The dead were supposed to forget. That was what Nyra Kane believed until a corpse standing across the street called her by name. Six months after the outbreak, Greyhaven had become a graveyard of broken buildings, abandoned vehicles, and streets stained by rain and blood. The government had stopped broadcasting emergency instructions weeks ago. Electricity worked only in scattered districts, clean water was difficult to find, and every night brought new sounds from the darkness. People called them the infected. Nyra called them the reason she no longer slept properly. She crouched behind the counter of an abandoned pharmacy, holding a metal pipe in both hands. Her backpack lay open beside her, containing two bottles of water, a packet of crackers, three bandages, and a small knife. She had come looking for antibiotics. Instead, she had found an empty shelf, a broken window, and something scratching at the front door. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Nyra held her breath. The scratching stopped. She waited five seconds, then ten. A heavy impact shook the entrance. "Not today," she whispered. The door rattled again. Through the narrow gap beneath it, she saw the shadow of a pair of feet dragging across the floor. An ordinary infected. She could handle one, provided it didn't make too much noise. Nyra moved towards the storage room, searching for another exit. She had explored the pharmacy twice before, but she checked the shelves again, pushing aside empty boxes and broken bottles. Nothing useful. Then came a crash. The front door had fallen inward. A wet growl echoed through the pharmacy. Nyra grabbed her backpack and hurried towards the stairs at the back of the storage room. They led to a small apartment above the shop. If she could reach the window, she might cross into the next building and escape. She had almost reached the top when something slammed into the stairwell door below. The infected had found her. Nyra ran. She burst into the apartment and shoved a wooden cabinet against the entrance. The door shook under the creature's weight. She climbed onto a table beneath the window. The next building stood across a gap of nearly four feet. Below, the street was filled with abandoned cars and broken glass. Nyra swallowed. She had made worse jumps. Probably. The door cracked. She leapt. Her hands caught the opposite windowsill. Pain shot through her injured leg as her boots scraped the brick wall. For one terrible second, she hung above the street, her fingers slipping against the dusty stone. Then she pulled herself up and rolled through the window. She landed hard on the floor. Behind her, the infected screamed. Nyra stayed down until the sound faded. Then she checked the bandage around her leg. It was loose, but the wound hadn't reopened. "Wonderful," she muttered. "Nearly eaten for medicine that isn't even here." She rose and searched the apartment for supplies. Most cupboards were empty, but she found a bottle of water beneath the kitchen sink. As she slipped it into her bag, she noticed a photograph on the table. A family stood outside a house, smiling at the camera. A little boy sat on his father's shoulders while a woman held a baby against her chest. Nyra looked away. Before the outbreak, she had believed there would always be another birthday, another meal with her family, another ordinary day. Then Blackridge happened. She had promised herself she wouldn't think about it anymore. She had broken that promise every day for six months. Nyra left the apartment through a broken stairwell and returned to the street. Her shelter was three blocks away, inside the basement of an old laundromat. It wasn't comfortable, but she'd reinforced the entrance with metal sheets and bricks. It was the closest thing she had to a home. She moved through the streets carefully, keeping close to the buildings. The infected were usually drawn to noise, but the newer ones had begun behaving strangely. Some remained still for hours. Others followed sounds long after the people who made them had disappeared. Two days earlier, Nyra had watched a group of infected turn away from a screaming dog and walk towards an empty hospital. She still couldn't explain it. At the next intersection, she stopped. Something stood on the roof of a building across the street. A man. His clothes were torn, his skin grey, and dark veins spread across his neck. One eye was clouded over. The other watched her from beneath a bruised brow. Nyra immediately ducked behind an overturned car. She waited. Usually, infected reacted to movement. If they spotted a living person, they charged or began wandering towards the sound. This one did neither. Nyra raised her head just enough to look over the car. The man was still standing on the roof. He was staring directly