Outside, Michael had observed the building where the humans were hiding. It was nearly forty stories tall. While it couldn't compare to the skyscrapers of Ruruye Island, it certainly stood out like a crane among chickens in these three abandoned blocks.
Come to think of it, the nickname "The Tower" was quite fitting.
The first floor seemed to have been the site of a battle. Rubble and broken furniture were scattered everywhere, and the ceiling had partially collapsed, creating a passage to the second floor.
Now that the misunderstanding was cleared up, most people didn't rush to the higher floors. Instead, they collapsed onto the first floor, the tension draining from their bodies.
Harris, supported by Aldemir, climbed to the second floor and led Michael and Sakura through the maze-like corridors, finally stopping in front of an old elevator.
As if anticipating Michael's question, Harris spoke first. "We found a small manual generator, but the power is barely enough for the elevator. There's no other way. The survivors mostly live on the higher floors, and we lack food and strength. Without the elevator, it would be too difficult to climb to the thirties."
Just as he finished speaking, the button next to the elevator lit up, and a humming sound emanated from the empty shaft.
"The elevator takes a while to start up. We'll have to wait."
Taking advantage of the wait, Michael looked around. The smell of decay permeated the corridor. Listening carefully, he could even hear delirious roars, which made him uncomfortable.
"How many of you are there?"
Harris answered without turning around, "You should ask: how many are left. A month ago, there were nearly a thousand people sheltered here. But now... you've seen the ones who can still move. Including those who can't, there are just over a hundred."
Michael took a deep breath, wanting to say something, but he felt choked up, unable to speak.
Sakura, more naive, asked directly, covering her nose, "What about the bodies? Are they all kept in these rooms?"
As soon as she spoke, she saw Michael, Harris, and Aldemir all turn to look at her.
"What?" She felt that she had been a bit blunt, but she wasn't wrong.
"Do you really want to know?" Michael raised an eyebrow.
The young Aldemir shrugged.
Harris gave a smile that was uglier than crying. "Then let me show you."
The Tower was a standard honeycomb apartment building, with about twenty rooms of varying sizes on each floor. They randomly chose one.
Turning the doorknob and pushing the door open just a crack, the overwhelming stench of blood and decay almost made Sakura faint. Even Michael covered his nose and mouth. But Harris and Aldemir seemed to be used to it, their expressions unchanged.
Opening the door completely, they could clearly hear the sounds of grinding teeth, chewing, and swallowing in the darkness.
Michael and Sakura swallowed in unison.
Sakura switched on her high-powered flashlight, casting a bright circle on the floor.
The circle moved towards the source of the sound, revealing three figures huddled together, squatting on the ground.
As if sensing the long-absent light, the figure in the middle suddenly turned around. Sakura screamed, her body jolting, and the flashlight fell to the ground.
Michael reacted quickly, slamming the door shut, leaving the flashlight inside. Even he, who had seen much, couldn't stop his heart from racing, his palms sweating, and his mouth going dry.
What had turned around in the harsh white light was clearly a Deadman. Its face was half sickly pale, half stiff black, and covered in purple veins. Its eyes had no distinction between whites and pupils, only bottomless darkness.
Its mouth was split open, chewing mindlessly on bloody chunks of flesh. Its broken teeth were covered in scraps and gore, which fell from its mouth with every chew.
And surrounded by the three Zombies was a corpse that could barely be recognized as human.
Aldemir locked the door without expression, clearly accustomed to such scenes.
But Michael noticed his fingers trembling as he turned the key.
Even after seeing such a gruesome scene a thousand, ten thousand times, one couldn't truly become indifferent.
"Breeding Zombies! What... what are you doing?!" Sakura glared at Harris.
Harris scoffed, his left hand trembling as he reached out from under his coat. This caused Sakura to take a step back, lowering her center of gravity, her hand slightly raised, ready to reach for the pistol at her waist. The fear wiped away any lingering pity she had felt for the survivors, leaving only the feeling that the people in front of her were demons.
Michael quickly placed a hand on her shoulder, pulling her back.
Harris slowly raised his single arm, the movement causing his coat to fall to the floor, revealing a dirty shirt underneath. The shirt was a bit short, suggesting it should have been too small for Harris, but it now seemed slightly loose, clinging to his body in the breeze from the corridor, outlining the protruding bones of his ribs.
His fingers intertwined, shaking violently like a woodpecker at work.
He removed his sunglasses, revealing an empty left eye socket, still crusted with dried blood.
His remaining right eye narrowed, staring at Sakura until the hairs on her arms stood on end.
After a long silence, he grinned, revealing a mouth full of yellowed, decaying teeth.
"Perhaps in your eyes, this is enough to condemn me, but what choice do we have? We're afraid of being discovered by City Hall. We don't dare move during the day, and with those monsters out at night, we don't dare move then either. No medicine, no food, no hope... More and more people are dying. We can't bury them. At first, we simply placed them in the corridors, but that night, the bodies turned into Zombies and killed even more people..."
"Later, we threw all the bodies into rooms and locked the doors and windows... Not all bodies turn into Zombies, and the ones that don't often become food for those that do..."
Sakura's hand slowly lowered.
"We've tried other things, like dismembering the bodies. That's the easiest and most effective method. The dismembered bodies have other uses, but unfortunately, we lack the means to cook..." Harris added this last sentence unexpectedly, his face expressionless.
Sakura swallowed a nonexistent lump in her throat, a sudden lurch in her chest almost making her retch.
"But in the end, we couldn't bring ourselves to do it... After all, they were people we lived with... And no one wanted to do it, thinking about how they'd be treated after they died." Aldemir quickly added.
"Ding!" The elevator in the distance chimed. Harris put his sunglasses back on, ignoring his fallen coat, and turned towards the elevator.
Michael frowned, one hand on his hip, the other hanging loosely, following behind.
Only when all four were inside the elevator, the doors slowly closing, and the elevator began its slow ascent, did Michael ask, fake ignorance, "So, what exactly happened between you and City Hall? Why are you hiding from them, afraid of being discovered? Being discovered and sent to a hospital for treatment is better than waiting to die here, right?"
"That's because you don't know what happens to those who get sick." Harris said coldly. "There were tens of thousands of people in our three blocks combined. Because of the monsters, most people believed City Hall and left their homes to be quarantined.
Then the Honkai sickness broke out, and more and more people were infected. At first, they pretended to treat us, like with amputations."
He shrugged his right shoulder. "I had my right arm amputated before the purple veins spread completely, but it didn't stop me from getting infected again."
"But later, the mortality rate increased, the time from infection to death became shorter, and people became more and more afraid. Until one day, a doctor left his handbook in the quarantine zone."
Harris took a deep breath, as if suppressing immense anger and resentment. "It turns out that there was already a cure for this Honkai sickness – a serum. And the principle of the serum is very simple: most Honkai sickness victims retain a small amount of antibodies after death. By extracting enough antibodies, you can create a serum that can cure one patient."
Sakura's mouth opened slightly. Seeming to realize something, she quickly asked, "How many people's antibodies are needed to synthesize one dose of serum?"
Harris glanced at her, raising his left index finger.
"One... ten?" Sakura guessed boldly.