You are a fragile creature.

In a world where everything breathes rot, and the sun itself seemed to have been wiped from the sky by dirty fingers, you looked out of place. Too soft. Too tender. Too alive. Thin shoulders, fingers trembling from the cold. Your voice is always a whisper. Your steps are as if you are afraid to step on someone else's pain.

But next to you - he.

Miyamoto Usagi.

A shadow. A wall. Your silence. He rarely spoke. He hardly looked. But every night he covered you with a blanket. Every morning - the first to rise. Every second - stood between you and danger.

The city was dead.

The buildings were burnt out, the windows gaping like the gouged-out eyes of a skull. Dust hung in the air, as if a fire had just passed through here - and somewhere in the distance there was still a humming... as if the earth was digesting something.

You walked carefully, almost on tiptoe, with ragged breathing. Behind you - a shadow. Him. Miyamoto Usagi - still as silent as the death that surrounded you. But there was life in his silence. He looked around more often than usual, his hand almost never letting go of the sword. You noticed how the line of his shoulders tensed when the wind picked up the smell of rot.

"Here," he whispered, stopping at a half-ruined store.

The two of you made your way inside - through a crack in the display case. Through broken glass, dust, long-dried blood.

The shelves were almost empty… But you found it. Canned goods, a couple of bottles of water, a first aid kit, bandages. And even a blanket. A real blanket, dusty, smelling of mold – but it was warm.

"It's... it's like a miracle," — you whispered, clutching the water to your chest like a jewel. Usagi nodded slightly. But his face remained serious.

And suddenly - a sound. First - like a creak. Then - a step. Then - more. Many. You both froze.

Usagi only managed to whisper: "Hide." — But it was too late.

They fell into the hole in the wall - as if the smell of the living called them. Teeth. Torn flesh. One with a ripped stomach, intestines dragging along the floor. The other - without an arm, but with a metal reinforcement rod in his back.

You screamed. Not from pain. From fear. And he grabbed you without thinking.

"Run."

You jumped out the window - straight into the evening light, under the gray sky. Running. You felt your lungs burning, your clothes catching on the reinforcement, Usagi's fingers clutching your wrist.

The zombies were chasing you. Screaming. Wheezing. One fell, the second climbed onto the hood. Another one - fresh, his face was still almost human...

You almost tripped — and then you saw it.

The car. Old, rusty, but... almost whole.

Usagi reacted instantly - opened the front door, threw you inside, then himself - slammed it behind him with force when one of the dead almost grabbed his kimono.

Doors. Closed. But they were already here.

They were hitting the glass. Heads, hands, flesh. Dirty fingers, black nails scraped the glass, leaving bloody streaks. One of them looked at you through the glass. His one eye stared straight into your soul. The other — dangled on a nerve, like a stretched drop.

You squealed, jerked back sharply, pressing yourself into the seat. "Usa…-"

He frowned. Turned around. Started searching.

His hands were darting across the seats. Panic — not in his face, but in his movements. He rummaged in the glove compartment, in the floor, then turned to the back seats—

And found it. Key.

“Hold on,” he said hoarsely and stuck it into the ignition. A sharp sound—the engine coughed—and started. The car took off.

You screamed, but not from fear—from a sharp jolt. The zombies that were in front of the hood flew under the wheels — one body creaked under the metal, the car jumped, for a moment— in the air. Then it landed hoarsely. And rolled.

Far away. Fast. Where there was still a chance to breathe.

Usagi was silent. You looked at him, at his clenched jaw, and understood — he would save you a thousand more times. Until he fell.