at her. She lowered herself again. "Move on," she whispered. A soft tapping came from above. Tap. Tap. Tap. Nyra frowned. She had knocked on the pharmacy's rear door in that exact pattern before entering. It was a habit she'd developed after nearly walking into a room full of infected during her first week alone. She looked up again. The man raised one hand and tapped the rooftop wall three times. Nyra's stomach tightened. Coincidence. It had to be. She stood and hurried towards the laundromat, refusing to look back. She reached the shelter just before sunset, slipped through the concealed entrance, and dragged the metal panel into place. Only when she was safely inside did she allow herself to breathe. She emptied her backpack onto the floor. Water. Crackers. Bandages. No antibiotics. Nyra rubbed her face with both hands. She couldn't afford to get sick. She couldn't afford to waste supplies. Most importantly, she couldn't afford to make a mistake. She had survived this long by depending on nobody. Depending on people had cost her everything. A faint rustling came from the outer pocket of her backpack. Nyra froze. She was certain she'd emptied that pocket before leaving the pharmacy. Slowly, she reached inside and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was stained around the edges, but the writing was clear. BLACKRIDGE. SUBJECT D-17. ALIVE. Nyra stopped breathing. She knew that identification code. She had seen it on the plastic band around her younger brother's wrist six months earlier, just before the guards sealed the evacuation gate between them. Kael Kane. Seventeen years old. Brilliant, stubborn, and always asking questions he probably shouldn't have asked. The last time Nyra had seen him, he had been trapped behind that gate, shouting her name as security officers pushed her towards an evacuation vehicle. She had promised to come back for him. She had never returned. For six months, she had told herself that he was dead because believing anything else hurt too much. Now someone had left her a message saying he was alive. Her fingers trembled as she turned the paper over. A black symbol had been stamped on the back: a circle crossed by three narrow lines. She recognized it from the security uniforms at Blackridge. Beneath the symbol was another message. DO NOT LET COMMANDER VOSS FIND HIM FIRST. Nyra read it twice. Then a third time. Whoever had written it knew about Kael. They knew where he had been held, and they knew someone named Commander Voss was looking for him. A distant howl rose from the street. Another answered it. Nyra moved towards the narrow window overlooking the road. The infected man in the blue shirt stood beneath the broken streetlight outside her shelter. She couldn't see how he had followed her. He tilted his head towards the building, then raised his hand. Tap. Tap. Tap. Nyra stepped away from the window. The creature lowered its hand. For several seconds, it remained perfectly still. Then its mouth opened. "Nyra." The sound was faint, rough, and almost buried beneath the wind. But she heard it. Her name. The infected turned and disappeared into the darkness. Nyra stood frozen beside the window, the paper clenched in her fist. She wanted to believe she had imagined it. Fear could make people hear things. Exhaustion could turn shadows into monsters. But she had heard her name too clearly. And if the infected could remember her, what else could they remember? The people they had killed? The places they had lived? The secrets they had carried before they died? Nyra returned to her backpack and began packing again. She added the metal pipe, her knife, the remaining food, and the paper with Kael's identification code. She would leave Greyhaven at first light. Blackridge was dangerous, but it was the only lead she had. If Kael was alive, she would find him. If Commander Voss was holding him, she would discover why. And if someone had turned her brother into an experiment, she would make them answer for it. Outside, unseen figures began moving through the ruined streets. One by one, the infected turned towards the same distant point beyond the city. None of them screamed. None of them fought. They simply walked, as though they had received a signal that only the dead could hear. And somewhere beyond Greyhaven, a young man opened his eyes behind a wall of reinforced glass. His skin was pale. Dark veins spread beneath his jaw. A researcher leaned towards the observation microphone. "Subject D-17, can you understand me?" The young man didn't answer. The researcher tried again. "Do you remember your name?" For several seconds, there was only silence. Then the boy turned his head towards the speaker. "Kael," he whispered. The researcher stiffened. Kael pressed his palm against the glass. "Where's my sister?"

