Chapter 12: First Floor Neighbours

The metallic click of my apartment door closing behind me echoed through the empty hallway like a gunshot in the silence. My footsteps felt hollow against the worn carpet as I made my way toward the elevator.

The familiar ding that usually announced the elevator’s arrival never came. I pressed the call button again, harder this time but nothing.

"Of course," I muttered under my breath, the words tasting bitter.

It worked just a moment ago and it had to crash down right when I needed it the most.

The stairwell door groaned on its hinges as I pushed it open, revealing the concrete steps that stretched down into shadows. The air here was stale and thick, carrying the faint scent of mildew and something else I didn’t want to identify. My hand found the cold metal railing, and I began my descent.

With each step down, the emptiness inside my chest seemed to expand. It was a hollow, gnawing sensation that had taken root the moment I’d watched my mother’s eyes go blank, the moment I’d realized the woman who had raised me, protected me, loved me unconditionally, was gone forever. The thing that had taken her place—that shambling, mindless creature—hadn’t been her. It couldn’t have been.

My fingers unconsciously moved to my chest pocket, feeling the sharp edges of the photograph through the fabric. The picture was creased from countless times I’d held it, touched it, drawn strength from it. Me and Mom at the beach last summer, both of us laughing at something I couldn’t even remember now. Her arm around my shoulders, her smile genuine and warm. That was the mother I wanted to remember, not the horror that had replaced her in those final moments.

The thought brought with it a familiar darkness, one I’d hoped I’d left behind years ago. It was always the same pattern, wasn’t it? The good people, the ones who actually mattered, were always the first to fall. Meanwhile, the parasites of the world continued to thrive, living their comfortable lives while better people suffered.

My bastard father was probably holed up somewhere safe with his new family—the woman he’d left us for and another reason behind my mom’s divorce.

I’d bet everything I had that he was still breathing, still laughing, still pretending he was a good man while people like my mother paid the ultimate price.

The rage built slowly, like a fire catching on dry kindling. I could feel my nails digging into my palms as my hands clenched into fists. These thoughts—this poisonous spiral of hatred and despair—I’d thought I’d conquered them. After the divorce, when it was just Mom and me, I’d found peace. She’d shown me that the world could still hold beauty, that there were reasons to hope, to keep fighting. But now that she was gone, that carefully constructed optimism was crumbling, revealing the bitter cynicism that had always lurked beneath.

I paused on the landing between the third and second floors, steadying myself against the concrete wall. The surface was cold and rough against my palm, grounding me in the present moment. I couldn’t afford to lose myself in these thoughts, not now. Not when I needed to stay sharp, stay alive.

If not for me, for mom at least.

As I continued down, a sound drifted up from below—a low, guttural growling that made me quickly refocus. Multiple voices, overlapping in that horrible chorus I’d learned to recognize. The infected were close. I slowed my pace, placing each foot carefully to minimize noise. The growling seemed to be coming from the first floor, echoing through the hallway beyond the stairwell door.

Then I heard something else. Human voices, strained with desperation and terror.

"S—Sis, please! You can’t do this!"

"Stay away, Rebecca! It’s over for me! J—Just... stay away." This voice was older.

They were still people alive here?

I reached the first floor landing and crept toward the door that led to the hallway. My heart was hammering against my ribs, but I had to know what was happening. Slowly, carefully, I cracked the door open just enough to peer through.

The hallway stretched before me, dimly lit by the emergency lighting that cast everything in an eerie red glow. Three infected were pressed against a door about halfway down the corridor—apartment 1C, according to the faded numbers on the wall. But these weren’t people anymore.

The infected were making an incredible amount of noise, their growls and scraping echoing off the walls. Whatever was happening inside that apartment, these creatures were drawn to it like moths to flame.

"I—I can’t do this without you! We’ll find a way, please don’t do it!"

"There’s no choice left, Rebecca. I can feel it happening. I won’t... I won’t become one of those things."

