The wind that morning was still. Not cool, not warm just empty, like it had no reason left to move. Shivansh sat on the edge of Tower A's fifth floor stairwell, staring out at the pale sky over the opposite tower. It was the first time in days he could hear birds again, but they sounded off, cautious, as if they too knew something below had changed.
Ankita sat beside him, her hand gently moving over Vedant's hair as he slept on her lap. She didn't speak, just traced circles on the back of her younger son's neck, as if silently praying they could stay like this a little longer.
"He'll be fine," Shivansh said softly, though he wasn't sure who he was trying to convince.
"He hasn't spoken much since that first day," she whispered back.
"He watched me kill something that used to be human," Shivansh replied, eyes locked on the horizon. "And we keep calling this survival."
They both fell silent again.
Across the complex, other towers stirred quietly. No shouting. No panic. Just movement behind curtains, muffled footsteps, and the weight of bodies that hadn't slept in days shifting from wall to wall.
Rekha Sethi knelt on the floor of her flat in Tower B, hands folded tightly at her chest. In front of her, a small photo frame of Lord Hanuman rested on a chipped side table. Her lips moved in silent repetition: "Raksha karo. Raksha karo. Raksha karo."
Beside her, Niharika finally broke. She sat curled near the window, sobbing quietly into a folded dupatta, tears soaking the edge as she mumbled, "I can't do this, I can't do this," over and over. Anil stood nearby, silent, staring out the window with eyes that looked far older than his age.
In Tower C, Gurleen Kaur lit a tiny lamp made from cotton and ghee stolen from a forgotten temple shelf in someone's flat. She placed it before a cracked photo of Goddess Durga. "Ma, Please give us strength to do the right thing," she whispered, tears lining her wrinkled face.
Even Mukul, restless and usually focused, paused as he clipped his drone battery into place. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small laminated image of Lord Krishna he'd taken from his mother's prayer cabinet. He didn't say anything, but he held it between his palms for a few seconds before stuffing it back in and returning to work.
The mood across the towers had shifted.
Yes, the infected were still outside. Yes, over a hundred of them now crawled across the garden, some bumping into benches, others howling softly at the gym doors. But for the first time since this all began, the humans were quiet. Not in fear, but in something deeper.
They were pleading. Not to themselves. But to whatever power they still believed watched over ruins.
And above them, the sky slowly paled toward morning mocking them with beauty. Kavita woke to the sound of a breath not hers. Small, irregular, quick. She blinked against the gray light filtering through the slit in the curtain and felt Tina shift in her arms. Her baby whimpered again, barely a sound, but enough to send a chill through her exhausted body.
At first, she thought it was nothing. Maybe a bad dream. Maybe gas. But when she touched Tina's cheek, her own breath stopped.
The heat was unnatural.
Panic crept into her bones before the scream could reach her throat. She fumbled for the end of her dupatta and wiped the baby's forehead slick, burning, damp in all the wrong ways. Tina cried louder now, writhing as if her skin itself hurt.
"No, no, no, no," Kavita whispered, trying to keep her voice down but failing.
Within minutes, the small flat filled with quiet footsteps and tense faces. Aalia entered first, still tying her hair back, her stethoscope slung from her neck like an anchor. Zoya came next, half-awake but alert, followed by Shradha, who didn't say a word but immediately reached for a clean cloth to dip in water.
Kavita looked at them with wild eyes, rocking her baby in desperate rhythm. "She's burning. She won't stop crying. What's wrong with her?"
Aalia touched Tina's forehead and didn't speak right away. She pulled out a thermometer, wiped it with a strip of gauze, and gently slipped it under the baby's arm.
"102.4," she said flatly. "She's spiking."
"Is it... infection?" Zoya asked, almost afraid to finish the sentence.
Aalia shook her head. "No bite marks. No rash. Pupils responsive. This isn't that. But it's not harmless either."
Kavita clutched Tina tighter. "We need paracetamol. Syrup. Drops. Something. Anything."
"We'll check every flat," Shradha said, already moving.
They split into teams. Three floors, six flats, four survivors. Empty wrappers. Expired strips. An old asthma inhaler with half a puff left. One pack of cough drops with mold on the edges.
They returned defeated.
"She's still crying," Gurleen whispered, wiping her hands on her Kurti. "She's not stopping."
Kavita sat on the floor, back against the fridge, legs stretched out, her baby pressed to her chest like a shield. Her lips trembled. "She hasn't eaten since yesterday. I gave her milk but she didn't take it. What if she "
No one interrupted her. No one could.
