People were good at getting used to things. No one could stay impressed, frightened or grateful at full intensity forever. The mind had to make room somehow, turning extraordinary things into routine so there was enough attention left for whatever came next.
In a zombie apocalypse, most people probably imagined they would become someone else. The sort of person who barricaded doors without hesitation, knew exactly what to pack, found a weapon, gathered a group and somehow understood which roads would still be safe. Movies and games made it easy to imagine that panic would arrive with instructions.
But there was a reason people had spent so long talking about fight or flight.
Some people ran. Some froze. Some kept checking their phones as though one more refresh might make everything ordinary again. Others tried to drive home and ended up trapped in the same traffic as everyone else who had the exact same idea. Plenty wasted precious minutes arguing with themselves over whether the screaming outside was really what it sounded like.
And then, eventually, even that became something the survivors adjusted to.
The first corpse walking down the street could stop a person's heart. The twentieth became something to avoid on the way to wherever they were going. That wasn't to say they stopped being afraid of the new settlers in this world. They simply learned how to live around the fear.
The meteoric masses that fell from the skies had gone through much the same transformation. Soon enough, strange capsules embedded in roads, rooftops and empty lots became another thing survivors learned to avoid, investigate, or simply walk past if they had more immediate problems.
It was the dead of night. The rain had stopped, leaving the streets damp and strangely clear. Footsteps carried farther in the quiet, though the steady chorus of crickets did enough to blur the sound of movement in the darkness.
By the time the Doctor and Charlotte reached the next drop, even opening one had begun to feel routine.
Another metallic container sat wedged between the remains of a bus stop and a collapsed section of fencing, its faint glow barely visible beneath the streetlights.
No one else seemed to be there.
He glanced once along the road, then towards the dark windows overlooking it.
"...Not as many people as I expected this time."
It came out as little more than a mutter.
Charlotte looked around as well.
There were signs that others had passed through. A supermarket trolley abandoned on its side. Fresh footprints in the dirt beside the pavement. One car had been stripped of anything obviously useful, its boot hanging open.
But no one had stayed.
"Perhaps they learned faster than you assumed."
"Maybe."
"Or the ones who didn't..."
She left the rest unfinished.
The Doctor looked at her.
Charlotte smiled faintly and continued towards the container.
"Come on. Sixteen, was it?"
Nod.
The cube opened with the same blue pulse as the others.
Neither of them reacted much to it anymore.
Charlotte crouched first this time, peering inside while the Doctor leaned over her shoulder.
"Another supply case."
"Anything exciting?"
"Depends on your definition."
She reached in, lifted a sealed package halfway, then stopped.
"Then we're almost done~"
Charlotte lowered the package back into the cube.
"Don't turn around."
The Doctor held his breath for a moment. His posture changed by a fraction.
"How many?"
"At least three."
The answer came lightly enough that anyone listening might have mistaken it for part of the conversation.
Charlotte's gaze stayed on a reflection in the side window of the bus shelter.
One figure near the corner.
Another farther back beside a parked car.
A third that had moved when they had.
"Since when?"
"You caused enough commotion when you opened the third one with a firearm."
"..."
★★★★ Modular Rifle “Pilgrim”
The Doctor shut his eyes, as though only now realising how careless that had been. His hand drifted towards the pistol at his side, then stopped.
"...Ignore them."
"Hmm." Charlotte's mouth curved.
"If they wanted to attack, they would've had better opportunities."
"Of course. You're the only one who appears to be collecting falling treasures around the block, Doctor. Are you confident?"
"If they start coming closer, tell me."
He reached into the container again.
"Until then, we have two more."
He pulled the package free.
A brief window appeared.
★ Emergency Flare Kit
He barely looked at it before the entire case vanished from his hands.
Charlotte's eyes followed the empty space where it had been.
"You've been stuffing everything into that tiny backpack like it's some sort of pocket dimension."
A beat.
"Where does it actually go?"
The Doctor adjusted the strap.
"...Spatial storage. Courtesy of whatever this power is."
"Hmm..."
[Affinity has increased by 1.]
Behind them, one of the distant figures shifted position.
Her attention flicked towards the reflection for only a moment.
Then back to him, with the unmistakable look of someone postponing the rest of the explanation rather than abandoning it.
"Later."
The Doctor slipped the remaining contents away and closed the empty container.
Charlotte rose beside him.
Neither of them looked towards the people following.
