He skidded across the concrete floor, gasping for air. The heavy metal doors slammed shut with a definitive thud , leaving the screams of the night outside.
He grabbed the Antizin vials, stuffing them into his pack, when a sound like tearing silk echoed from the alleyway behind him. He froze. It wasn't the clumsy shuffle of a zombie. It was fast. Rhythmic. A Volatile. Crane didn't look back. He bolted.
Crane didn't need the reminder. He leaped, his body a blur of practiced motion. He caught a ledge, swung over a gap, and rolled onto a flat roof. He was a tracer, a ghost of the skyline, but even ghosts had to fear what came out at night. Articles on the topic: "Dying light"
He felt the wind of a clawed hand narrowly miss his shoulder. He scrambled up a barricade of spiked plywood, kicked a climbing infected square in the face, and threw himself through the closing gap of the Tower’s main gate.
"Brecken, I’m near the drop zone," Crane said into his radio, his voice tight. He skidded across the concrete floor, gasping for air
The air in Harran didn’t just smell like decay; it smelled like heavy, wet copper.
"Move fast, Crane," the response crackled through. "The shadows are stretching. You don’t want to be caught on the street when the light dies." He froze
He reached the crates just as the first siren wailed—the city’s mournful warning that the sun had dipped below the horizon. The transition was instant. The ambient groans of the "biters" below sharpened into something more predatory.