The pieces clicked together in my mind with quite clarity. Someone had been bitten. Someone was turning, and they were trying to spare their loved one from watching the transformation.

I should have walked away. These people were strangers. I didn’t even know their names, had never spoken to them despite living in the same building for years. In this new world, looking out for yourself was the only way to stay alive.

But I couldn’t move.

Maybe it was the memory of my mother’s final moments. Maybe it was the guilt of not being able to save her. Or maybe it was just the stubborn part of me that refused to let the world become completely devoid of humanity. Whatever the reason, I found myself studying those three infected with calculating eyes instead of fleeing.

Three of them. That was manageable, if I was smart about it. If I used my ability correctly.

I looked down at my left hand, at the hourglass tattoo.

Alright!

Ten seconds.

That’s all I had, but if I used them wisely, it might be enough.

Taking a deep breath, I pressed my finger firmly against the center of the hourglass.

The world ground to a halt.

The infected froze mid-motion, their claws suspended inches from the door.

I pushed through the stairwell door and moved quickly but carefully down the hallway. The infected were heavier than they looked—death had made their bodies dense and unwieldy. I grabbed the first one by the shoulders and hauled it away from the door, surprised by how much effort it took. The body felt wrong in my hands, cold and stiff despite the fact that it had been moving moments before.

One by one, I dragged them toward the stairwell. The first one I managed to position at the top of the stairs, ready to tumble down when time resumed. The second joined it quickly, but the third fought me even in its frozen state, its weight seeming to increase with each step.

By the time I had all three positioned and ready to fall, I could feel the familiar tingle that meant my time was almost up. I sprinted back to the stairwell door and pulled it shut just as the hourglass completed its cycle.

Time crashed back into motion like a wave hitting a seawall.

The sound of three bodies tumbling down concrete steps echoed through the stairwell, accompanied by confused growls and the wet sound of impact. I pressed my back against the door, breathing hard, listening as the noise faded into the depths of the building.

Damn, it felt easier than I thought...

I looked at my hands.

They seemed quite heavy yet I did so easily...

I shook my head.

The hallway beyond was silent now. I waited another few seconds, making sure the infected weren’t going to find their way back up, then approached apartment 1C.

And I knocked gently the door.

"Hey," I called softly through the door.

"W—Who?!" Rebecca’s voice cracked with shock and disbelief. I could hear her moving closer to the door, probably pressing her ear against it to make sure she’d really heard a human voice. After listening to nothing but inhuman growls for who knew how long, my presence must have seemed impossible.

"My name is Ryan. I live upstairs. I heard you were in trouble."

There was a long silence from inside the apartment. I could almost feel Rebecca processing this, trying to decide if I was real or if desperation had finally driven them to hallucinations.

"The... the infected," Rebecca whispered. "They were right outside. We could hear them, but now..."

"They’re gone," I assured her. "For now, anyway. Are you both okay in there?"

"N—No..." Rebecca’s voice broke completely. The raw pain in that single syllable told me everything I needed to know before she even continued.

I pressed closer to the door. "What’s wrong? What happened?"

"My sister..." Rebecca’s words came between ragged breaths."She got bitten and locked herself in her room. She won’t let me in, she won’t let me help her. She said... she said she’s going to end it herself before she turns."

"How long has it been since she got bitten?" I asked immediately. Time was everything with infections. Sometimes people had hours, sometimes minutes. If we were lucky...

"I—I don’t know exactly! Maybe half an hour, maybe more?" Rebecca shouted in panic. "She wanted to see if we could find a way out of the building, but when we opened the door to check, one of those things was right there. It grabbed her arm before she could react, and then... and then she pushed me back inside and slammed the door."

My heart was pounding as I processed this information. Thirty minutes might still be within the window, depending on how deep the bite was, where it was located, and a dozen other factors I didn’t fully understand.

"Listen to me carefully," I said. "Can you let me inside? Maybe we can do something to help her."