Nyra Kane had survived six months among the dead. But she had never heard one say her name. She remained beside the window long after the infected man disappeared into the darkness. The paper announcing Kael's survival was still clenched in her fist, its edges damp from her sweaty palm. She read the message again. BLACKRIDGE. SUBJECT D-17. ALIVE. Then she remembered the voice from outside. Nyra. It hadn't sounded like a growl. It hadn't sounded like the mindless noises the infected made when they caught the scent of living flesh. It had sounded like someone trying to speak. Someone who knew her. She packed her belongings without sleeping. By dawn, the laundromat was behind her, and the road to the old police station lay ahead. If someone had hidden information about Kael, the evacuation records might tell her where to begin. She kept to the side streets, avoiding intersections and broken vehicles where infected liked to gather. Her injured leg throbbed beneath its bandage, but she ignored the pain. She had wasted six months believing there was nothing left to search for. She wouldn't waste another day. The police station stood near the abandoned bus terminal, its front windows shattered and its doors hanging open. Before the outbreak, it had served as an emergency coordination centre. Now weeds grew through the entrance, and a rusted police car sat half-submerged in a pool of rainwater. Nyra approached with her pipe raised. "Anyone inside?" she called quietly. Silence. She stepped through the entrance. The lobby was a mess of overturned chairs, broken glass, and papers scattered across the floor. Someone had emptied the emergency cabinets. The reception desk had been forced open, and dried blood marked the wall behind it. Nyra searched the drawers. Nothing useful. She moved into the next room, checking beneath desks and inside cupboards. Most of the documents had been soaked by rain leaking through the ceiling. She nearly abandoned the search when she noticed a thin folder wedged behind a broken filing cabinet. A red stamp covered its front. BLACKRIDGE EVACUATION - RESTRICTED PERSONNEL Nyra's heart began to pound. She opened it. The folder contained transport schedules, names of evacuees, and handwritten notes about people who had been separated from the general population during the evacuation. Several pages were missing, but enough remained to reveal a disturbing pattern. Some civilians had been marked with codes. Others had been transferred to locations that didn't appear on the official evacuation maps. Nyra searched for Kael's name. She found it on the third page. KANE, KAEL - AGE 17. Beneath his name was a note. TRANSFERRED TO HELIX STATION. STATUS: RESTRICTED. A date had been written beside it. Five months earlier. Nyra gripped the folder so tightly that the paper crumpled. Kael had survived for at least a month after she escaped Blackridge. Someone had taken him from the evacuation centre and transported him to a secret facility. Why? She searched the remaining pages for an answer, but the only other reference to Kael was a warning written in red ink. SUBJECT D-17 DISPLAYS ABNORMAL MEMORY RETENTION. DO NOT RELEASE WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION. Abnormal memory retention. The phrase made her think of the infected man outside her shelter. She shook her head. She needed more evidence before drawing conclusions. A burst of static came from the room behind her. Nyra spun around, pipe raised. An old emergency radio sat on a desk beneath a broken wall clock. Its indicator light blinked weakly, though the rest of the station had no electricity. She approached slowly and adjusted the dial. Static filled the room. Then a voice emerged. "...Helix Station personnel... maintain containment protocols..." Nyra leaned closer. The transmission crackled again. "...Subject D-17 must remain isolated. Repeated recognition events have been documented..." Recognition events. Her fingers tightened around the radio. A second voice interrupted the transmission. "Control, this is the observation wing. Subject D-17 is asking about his sister again." Nyra stopped breathing. A man's voice answered. "Do not discuss family members with the subject. His responses are becoming increasingly difficult to predict." The radio hissed. Then another voice spoke. It was young, weak, and painfully familiar. "Nyra?" She gripped the edge of the desk. "Kael?" The radio crackled violently. "If you're listening..." Kael whispered, "...don't trust them." A loud crash interrupted him. Someone shouted in the background. Then the transmission ended. Nyra stood motionless, staring at the radio. It was him. She knew the way he breathed between words, the slight break in his voice when he was frightened. She had heard that voice every day of her life until Blackridge tore them apart. Kael was alive. But the warning terrified her more than the confirmation. Don't trust them. Who were they? And what had they done to him? A heavy impact sounded from the front entrance. Nyra grabbed the folder and shoved it into her backpack. Another impact shook the building. She hurried towards a side window and peered through a crack in the boards. The infected man in the blue shirt stood across the street. Behind him, several more infected had gathered at the intersection. They were not wandering aimlessly or chasing passing sounds. They stood facing the police station, their bodies unnaturally still. Nyra counted nine. Then twelve. More emerged from the mist. Her stomach twisted. She had seen crowds of infected before, but never a group behaving like this. The man in the blue shirt stepped away from the others and approached the police station. He stopped at the entrance. Slowly, he raised one hand and knocked against the metal