The digital clock beside Liu Mei's bed glowed 2:13 AM when she finally gave up on sleep entirely. The restless energy that had been building in her chest for the past hour made it impossible to find the peaceful oblivion she desperately needed. Something felt wrong—not obviously dangerous, but subtly off in a way that her mind couldn't categorize or dismiss.

She pushed herself upright in the narrow bed, running her fingers through her dark hair with frustrated resignation. The room was illuminated by the soft, flickering glow of a candle she'd placed on the shelf beside her bed, its warm light casting dancing shadows across the walls that had become familiar over months of similar sleepless nights.

Reaching for the thick novel she'd been reading earlier that evening, Liu Mei settled back against her pillow and tried to lose herself in the complex philosophical arguments that normally absorbed her attention completely. The book was a dense exploration of existential ethics that should have required all her intellectual focus, but tonight the words seemed to slide past her consciousness without leaving any impression.

She glanced toward the other side of the room, where Ivy's bed remained conspicuously empty despite the late hour. The neat bedding looked exactly as it had when she'd gone to sleep hours earlier, showing no signs that her roommate had returned from whatever mysterious errands had drawn her out into the dangerous night.

This wasn't unusual behavior for Ivy—in fact, Liu Mei realized she rarely observed the nurse actually sleeping. Sometimes she would hear soft sounds of movement during the darkest hours before dawn, suggesting that Ivy returned and departed according to schedules that remained opaque to everyone else in their household. Liu Mei had initially assumed this was simple insomnia, a common enough condition given the stresses of their survival situation.

But as weeks had passed into months, she'd begun to wonder if there was something more purposeful about Ivy's nocturnal habits. The other woman never seemed tired during the day, never showed the physical or mental effects of chronic sleep deprivation, and never offered explanations for her absences that would satisfy normal curiosity.

Still, as long as Ivy continued returning safely and contributing to their household's medical needs, Liu Mei had decided it wasn't her place to pry into personal habits that weren't affecting anyone else's wellbeing.

Just as she was settling back into her philosophical text, Liu Mei felt a sudden, intense shiver run down her spine—not the gentle chill of cool night air, but something much more visceral and alarming. The sensation was so unexpected and powerful that she immediately dropped her book, the heavy volume landing on her bed with a soft thud that seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet room.

She blinked in confusion, trying to understand what had just happened to her. The shiver hadn't been accompanied by any obvious stimulus—no strange sound, no change in temperature, no visible threat that might have triggered such an intense physical reaction. But something deep in her subconscious was screaming warnings that her conscious mind couldn't interpret.

Unable to ignore the growing sense of unease, Liu Mei swung her legs out of bed and stood up, her bare feet finding the cool wooden floor as she reached for the burning candle. The small flame provided only limited illumination, but it was better than navigating their house in complete darkness, especially when something felt so fundamentally wrong with the night.

"Miss Ivy?" She called softly, hoping that perhaps her roommate had returned without her noticing and might be somewhere else in the house. "Are you back?"

The house remained silent except for the soft sounds of other people sleeping—gentle breathing, the occasional rustle of bedding, the settling noises that old buildings made during temperature changes. Nothing that should have caused the alarm she was feeling, but the wrongness seemed to be intensifying rather than fading.

Carrying her candle, Liu Mei walked carefully through the living room, noting how the familiar furniture created strange, elongated shadows in the flickering light.

She made her way toward the front entrance, driven by an impulse she couldn't fully explain. Perhaps checking the exterior would help her understand whether the unease she was feeling had some external source, or if it was simply the product of stress and insomnia creating false alarms in her nervous system.

The front door felt solid and reassuring under her hand as she carefully opened it, peering out into the darkness beyond their defensive perimeter. The night air was cool and still, carrying the faint sounds of distant infected moving through abandoned buildings, but nothing that seemed immediately threatening to their household's security.

Just as she was beginning to convince herself that her alarm had been groundless, Liu Mei felt a hand settle on her shoulder with enough weight to make her jump in startled terror.

"Hyaa!" She let out a sharp yelp, spinning around with her candle raised defensively as her heart hammered against her ribs.

"It's me, Mei. Calm down," Rachel said a bit amused by her reaction.

"You scared me half to death!" Liu Mei replied, her cheeks burning with embarrassment as she realized how foolish she must look, brandishing a candle like a weapon against someone who lived in the same house.

Rachel chuckled at her obvious discomfort, but the sound was gentle rather than mocking. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you so badly."

"Don't tell anyone about this," Liu Mei said quickly, trying to preserve what remained of her dignity as someone who prided herself on maintaining composure in difficult situations. "Especially not Abraham Lincoln. If he hears that I was jumping at shadows and yelping like a frightened child, he'll be amused by it for weeks."

Rachel was a bit surprised she was speaking of Ryan now but she giggled, enjoying her reaction.

"Never. Your secret is safe with me."

