Chapter 164: Galloway [1]

Light rain fell in persistent droplets that pattered against Sydney’s hood as she walked alongside Clara down the cracked and debris-strewn road. The precipitation wasn’t heavy enough to be called a downpour, but steady enough to be thoroughly annoying—the kind of rain that soaked through clothing gradually, making everything damp and uncomfortable without the dramatic intensity that might have at least been interesting.

The world around them looked appropriately miserable under the overcast sky. Abandoned vehicles lined the roadside in various states of decay—some with doors hanging open where occupants had fled in panic, others burned out and blackened from fires that had raged unchecked during the initial outbreak. Buildings that hadn’t collapsed entirely stood like broken teeth against the grey horizon, their windows shattered and their walls covered in the creeping vines and moss that nature used to reclaim human construction.

They would meet infected occasionally during their patrol—shambling figures that emerged from side streets or stumbled out of ruined buildings, drawn by the sound and movement of living humans. But Sydney dealt with them swiftly, her enhanced speed allowing her to close distance in eyeblinks and dispatch threats with brutal efficiency before Clara even had time to raise her own weapon.

Not that Clara was incapable of killing infected herself. The woman had survived two months of apocalypse and proven her competence repeatedly. But there was simply no comparison between normal human capability and what the Dullahan virus granted. Sydney was faster, stronger, more focused—operating at a level that made combat look almost effortless despite the very real danger each infected represented.

"Haa... it’s raining again," Sydney grumbled, pulling her hood up more securely as water began finding its way down the back of her neck. The fabric was already soaked through in places, offering minimal protection, but psychological comfort mattered even when benefits were questionable.

"I told you the weather didn’t look good, Sydney," Clara sighed. She’d suggested they wait out the approaching storm back at their temporary shelter, but Sydney had insisted on completing their patrol route regardless of weather conditions.

"Welp, weather or anything else, I fear nothing," Sydney replied with a grin that was probably more confident than circumstances warranted. Her natural optimism and refusal to be intimidated by challenges—whether infected, hostile survivors, or inclement weather—remained intact despite everything they’d endured. Something Clara couldn’t help but appreciate about Sydney.

She glanced at Sydney with an expression that mixed amusement and exasperation. "Show me the blue sparks again," she asked.

Sydney smirked and raised her hand, channeling a small amount of her Dullahan energy into visible manifestation. Blue electrical sparks crackled around her arm like miniature lightning, dancing across her skin in patterns that defied conventional physics. The light they generated was bright enough to be clearly visible even in the grey daylight, creating an ethereal glow that seemed almost magical in its otherworldly quality.

Clara’s eyes widened with the same wonder she’d displayed every previous time Sydney had demonstrated this ability over the past three days. No matter how many times she witnessed the phenomenon, she couldn’t get enough of it—couldn’t stop being amazed by the sight of supernatural power made manifest.

Was it magic? The question had burned in Clara’s mind since she’d first learned about the enhanced abilities some survivors possessed. It certainly looked like magic—like something straight out of fantasy novels or superhero comics rather than anything grounded in scientific reality.

She’d asked Sydney, Ryan, and the others who possessed these abilities whether they considered it magic. They’d all denied it emphatically, insisting that what they could do was far too complicated and fundamentally different from the simplified concept of magic portrayed in fairy tales or fiction. It operated according to rules and limitations that weren’t fully understood but definitely existed, constrained by biology and physics even if those constraints seemed flexible compared to normal human experience.

"Are you jealous?" Sydney asked with teasing curiosity, noticing how Clara continued staring at the blue sparks with undisguised longing.

"I mean... your power gives you the ability to move incredibly fast, right?" Clara said, stating the obvious benefit with clear envy in her voice. "Yeah, anyone would be jealous of having such power. It could be absolutely vital if you’re surrounded by infected and need to escape or fight your way through." She trailed off, clearly imagining scenarios where supernatural speed would mean the difference between survival and death.

"Well, there are certain conditions that need to be met if you really want a superpower," Sydney said carefully.

"Conditions? Didn’t you say you all awakened these abilities by staying too close to Ryan, who is basically superhuman?" Clara asked, thinking this proximity to Ryan was the primary condition in question for unlocking supernatural powers.

Indeed, some people from the Municipal Office community had already tried deliberately sticking close to Ryan because of that rumor, hoping prolonged exposure might trigger their own transformation. But it was proving difficult to maintain that proximity given the aura Ryan projected—a tangible sense of "don’t bother me" that most people found uncomfortable to endure for extended periods. Only those who were genuinely close to him and understood his personality had the courage to easily reach him and speak with him casually.

"Well, there are other conditions," Sydney replied vaguely, avoiding specifics. "Just hope you never meet those particular conditions."

