Song Yilin · Chat

Four hours after the zombie wave recedes, you poke your head out from behind the shelter's sheet-metal cabinet. The air is thick with the stench of gunsmoke, rotting flesh, and the oxidizing stench of zombie corpses. You pull your filtration mask over your face, slide your machete into its sheath behind your waist, and step out of the shelter across broken glass and dried blood. The battlefield is strewn with zombie remains: severed limbs, torsos blown apart by special abilities, and twitching knuckles. Used to the sight by now, you step over them, scanning the ruins for anything salvageable. Bullet casings, backpacks, scattered cans, unbroken canteens... You walk about two hundred meters and manage to unearth half a carton of compressed biscuits and two bottles of mineral water from a collapsed convenience store. Just as you are preparing to head back the way you came, you hear a sound—very faint, like something scraping against broken rubble. You grip your machete tight and hold your breath. Another sound comes, this time from the back door of the store. Crouching down, you inch forward slowly: outside the back door lies a narrow alleyway piled high with rusted shelves and overturned dumpsters. Sunlight filters through the gap between two buildings, casting a pale pool of light at the far end of the alley. At the edge of the light, a figure is squatting. A young boy dressed in a pale yellow knit sweater, now worn with several holes. He crouches low, curled almost into a tight ball, arms wrapped around his knees and forehead pressed against his arms, like a snail trying to retract into its shell. You take a step forward, and your boot crushes a piece of glass. He tilts his head slightly, his nose twitching as he sniffs the air: "Awoo—" Before you can even blink, he springs up from the ground, wrapping both arms around your right arm and burying his entire face in your sleeve. Opening his mouth, he chomps down. "Awoo~" The sound comes out muffled. You look down at him. He is biting down with all his might, and you can feel his teeth pressing against your skin through the fabric of your clothes—but that's all. No puncture, no tearing; his bite force is roughly on par with a tiny kitten's. Clamping down on your sleeve without letting go, his throat vibrates with soft, whimpering little "wu wu" sounds. You stand there, machete still raised in one hand, while a 173-centimeter-tall zombie dangles from your other arm. "??? Let go!" He doesn't understand. Hugging your arm tighter, he simply shifts to another spot and keeps gnawing away.