The inside of the hospital stank of mold, rust, and something worse — old death, lingering like a hand around Kira’s throat.

  She moved carefully through the dark hallways, every step stirring dust from cracked tiles. Overhead, broken lights hung like skeletal remains. Somewhere deeper in the building, water dripped steadily — a slow, maddening rhythm.

  Ahead, the stranger — the man who had shot the scavenger — moved without hesitation, his broad back cutting a path through the gloom. He hadn’t looked back once to see if she followed.

  Kira gritted her teeth. Arrogant bastard.

  She should leave. She owed him nothing. But the hospital was a death trap; wandering it alone was a good way to get your throat slit or your lungs filled with rot spores.

  And part of her — the part she hated — burned with curiosity about him. A man that confident either got dead fast… or he was something dangerous.

  She tightened her grip on her knife and pressed forward.

  They came to a battered security desk, half-buried under fallen beams. The man stopped, scanning the area with sharp, practiced eyes. Up close, Kira could see the faded military tattoos on his forearms — black ink coiled into strange sigils, half-lost under scar tissue.

  “Name?” he asked, voice low but commanding.

  Kira narrowed her eyes. “Why do you care?”

  “You’re either useful,” he said, checking the hallway behind them, “or you’re a liability. Knowing your name tells me which one.”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  “Vance,” she said after a pause. “Kira Vance.”

  He nodded once. “Draven Holt.”

  The name meant nothing to her — just another ghost in a world full of them.

  Still, she tucked it away. Information was power.

  “What’s in here worth dying for?” she asked, jerking her chin toward the dark corridors beyond.

  “Depends how badly you want to live,” Draven said, starting forward again. “Come on.”

  They moved deeper into the hospital. Rooms loomed on either side: shattered gurneys, overturned carts, rust-eaten lockers. Twice they had to step over bodies — long-dead, desiccated to husks by time and dust. Kira didn’t flinch. Death was the only true constant in the Zones.

  At the end of the hallway, a heavy metal door blocked their path, twisted on broken hinges. Beyond it, faint light flickered.

  Draven gestured for silence. He drew his gun again — an old-world model, black and efficient — and crept forward.

  Kira followed, heart thudding.

  They slipped through the door into what must have once been an operating theater. Now it was a makeshift stronghold: piles of scavenged supplies, barrels filled with rainwater, old solar panels cobbled together into a crude power source.

  And three armed scavengers guarding it.

  Kira ducked back instinctively — but not fast enough.

  One of the guards shouted, raising a rifle.

  “Shit,” Draven hissed, and fired.

  The first guard dropped, blood spraying the cracked walls. The others scrambled for cover, returning fire in sharp, deafening bursts. Bullets chewed into the doorframe inches from Kira’s head.

  No way out now.

  Kira hurled herself sideways, rolled behind a toppled metal cart, and yanked a throwing blade from her belt. Her fingers moved fast, muscle memory from too many street fights.

  She waited for a break in the gunfire —

  — and let the blade fly.

  It sank into the second guard’s throat with a wet, meaty thunk. He collapsed, gurgling.

  Draven, meanwhile, moved like a machine: cool, methodical. Two more shots, two more dead scavengers.

  Silence fell, thick and sudden.

  Kira pulled herself upright, heart hammering. Her shoulder ached fiercely where the scavenger’s pipe had hit earlier, but she was still alive.

  For now.

  Draven was already moving through the loot piles, checking supplies with efficient hands.

  “You always crash parties like this?” Kira asked, keeping her voice light — but her knife ready.

  “Only when I’m invited,” he said, deadpan.

  He tossed a dusty package to her — bandages, still sealed. Real medical supplies. Kira caught it instinctively.

  “We split the haul,” Draven said. “Fifty-fifty.”

  “And if I say no?”

  He gave her a look — flat, dangerous.

  “You won’t.”

  He was right, of course. Supplies meant survival.

  But Kira still hated being predictable.

  She shoved the bandages into her pack. “Fine. Fifty-fifty. For now.”

  Draven nodded once, sharp and final.

  Somewhere deep in the ruined hospital, another scream echoed — low and broken. Not from a human throat.

  Both of them froze.

  Draven’s eyes met hers, grim.

  “Something else is here,” he said.

  Kira tightened her grip on her knife.

  And whatever it was, it was hunting them.

  Survival isn’t clean. It isn’t heroic.

  It’s blood under your nails, ash in your lungs, and the constant choice between killing or dying.

  Kira’s journey has just begun — and already the world is reminding her that every decision here comes with a price.

  In Zone of the Perished, trust is a weapon just as sharp — and just as dangerous — as any blade. And Draven Holt? He’s not a savior. He’s a storm she hasn’t decided whether to run from or follow into hell.

  Stay sharp. Stay alive.

  The worst is yet to come.