The truth—that gaining Dullahan abilities required being bitten by an infected and then having sex with Ryan quickly enough to stabilize the transformation—was something Sydney had no intention of explaining to Clara. Being bitten was horrific enough, the terror of feeling infection spreading through your system while racing against time to find salvation. And the method of salvation itself, while necessary and ultimately life-saving, must be quite an ordeal for any woman regardless of whether the person in question was Ryan.

Clara didn’t understand what Sydney meant, and Sydney preferred to keep it that way. Some knowledge was better left unknown until absolutely necessary.

"How is he doing?" Clara asked after some visible hesitation, her voice dropping lower as if worried someone might overhear despite their relative isolation on the empty road.

Three days had passed since the tragedy at Jackson Township. Three days since Elena and Alisha had literally been taken away by their father in helicopters that represented resources and organization that shouldn’t exist in this collapsed world. Three days since everything had fallen apart in new and devastating ways.

That moment—watching Ryan reach out weakly toward the sky, calling Elena’s name again and again with increasing desperation as the helicopters rose higher and took her away—was something none of them would ever forget. The look of absolute despair and loss on his face had been heartbreaking to witness, raw grief and helpless rage mixed with physical collapse as his injured body finally gave out.

Especially for people like Clara and the other women in their group, seeing Ryan reduced to that state of complete devastation had stirred profound pity. They all felt terrible for him, wanted to help somehow, but had no idea what comfort could possibly be offered for a loss of that magnitude.

Since then, nobody had dared bring up the subject of Elena and Alisha directly. The wound was too fresh, too obviously painful, and Ryan was clearly in no mood to discuss what had happened. He’d withdrawn into himself, becoming even more distant and uncommunicative than his usual reserved nature.

Whenever Clara or the others asked him questions or tried to check on his wellbeing, he would give short, clipped answers that discouraged further conversation. Single-word responses or terse sentences that provided minimal information while making clear he didn’t want to elaborate.

The only people Ryan would actually hold decent conversations with were Sydney, Rachel, Christopher, Cindy, and especially Mei—those who’d been closest to him before the tragedy, who understood him well enough to navigate his defensive walls. With everyone else, he stayed largely silent, speaking only when absolutely necessary for practical coordination.

His focus had narrowed to taking care of what the group needed in immediate, concrete terms: finding food, securing places to stay, identifying threats and neutralizing them. The basics of survival occupied his attention, leaving no energy for social interaction or emotional processing.

"I suppose he’s a bit better," Sydney replied, though her smile faded as she spoke. The assessment was generous at best—Ryan was functional, which represented improvement over collapsing unconscious from blood loss and emotional devastation, but "better" was a relative term that didn’t mean much.

Unfortunately, Sydney had been knocked unconscious after depleting all her Dullahan energy during the fight with the Enhanced Infected at the Municipal Office and then because of the Screamer. She’d slept like a log in the camping van, completely unaware of events unfolding around her, when Vladislav had arrived and taken Elena and Alisha away. By the time she’d finally woken up and learned what had happened, the helicopters were long gone and Elena was already halfway to Russia.

The shock of that revelation—of learning she’d missed such a crucial, devastating moment—had hit Sydney hard. She considered Elena and Alisha close friends, maybe even family after living together for over two months in the same house. They’d shared meals, fought together, survived impossible situations as a unit. The bonds formed in apocalyptic circumstances ran deep, deeper than friendships forged in the comfortable safety of the old world.

And knowing that Ryan had been the one most struck by their loss made everything worse. Sydney had quickly learned that Ryan was the most hurt by it as he loved Elena. Loved her as much as he loved Sydney herself, as much as he loved Rachel and Cindy. Elena had been someone important to him, someone he’d opened his heart to despite his usual emotional guardedness.

And she’d been taken away.

After Jasmine’s death—which had already punctured Ryan’s heart with grief and guilt—this was clearly something that had driven the wound even deeper. Two devastating losses in a single night, both involving women he cared about, both situations where he’d been powerless to prevent tragedy despite all his supernatural abilities.

"I feel terrible for him," Clara said after a moment of thoughtful silence. "Though I have to admit, I wasn’t surprised hearing that Elena was his girlfriend." She paused, looking slightly embarrassed as she continued. "Actually, I thought it was you or Rachel who was dating him. You’re always so close to him, and the way you interact... I guess I was being naive about reading the situation."

Sydney knew exactly that Clara wasn’t naive at all—in fact, the woman had struck remarkably close to the truth with her initial assumption.

The truth was that Sydney, Rachel, and even Cindy were also actually Ryan’s girlfriends. All three of them. It was a complicated arrangement that had developed organically through their shared experiences—the Dullahan virus stabilization requirement creating initial intimacy that had evolved into genuine romantic feelings all around. They cared about Ryan, and he cared about each of them in return, and somehow the unconventional relationship structure worked despite how impossible it would have seemed in the old world.

