CHAPTER 48: CHAPTER 48 – ETERNAL NIGHT (PART 5)

Chapter 48 – Eternal Night (Part 5)

Walking out of the storage, Jack made his way back to the main hall. Evelyn was already waiting, arms folded, her sharp gaze fixed on the crowd still pressing against the gates. The protests had grown louder, the shouting angrier. Soldiers moved frantically to hold the line, their attempts to calm the mob useless against the rising tide of fear and panic. The bunker was a storm waiting to break.

"Are you ready?" Jack asked, his voice steady, cutting through the noise like a blade.

"Yeah," Evelyn replied.

"Let’s go."

Without wasting another moment, they slipped away from the chaos, descending to the lowest floor of the bunker. The entrance to the sewers yawned before them, a dark, wet maw leading into the underbelly of the city. The memory of the elongated crocodiles lurking there sent a faint chill up Evelyn’s spine. But Jack didn’t hesitate. He had already studied their weakness—poor vision. As long as they moved carefully, the creatures would remain blind to their passage.

The air below was damp and suffocating. Water rippled faintly around their boots, the surface broken by the unseen movements of beasts hidden just beneath. Every step echoed in the tight tunnels, a reminder of what lurked nearby. Jack’s expression never changed, though. He pressed forward without flinching, forcing Evelyn to follow in silence. She could almost feel the eyes of those creatures beneath the surface, watching, waiting.

But none attacked. The two passed through without confrontation, climbing a rusted ladder until they emerged back onto the surface world.

This time, daylight greeted them. The morning sun spilled across the ruined city, bright and warm against their faces. But the light revealed something far worse. The air was heavy with the stench of death, a pungent mix of rotting flesh and stale blood that hit them instantly.

Evelyn gagged and covered her nose. "...What a horrid smell."

"The sun’s heating the corpses," Jack said flatly. "That’s why it’s stronger now."

His words were detached, clinical. He didn’t even blink at the suffocating odor. Instead, his gaze swept across the desolate streets, ears straining for sounds. What he found was not what he expected.

"It’s... quiet," he muttered.

And it was.

The silence pressed down on them, heavier than the reek of rot. The night before, the city had been alive with horror—screams of the dying, roars of monsters, the groan of collapsing buildings. Jack had grown used to that chaos, his senses dulled to it. But now, the world was hushed, unnatural. The stillness gnawed at him in a way the noise never had.

"So silent..." Evelyn whispered, her voice almost drowned by the empty air.

"It seems Sommeil really did something while we were inside," Jack replied, his tone unreadable. "Let’s go."

They stepped out of the alley and into the main streets. The full scale of the tragedy revealed itself in broad daylight. Corpses lay scattered everywhere—men, women, children—mixed with the mangled remains of monsters. Blood painted the cracked pavement in thick, blackened stains. Entire families were frozen mid-flight, their lifeless bodies sprawled together.

The scene was devastation incarnate, yet Jack’s expression remained still. He scanned left, then right, but his eyes held no grief. Death meant little to him. The concept itself had always seemed strange. Something ceasing to exist—it didn’t strike him as tragic, only inevitable. People die. Always have. Always will.

So why did others collapse in grief when they already knew the ending?

’Would you mourn a bottle of milk you knew was about to spill?’ he thought coldly. ’Would you be shocked when inevitability finally arrives?’

That was why Jack never mourned. Never pitied. The same reason he had made the choices he once did, long ago.

"Jack?" Evelyn’s voice cut into his thoughts. She had noticed the distant look in his eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Hm? I’m fine," he replied, snapping back.

Her lips pressed together as if she remembered something she’d rather not say, and she turned her gaze ahead. The two walked on in silence. Around them, corpses told the story of Sommeil’s power. The monsters weren’t just dead—they were butchered cleanly, sliced into symmetrical patterns. No doubt who the culprit was.

’He didn’t leave a single one alive...’ Jack mused. The sheer number of corpses—tens of thousands—was staggering. The scale of Sommeil’s strength was something beyond human.

After a long stretch of quiet, Evelyn finally spoke. "Hey, Jack."

He glanced sideways. "Mhm?"

"How’s life been treating you?" Her voice was soft, cautious. "Feels like we haven’t talked in forever."

Jack blinked, almost caught off guard. "Yeah... it’s been some time. I’m fine. As fine as anyone can be."

"I see."

A short silence followed before she continued. "We used to be inseparable as kids," she said, almost smiling. "We’d spend the whole day together, just because we didn’t want to deal with the older students."

Jack let out a faint breath. "Yeah."

"Good old days."

"..."

Her words hung in the air between them. Evelyn rarely spoke this way. She was usually like him—quiet, reserved, unbothered. Hearing her reminisce stirred something he couldn’t quite name.

"I just want to say..." She looked straight ahead, her voice softer now. "I’m glad you’re alive, Jack. I really am."

Jack’s eyes narrowed faintly, but there was no malice in them. Only calm. "...I see."

For the first time, the tension around them eased. Evelyn wasn’t pretending. He could tell. She was simply being honest, and that made her easier to be around than most. Pretenders irritated him. Lies were exhausting. But Evelyn wasn’t hiding. That honesty—however rare—was grounding.

’That’s why sticking with her doesn’t feel like a burden,’ he thought.

Breaking the quiet again, Evelyn asked, "So, where are you heading now?"

"I have a few places to check," Jack said. "What about you?"

"No plans," she admitted. "I’m tagging along. I need to hunt monsters, get stronger. And... We work well together."

Jack studied her for a moment before asking, "What about your family? Aren’t they here?"

Her eyes chilled over instantly. "No. They’re not in this city. I’ve been on my own for years now. No idea how they’re faring. Can’t contact them either."

Her tone was flat, detached. Jack understood immediately. Her family had never been close. Whether they lived or died mattered little to her. In that sense, she wasn’t so different from him.

"Then two places," Jack said at last. "Johnathan & Co. Law Firm, and West Gate College."

’The most obvious places they’d be. Their workplaces.’ He thought grimly. His parents had always stayed late at the office. If they were anywhere, it would be there.

They moved quickly through the ruined city, their steps echoing in the silence. The devastation was endless—cars overturned, glass shattered across the pavement, blood smeared against walls. Tens of thousands of corpses lay in their path, all felled by one man. An impossible feat for anyone human. But Sommeil wasn’t human.

For Jack and Evelyn, though, it meant their way forward was smooth. No ambushes. No resistance. Only carnage left behind.

Minutes later, they entered the business district. Jack’s father’s workplace towered among the ruins. Skyscrapers loomed like broken teeth against the sky, their glass windows shattered into glittering debris across the streets. But what truly caught their attention wasn’t the destruction.

It was something else entirely.

Both of them froze, staring up at the buildings.

"What... is that?" Evelyn whispered.

The high-rises were draped in long, red vines. Thick, fleshy tendrils coiled up the concrete walls, twisting across windows, anchoring themselves into the stone. They pulsed faintly, as though blood flowed inside them, beating in rhythm with some unseen heart. The veins throbbed, slick with a grotesque sheen, spreading like a parasite that had claimed the entire district.

Evelyn’s face twisted in disgust. "What the hell...?"

Wherever they looked, the vines covered everything—coiling around lamp posts, burrowing into the pavement, weaving across entire buildings like a living net. The entire district had been consumed.

And the steady pulse of those vines echoed in their bones.