"Ryan..." The voice called, drawn out and distorted in ways that made it sound both heartbreakingly familiar and utterly alien. The electronic distortion couldn't completely mask the underlying vocal patterns I recognised immediately.

Jason.

"Is that Jason's voice? It was his voice!" Jasmine exclaimed, her entire body tensing as she started to rise from our concealed position behind the concrete barrier. But I immediately grasped her arm and pulled her back down, my enhanced senses screaming warnings about the wrongness of what we were hearing.

"Jasmine, that thing isn't Jason," I replied, my voice filling a complexity of emotions I couldn't fully articulate. The devastating realization was settling over me dangerously—whatever had happened to Jason was far worse than simple death or infection.

"What do you mean?" Jasmine looked at me with confusion and desperate hope warring in her expression. "That was definitely his voice calling for us."

"Think about it logically," I said, grasping her shoulders to force her to focus on my words rather than the haunting calls echoing from the radio station. "Why would he call out like that when there are infected creatures everywhere? If he was truly himself and truly needed help, he would be trying to stay hidden and quiet, not broadcasting his location to every dangerous thing in the area."

The logic was sound, but I could see that Jasmine's emotional connection to Jason was making it difficult for her to accept what her rational mind already understood. The voice calling my name with such electronic distortion was being used as bait, a cruel manipulation designed to exploit the trust and concern we felt for someone we cared about.

Or maybe it was really Jason but I refused to believe it.

"Maybe he's trapped and desperate," Jasmine said weakly, though I could hear doubt creeping into her voice. "Maybe he needs help and doesn't have any other choice."

"Jasmine, listen to me carefully," I said, gripping her arm firmly to ensure I had her complete attention. "For right now, our only priority is getting out of here alive. Do you understand that? We can't help Jason or anyone else if we're dead or captured ourselves."

Jasmine's lips parted as her whole body began trembling with the weight of fear, grief, and terrible understanding. The implications of what I was telling her—that Jason was beyond help, that his voice was being used against us by hostile forces—were almost too much for her to process.

I pulled her into a warm embrace, feeling her shake against my chest as the full horror of our situation began to sink in. "It's going to be alright," I whispered, though I wasn't certain I believed it myself. "I'm going to get us out of here safely."

Jasmine hugged me back desperately, her fingers gripping my jacket as if I were the only solid thing in a world that had suddenly become incomprehensible. "I…am…so…so scared, Ryan," she admitted, her voice muffled against my shoulder. "I don't understand what's happening or what those things want."

"It will be okay," I said, pulling back to look directly into her eyes while maintaining the most confident smile I could manage. "I will get us out of here alive, I promise. But I need you to stay focused and listen to my instructions exactly, without question. Can you do that for me?"

"Okay," Jasmine nodded with renewed determination, her trembling diminishing as she drew strength from my apparent confidence. "I'll do whatever you say."

"Good," I nodded, taking a deep breath and focusing my enhanced Dullahan senses to assess our tactical situation with precision.

The results were not encouraging. We were completely surrounded by infected creatures of various types, and several were moving steadily toward our position. The enhanced infected I'd identified earlier were coordinating the standard infected into search patterns that would inevitably discover our hiding spot within minutes.

Worse, our current position behind the concrete barrier was a tactical dead end. The infected were approaching from multiple directions, and any attempt to retreat the way we'd come would lead us directly into the arms of the creatures that had been herding us toward this location.

There was only one option that might give us a chance of survival, though it was dangerous beyond measure.

"Jasmine," I said, my voice dropping to an urgent whisper, "I need you to hold onto my left arm as tightly as you can and don't let go no matter what happens. We're going to have to run through the radio station building to reach the other side."

"Through the building?" Jasmine's eyes widened with alarm. "But you said it was filled with infected creatures."

"It is," I admitted grimly. "But we're surrounded out here with no escape routes. Our only chance is to move fast through the interior and hope we can reach an exit on the far side before they can organize an effective response."

It was a desperate plan born of desperation, but sometimes desperate situations required desperate measures. The infected surrounding us expected us to try to flee back the way we'd come, not charge directly into what should have been their strongest defensive position.

"Hold my arm and whatever you see, don't let go," I repeated, positioning myself for the sprint that would either save our lives or get us both killed.

Jasmine nodded, wrapping her fingers around my left forearm with a grip that spoke to absolute trust despite her obvious terror. "I'm ready," she said, though her voice betrayed how unready she actually felt.

"Here we go," I said, and launched us both forward in a desperate rush toward the radio station's main entrance.

The infected that had been methodically searching for us were caught completely off guard by our sudden appearance and the direction of our attack. We burst through their loose perimeter before they could react, covering the distance to the building's entrance in seconds of frantic running.

But once we crashed through the partially destroyed doors and entered the building's interior, the situation changed dramatically. The infected that had been lurking inside the structure immediately turned toward us with coordinated precision, their collective attention focusing on our intrusion like a spotlight.

There were several dozens of them—far more than when I came with Rachel. They began moving toward us, abandoning whatever they'd been doing to converge on our position.

"Ryan!" Jasmine gasped as she saw the mass of infected creatures bearing down on us, her grip on my arm tightening to the point where it was almost painful.

That's when I made the decision to reveal abilities that I'd been carefully concealing from her. There was no longer any choice—conventional weapons and tactics wouldn't be sufficient against the numbers and coordination we were facing.

I raised my right arm and focused my enhanced Dullahan powers into the wind blade technique I'd been developing and refining over weeks of dangerous encounters. The air around my arm began to swirl and compress, forming razor-sharp currents that could cut through flesh and bone like they were made of paper.

"What—" Jasmine started to say, but her words were cut off as I unleashed the compressed air in a devastating arc that swept across the approaching infected.