They simply moved on.
The next stretch took them through a quieter residential road.
Their shadows stretched ahead beneath the street lamps, occasionally breaking apart whenever one of the lights had already failed. Somewhere behind, their admirers remained patient enough to keep their distance.
Ahead was less considerate.
A figure stumbled out from between two parked cars.
The Doctor stopped.
Rotten shirt. Grey skin. One arm hanging strangely loose from the shoulder.
Charlotte's Stylus was already between her fingers.
A twist.
The cigar shortened, the casing narrowed, and a needle-thin point extended from its end.
She flicked her wrist.
The Stylus left her hand like a dart.
It buried itself neatly into the side of the zombie's neck.
The body jerked.
Staggered.
Then kept coming.
Charlotte blinked.
"...Interesting."
She raised two fingers. A thin line of Photon flashed through the darkness. The Stylus tore itself free and snapped back into her hand, not a trace of blood remained on its surface. Charlotte looked at the pristine metal, then at the zombie still dragging itself towards them.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Neck trauma insufficient."
"Charlotte."
"Patience, Doctor. I'm learning."
The zombie lurched another step closer.
Charlotte shifted her grip and threw again.
This time the Stylus struck beneath the collarbone.
The impact spun the body slightly, but there was no cry. No instinctive attempt to protect the wound. It simply corrected its balance and continued towards them.
Charlotte recalled the Stylus. Clean again.
"No meaningful pain response."
The Doctor's hand remained near his pistol as the zombie drew too close for comfort. The zombie bared its teeth, and—
—Charlotte flicked the Stylus a third time.
Knee.
The point punched through the joint cleanly. The zombie collapsed onto one side. For perhaps half a second, the Doctor thought that had settled it. Then its fingers clawed against the road. It began dragging itself forward.
"...Nasty bastard." The Doctor muttered in disgust.
Charlotte's eyebrows rose too.
"Motor impairment works. Motivation remains."
Another snap of Photon pulled the Stylus back into her palm.
Still spotless. Her attention lingered briefly on that particular detail before returning to the infected.
It was close enough now that the Doctor finally drew his pistol.
"Charlotte...!"
"I know." Her expression had changed. The amusement remained somewhere underneath, but the experiment had narrowed. She watched the way its head moved. Charlotte raised the Stylus.
"Then let's remove the part coordinating all of it."
The Doctor's eyes shifted towards her.
She threw. A thin, luminous arc shot through the darkness with precision.
The needle entered through the zombie's left eye.
Its head snapped backwards.
The body dropped.
Charlotte lifted two fingers. The Stylus pulled free with a wet sound, crossed the distance between them, and landed neatly between her fingers. Once again, there was no blood on it.
"...Brain."
The Doctor lowered the pistol slightly.
"Yeah..." Her smile returned.
"...Much more efficient."
Somewhere behind them, one of their distant observers stopped moving.
"You gave them quite a show."
The Doctor holstered the pistol. He stepped around the corpse.
Charlotte remained where she was for another moment, turning the Lumen Stylus between her fingers, pleased with herself.
The next infected appeared barely a street later.
This time Charlotte did not experiment. The Stylus left her hand almost lazily. A flash of yellow, straight through the temple. The zombie folded before it had managed more than two steps.
The Stylus returned just as quickly, clean as before. Charlotte caught it between two fingers without breaking stride.
A second shape stirred farther down the pavement.
Another throw. Another sharp arc of Photon. The body dropped uneventfully.
Charlotte had already settled into the rhythm of it without the Doctor's intervention. He stayed close enough to intervene if necessary, but otherwise kept his attention on the route ahead, occasionally slowing whenever the invisible markers shifted relative to the streets around them. Charlotte, meanwhile, counted each body dropped for some reason.
The seventeenth was almost disappointingly uneventful—a small supply cube wedged beneath an apartment stairwell, opened, stored and forgotten within minutes.
★ Emergency Ration Case
That left only the eighteenth and final item marker.
He followed it for another block.
Then stopped.
The marker moved.
Slowly at first, drifting several metres across the map before coming to rest somewhere farther down the road.
The Doctor stared.
Charlotte took another few steps before noticing he was no longer beside her.
"What's wrong?"
His eyes remained fixed on empty air. "...Nothing."
The marker moved again. This time there was no mistaking it.
It travelled down one street, paused, then turned.
His expression changed.
Charlotte caught it immediately.
