Rumi Tsurumi was hungry, terrified, and exhausted.
She had once enjoyed the warmth of home, where she could feel safe, and the savory dinners her mother prepared with love.
But those days were gone now.
Rumi would never enjoy a family dinner with her mother and father ever again.
Three days ago, Rumi's world had been shattered when she witnessed the unthinkable. Her mother had been brutally torn apart by the very man who should have protected her. Rumi had stood paralyzed in the doorway, her school bag on the floor, her heart pounding as she watched her father, the man who raised and loved her, push his thumbs into her mother's eyes as she screamed. To silence her, he began to beat and tear the flesh off her face without hesitation.
His eyes glowed a burning red, and his face twisted into a monstrous mask of rage and savagery. With each brutal strike, the sound of her mother's pain reverberated in Rumi's ears—her screams would forever haunt her dreams.
When Rumi's mother finally fell silent, an eerie stillness enveloped the room, heavy with the scent of iron and her father's heavy breathing.
Slowly, her father turned his red gaze towards her, the familiar warmth of his smile replaced by a terrifying rage. A bone-chilling roar erupted from his throat.
Rumi's instincts kicked in.
Without a second thought, she bolted from the house, her breath stolen by terror.
The frantic pounding of her heart drowned out her cries. Glancing back, she saw the monster that had taken her father's shape hurling itself toward her down the residential street, eyes blazing with a predatory desire that sent icy fingers of dread crawling down her spine.
Despite the adrenaline coursing through her, Rumi eventually ran out of breath and came to a stop at a dead end in her neighborhood.
Slowly, Rumi turned and watched as her father rushed her, ready to do the same to her as he had with her mother.
But before her father could kill her as well, Rumi's next-door neighbor had appeared behind him and brought down a hammer onto her father's head. Her father fell, but he was still alive despite the large hole in his head. Raising the hammer high, Rumi's neighbor began to beat her father's skull in.
Rumi stared down at her father's corpse with horror.
She was confused, terrified, exhausted, and heartbroken.
Her world had turned upside down, and she couldn't understand why.
"Rumi-Chan! Come with me!" Rumi's neighbor, Satoshi, a young middle-aged man, approached her with an open, bloody hand. "Hurry! There are more of those things out there!"
Feeling overwhelmed and with no other choice, Rumi numbly agreed to follow Satoshi to a heavily barricaded store. Inside, she met his wife, Tsukiko, a gentle and shy woman who clearly relied on Satoshi as she immediately hugged him when he returned.
Now orphaned, Rumi stayed with the couple as the city around them descended into chaos. It seems whatever had happened to her father wasn't an isolated event. No, there were hundreds of people like him. Attacking and eating those they used to call their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family.
It was a nightmare come to life.
The couple shared their limited resources with Rumi, and they managed to survive the horrors outside. However, their fragile safe space soon fell to the relentless undead as one of them broke through their shelter after Tsukiko forgot to close one of the store's windows properly. Seeing the undead, Tsukiko had screamed, alerting dozens more to their location, forcing the trio to flee into the city.
As they stepped into the ruined landscape, reality hit them hard. The familiar streets of Japan were now gone. Gone are the friendly shopkeepers and busy, but orderly roads where people traveled to reach their destinations.
In their place, destruction, blood, and corpses littered the roads.
With each passing day, their situation worsened.
Food was running low, and their searches for supplies were an insurmountable challenge as the infected littered the grocery, supermarket, and convenience stores.
With their food supplies now empty, Satoshi made the tough choice to venture out into one of the less-occupied convenience stores. However, Tsukiko refused to be left alone. A look of complete terror on her face as she refused to be left alone. No matter what Satoshi said, the woman refused to be left behind.
With no other choice, Satoshi reluctantly brought Tsukiko and Rumi with him on the dangerous mission to find supplies.
As they moved through the city's messy and infested streets, anxiety filled the air. Rumi, afraid of coming face-to-face with the undead again, stuck close to the couple. Relying on them to keep her safe.