door. Three times. Tap. Tap. Tap. Nyra backed away from the window. The infected had copied her knocking pattern the previous day. Now it was using the same pattern to find her again. She moved towards the rear exit. A growl came from the corridor. Nyra froze. Another infected stood between her and the exit, its torn uniform suggesting it had once been a police officer. Its head turned towards her, and its mouth opened. She had seconds. Nyra hurled an empty metal can towards the opposite doorway. The noise echoed through the station. The infected officer turned towards it. Nyra sprinted past and shoved through the rear door. She emerged into a narrow alley, jumped over a fallen fence, and ran until the police station was several streets behind her. Only then did she stop. Her lungs burned. Her leg throbbed, and her hands shook around the pipe. She forced herself to breathe slowly. Kael was alive. He was at Helix Station. And something about him had frightened the people holding him. Nyra pulled out the folder and checked the final page again. Beneath the transfer details was a small symbol: a black circle crossed by three lines. She had seen it on the security uniforms at Blackridge. Below it, someone had written a name. COMMANDER SERAPHINE VOSS. Nyra knew nothing about the commander except that whoever left the message believed she wanted Kael. That was enough. She folded the page and placed it inside her jacket. The road to Helix Station would take her through Blackridge, across the mountain pass, and into territory where the infected were reportedly changing faster than anywhere else. She had no vehicle, limited food, and no guarantee she would survive the journey. But for the first time in six months, she had a destination. Nyra started walking. Behind her, in the abandoned police station, the infected man in the blue shirt entered the lobby. He ignored the scattered papers and the overturned furniture. He walked directly to the desk where Nyra had found the folder. His pale eyes settled on the empty space. Then he turned towards the mountain road. One by one, the infected outside began following him. And somewhere beneath Helix Station, behind reinforced glass, Kael Kane pressed both hands against his cell door. He had heard his sister's voice through the radio. He knew she was coming. That should have made him happy. Instead, he struck the door with his fist and shouted at the watching researchers. "Lock down the facility!" They stared at him. Kael's cloudy eyes shifted towards the ceiling, where a faint vibration had begun travelling through the ventilation shafts. "They've heard me," he whispered. A deep, collective groan rose from the tunnels below. Kael stepped away from the glass. "They're coming for her."

The first rule of surviving Greyhaven was simple. If the dead followed you, don't lead them home. Nyra Kane had broken that rule before sunrise. She kept moving along the narrow street, her backpack digging into her shoulders and the folder from Blackridge tucked beneath her jacket. The police station was behind her, but she could still remember the infected standing outside its doors, waiting as if they knew exactly where she was. She had seen infected gather around noise. She had seen them follow blood trails. She had never seen them wait. And she had never heard one speak her name. The memory made her walk faster. At the end of the street, she stopped beside an overturned bus and studied the road ahead. A faded sign pointed towards the old northern highway. If she followed it, she could reach the outer checkpoint leading to Blackridge before nightfall. That was the plan. Unfortunately, plans rarely survived contact with the dead. A metallic crash sounded behind her. Nyra turned. Three infected had emerged from the alley she had just passed. One wore a torn hospital gown. Another dragged a leg that bent at the wrong angle. The third was a young man with blood dried across his forehead. They hadn't noticed her yet. She ducked behind the bus and waited for them to pass. The hospital patient shuffled towards a broken shop window. The limping infected followed. The young man stopped in the middle of the road. He turned his head. Nyra pressed herself against the bus. The infected stared at the empty street for several seconds. Then he walked towards the vehicle. Nyra reached for her knife. The young man stopped on the other side of the bus, separated from her by a thin sheet of rusted metal. She could hear him breathing-or making the wet, broken sounds that passed for breathing among the infected. Then his hand touched the metal. Three taps. Nyra's blood turned cold. She backed away slowly, trying not to make a sound. The hand followed her movements, dragging across the surface. Then a voice came from the other side. "Nyra." She nearly dropped her knife. The voice was rough and uneven, as if the word had been forced through a damaged throat. But it was unmistakably her name. "Who are you?" she whispered. Silence. She knew she shouldn't engage with it. She knew she should run while she still had the chance. Instead, she leaned towards the gap beneath the bus. "What do you want?" The infected crouched on the other side. Its pale eye appeared beneath the chassis. For a moment, neither moved. Then the creature spoke again. "Don't... leave me." Nyra's fingers went numb. Those words belonged to Kael. They were the last words he had shouted when the guards closed the gate at Blackridge. She had heard them in nightmares, during sleepless nights, and in the moments when hunger made her weak enough to remember the brother she had abandoned. She had never told anyone about them. Not Raven. Not the survivors who had shared her shelter. Nobody. "Where did you hear that?" Nyra demanded. The infected