"You brought this on us!" But there was no answer from outside, no mercy, no soft voice, no rescue. Only the brutal pounding of bodies throwing themselves against the barrier. Then the crack widened. One of the zombies outside let out a wet, ugly sound, and another impact followed so hard that the chair nearest the door tipped over. Lin Da stumbled back, raising both hands. "No, no, no, stop, stop," he cried. "I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die here." Peng Xiao was already sobbing now, tears running down her face. "Yan Cijin, please," she screamed, her voice breaking. "Help us, please, we were wrong, we were wrong!" But Yan Cijin was not there anymore, and even if she had been, she would not have cared. The purple smoke had already done its work. The zombies were no longer just wandering. They were hunting. The furniture shifted again, and this time one of the lower legs of the stool at the bottom of the pile snapped. A zombie hand suddenly shot through the gap, clawing at the wood from outside. That one little hand made everyone in the room scream at once.

The first break came fast after that. The top part of the blocked door gave way with a violent crack, and the whole pile of furniture slumped sideways. Cold air rushed in first, along with that horrible smell of rotten flesh and stale blood. Then the first zombie forced its head and shoulders through the opening, its mouth open wide and its face twisted beyond anything human. Wu Xiaoyu screamed so hard her voice cracked. She turned and tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. Another zombie smashed in behind the first one, and then another. Zhang Fan grabbed a chair and swung it wildly, yelling, "Get back! Get back!" But the chair only hit one zombie’s arm and did nothing useful. The zombie did not even seem to feel it. It lunged forward, caught Zhang Fan by the shoulder, and dragged him down hard. He yelled out in pure shock, "No! No, get off me!" His fingers clawed at the floor, his legs kicking as he tried to pull free, but the zombie had already bitten into the side of his neck. Blood sprayed out fast, and Zhang Fan’s eyes went wide with disbelief as his body started shaking. "Help me," he choked, but the words were already turning into wet, broken sounds. Within seconds, the life drained right out of him, and his hand fell limp against the floor. Peng Xiao saw it happen and started running in a blind panic, but she slipped on the floor and crashed into the wall. She tried to crawl away while crying, "Don’t come near me, don’t come near me!" One zombie turned toward her, dragged itself forward, and caught her by the ankle. She kicked and screamed, but the zombie yanked hard, pulling her back across the floor. Her fingernails scraped at the tile as she cried out for Wang Bo and for Lin Da, but nobody could help her. The next bite came down on her arm, then her shoulder, and her screams slowly turned into choking sobs before they finally stopped. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

Lin Da was next. He had backed himself into the side of the room, and his whole face looked empty with fear, like he had already lost his mind. He raised both hands and shouted at the zombies, "Don’t kill me! I didn’t do anything! I didn’t do anything!" That was the kind of line people always said when they were scared enough to forget how ugly they had been a minute earlier. One zombie lurched at him and slammed him against the cabinet. The glass in the door of the cabinet rattled loudly. Lin Da cried out, "No, wait, wait!" but the zombie had already locked its mouth onto his arm. He screamed so hard his voice went raw. The pain made him collapse to one knee, and the zombie kept pressing in, tearing at him while another one came from behind. His legs shook, his face turned into one long expression of terror, and he kept looking around like someone would suddenly save him if he just looked hard enough. Nobody did. Wu Xiaoyu, who had been backing away in a daze, was cornered by another zombie near the broken furniture pile. She kept saying, "I don’t want this, I don’t want this," over and over in a whisper, but the zombie was already on her. She tried to push it away, but it grabbed her by the throat and slammed her down hard. Her scream cut off in the middle, and then there was only a harsh choking sound before her body went still. The room was filling up fast now, with the sounds of smashing, screaming, and tearing. It was no longer just fear. It was complete collapse.

And all the while, outside in the corridor, Bai Li and Yan Cijin had already gone on. Inside that room, the people who had once looked down on them were now paying for every ugly decision they had made. Their begging changed nothing. Their shouting changed nothing. Their selfishness changed nothing. One after another, they were dragged down by the zombies they had helped draw in, and each person who died had the same shocked look in their eyes, like they could not believe the world had turned on them so fast. Lin Da tried one last time to crawl toward the doorway with blood on his face, his voice weak and broken as he wheezed, "Help... somebody... please..." But a zombie stepped over the fallen furniture, caught him by the neck, and slammed him back down. Zhang Fan was already gone by then. Peng Xiao was no longer moving. Wu Xiaoyu had stopped struggling. The room that had filled with panic a moment ago was now full of ugly silence broken only by the chewing sounds and the wet thud of bodies hitting the floor. The fate waiting for them had finally arrived, and it was exactly as cold and brutal as Bai Li had predicted.

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TO BE CONTINUED.