The fog swallowed Madina's gates behind us like a curtain falling.

  I walked last, footsteps silent, the white mask catching stray droplets of mist and turning them into gray water. Ahead, Sania and Hassan spoke in voices meant only for each other—soft, unguarded, the kind of talk that assumes no one else is listening.

  "Is he trustworthy?" Sania whispered, not quite looking back.

  Hassan shrugged, hand resting on his sword hilt. "Uncle let him in. That's enough."

  He flashed her a grin. "First time stepping outside the walls. You scared?"

  Sania laughed, sharp and bright. "Of course not."

  I listened to every word. Said nothing. The mask made me invisible.

  The leader set a steady pace through ruins that breathed with the fog. After a while, I spoke, voice flat as steel.

  "What happened to the bodies on the road?"

  The leader glanced back, expression grim. "The two earthquakes. People panicked. Ran instead of praying."

  "Ran where?"

  "Anywhere but faith," he replied. "Those who stayed… believed. Most who ran didn't make it."

  Sania listened closely. So did Hassan.

  After a stretch of quiet, Hassan turned his head. "Hey, Zero. Why the mask?"

  "To hide my face."

  An awkward pause bloomed.

  "Oh," Hassan muttered. "Right."

  Sania leaned closer to her father, whispering, not quietly enough. "He moves like he's already killed whatever he's looking at."

  A scream cut the fog.

  "Ready!" the leader shouted. "Stay together!"

  Sania moved behind Hassan without thinking. I, instead, stepped forward—toward the sound—then returned just as quickly, daggers clean.

  The leader glared. "Don't break formation again. Understood?"

  I nodded once.

  We walked on. The fog grew thicker, quieter.

  Sania looked back. "Where's your cat, Zero?"

  The question hit like a blade to the ribs.

  My heartbeat spiked so violently I pressed a palm over my chest to steady myself. Three years. Flake had been the only constant. The only witness. The only—

  "What's wrong?" she asked.

  "Nothing," I muttered.

  We reached the supply store—shelves empty, dust thick as felt.

  Sania sighed. "Great. More walking."

  Hassan squeezed her shoulder. "Deeper we go."

  I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper and iron.

  A roar shattered the quiet.

  Mutated bear—twice a man's height, parasite pulsing on its skull like a second heart—charged from the mist.

  Chaos.

  The leader raised shield and axe. Hassan shoved Sania behind him, drawing twin swords. She nocked an arrow with trembling hands, breath coming too fast.

  The bear struck. Hassan blocked—bone cracked beneath the impact. He screamed, swords clattering.

  I lunged from the side, daggers flashing. The bear turned, claws raking my ribs. Pain blazed white across my vision.

  Sania's arrow flew.

  I calculated trajectory in the half-breath before impact: 23 degrees left of center, velocity sufficient for chest penetration, Hassan stationary. Kill probability: 89%.

  She missed.

  The shaft took Hassan in the shoulder—non-lethal, 12 centimeters right of predicted impact. Error source: her tremor, my miscalculation, or—

  I moved without thinking—shoved Hassan aside, took a second shaft in my own shoulder. Blood spread hot across fabric, soaking through to skin.

  I slid beneath the bear, severed a paw at the joint. The leader's axe buried in the parasite's skull with a wet crunch. The beast collapsed, twitching, still.

  Silence.

  Sania ran to me, voice shaking. "I—I didn't mean to—I'm sorry… I didn't mean—"

  Hassan stared, eyes wide. "You saved me."

  The leader bound my wounds with rough cloth. "We owe you."

  I said nothing.

  Hassan filled the silence, nervous, grateful, alive: "Humans help humans. Even now."

  I met his eyes through porcelain. Let him see whatever he needed to see.

  Sania blinked. "That's the most you've said. And you laughed."

  Had I? I didn't remember making the sound.

  "Can you walk?" the leader asked.

  "Yes."

  We moved on.

  Behind the mask, I spoke aloud, low, the porcelain muffling my voice to nothing.

  "Trajectory error. 12% deviation. Source: unknown."

  Flake returned from the fog, rubbing against my leg in pattern—three times, pause, twice. Code we developed. Confirm. Target. Execute.

  I answered myself: "Because she generates noise in my signal. Because I need to know if the noise is pattern."

  First time I spoke it—mechanical, accurate. To no one. To fog.

  We found the refuge—children crying, families huddled like stones in a river. Sania lifted a small girl, voice soft as lullaby. "You're safe now."

  Animals howled in the fog—lions, twisted pets, more coming, always more.

  I stepped back. "I'll cover the rear. Go."

  Blades flashed. Bodies fell. I carved a path, voice calm and cold.

  "Clear! Run!"

  They ran.

  Far from the battlefield, everyone collapsed, breathless and shaking.

  Sania looked around—sudden panic rising. "Hassan?"

  I stood, slow and steady. "I'll find him."

  I vanished into the fog before anyone could argue.

  Hassan lay against a broken wall, leg mangled, tears on his cheeks. "Zero—thank God—you came."

  Flake appeared beside him, eyes glowing faint in the dark.

  "A monster," Hassan whispered. "Your cat—"

  I knelt, began bandaging the wound with practiced hands. The heat started then—not in my chest, where heartbeat lived, but behind my eyes, in my palms, in the precision of each wrap.

  I logged it: Anomaly. Thermal response. Source: proximity to Sania's prior panic.

  I chose not to suppress it.

  "How do you feel?"

  "Better… listen… about Sania—"

  I pressed the bandage. Hard.

  Hassan gasped.

  "You touched her," I said. "Where?"

  "What? No—we were kids—"

  "Hand. Shoulder. Hair." I pressed harder. "Where?"

  Hassan broke. "Hand—just her hand—wait, you don't understand, she was different then, she used to follow my sister everywhere, she was always—"

  I pressed the dagger into his wounded leg, deep, slow, precise. Not fast. Slow enough for him to understand the duration.

  Screaming. Dragging across dirt. Begging.

  "She'll—"

  "She'll what?" I leaned closer, mask inches from his face. "Hate me? For saving her from a bear? For carrying her dying cousin home?"

  Hassan saw it—too late. I had already written the story.

  "Why?" he whispered.

  I removed the mask.

  The smile underneath was empty as a drained well.

  "Because you touched her. Because you breathed near her. Because you existed in her radius."

  Flake moved.

  Hassan's scream stopped mid-breath. Then silence. True silence. The kind that holds weight.

  I waited until the fog absorbed it. Then returned to the group, mask white and spotless.

  "Hassan died fighting," I said calmly. "He told me to run."

  Sania collapsed, sobbing into her father's chest.

  We prayed over an empty grave, tears mixing with fog.

  I walked beside her, quiet, unseen, unjudged.

  The mask stayed white.

  The katana stayed black.

  Inside, I counted: Four hundred and one. Hassan makes four hundred and one.

  Flake rubbed against my leg—three times, pause, once.

  Continue?

  "Continue," I said.

  First time I counted since the fog. System restored.

  Sania watched my hands. They weren't trembling anymore.

  They were tallying.