tilted its head. "Leave... me." Its jaw jerked. A dark line of saliva slipped from its mouth. Nyra stepped backwards. The creature suddenly slammed its head against the underside of the bus. She jumped. A second blow followed, then a third. The infected began crawling towards the gap, its fingers scraping against the pavement. Nyra ran. She sprinted across the road, vaulted a low wall, and landed in a courtyard littered with broken furniture. Behind her, the infected screamed. Other voices answered from the nearby buildings. She didn't stop until she reached a ruined apartment block and climbed three flights of stairs. From the landing, she watched the street below. The infected had emerged from beneath the bus. It stood in the road, looking towards the building. Then it did something that made her stomach twist. It raised its hand and pointed directly at her window. Two more infected stepped out of the alley. Then another. They were gathering around it. Nyra retreated into the apartment and blocked the doorway with a broken wardrobe. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She needed to understand what was happening. The message had led her to Blackridge. The records had led her to Helix Station. Kael's voice had confirmed that he was alive. Now the infected were repeating his words. Was Kael somehow connected to them? Or had the people at Helix Station discovered a way to extract memories from the dead? She thought of the phrase written in the restricted file. ABNORMAL MEMORY RETENTION. The words had sounded clinical when she first read them. Now they felt like a warning. Nyra searched the apartment for a working radio or a telephone. She found neither, but beneath a collapsed bookshelf lay a small emergency receiver with a cracked screen. She switched it on. Static filled the room. "Come on," she muttered, turning the dial. A voice emerged from the noise. "...Helix observation wing. Report immediately..." Nyra adjusted the frequency. "...subject has repeated a name not listed in the experimental records..." Her breath caught. The voice continued. "Repeat the name." A pause followed. Then a second voice answered. "Nyra Kane." She dropped the receiver. It struck the floor with a sharp crack. For several seconds, she couldn't move. They knew her name at Helix Station. That wasn't impossible. Kael might have spoken about her. He might have told the researchers everything about his family. But why had the infected outside the police station spoken it too? And why had the researcher sounded so alarmed? Nyra picked up the receiver with shaking hands. "Who is this?" she said into the microphone. "What have you done to my brother?" Only static answered. She tried again. "My name is Nyra Kane. I'm coming to Helix Station. If you're listening, tell Kael I'm coming for him." She released the button. The receiver remained silent. Then a faint clicking sound came through the speaker. Three clicks. Nyra stared at the device. A man's voice emerged, barely audible. "Don't come." It was Kael. "Kael?" She pressed the receiver against her ear. "Kael, can you hear me?" His breathing crackled through the speaker. "Nyra, listen carefully." "I'm listening. Where are you? Are you hurt?" A long pause followed. "I'm still here," he whispered. "But I don't know for how long." Nyra swallowed hard. "What does that mean?" "They say the infection remembers things. They say it keeps pieces of who we were." "Who is they?" "The people who brought me here." A loud bang sounded somewhere near Kael. He gasped. "They're watching me. I can't talk for long." "Kael, I'm coming to get you." "No!" His sudden shout made her flinch. "Don't come through the main entrance. Don't trust the commander. And whatever happens, if you hear my voice outside..." The transmission broke into static. "Kael?" Nothing. "Kael!" A final whisper slipped through the interference. "If I call your name, don't answer." The receiver went dead. Nyra remained on the floor, holding it against her chest. Outside, the street had become unnaturally quiet. She approached the window and looked down. The infected had disappeared from the road. For the first time since entering the apartment, she felt a small measure of relief. Then she noticed the writing on the glass. Someone had scratched it into the dust from the outside. The letters were uneven, as if they had been written with a trembling finger. WE REMEMBER YOU. Nyra stumbled away from the window. She had been alone in that apartment for less than twenty minutes. The glass was three floors above the street, and there was no balcony beneath it. Whatever had written those words had found a way up. A low groan came from the stairwell. Nyra grabbed her pipe. Another groan followed, closer this time. She backed towards the opposite window, searching for a route down. The drop was too high, and the fire escape had collapsed. The apartment door shuddered. Something struck it from the other side. Nyra tightened her grip on the pipe and planted her feet. She wasn't going to die here. Not when Kael was alive. The door shook again. Then a familiar voice spoke from the hallway. "Nyra?" Her blood ran cold. It was Kael's voice. Exactly as she remembered it. Young. Frightened. Desperate. "Nyra, please." She stepped away from the door. The voice came again. "Open the door. I'm scared." Tears blurred her vision. Every part of her wanted to believe it was really him. Every part of her wanted to throw the wardrobe aside and pull her brother into her arms. Then she remembered his warning. If I call your name, don't answer. Nyra covered her mouth with one hand. The handle began to turn. And from the other side of the door, her brother's voice whispered something that made her blood run cold. "Nyra, I know you're in there."