After securing the front door again, Rachel turned her attention to the more important question of why they were both awake and alert during what should have been the deepest part of the night.

"What brought you out here, Mei?" She asked. "It's not like you to be wandering around the house at this hour."

"I heard something, or maybe I felt something strange," Liu Mei replied, still trying to process the inexplicable unease that had driven her from her bed. "I can't explain it properly, but something felt wrong enough to make me get up and investigate. What about you?"

"I felt something unusual too," Rachel admitted, her expression growing more serious as she considered the implications of their shared experience. "At first I thought maybe Ryan had come back early from the Municipal Office, but that doesn't make sense given what he told us about staying overnight."

"He did say he was staying there, didn't he?" Liu Mei confirmed, though she was beginning to understand why Rachel might have been concerned enough to investigate.

"Yes, he was definitely planning to spend the night there to help with Jason's situation," Rachel said thoughtfully. "So I don't know what I might have sensed, but something woke me from deep sleep with enough urgency to make me check on things."

The fact that both of them had experienced similar inexplicable feelings of wrongness was troubling in ways that neither wanted to articulate directly. If only one person had felt something unusual, it could be dismissed as stress or imagination. But when two people independently experienced the same kind of alarm, it suggested that there might be a real external cause they hadn't yet identified.

"Shouldn't you know more about this, since you're so close to him?" Liu Mei asked carefully.

"Close?" Rachel blinked, glancing at Liu Mei with an expression that suggested she was trying to gauge how much the other woman had figured out about their situation.

Liu Mei looked away slightly, playing with her hair in a gesture that betrayed her own discomfort with the topic she'd raised. "I don't know exactly, but it does seem like you two have a special connection. More than just friendship or cooperation."

"Do you like Ryan, Mei?" Rachel asked abruptly, deciding that direct communication might be more productive than continued hints and implications.

"What? Why would I like that dense, annoying man?" Liu Mei responded with obvious deflection, her frown suggesting that the question had touched on feelings she wasn't prepared to examine or admit.

Rachel smiled wryly at the non-answer that was actually quite revealing in its vehemence. She was clearly in denial or maybe actually dense about it.

Before their conversation could continue in that direction, both women suddenly stiffened and turned their attention toward the outside world as their enhanced senses detected something that made the hair on their necks rise with primal alarm.

A moment later, a piercing scream echoed across Jackson Township—not the random vocalization of an individual infected creature, but something far more organized, powerful, and deliberately communicative. The sound seemed to come from everywhere at once, resonating through the air with frequencies that bypassed normal hearing and attacked their nervous systems directly.

Both Rachel and Liu Mei flinched at the intensity of the sound, but neither collapsed or showed signs of severe distress. The sonic attack was clearly audible and unnerving, but not painful in the way that closer exposure to such weapons could be.

Rachel's face went pale as understanding dawned, and Liu Mei could see recognition and terror warring in her expression.

"That was it, wasn't it?" Liu Mei asked, her voice tight with the knowledge that their worst fears were being realized. "That was the massive scream Ryan warned us about, the one that would summon infected from miles away?"

Rachel nodded slowly, her mind already racing ahead to consider the implications and necessary responses. The alien Screamer device had finally unleashed its full power, which meant that everything they'd been preparing for was about to become reality.

The sound of rapid footsteps on the stairs announced that everyone else in the house had been awakened by the supernatural scream. Within moments, the living room was filling with people in various states of dress and alertness, but all showing the same combination of fear.

"T…That was the Screamer's full transmission," Elena said to the group. "The one Ryan told us about…"

"But Ryan said it wouldn't happen right away!" Daisy said, panicking. "He told us we had more time to prepare, so why is it happening now? What went wrong?"

Rachel found herself unable to provide reassuring answers to questions that she was asking herself. Ryan's absence during this critical moment was deeply troubling, especially since they had no way of knowing whether he was safe, injured, or worse.

"I don't know why the timing changed," Rachel admitted honestly. "But we need to focus on what we can control. That Scream will bring infected creatures from everywhere, and they'll be coordinated in ways we've never seen before. We need to get ready to defend ourselves immediately."

"I'm going to the Municipal Office to find Ryan," Sydney said immediately, already beginning to prepare for immediate departure.

"Alone and now?" Rebecca asked dumbfounded. "That's incredibly dangerous, especially now that infected will be swarming toward any populated areas. You could be killed before you even reach the building."

Sydney just smiled. "I'm the fastest person in this group, and I have less to worry about from random infected than you might think. I'll be fine."

Rebecca, who remained unaware of the Dullahan virus enhancements that gave Sydney superhuman speed and other capabilities, looked confused by such apparent overconfidence in the face of obvious danger.

Rachel, however, understood exactly what Sydney was capable of and nodded her approval. "Be extremely careful," she said. "If Ryan is in trouble, we need you to get back here safely with information about what we're facing."

Sydney nodded and immediately began gathering her weapons and equipment.

