Su Qianqian could even feel the icy fingertips brushing against her skin.
The sheer terror made her scalp feel like it was splitting apart.
She clutched the heavy first aid kit and lunged forward, her body springing as if loaded with coils.
She narrowly avoided that deadly grasp.
Rolling and scrambling, she barreled forward with the kit, then glanced back.
The supermarket-clad zombie had been blocked momentarily by the fallen filing cabinet and was angrily trying to move around the obstacle.
But more figures had already surged out from the gaps between the shelves.
There was no time; she had to get back immediately.
Su Qianqian sprinted toward the warehouse, holding the life-saving kit tightly.
The path that had seemed long on the way out now appeared even more perilous under the shadow of death chasing her.
She weaved around toppled shelves, leaped over scattered debris, her heart pounding violently, almost leaping into her throat.
“Lin Chen, hold on! I’m coming back!”
She muttered to herself as she ran, trying to steady her courage.
Finally, the heavy green iron door appeared at the end of her vision.
It was slightly ajar—a slit left from her previous rush out.
Behind her, the roars and pounding of the undead rolled like thunder, the closest zombies only a few steps away.
Su Qianqian summoned her last reserves, sprinting with all her might. With two or three meters to the door, she hurled the heavy first aid kit into the crack and, like a cannonball, slammed her body against the door.
“Bang!” The kit crashed onto the dark warehouse floor.
“Clang!”
She collided heavily with the iron door. The massive impact forced the ajar door inward, and she stumbled through it.
“Close the door!!!”
Exhausted, she collapsed against the floor but used her last conscious strength to kick her feet back against the heavy door.
Just as the door was about to swing shut—“Sssht!”
A bloodied skeletal claw shot through the gap, its sharp nails missing her kicking calves by mere millimeters.
Then, “Bang! Bang! Bang!” The heavy pounding rang out again on the door.
The iron door shook violently, dust falling in sheets, outside a frenzy of roaring and scratching raged on.
The door… closed.
For the moment, they were safe.
Su Qianqian lay on the cold concrete, gasping violently, her lungs burning with each breath, the stench of blood thick in her throat.
Her entire body trembled uncontrollably, cold sweat soaking through her clothes, sticking icy to her skin.
The pain from her back, torn by zombie claws, burned sharply, sending a chill through her chest.
But she could not linger on that. Her gaze immediately darted to the depths of the warehouse, to the figure slumped against the iron door.
“Lin Chen!”
She struggled to her knees, crawling to his side with all limbs engaged.
Under the dim yellow light, Lin Chen’s condition was worse than when she had left.
His eyes were tightly shut, his face pale as plaster, lips a ghastly gray-purple.
His chest rose and fell so faintly it was almost imperceptible; only the tiny pulse at his neck indicated he was still alive.
The most shocking sight was his right arm—the thick white bandages completely soaked through with dark, near-black blood, clinging wetly to his arm.
Blood continued to seep from the edges, pooling beneath him into a stark, dark-red puddle.
His left hand hung limply by his side, fingertips icy cold.
“Lin Chen! Wake up! I got the first aid kit! I got it!”
Su Qianqian shook his cold shoulders violently, her voice distorted with fear and urgency.
No response.
Only faint, nearly inaudible breathing.
A wave of panic gripped her throat like an icy hand.
She fumbled to drag the bright red first aid kit over, her fingers trembling from tension and exhaustion, struggling several times before she finally managed to open the clasps.
“Clatter!”
The lid flipped open, revealing neatly arranged supplies: tourniquets, sterile gauze rolls, iodine swabs, bandages, scissors, even a sealed epinephrine injector.
It was as if she had found a lifeline.
Ignoring the stinging pain in her back, she grabbed the new white bandage roll and scissors, along with a handful of sterile gauze pads.
Kneeling beside Lin Chen, she trembled as she cut through the old, hardened, blood-soaked bandages on his arm.
When the last layer of soaked gauze was removed, the gaping, gruesome wound beneath made her gasp, stomach churning.
The injury was far worse than she had imagined.
The flesh was severely flayed, deep enough to see bone, the edges a ghastly bluish-black.
Under the curling skin, dark, web-like streaks snaked unnaturally.
A faint, putrid odor mingled with the thick scent of blood.
This was no ordinary tear. The color… the smell… Su Qianqian’s heart plummeted to ice.
A horrifying thought slithered into her mind like a poisonous snake—infection?!
“No… no… it can’t… it can’t…”
She whispered in a daze, her body chilled by fear.
She forced herself to focus, tearing open an iodine swab with shaking hands, the strong scent of disinfectant filling the air.
She gritted her teeth and pressed the iodine-soaked swab onto the horrid wound.
“Ugh…”
Lin Chen’s unconscious body twitched violently, a faint, pitiful groan escaping his throat, like a dying little animal.
His tightly shut eyelids fluttered, brow furrowed, as if enduring immense pain, yet he still did not wake.
Her heart clenched tighter at his reaction.
She worked faster, layering thick, sterile gauze over the wound, then taking the new elastic bandage, wrapping and pressing as tightly as possible.
Her movements were clumsy but utterly focused, sweat mixing with the blood and tears on her face.
Each wrap carried her desperate prayers and hope.
“Lin Chen, wake up, don’t sleep… I’ll be scared alone…”