of undead and spun around, sprinting towards the others screaming for me to hurry. 

As soon as I jumped through the exit, Ave pulled on the handle with all his might and slammed the heavy door shut. There was a brief moment of quietness, as everyone held their breaths in their chests tensely, before the deafening roar of rushing water pounded our eardrums.