"Are we in danger?"
The Doctor started walking again, and she followed wordlessly.
The cubes did not move. Charlotte had established that much earlier.
Pushing, pulling, levering them from underneath—nothing had worked until he opened them.
Yet the final marker was travelling. It was travelling slowly enough to follow.
"...We're being led somewhere."
Charlotte's smile disappeared.
They changed direction again.
The streets gradually widened into an older redevelopment zone, where temporary fencing surrounded half-finished structures and piles of construction material had been abandoned when the outbreak began.
The marker stopped. A small tractor sat beneath a work light ahead.
Something metallic rested awkwardly across its rear platform, still buried inside a thick mass of broken concrete and soil.
The cube.
Charlotte tilted her head. "...Ah, you could do that."
They had never moved the container. They had dug out everything around it. A chunk of pavement nearly a metre across had been excavated whole, rebar and all, then strapped onto the tractor with the cube still embedded inside it.
Movement answered from behind the fencing.
Men stepped out.
Work boots. Reflective trousers. Heavy gloves. Improvised weapons that looked like those from a construction site.
A crowbar. A sledgehammer. A nail gun... They had already formed a loose encirclement.
"Wow~ There's a lot of them." Charlotte whistled, turning slowly in place as she pointed the Stylus from one man to the next.
That little turn earned more attention than she probably intended. A few of the men stopped looking at the Doctor altogether. One gave a low whistle.
"Eh. Didn't know he brought a pretty one."
Another leaned slightly to the side for a better look.
"Yellow hair, glasses... wah."
"Brother got lucky."
A couple of them laughed.
Charlotte's smile stayed in place. If anything, it became sweeter.
"How charming."
Her Stylus continued from one man to the next.
One. Two. Three...
The men seemed to think she was nervous.
Then footsteps sounded behind them. Three figures hurried into the redevelopment zone, breathing harder than the others. One of the men near the tractor turned.
"Took you long enough."
The three exchanged looks, their confidence visibly thinner than the rest's.
"Boss, there's something weird about the woman."
That got a few smirks. The man with the sledgehammer rested it against one shoulder.
"Weird how?"
"She killed them."
"Killed them?" Eyebrows were raised.
"The infected. She had this pen, threw it like a dart!"
Silence.
Then someone laughed.
"A pen?"
The second follower stepped in quickly.
"Y-Yeah, like some kind of magic...! She throws it. Straight through the head, then it flies back to her hand."
One of the workers mimed tossing something through the air.
"Like this?" He flicked his wrist as though launching a paper aeroplane.
Another immediately followed.
"John Wick ah? Killed three men in a bar with a pencil?"
Laughter spread through the group.
"I'm telling you, we saw it!"
"Yeah, yeah. Magic pen."
"Maybe she can show us." That drew another round of laughter. One of the men looked Charlotte over without bothering to hide it. "Come on, miss. Throw the magic pen." Another cupped his hands around his mouth. "Aim here!" He tapped his chest dramatically. "No, no, don't waste it," someone else called. "Pretty girl like that should save her energy." A few whistles followed.
Charlotte's smile did not move.
"How considerate." The Stylus turned once between her fingers.
One of the workers laughed harder.
"See? She likes us."
"Maybe she's shy."
"Brother, you think she's with him?"
The Doctor's eyes shifted towards Charlotte. Her expression remained pleasant.
"I'm serious!" the first scout insisted. "She put it straight through their heads!"
"Wah, straight through the head."
One of the men mimed the throwing motion again.
"Scary." He grinned at Charlotte.
"You gonna do me next?"
Her eyes narrowed by the smallest amount.
"If you insist."
Amid the catcalling and laughter, someone who looked like the boss of the bunch finally stepped out from beside the tractor.
"Let's take a look at them, huh?" The noise thinned almost immediately. Broad shoulders. Dusty work trousers. A yellow hard hat still hanging from one hand despite there being no reason left to wear it.
He looked at the three scouts. Then at the female John Wick. Then back at them.
"You three disappeared for how long?"
No answer.
"And you come back telling me some girl is killing zombies with a pen."
"Boss—"
He pointed towards two men nearby.
"Beat them."
The three stared.
"What?" "Boss, wait—"
"For being late."
A pause.
"And for wasting my time with stupid jokes."
The smiles around the group returned. Two workers stepped forward. One cracked his knuckles. The other took hold of the nearest scout by the collar. Charlotte watched all of it without moving.