However, as they were about to enter the convenience store, disaster struck.
Rumi, in her fear, closed her eyes and allowed Tsukiko to guide her through the store. Tsukiko, not realizing this, guided Rumi around a corner where the young girl accidentally knocked over a stacked crate.
The loud noise shattered the silence and caught the attention of several nearby undead creatures. Their hollow eyes glinted with hunger as they turned toward the sound, and Rumi's heart raced in panic, knowing her fear and refusal to face the creatures that killed her parents had put them all in danger.
And with a small horde now after them, Satoshi led them through the streets in a panic.
"Hurry! Run!" Satoshi shouted as he urged them toward an outlet shopping mall looming ahead. "Go! I'll slow them down!"
"Satoshi! No!" Tsukiko cried out, panic flooding her veins as she turned back, her heart pounding in her chest. Rumi stumbled to a halt beside her, her breath coming in ragged gasps, beads of sweat trickling down her forehead.
"Just go! I'll catch up! Hurry, take Rumi-Chan and go!" Satoshi yelled, gripping his baseball bat tightly as he swung it with all his strength, connecting with one of the approaching undead. The sound of cracking bone filled the air. "Go!"
Tsukiko shook her head in frantic disbelief, hot tears streaming down her cheeks as she grasped Rumi's hand, pulling her along. "C-come on, Rumi-Chan. Follow Onee-San!" Her voice trembled, filled with fear.
"O-okay," Rumi stammered, casting a terrified glance back just in time to see a tide of rotting bodies swarm over Satoshi, dragging him to the ground. She watched as the undead ate and ripped Satoshi's flesh off his body.
Rumi gasped, her eyes widening in horror as Satoshi's blood-curdling screams echoed through the store. His desperate cries cut through the air. With Satoshi now dead, the undead turned their attention toward Tsukiko and Rumi. With a war cry, they surged forward through the dark mall, the sound of their ragged breaths and shuffling feet drowning out everything else as they barreled through the entrance.
"Tsukiko-San, Satoshi-San… he-" Rumi looked up to the young woman, only to see tears running down her cheeks. Tsukiko's eyes were shaky and mad.
"I-it's okay, Rumi-Chan. Satoshi-kun will catch up! " Just keep running," Tsukiko gasped as she dragged Rumi up the frozen escalator.
But as they burst onto the second floor, their hearts sank at the sight before them. Dozens of infected roamed the area, their vacant eyes glistening with an otherworldly hunger as they stood in the dark of the once bustling mall. The moment they heard the girls' frantic footsteps, the undead swiveled in unison, their twisted limbs jerking unnaturally, like puppets.
"M-move very slowly," Tsukiko hissed, a quiver of panic threading through her voice. "E-everything is going to be okay, Rumi-Chan. Big sister is going to p-protect you."
But one of the infected—an emaciated woman with half her face's skin missing—let out a blood-curdling roar that sliced through the tense air like a knife. It echoed off the walls, a sound so primal and filled with rage that it sent icy terror spiraling through Tsukiko.
Before they knew it, the entire mall shook as the roars of the infected bounced off the walls.
In an instant, the grip Tsukiko had on Rumi's hand slipped away. Panic surged in her eyes as she screamed—not a cry of bravery, but a raw, desperate howl before she turned and fled, leaving Rumi behind, trembling.
"…Tsukiko... San?" Rumi whispered, her voice a mere tremor amidst the thrumming dread, eyes wide in disbelief as the world twisted around her.
The infected were rushing in, their growls, moans, and groans rising like a dreadful symphony.
Cold sweat prickled at Rumi's skin as the realization hit her.
She had been abandoned.
She was going to be killed.
As Tsukiko entered a clothing store, two red-eyed infected jumped out of the corner and tackled her to the ground. Tsukiko screamed for someone to help her as one of the infected bit down on her neck. With a violent jerk, it tore off a large chunk of muscle from Tsukiko's neck. Sending an explosion of blood onto the white surface of the floor. The woman slowly choked on her blood as she made eye contact with Rumi.
