Chapter 11:Head start
"Hold on to it," he whispered, his voice steady despite the chaos.
Aria clutched the instrument tightly against her chest, nodding.
Oswin's foot slammed down on the pipe.
The rusted pipe shuddered beneath his boot — once, twice — then snapped free with a sharp metallic crack.
The world tilted.
For a breathless moment, they were falling.
But the fall wasn't straight down.
The pipe swung loose like a pendulum, providing enough resistance to slow their descent just enough — just barely — to keep them from breaking their bones on the cobblestones below.
They hit the ground hard — Oswin's back slamming onto the cracked cobblestones. Pain exploded through his ribs. His breath caught in his throat. Aria tumbled beside him, rolling across the damp ground.
For one frozen second, Oswin lay there — ears ringing — chest heaving. Every nerve in his body screamed to get up, but the fall had knocked the air from his lungs.
Then came the sound.
Footsteps
Hundreds of them.
The corpses were already rushing towards them— arms flailing, faces twisted beneath the lush moss.
Oswin ignored all his agony and grabbed Aria's wrist and pulled her close.
"Run."
They sprinted down the alley.
The corpses followed.
No slow shamble. No mindless lurching. They rushed down the walls like a tidal wave — bodies tumbling over each other, limbs flailing, faces twisted into something between hunger and hatred.
Oswin and Aria sprinted with the full force of their lives, Aria clutched the violin tightly against her chest, her small fingers trembling but refusing to let go.
The head start was their saving grace—the corpses were still to reach halfway to the Automobile, the siblings had already reached the automobile. Oswin clambered into the driver's seat, pulling Aria up beside him just as the first corpse crashed against the vehicle's rear.
He shoved Aria into the passenger seat — the girl clutching the Violine to her chest with both hands.
Oswin threw himself into the driver's seat.
The wheel felt wrong under his hands — stiff, heavy — but familiar enough. Clutch. Brake. Gas.
It wasn't so different from modern cars.
He could figure it out.
Oswin's fingers locked around the wheel. He pushed the accelerator.
The automobile lurched forward — gears grinding as the machine groaned beneath him.
The first corpses were yet to reach them.
Oswin didn't look back.
He twisted the wheel, guiding the car down the streets— weaving between rubble and shattered glass. The steering was heavy, unresponsive — more machine than mechanism — but it was still a car.
Still something he could control.
The corpses swarmed behind with occasional corpses on the street, stumbled into their path — but they were scarce, scattered in loose groups instead of a dense horde. Oswin's first instinct was to maneuver around them, swerving to avoid the twisted bodies — but the streets were too narrow, the rubble too thick.
When there was no gap — he didn't hesitate.
The automobile crashed through the moss-covered bodies.
Oswin braced himself — expecting the violent jolt of impact, the sickening crunch of bones under the wheels.
But there was almost nothing.
No resistance. No force pushing back.
The car barely even trembled as it ground the corpses beneath its wheels — as if the bodies were made of straw and clay rather than flesh and bone.
Oswin's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, heart pounding. The crushed bodies lay in broken heaps — limbs shattered, moss trailing behind them — but the bloodied mess he expected was absent.
It didn't make sense.
He gritted his teeth, forcing the thought to the back of his mind. There was no time to wonder. Not now.
He drove harder — the engine roaring beneath him.
The corpses pounded against the homes lining the streets — splintering wood, clawing at cracked windows. Some still chased behind the automobile, their hollow eyes locked onto the siblings — but Oswin's lead was widening.
Aria huddled in the passenger seat, clutching the violin and bow so tightly her small arms trembled. Her lips were pressed into a thin line — her face pale — but she never loosened her grip.
He drove like a madman through the burning streets.
The city was dying around them.
The corpses never stopped.
Oswin could hear countless screams and pleas for help echoing through the burning streets — voices shrill with terror, calling out for salvation.
He ignored them.
The guilt clawed at him, twisting deep beneath his ribs — but he forced himself to keep driving. There was no saving anyone. Not now.
Not when they were still in danger.
***
In the city square, the moon hung pale and distant.
Nine figures stood
The operatives worked in silence.
Just the mechanical rituals of preparation—tightening drum skins, adjusting brass valves, plucking strings, tuning woodwinds.
The tension in the air was suffocating.
The red-haired man clenched his fists, his green eyes shimmering with barely contained grief. He glanced at the woman, voice cracking beneath the weight of what they were about to do.
"I... I never thought it would spread this fast."
The blonde woman didn't look at him—her gaze still locked on the distant rooftops.
"I didn't either."
Her voice was cold. Detached.
"I expected the moss to take two days at the least... enough time to contain the spread—enough time to eliminate the infected."
She finally turned to face the group. The dim moonlight made her pale features seem almost ghostly beneath the mask pulled halfway down her face.
"But it bloomed faster in the night. People were asleep. They didn't have time to run."
The red-haired man bit his lip, tears threatening to spill.
"If... if we do this... thousands of innocents—"
"Martin."
Her voice cut through the cold like a knife.
"We cannot sacrifice hundreds of thousands to save thousands."
The words rang hard against the dead silence—final and absolute.
"If the moss reaches the next city..." Her gaze flicked toward the black haze in the distance. "You know what will happen."
Her words cut through the cold night air. No one argued.
Her voice was cold. Final. Like a blade carving through stone.
Martin clenched his fists, his teeth grinding behind closed lips. He took a step forward—then stopped, his nails digging into his palms.
His voice cracked.
"Let me warn them... just give me time to—"
"Ignis, how much time can we spare?"
The blonde woman's icy gaze shifted to the black-haired woman tuning her banjo.
"Six minutes."
A heavy silence fell over the group.
Martin's breath caught in his throat.
"Six minutes..."
"That's all the mercy we can give."
Martin did not argue anymore.
Martin's hands trembled as they reached for the leather case strapped to his back. His fingers hovered over the worn buckles, the cracked leather cool beneath his touch. For a brief moment, he stood frozen—his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. The distant wails of the infected and desperate pleas of help echoed through the narrow streets, carried on the thick night air.
His heart hammered inside his ribs.
He clenched his jaw and unfastened the case. The leather creaked as it opened, revealing the brass gleam of a trombone—polished but battered, its surface marred by faint scratches and dents from long years of service.
Martin's fingers traced along the mouthpiece—the same instrument he'd carried for years. It was not a tool for Entertainment but A tool of mercy, A tool of slaughter and now an emergency siren.
He pressed the mouthpiece to his lips.
The trombone let out a shrill, wavering note — faint on the surface, barely more than a whisper against the crackling flames and distant screams.
But the sound did not speak to the ears.
It burrowed deeper — threading into the marrow, vibrating behind the eyes, carving itself into the mind like a shard of glass. Those who still possessed their sanity felt it reverberate beneath their skulls — an unnatural frequency that no natural instrument could produce. It carried no words, no voice — only a message carved in pure sensation.