The baby's cries pierced the walls, louder now, shriller. Aalia knelt beside her, checked the pulse again, but her hands were starting to shake too. Then Kavita snapped.
She stood up suddenly, marched to the balcony grill, grabbed a steel plate and banged it hard once, twice, again and again.
"Someone please helps us!" she screamed. "My baby's dying in here! You hear me? Anyone please!"
The sound clanged across the society like a siren. Zoya rushed to her. "Kavita, stop! You'll draw them!"
"They should come! Let them come! At least someone will be moving!" she shouted through tears. "I'm not going to let my daughter die silent like the rest of them!"
Across the tower, survivors peeked through cracks and curtains. Pooja covered her ears. Shradha pulled Kavita back gently, but the damage was done.
Far below, in the garden, the infected stirred.
Mukul, already flying the drone from Tower D's terrace, cursed under his breath as the camera feed flickered.
A group of them dozens had started to move toward Tower C's shadow. They didn't run. But they drifted, like scent was enough now.
Back inside, Kavita cradled Tina again, sobbing silently.
Aalia pulled out her phone and typed fast:
URGENT: Baby Tina has high fever. No meds in Tower C. Immediate help needed. The message was short, but it hit like a scream. The message arrived in Tower A like a thunderclap.
Parth read it aloud, face tightening. "High fever. No baby meds in C. Immediate help needed."
Shivansh didn't react at first. He was standing near the window, watching the garden through a sliver in the curtain, already counting the infected. They were clustering near the gym doors now, slow but dense almost a hundred of them, swaying and shifting like a field of diseased wheat.
He turned. "Parth, how stocked was the gym?"
"Enough. Basic meds. Antibiotics. Baby syrups. And a bunch of sports supplies sticks, dumbbells, gloves, first-aid kits. It's all caged in the office locker, but I know the code."
"And the entrance is swarming."
"Like flies on a carcass."
They didn't need more words. The problem was clear. The direct path was a death sentence.
Parth sat down and spread a rough map on the floor hand-drawn sketches of the apartment layout. "We use the rooftops," he said, tracing a line from Tower A's terrace to B, then D. "Terrace to terrace. Fast and light." Parth didn't argue. He understood. "Five of us then. Small, swift."
He started listing names as Mukul walked in with his drone remote. "We'll need one lookout. Mukul's our eye. Dinesh he knows the buildings. Samarjeet, for backup. Aarav. And me."
"And the zombies at the gym?" Shivansh asked, already anticipating the snag.
Parth grinned. "That's where it gets fun."
They had the plan within twenty minutes.
Mukul's drone would launch just before the team reached Tower D's rooftop. At the same time, Deepak and Tanmay still recovering, but stationed safely near the basement would roll out a prepped car. A horn had been jury-rigged with an old timer, wired to blast continuously after a 30-second delay.
The car would be pushed silently to the opposite end of the complex, away from the gym, toward the parking exit. Once the horn started, the swarm would move. Zombies followed sound like religion.
That would give the five-man team four to six minutes maybe less to reach the gym through the stairwell hatch, unlock the office locker, grab supplies, and vanish back the same way before the herd could return.
High risk. No second chances. Shivansh was already tying the cloth around his forearm when the argument started.
"I'm coming," he said simply, without looking at anyone. "We go through the terrace bridges. Tower D drops to the gym. Five-minute entry. We're in, we're out."
Parth stood across the room, arms folded, lips pressed in that way Shivansh knew meant trouble. "You're not."
"I started this plan," Shivansh shot back. "Tina's sick. I know how the gym's laid out."
Parth didn't budge. "And if we're all out there and if any tower gets hit? Who holds it then?"
Imran, silent until now, cleared his throat. "Your brother. Your mother. Those kids in the second-floor flat. Gurleen and that child. You want to leave them without command?"
Shivansh opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
He looked toward the window. The garden was worse now. Mukul had counted over a hundred through the drone some circling the gym like dogs at a slaughterhouse, others clawing slowly at fence railings and abandoned furniture.
He tightened the knot on his wrist.
Parth's voice softened. "You've done enough, bhai. Let us handle this one."
Samarjeet Rana stepped forward, already strapping a pouch to his belt. "I've cleared more buildings than I can remember. Dinesh knows the shafts. Aarav's fast. Mukul's flying recon. And I've got a few tricks left from my CRPF days."
Tanmay nodded from the far corner, still bandaged but seated upright. "Let the young bleed a little today. You earned a breather."
Shivansh hated it. Every cell in him wanted to argue. To grab the bat, storm the stairs, and be the one to bring the medicine back himself.
