The murmur of movent rippled through the crowd like a slow tide.
Hesitation lingered, but it was no longer strong enough to keep them paralyzed.
Bit by bit, they shifted, physically and ntally.
Mothers wiped their tears and took their children by the hands.
Fathers adjusted their makeshift bags. Friends counted heads. Strangers looked for others with similar strengths and followed the girl’s directive without further argunt.
The girl didn’t wait. She climbed down from the rock and walked toward the thinnest cluster of people, those who hadn’t spoken, hadn’t begged, just quietly clung to life without words.
Thirty-six people soon gathered behind her. So limped. So carried the unconscious. So had only each other.
North. East. South. West.
Each group moved with a different goal, heading into the unknown with nothing but a whisper of hope and a stomach full of fear.
One man in the group lead by the girl wrapped his daughter in a torn blanket, the edges still wet with her sweat.
"I hope we find a place soon" he muttered to himself, like it was a spell. "Just sowhere cool, sowhere safe."
His wife looked at him with a sad smile. She was trying to help hopeful but she doubted they would survive.
The group heading east had a nurse at the front, and she was already rationing out tablets from a cracked plastic kit. "We stay out of the sun and find sowhere as fast as we can."
Southward, a woman with military posture began issuing directions with short, clear orders. "No fighting. Stick close. Anyone who slows down, we’ll have to leave them behind.."
Westward, a boy no older than sixteen carried a crying toddler on his back. His voice was shaking, but he still said, "We’re going to make it. Even if we have to crawl."
From her place at the edge of the group of thirty-seven, the girl turned around one last ti. Her eyes swept the remaining survivors, who were now moving—no longer frozen by despair, but walking forward, searching for anything that could an survival.
The wind picked up, so hot she felt her skin burn.
She raised her voice, not loud but sharp, cutting through the thick air like a blade.
"Let the gods watch. We’ll survive without them."
Then she turned her back on the past and began to walk.
The sun rose higher, and the world seed to crack beneath its weight.
Four groups walked into the four corners of ruin. And ruin t them at every turn.
Wei Jing, turned to face her group, she had know idea where they were going or if they were going to find a shelter big enough to house them.
But they had find so places before hell started to cry.
"Everyone lets pick up the face, so far there are no zombies around."
She wondered why, maybe it was because of the heat, the challenge hasn’t began but it was getting awfully hot.
Sighing she simply adjusted the strip of cloth tied around her wrist and kept walking.
The fabric was soaked through with sweat and blood but it didn’t matter.
Every step forward made the ground feel hotter. At first it was just uncomfortable. Then it turned unbearable.
The earth had beco a griddle under their feet.
The cracked pavent shimred with heat mirages, the air above it twisting like a ghost’s breath.
Rubber soles began to lt into the asphalt with sticky squelches. For the barefooted, their every step left behind a red sar.
"Miss..." a man near the back grunted, his voice hoarse. "The heat... it’s too much."
Wei Jing stopped only briefly. Her gaze moved to the kid on his back, already unconscious, cheeks flushed with heatstroke.
"Give her to " she said quietly.
The man blinked, stunned. "What.."
"I said give her to . You can barely walk. I’m not going to let her die because of pride."
He hesitated only a second more before unstrapping the child from his shoulders. Wei Jing took the limp girl without another word, cradling her gently.
"Ruo’er" his wife whispered. "Is she still breathing?"
Wei Jing pressed a hand to the girl’s back, her chest rose in low, shallow rhythm but she alive.
"She’ll make it."
She didn’t speak to comfort them. She spoke as a fact. She needed them to believe it. Needed them to keep moving.
Another voice chid in, this ti from a teenage boy hunched over with a bleeding foot.
"My skin’s coming off..." he mumbled. "I can’t... I can’t keep walking like this."
"Are there water bottles??" Wei Jing asked "Cool your feet if you have. Wrap them if you can. We’ll find a shaded place soon, I can’t guarantee when though."
The boy sighed, he didn’t know how much his feet could take.
"Miss, if we don’t find shade soon...I’m afraid, we won’t be able to make it. It’s getting hotter and hotter, the oxygen is burning, he won’t get far before our feet beco a bloody ss. We can’t drive because the tires will lt. What are we doing to do?"
Wei Jing didn’t answer right away.
Her silence stretched over the group like a tight wire.
The only sounds were their breaths, in ragged, uneven huff and the hiss of wind skimming across the blistering pavent.
Even the insects were gone. Even the birds.
Nothing but unbearable heat and silence.
She looked down at the child in her arms, felt the slickness of sweat between her fingers and the fevered warmth of the girl’s skin.
Then she lifted her gaze forward. The landscape ahead was cracked and flat, distorted by the shimr of heat waves.
A dead world with no promise.
She turned back, her voice sharper this ti.
"If you stop now, you’ll die here. That’s not a threat. That’s just the truth."
A few people lowered their heads, not out of sha, but of acceptance. She saw their eyes. Glazed. Exhausted. Edging into hopefully but there wasn’t much for her to do.
But surrender ant leaving bodies behind for whatever vultures still lived through this heat. Or worse, for the earth itself to swallow.
Wei Jing adjusted the child’s weight in her arms. "There’s a line of warehouses up ahead. About two kiloters east of here, there must be one big enough to house us."
"How do you know?" soone muttered.
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