The silence that followed stretched on for what felt like an eternity. I could practically hear the internal debate happening on the other side of that door—trust a stranger in a world where trust could get you killed, or watch her sister die alone behind a locked bedroom door.

"I know this is hard," I continued, pressing my palm against the cool wood of the door. "I know you don’t know me, and I know how dangerous it is to trust anyone right now. But one of my friends got bitten too, a just a day ago. She managed to survive because the bite wasn’t deep enough, wasn’t in a major blood vessel. Maybe there’s still hope for your sister. Please, let me at least try to help."

It was obviously a lie.

The silence stretched on, broken only by Rebecca’s occasional sniffles and the distant sound of something moving in the depths of the building. Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably only a minute or two, I heard the soft click of multiple locks being undone.

The door opened just enough to reveal a sliver of the apartment beyond, and the girl standing behind it.

Rebecca was beautiful in the way that tragedy makes people beautiful—her pain so raw and immediate that it seemed to make her features more vivid, more alive. She looked to be maybe a year or two younger than me, with wavy auburn hair cut in a stylish pixie that framed her face perfectly. Her eyes were a striking hazel-green, the kind that seemed to shift color depending on the light, but right now they were red-rimmed and swollen from crying.

What caught my attention most, however, was the large kitchen knife she held in both hands, pointed directly at my chest. It was the kind of heavy cleaver used for cutting through thick meat and bone, and despite her tears and obvious emotional state, her grip on it was steady and serious.

"D—Don’t try anything funny," she said, attempting to glare at me with fierce intensity. The effect was somewhat undermined by her swollen eyes and the fresh tears she’d hastily tried to wipe away.

I raised my hands immediately, palms out in the universal gesture of surrender. "I just want to check on your sister," I said softly, keeping my voice as non-threatening as possible. "I’m not here to hurt anyone."

"Rebecca?! Who is that?!"

The voice came from behind a closed door deeper in the apartment—presumably the bedroom where her sister had barricaded herself. There was something familiar about that voice, something that tickled at the edges of my memory. The tone was strained with pain and the effort of fighting off whatever was happening to her body, but underneath that...

I knew that voice.

"I’m Ryan Gray," I called out, raising my voice just enough to carry through the apartment. "I live on the third floor."

"R—Ryan?! It’s me, Rachel..."

Rachel?

Of course. How had I not put it together sooner?

I saw Rachel regularly, though we’d never been what you’d call close. She was one of those people you develop a comfortable acquaintance with through proximity—brief conversations in the elevator, polite nods in the hallway, the kind of neighborly relationship that feels more substantial than it actually is. She was always coming home late, usually around ten at night, looking exhausted in a way that spoke of long days and too much responsibility.

I’d always wondered what kept her out so late, what made her shoulders sag with such weariness as she fumbled for her keys. Now, looking at Rebecca—clearly her younger sister—I was beginning to understand. My mother had mentioned once, in passing, that the girl on the first floor was working multiple jobs to pay back the credit she had taken after putting her sister in a private school. At the time, I’d thought it was just neighborhood gossip, but seeing them now...

Rebecca had closed and locked the door behind me, but she kept the knife raised, watching my every movement.

"R—Ryan! Please," Rachel’s voice came through the bedroom door again, weaker now but filled with something like hope. "Please take Rebecca and get out of this place. She can’t stay here anymore. Nobody can stay here anymore."

I could hear the trust in her voice, the relief at finding someone she knew, someone she could depend on to keep her sister safe. It was a level of faith I wasn’t sure I deserved.

"What about you?" I asked.

"It’s over for me," Rachel replied, and I could hear her trying to keep her voice steady, trying to be strong even as her world crumbled around her. "I can already feel it happening. I’m losing pieces of myself, bit by bit. Please, just take Rebecca and get her somewhere safe. Don’t let her watch what I’m about to become."

But Rachel, it’s not over for you...

There was a way to save her.

I knew there was.

But the method... the method would require trust, vulnerability, and a level of intimacy that seemed impossible to explain or justify to two strangers, no matter how desperate the circumstances.