The distant roar of the burning base was a constant, unsettling drumbeat, even as Johan and Henry discussed their next move. Inside the truck, the air was thick with tension and the smell of exhaust.
"We can't wait much longer," Johan said, his gaze fixed on the glowing horizon. "That fire's spreading fast. Maarg and Jack should have been back by now."
Henry, perched on an overturned crate, meticulously cleaned a rifle. His movements were precise, almost delicate, a stark contrast to the grim reality outside. "They'll be back," he said, his voice calm, steady. "They're capable. You learn to trust people when your life depends on it. I learned that on the force."
Johan blinked, surprise rippling through him. He paused, looking at the man in front of him. Henry was lean, almost slight, with refined features and a quiet demeanor. He always seemed more suited to a library than a firefight. "The force?" Johan asked, skepticism clear in his tone. "You were a cop?"
Henry looked up, a faint, wry smile touching his lips. "Before all this, yeah. Detective, actually. Homicide." He saw the disbelief in Johan's eyes and chuckled softly. "Doesn't fit the image, does it? Most people said I looked like a librarian even then. But the streets teach you a lot, fast. And a good mind, even a 'delicate looking' one, can solve problems a brute can't."
Just then, Gabby's voice cut through the air, sharp with urgency. "Look outside! Now!"
Everyone in the truck craned their necks, their eyes drawn to the inferno that now devoured the base. Through the shimmering heat haze and the billowing black smoke, two figures slowly, painfully, rose from the flames. They were ragged, soot-streaked specters against the orange glow. One was tall and muscular, his blue hair matted with ash, his movements heavy and deliberate. The other was shorter, his black hair plastered to his forehead, and even from this distance, they could see the glistening trails of tears streaming down his ash-covered face.
It was Maarg and Jack.
They were leaning on each other, a single, broken unit. Neither man had enough energy to support himself any longer, their bodies moving in a slow, agonizing shuffle. Every step was a monumental effort, a testament to the hell they had just endured.
Andy, who had been sitting anxiously in the open backdoor of the truck, was the first to react. His face, etched with worry moments before, split into a wide grin of disbelief and elation. He scrambled out of the truck and sprinted towards the two exhausted figures, his voice hoarse with a mixture of surprise and profound relief.
"You did it!" Andy shouted, his words carried on the wind, a desperate cry of triumph. "You both made it back!" His voice was filled with a vibrant, almost manic excitement. He expected laughter, a triumphant grin, a shared moment of victory.
But the boys in front of him didn't laugh. They didn't even smile. As Andy reached them, their legs simply gave out, and they fell down with exhaustion, collapsing onto the scorched earth, the last vestiges of their strength utterly spent. Their mission, their harrowing escape, had taken everything they had.
***
A boy with black hair was floating in the darkness, a profound, suffocating void that stretched endlessly around him. There was no sound save the ghostly echoes of accusation, no light but the shifting, spectral forms that materialized from the gloom. Then, a figure began to coalesce closer to him. Short, pale blonde hair framed a delicate, medium build. The person slowly turned, and Maarg's breath hitched in his chest, a sharp, painful intake of phantom air. It was Remmy, the friend he had lost, left behind during their desperate, frantic escape from the colony.
Her beautiful, small face was utterly devoid of emotion, her eyes like polished glass, reflecting nothing but the cold, indifferent darkness. "You could have saved us," she said, her voice a hollow whisper that chilled him to the bone, colder than any frost. It was a sound that carried the weight of unspoken blame, a gentle, devastating accusation.
Before Maarg could utter a word, before he could form a plea, a denial, a desperate explanation, another voice joined the chorus, familiar and agonizing, tearing at the fabric of his memory. "You could have saved us." This one belonged to someone he knew all too well, voices he longed to hear but dreaded in this context: his parents. The last time he had seen them, their faces were contorted in a primal hunger, their eyes vacant and lifeless as they succumbed to the infection, transforming into the very zombies they had once feared. He remembered the desperate, futile fight, the impossible choice.
'Is this hell? Purgatory? Am I dreaming?' Maarg's mind reeled, a torrent of questions flooding his consciousness, battling against the chilling, suffocating reality unfolding before his eyes. He felt a profound sense of disorientation, a desperate need to grasp onto something real, something solid in this terrifying illusion. But there was nothing. Just the darkness, and the growing multitude of the lost.
"You could have saved us." This time, the voice was the most recent, the sharpest, cutting through the agony of his past like a fresh blade. It was Tara and Mark. Their voices, laced with an unspeakable sorrow and a quiet, crushing accusation, twisted the knife deeper into his soul, reminding him of his failures, of the promises he couldn't keep.
Slowly, inexorably, the voices began to grow louder, more numerous, a rising tide of condemnation. More figures materialized from the encompassing darkness, their forms spectral yet hauntingly real. Remmy's grandparents, their faces etched with the terror of their final moments, their hands reaching out in silent despair. All their old neighbors from the colony, their bodies scarred by the apocalypse, their eyes empty and accusatory. Even Buster, the same loyal dog that had been turned into an abomination by Charity, its distorted muzzle lifted, emitting a low, mournful howl that echoed the human laments. All of them, a spectral choir of the lost, their eyes fixed on him, an unyielding, unforgiving gaze. They were chanting the same relentless mantra:
"You could have saved us."