When The Sun Died

Chapter 10

Asher’s pov

Morning didn’t feel like morning.

The eclipse was still overhead, a dull, suffocating red disk that choked the sky and swallowed every trace of sunlight. Time felt broken, stretched thin and warped into something unrecognizable. My body ached from head to toe, but the burn in my scratched hand kept reminding me I was still alive… barely.

Serena paced near the warehouse entrance, armed and sharp eyed. Kane was packing what little supplies we had, shoulders hunched with nervous energy. I’d slept for maybe forty minutes. Maybe less. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Lucas’s face twisting into something monstrous, I see my parents turning into something unrecognizable.

My hand throbbed.

“Alright,” Serena said, putting bullets into her handgun, “we don’t have food or supplies. There’s a supermarket three blocks from here. We move fast, stay quiet, get only what we can carry.”

“Three blocks?” I repeated. “Feels like thirty.”

“Three,” she said flatly. “If you limp, keep up.”

“I’m not limping.”

“You will,” Kane mumbled from behind me.

I shot him a look.

He wasn’t wrong.

My whole arm felt like someone had poured boiling water under my skin.

Maybe it was the scratch. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe I was just falling apart.

Serena swung her bag pack on and jerked her head toward the back exit. “Let’s go.”

We slipped out into the red haze of the ruined streets. Everything was too quiet. Cars sat abandoned at angles, doors open as though people simply evaporated mid-step. The air smelled like rust and smoke.

Every sound made me flinch.

Every shadow made my pulse spike.

As we approached the supermarket, the silence cracked low, guttural shrieks in the distance.

The Eclipseborn were awake.

And hunting.

“Faster,” Serena whispered.

Kane stuck close to me, clutching a pipe he’d grabbed from the warehouse.

“If we see anything, don’t be a hero,” he muttered.

“Me?” I huffed. “Never.”

We were half a street away from the supermarket when I heard it the snap of something heavy landing on a rooftop nearby.

Serena froze.

Kane froze.

I froze.

A slow scraping sound followed, like claws dragging across tar.

Then

A shriek tore through the air.

“Run!” Serena barked.

We sprinted the last stretch to the supermarket, but the creature dropped from the roof with impossible speed, slamming onto the hood of a car right beside us. Its neck was twisted, jaw dislocated, black drool dripping onto the metal.

It saw us.

And it lunged.

I shoved Kane out of the way as the Eclipseborn soared through the air straight at me.

Its weight hit me like a truck, knocking the breath out of my chest as we crashed onto the pavement.

Claws dug into my jacket.

Its jaws snapped dangerously close to my face.

I jammed my forearm up to block its teeth

And pain exploded up my arm.

I screamed.

Its fangs sank deep into my upper arm, tearing through muscle like wet paper.

“ASHER!” Kane shouted somewhere behind me.

Serena fired.

BANG.

The bullet caught the creature in the side of the head.

BANG.

Another shot.

Black ichor sprayed over the concrete.

The monster’s body went slack on top of me, its jaw still clamped onto my arm. Serena kicked it off me and fired one more shot just to make sure it was dead.

I lay there shaking, clutching my bleeding arm.

“Oh God…oh God…Serena” Kane stammered, voice cracking. “He’s…he’s bitten…he’s…”

“I know,” Serena snapped, eyes wild, breath sharp.

I struggled to sit up. “I’m… I’m fine. I’m…”

“You’re not!” Kane cried, grabbing my shoulder. “Asher, you’re…your veins…look”

I looked.

Black lines were already crawling outward from the bite, pulsing like something alive under my skin.

My stomach dropped.

“No… no, no, no” I whispered, panic suffocating my throat.

“Get up,” Serena barked. “We can’t stay out here!”

She grabbed me by the collar and hauled me to my feet.

I staggered forward, dizzy, my vision blurring around the edges. I could barely hear anything over the ringing in my ears and the hammering of my heart.

The supermarket door was right there.

Boarded. Locked.

We were dead.

Then…

A hand shot out from inside and ripped the door open.

“GET IN!”

A woman’s voice. Urgent. Sharp with fear.

I didn’t know her.

But at that moment, she was salvation.

Serena shoved me through first. Kane dove in after. The woman slammed the heavy door shut, bolting it with a metal bar.

The moment she did

More creatures slammed into the outside.

The woman backed away quickly, chest rising and falling.

She looked young, but her eyes were tired. Haunted. She held a kitchen knife in a trembling grip.

Behind her, a little girl, maybe six, peeked out from a storage aisle, wide-eyed. The moment she saw me bleeding, she darted behind the woman, gripping the back of her shirt with tiny fingers.

I fell to my knees, teeth clenched, hand pressed against my bleeding arm.

“Serena…” I whispered. “It…hurts…God it hurts”

Her face hardened.

She raised her gun.

And pointed it straight at my head.

The world froze.

Kane jerked forward. “Serena wait, WAIT don’t!”

“He’s bitten,” she said, voice deadly calm. “We know what happens when someone gets bitten.”

“Serena just give me a minute”

“There isn’t a minute,” she hissed. “Look at your arm!”

I did.

The black veins had doubled. Tripled.

Tears blurred my vision.

“Please,” I whispered. “Not like this.”

The little girl whimpered and pressed deeper behind the woman. Serena’s aim didn’t waver. Her hand was steady, eyes cold and devastated.

She didn’t want to do this.

But she would.

She would kill me.

The woman who opened the door stepped in front of me instinctively, holding out her arms.

“Hey put the gun down!” she shouted at Serena.

“He just got in here! He’s scared,he’s in pain you can’t just shoot him!”

“You don’t understand what these things do,” Serena snapped.

“I understand he’s still TALKING!” the woman fired back.

I grabbed her sleeve weakly. “Don’t… don’t get close to me”

She ignored me and crouched at my side, hands trembling.

Serena chambered another round. “Move away from him. Now.”

The woman who I still didn’t even know the name of shook her head fiercely.

“No,” she said. “I won’t let you kill him before the virus does.”

Kane’s voice cracked. “Serena… we don’t know how fast his symptoms will progress.”

Serena swallowed. Her eyes flicked to my arm… then to my face.

“Asher,” she said quietly. “Look at me.”

I lifted my head, barely.

“If you feel anything changing, if you feel yourself slipping you tell me. Do you understand?”

My throat closed.

“I’ll try,” I whispered.

I wasn’t sure I’d have the chance.

The burning in my arm was spreading, crawling up toward my shoulder. My fingers were numb. My breathing was shallow. The room felt like it was expanding and collapsing at once.

I heard the little girl whisper to the woman:

“Is he going to be a monster?”

My heart cracked.

The woman pulled the girl closer. “I don’t really know.”

Serena lowered the gun slightly but didn’t holster it.

I slumped back against a shelf, chest heaving.

Kane dropped to his knees beside me. “We need to clean the wound,” he said. “Maybe… maybe slow it down..maybe”

Serena cut him off. “Kane. Don’t lie to him.”

He closed his mouth, tears threatening.

The woman wiped her forehead, breath shaking. “I’m Elara,” she said gently, as if saying it would somehow keep me grounded. “The little one is Mia.”

I blinked at her, fighting to stay conscious.

I didn’t know her.

She didn’t know me.

And she still opened the door.

Still saved my life.

Even if it was only delaying the inevitable.

Elara touched my forehead, flinching at the heat.

“We’re going to help you,” she whispered. “I promise.”

A promise she had no way of keeping.

But I clung to it anyway.

Because hope was the only thing keeping me human.

For now.