Meanwhile, Rachel turned her attention to organizing the rest of their household for whatever siege they were about to face. "Everyone needs to get dressed in fitting clothing and prepare for combat against a lot of Infected," she said. "We may be fighting continuously for hours or days, and we need to be ready for anything."

But before anyone could begin following her instructions, Liu Mei spoke up.

"Wait, everyone needs to know that Ivy left the house earlier tonight and hasn't returned yet!" She said remembering about Ivy.

Rachel looked surprised by this information, while Daisy immediately showed worry for the previous nurse of her school.

"Do you think she's safe out there?" Daisy asked, concerned.

"We'll find a solution for helping Ivy," Rachel promised, though she had no idea how they could search for one missing person while defending against a coordinated assault by thousands of infected creatures. "But first we all need to prepare for immediate defense of our home. Everyone go get ready now."

The group began dispersing to gather weapons and protective equipment, though Rebecca continued grumbling about being awakened and forced into another crisis situation.

As the others left to prepare, Cindy approached Rachel with the question that was troubling all of them.

"Why do you think the Screamer released its full transmission right now?" She asked quietly. "Ryan seemed confident that we had more time before it would make its final move."

"I honestly don't know," Rachel replied, though her expression showed the depth of her concern. "But I'm worried that something has gone very wrong…"

Meanwhile, in the room that Alisha and Elena shared, the two sisters were having their own intense conversation about the crisis that was unfolding around them.

"I need to contact our father immediately," Alisha said. "This changes everything. He needs to come and get us before the situation becomes completely uncontrollable."

"I'm not going to abandon everyone else and run away at the worst possible moment," Elena replied firmly.

"I understand, Lena," Alisha said, though her tone suggested she thought Elena was being naively idealistic. "But I'm calling him now so he can arrive in time to extract us safely. The longer we wait, the more dangerous the journey will become."

Elena clenched her fists, thinking about her conversation with Ryan in the Municipal Office storage room, the promises they'd made to each other, and the future they were trying to build together. Ryan had said he would talk to Alisha after they defeated the Screamer threat, but that conversation might never happen if they fled now.

"Our father could help everyone by bringing additional resources and eliminating infected threats in the area," Alisha continued, seeing Elena's hesitation. "He wouldn't just extract us and leave everyone else to die. His arrival could actually save the Group and we might also ask him to help the Municipal Office."

Elena nodded reluctantly, recognizing the logic of her sister's argument even though it meant accepting help from the dangerous world they'd been trying to escape.

But then Alisha added the condition that Elena had been dreading. "We're leaving today regardless of what happens. No delays, no negotiations, no last-minute changes of heart."

"I don't want to leave," Elena said strongly, finally voicing the conviction that had been building in her heart for weeks.

"Is this because you've fallen in love with Ryan?" Alisha asked directly, her tone carrying a harsh edge that suggested she'd been expecting this complication.

Elena nodded slowly, unable to deny feelings that had become central to her sense of identity and purpose.

"Are you serious about this?" Alisha asked, her voice rising with frustration and disbelief. "Even knowing that he clearly has romantic relationships with Rachel and Sydney, and probably Cindy as well? You're willing to accept being part of some kind of unconventional arrangement?"

"Ryan isn't like what you're implying," Elena replied defensively, clenching her fists as protective instincts made her want to fight for the man she loved. "He's not using anyone or taking advantage of our situation. I'm genuinely happy with him, and I believe he cares for me just as much as I care for him."

"You need to come back to your senses," Alisha argued back, her tone growing harsher as she tried to break through what she saw as dangerous self-delusion. "Ryan can't maintain normal, healthy relationships under these circumstances. The survival situation has created artificial intimacy that won't survive once we return to civilization. Or do you wish to live forever like this?"

Their conversation was becoming increasingly heated.

Elena had raremy seen Alisha angry but she was and at the same time Alisha had never seen Elena this stubborn. She expected this though…

The argument might have continued indefinitely, but it was suddenly interrupted by a sound that made both women freeze in terror.

Something exploded with tremendous force somewhere very close to their house, the impact powerful enough to make the walls of their room tremble and nearly knock them off their feet. The blast was followed by the sound of debris crashing and settling, and the unmistakable smell of smoke and burning materials.

Both sisters immediately rushed out of their room and looked down through the guardrail that overlooked the living room, their eyes widening in shock at what they saw.

The front entrance of their house was completely gone.

Instead of the reinforced door , there was now a gaping hole surrounded by burn marks and scattered debris. The edges of the opening were blackened and still smoldering from whatever attack had created such devastating damage.

Rachel stood in the living room, staring at the destruction with an expression of shock and disbelief. She had apparently been close enough to the entrance to be endangered by the attack, but quick enough to dodge the worst of the blast.

Looking at the distinctive pattern of damage—the circular blast area, the intense burn marks, the way the destruction had been focused and controlled—Rachel could identify the threat they were now facing with terrifying certainty.

"A Fire Spitter," she muttered.

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