The Doctor's gaze settled briefly on the three men who had followed them.
Then on the others surrounding the tractor.
So much for warning their friends.
The boss finally turned his attention towards the pair.
"Okay."
He tossed the hard hat onto the tractor.
"You two."
His eyes settled on the Doctor first.
"We've been watching you open these things."
No response.
The man's gaze moved towards the half-buried cube strapped behind him.
"We tried everything. Crane couldn't pull it. Tractor couldn't drag it. So we cut the road around the damn thing instead."
Charlotte glanced towards the fractured slab beneath the cube.
"You touch it, it opens." The boss continued.
"And whatever you take out..."
He made a vague gesture with both hands.
"Poof."
His attention drifted towards the Doctor's backpack.
"Gone."
One of the workers grinned.
"Magic bag."
Another laughed. The boss pointed towards the cube.
"So let's keep this simple."
A pause.
"Open it."
Charlotte slowly twirled the Stylus between her fingers.
Several men noticed. A few chuckled again. The boss's eyes moved towards her as well. They stayed there longer.
Not on the Stylus. Charlotte noticed, of course she did. Her smile had remained perfectly pleasant.
His gaze travelled lazily from her face, down the cropped coat and fitted clothes beneath it, before returning to the Doctor.
"And after that, you're going to explain where you've been putting everything."
His eyes slid back to Charlotte.
"Then we'll decide what else you're leaving behind."
Charlotte looked sideways at the Doctor. The Stylus continued turning between her fingers. Slower now. A needle-thin point began extending from the casing. The Doctor caught Charlotte by the wrist, just enough to stop the motion.
For a moment, her cold little smile disappeared.
Her eyes dropped to his hand. Then rose to his. Neither spoke.
The boss barked out a laugh. Several of the men joined him.
"So that's what this is."
The Doctor did not release her immediately.
The boss looked between them, visibly entertained now.
"Your girl, ahh?"
No answer. His gaze lingered on Charlotte again.
"Didn't know you two were really together."
One of the workers snickered.
"Boss likes those with boyfriends."
That earned another round of laughter. The boss stepped forward.
"Yeah..."
His grin widened.
"I always liked stealing other men's women."
The Doctor's grip on Charlotte's wrist tightened by the smallest amount.
Her eyes shifted towards him again. The Stylus stopped moving.
The boss apparently took that for fear.
"Smart girl." He took another step.
"Tell your boyfriend to open the box and maybe—"
A metallic crack split the air above them.
Everyone froze.
Purple-white light flashed across the skeletal frame of the unfinished building.
Something struck the concrete between the boss and the pair hard enough to scatter dust across his boots.
A length of violet chain.
"W-What the fuck?!"
"Are we under attack?!"
"Shit!"
Panic rippled through the group. The laughter vanished almost instantly. The Doctor finally released Charlotte's wrist as she raised an arm against the sudden glare. Footsteps sounded from somewhere overhead. Slow. Unhurried.
Then Lunallu stepped onto the exposed edge of the half-built floor above them.
The night should have made everyone look worse. Damp hair. Mud on boots. Sweat darkening shirts. Dust clinging to skin. The men below certainly wore the apocalypse plainly enough.
Lunallu did not. Violet light traced the chains coiled around one arm, catching against pale skin and the clean lines of her figure as though she had stepped out of somewhere untouched by the ruin around her. Her hair fell neatly despite the night air, framing a face that looked almost too composed for the construction site beneath her. There was no grime across her clothes, no exhaustion hollowing her expression, nothing about her that belonged among broken concrete and savage men.
"U-Up there, boss!"
"Woman?!"
Whatever the men below imagined, there was only one person here whose presence seemed to matter to her.
Lunallu’s eyes found the Doctor first. One hand still held the compact communication device near her mouth, its indicator light blinking faintly against her fingers.
Violet light spilled, caught against the glass of the surrounding buildings, flashing across dark windows and fractured storefronts until whole stretches of the street reflected purple-white for a heartbeat. Even the wet pavement threw pieces of it back.
For just a moment, the ruined neighbourhood no longer looked entirely like Eden.
It resembled the night streets of Cyverse again—Photon glow bleeding across glass, colour gathering where darkness should have been, something impossibly advanced standing untouched in the middle of decay.
Then the light settled.
Lunallu looked down at the gathered construction workers.
"...Sorry, I'm late."