Rumi stood frozen, her focus locked onto Tsukiko's form as she was being eaten and attacked. Dozens of the undead were nearly upon her, their frenzied eyes and clawing hands reaching out. They were ready to eat her alive and tear her apart, just as they had done to her mother, Satoshi, and Tsukiko.
"Someone… save me," Rumi pleaded, crouching down and covering her head with her arms. She clenched her eyes shut, bracing herself for the pain.
A deafening crash reverberated through the mall as a blue sedan careened through the air, hurtling toward the horde of undead that swarmed like a ravenous tide.
The car collided with a chorus of bone-crushing impact, obliterating the fiends in a frenzy of shattered glass and twisted metal, before it crashed through the glass window of a candle store, sending fragrant wax and shards flying in every direction.
Rumi's heart raced as she watched a figure emerging from the escalator. The person wore a striking black leather jacket adorned with an enigmatic red pattern and bold white stripes that glimmered under the stray beams of light from the overhead skylights. A grey hoodie obscured their face as they sprang into action. With a fierce swing of the large traffic pole in their hands, they sent a wave of the undead reeling back.
With a grunt, the hooded figure hurled the makeshift weapon to her left, where a ghastly, decaying man lurched dangerously close. The pole struck the infected man's head with bone-crushing force, splattering gray matter across the floor.
The leather-clad person jumped forward and began to kick and punch the infected away with incredible strength. But for every undead he took down, a dozen more surged forward, an unrelenting tide of hunger and decay spilling through the corridors of the mall as if the building were a hive of the undead.
Rumi felt the raw adrenaline and terror coursing through her veins as she realized that the relentless hordes showed no sign of stopping.
The hooded man cursed, seemingly realizing this as well, and stopped attacking. He spun around and leaped across the open hall in one jump to land in front of Rumi, shocking her. Without missing a step, he quickly picked her up in his arms.
"Where are the other two people who were with you?" He asked, his voice was rough but oddly familiar.
The question snapped Rumi out of her stupor. Slowly, she turned to the now-infected Tsukiko, who was slowly rising from the ground. Her organs hung out of her torso as she turned to them with the same angry, deranged look as the rest of the undead.
"I see... Don't worry, I'll get you out of here."
Rumi let out a startled squeak as the young man jumped gracefully over a horde of twenty undead, his movements fluid and precise. He landed lightly on the other side, his sneakers barely making a sound against the polished floor of the mall. With a burst of unbelievable speed, he navigated through the maze of dilapidated stores, skillfully sidestepping the grasping hands of the undead that lurked in the shadows.
However, no matter where he ran, a wall of the undead blocked their path.
"Hang on!" the hooded young man shouted as he sprinted toward a dead end. Rumi's heart raced. With instinctive trust, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, clinging to him as if he were her only lifeline.
Without hesitation, the hooded figure leaped forward, his leg snapping out in a powerful kick that connected with the wall before them. The concrete crumbled under the force, sending chunks flying in all directions, enveloping them in a cloud of dust and debris. But Rumi remained unhurt as the hooded man covered her from any of the debris.
As they crashed through the barrier, a rush of sunlight flooded over them, illuminating the chaotic scene and momentarily blinding Rumi. Now in free fall, Rumi steeled herself for the painful impact. A loud crash and crack filled the air as they landed safely, surprising Rumi.
The outside world greeted them with an unsettling sight—swarming masses of the infected lurked all around the mall, their ragged figures moving with an unsettling hunger. The hooded man wasted no time.
He dashed forward down the ruined street that was once a popular and vibrant shopping district. In one fluid motion, he propelled them onto the top of a nearby truck. Without missing a beat, he leaped again, his body soaring gracefully to land on the rooftop of a nearby building.
Clutching tightly to him, Rumi tilted her head back, her heart pounding as she gazed up into the depths of his dark hood as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop. Her breath caught in her throat, and a gasp escaped her lips as she recognized the familiar face that emerged from beneath the fabric. It was a face that stirred memories and emotions within her.
"H-Hachiman?"