But he looked at Vedant asleep in the hall, curled under a blanket. He thought of Ankita, already prepping soup for four towers using one cylinder. He thought of Shahida playing silently with chalk in the corner. If the tower fell while he was gone...
He sighed, deeply.
"Fine," he said. "Five only. Small and fast."
Parth gave a short nod. "Me, Samarjeet, Dinesh, Mukul, and Aarav."
"Take rope. Gas masks if we have any. Kitchen gloves. Don't open the front gym entrance. Go through the side fire exit it's weaker but less watched."
Mukul added, "Car horn trap's ready. We roll it out five minutes before breach. It'll pull the herd to the parking gate."
Parth was already slinging the duffel over his back, filled with empty sacks and a crowbar. Samarjeet grabbed his blade-laced baton and checked the flare attached to his vest "just in case." Dinesh tightened the straps of a rescue bag. Aarav, quiet but alert, packed electrical tape, a flashlight, and spare batteries.
Before they left, Shivansh stopped them.
He walked up to Parth, clasped his hand tight, and met his eyes.
"Bring it back." Parth smirked. Shivansh shook his head. They didn't waste more words. The drone blinked twice green signal. The mission had begun. The terrace wind was sharper than expected dry, cool, and filled with dust that clung to sweat. Mukul's drone blinked green as it hovered thirty feet ahead, its tiny propellers almost silent against the open sky. The rising sun bled orange over the towers, but no one dared look up.
They moved fast.
Parth led, crouched low, gripping the duffel tight. Samarjeet followed close behind, baton ready, eyes scanning every balcony. Mukul kept glancing between his phone screen and the ledge, guiding them around fallen satellite dishes and forgotten flowerpots. Aarav and Dinesh brought up the rear, each step measured and quiet as breath.
One tower. Then another. The bridges between rooftops metal platforms set years ago for maintenance crews held under their weight but creaked slightly with every step.
Below them, the drone showed chaos beginning to shift.
The car horn trap had triggered perfectly blaring near the exit gate with a scream that sounded like pure mechanical panic. Zombies jerked their heads and began moving slowly, then in a wave. Like puppets suddenly pulled toward sound. Dozens then more. A hundred infected, dragging themselves toward the wrong side of the campus.
Exactly as planned.
They reached Tower D in record time, hearts pounding, legs already tight with tension. The stairwell down to the gym wing felt narrow almost too narrow. The infected had passed through here days ago, and the faint smell of rot and old blood lingered in the railings.
Parth reached the fire exit at the gym's backside.
Steel door. Rusted frame. Exactly where they'd planned to enter unwatched, away from the main horde.
But it didn't budge. He grunted, leaned harder. "It's jammed."
"Wait," Dinesh whispered. "Don't push check the base."
Samarjeet crouched low. "Hinges are warped. Water damage." Parth swore under his breath. "We don't have time."
"Try the crowbar," Aarav said, already pulling it free.
The metal groaned loud against the frame.
"Stop," Mukul whispered, voice rising. Too late.
The door screeched one loud, metallic crack as it finally gave way, slamming inward with a sound that echoed through the corridor like thunder.
For a moment, there was silence. Then came the growls. One. Then many.
Mukul checked the drone feed. "They're turning. The whole group. They heard that."
From the terrace camera, they could see it happen in real-time infected twisting mid-step, stumbling back toward the gym.
"Inside, now!" Parth shouted.
They rushed in, sealed the door behind them. Locked. Barricaded. But the damage was done.
The gym was dark. Old skylight panels spilled dusty light across the mats and benches. Equipment lay scattered dumbbells, broken ropes, a cracked mirror near the yoga space. The air smelled of stale rubber and dry sweat.
Samarjeet locked the side door with an emergency rod and dropped a metal plate against it. "This'll hold," he muttered. "For a while."
But the groaning started within minutes.
Zombies, maybe twenty or more, were now outside pushing at the front gate and circling to the side door like bloodhounds sniffing a trail.
"We're surrounded," Mukul said, panting. "Front's packed. Side's weak. They heard us."
Aarav moved quickly, searching the gym's inner office. "Found the locker."
Parth joined him, hands trembling slightly as he entered the code. The lock clicked.
Inside: meds, two small first-aid kits, antiseptics, syringes, painkillers, and baby syrup thank god.
Parth stuffed it into the duffel, along with gloves, bats, tape, whatever else they could carry. But the groans outside were growing louder now pounding fists, clawing nails, the sound of hunger against steel.
Dinesh stood near the back wall, gripping a metal pole, face pale. "What's the plan now?"
Parth didn't answer. Because right now, they were stuck.