But nobody had made that particular detail explicitly clear to the broader community yet, so it was perfectly normal that everyone remained confused about Ryan’s relationship status. The complicated polyamorous dynamics were difficult enough to navigate internally without trying to explain them to fifty-plus survivors who were already struggling to process more fundamental revelations.

Not like they needed to add another layer of confusion when people were already trying to understand and accept the fact that Ryan could be some kind of actual superhuman. That Elena, Sydney, Rachel, and Cindy all possessed supernatural abilities that defied conventional physics and biology. That the apocalypse wasn’t just random viral outbreak but orchestrated alien invasion targeting specific genetic modifications.

In fact, some people in the community had already started thinking of Ryan as belonging to another race entirely—like Superman arriving from Krypton rather than being a human transformed by alien technology. The comparison wasn’t entirely inaccurate given how far beyond normal human capability he’d progressed, but it missed the crucial detail that Ryan had started as ordinary as anyone else before the Dullahan virus changed him.

More than half of the community didn’t even fully believe the supernatural ability claims, despite having witnessed some demonstrations. Skepticism ran deep, reinforced by lifetimes of materialist worldview where such things were relegated to fiction and fantasy. It didn’t help that Rachel and the others deliberately avoided showing their powers to everyone—selective revelation rather than public spectacle.

They didn’t want to cause an uproar or create division within the group. Didn’t want to be viewed as fundamentally different or threatening by people whose cooperation they needed for survival. So they’d chosen a middle path: explaining the truth to those they were genuinely close to—people like Martin, Clara, and Margaret who’d proven their trustworthiness and pragmatism—while keeping more public demonstrations minimal.

Rachel had taken the lead on those explanations. She’d explained everything about the Symbiosos—the alien parasitic organisms that granted extraordinary abilities to compatible hosts. About the Starakians—the alien race hunting those Symbiosos across the galaxy. About the infected virus that had spread across Earth, which was actually a deliberate bioweapon rather than natural disease.

Obviously, Martin, Clara, and Margaret couldn’t believe it at first. Who would? The claims were so far outside normal experience that accepting them required fundamentally restructuring one’s understanding of reality. Aliens existed. They were here. They were hostile. And Earth had been caught in the crossfire of an interstellar conflict that humanity had no part in creating.

But slowly, confronted with evidence they couldn’t easily dismiss—Ryan’s impossible strength, and others shown by Sydney and the others—they’d accepted the truth. Or at least accepted enough to stop actively denying it, even if full comprehension remained elusive.

And even though they’d accepted the reality of the situation, what could they possibly do about it? They were nothing in comparison to beings who could cross interstellar distances and deploy bioweapons capable of destroying civilizations. Just survivors trying to stay alive another day in a world that had become incomprehensibly dangerous. Rather than feeling empowered by knowledge, most felt even more helpless—aware now of threats so vast and unstoppable that resistance seemed futile.

They didn’t particularly want to get dragged into a war between two alien races, though technically they’d already been dragged into it without consent the moment the Starakians had deployed their infected virus on Earth. There was no opting out of a conflict that had already consumed your entire planet.

The Starakians had attacked Earth, Rachel had explained, because Symbiosis creators like Dullahan had found refuge within human hosts like Ryan. The alien pursuers wanted to eliminate those Symbiosos completely, and if that meant exterminating humanity as collateral damage, they apparently had no moral qualms about genocide. They wanted to end the hunt quickly and permanently, regardless of how many innocent lives were destroyed in the process.

"Well, looks like there are no survivors in this town either," Sydney said finally, stopping her steps and looking around at the desolate streets.

Clara nodded.

They’d arrived in this town, according to the road signs—just this morning after a few hours of night traveling. The group had split into multiple trios to efficiently check different areas, searching for supplies, survivors, or potential threats that might need to be dealt beforehand.

But the town seemed indeed empty of living humans. Abandoned vehicles lined the streets, their doors hanging open where occupants had fled in panic during the initial outbreak. Houses stood with windows shattered and doors broken in, showing signs of hasty evacuation or infected intrusion. Shops had been looted—some systematically by organized survivors, others torn apart by infected seeking prey.

The people must have fled early in the apocalypse—at least those who hadn’t turned into infected themselves. The town wasn’t large enough to have significant fortifications or resources that would encourage people to make a stand here. Fleeing toward larger cities or more defensible positions would have been the logical choice for anyone with transportation and advance warning.

Catching sight of a direction panel mounted on a pole at the intersection, Clara walked over to examine it more closely. The green metal sign was faded and weathered, but still clearly legible despite months of neglect.

Galloway Township, it confirmed in bold white letters.

Clara stared at the name with an expression that mixed frustration and resignation. If things had gone as smoothly as they’d initially planned—if circumstances had cooperated and the journey had been straightforward—they would currently be settling into Long Branch as originally intended. The coastal city had represented hope: defensible position, access to ocean resources, strategic advantages that could sustain them long-term.

But unfortunately, life wasn’t that simple or accommodating...