The effect was quick. The wind blades sliced through the infected creatures with surgical precision, severing limbs and opening massive wounds that dropped them instantly. Bodies fell in neat rows as the supernatural attack cleared a path through their ranks like a scythe through wheat.

"R…Ryan, what was that?" Jasmine stuttered, staring at me with a mixture of awe and shock.

"Hold my arm tightly and stay focused," I said firmly, not having time to explain the nature of my enhancements or how I'd acquired them. "We need to keep moving."

I continued forward, using controlled bursts of wind blade energy to clear paths through the infected while Jasmine clung to my left arm despaired and confused. The technique was devastatingly effective against standard infected, but it was also draining my energy reserves faster than I'd anticipated.

That's when one of the six enhanced Screamer infected appeared from a side corridor, moving with speed and coordination that was completely unlike the creatures I'd been cutting down. This one was larger, more muscular. Not as much as the Electrical one or the big brother I defeated here but I didn't hesitate. I swung my wind-enhanced right arm toward its face with all the power I could channel, the compressed air forming a blade that should have been capable of cutting through steel. The attack connected perfectly, lacerating the creature's features and blowing its head completely off in an explosion of dark fluid.

But immediately afterward, another Screamer infected emerged from behind us and released a sonic attack that was far more powerful than anything I'd experienced before. The sound was so loud and penetrating that it bypassed normal hearing entirely, seeming to attack our nervous systems directly through vibrations that resonated through our bones and organs.

Both Jasmine and I stopped dead in our tracks, grimacing in agony as the devastating sound waves washed over us. The pain was indescribable—like having railroad spikes driven through our eardrums while our brains were being scrambled by electronic interference.

Jasmine collapsed to her knees, tears streaming down her face as she pressed her hands over her ears in a futile attempt to block the assault. "It hurts!" she cried, blood beginning to trickle from her ears as the sonic attack exceeded her body's ability to handle the frequency overload. "I can't... it hurts too much!"

I was only managing to remain conscious because of my Dullahan body's enhanced durability, but even I could feel the attack overwhelming my supernatural defenses. The pain was excruciating, and I could sense permanent damage being done to my hearing and nervous system with each second the attack continued.

The infected creatures that had survived my previous wind blade attacks were now closing in again, emboldened by our apparent helplessness in the face of the sonic assault. They moved with renewed coordination, clearly understanding that their enhanced ally had neutralized our ability to fight effectively.

Desperation drove me to attempt something I'd never tried before. Instead of focusing my wind blade technique in a single direction, I gathered every bit of remaining energy I could access and released it in all directions simultaneously, creating a devastating shockwave that expanded outward from my position like an explosion.

The effect was beyond anything I'd achieved before. Every infected creature within twenty feet was blown away from us with tremendous force, their bodies crashing into walls and furniture with bone-breaking impact. Even the enhanced Screamer infected was sent flying backward, its sonic attack interrupted as it struggled to maintain its footing.

But the effort came at a terrible cost. I felt something crack in the bones of my right arm as the enhanced technique exceeded my body's ability to channel that much power safely. Pain shot through my limb like lightning, and I could feel blood vessels rupturing under the strain of what I'd just attempted.

"Are you okay?" Jasmine asked through half-closed eyes, her voice weak but filled with concern as she noticed my obvious distress.

I nodded, though I was far from okay, and lifted her in my arms to continue our desperate flight toward whatever exit we might be able to find on the building's far side. My right arm was barely functional, my energy reserves were nearly depleted, and we were still surrounded by hostile forces that seemed to have unlimited reinforcements.

That's when the entire building began to tremble with vibrations that made my hair stand on end. The sensation was clear—the Screamer was powering up for something massive.

"No…" I muttered, my face turning pale as sheet.

It was preparing to release the devastating sonic attack that could be heard for miles and would summon every infected creature within hundreds of miles to converge on this location.

"Get down!" I shouted, immediately lowering Jasmine to the floor and covering her ears with my hands while pressing my own body over hers to provide whatever protection I could offer.

The Screamer's full-power transmission began a moment later.

The sound that emerged was beyond anything that should have been possible from any technology, alien or otherwise. It was a sonic assault that seemed to attack reality itself, shattering windows throughout the building and sending visible shock waves through the air that made the walls themselves vibrate like drum skins.

Despite covering Jasmine's ears with my hands, the attack was so powerful that it bypassed physical protection entirely. She lost consciousness almost immediately, blood flowing from her ears and nose as her nervous system shut down to protect itself from stimuli that exceeded human tolerance levels.

I barely managed to remain conscious myself, my enhanced Dullahan body providing just enough resistance to keep me functional while everything around us was being torn apart by frequencies that seemed designed to destroy organic life at the cellular level.

Through the chaos and devastation, I became aware of movement behind us. Two of the six enhanced Screamer infected were approaching our position.

Obviously these bastards didn't feel anything and were immune to it!

Desperation gave me access to reserves of strength I didn't know I possessed. I activated my time freeze ability, stopping the world around us for ten precious seconds that might mean the difference between capture and escape.

In the absolute silence of stopped time, I lifted Jasmine's unconscious form in my arms and tried to force my weakened legs to carry us both toward what I hoped might be an exit. The effort was almost beyond me—my body had been pushed past its limits by the combination of supernatural technique overuse and sonic weapon exposure.

But just as the ten seconds of stopped time ended and the world resumed its chaotic motion, the accumulated damage and exhaustion finally overwhelmed my ability to function. Unable to resist the pain and disorientation any longer, my eyes rolled back and I collapsed forward, still clutching Jasmine protectively in my arms as consciousness fled entirely.

Sorry…I'm sorry…Jasmine.

I forced myself, I bit my tongue but it was useless.

Sorry everyone…

The last thing I remembered was the sound of approaching footsteps.

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