The monster was still twitching when Ruri slammed the bolt lock shut.
She dragged Elis inside by the wrist, careful not to smear blood on her lilies, and kicked the door until it clicked back into place. The cracked glass rattled once, then settled.
Outside, the streets had gone quiet again. Too quiet. Like something was listening.
Ruri didn’t bother looking through the curtains.
She turned to Elis instead.
He looked worse in the light, sweat-soaked, pale, with a growing bruise on his cheek and scratches down one arm. One sleeve of his soft cardigan was half torn, revealing angry red skin underneath.
She steered him wordlessly into the back room.
A soft chair. A steaming kettle already half-boiled. A clean rag.
Routine. Like always.
Only once he was seated and no longer hyperventilating did she speak.
“What happened?”
She said, voice flat and quiet, “To you?”
Elis swallowed.
“There were...things. People. I don’t know what to call them. They changed.”
Ruri wet the cloth and dabbed at the dirt on his cheek.
“When?”
“A week ago? No, longer. I-I didn’t notice at first. I thought people were just sick.”
“Mm. Then?”
“Then someone from town just… burst. Their face split open. They had teeth where there shouldn’t be teeth.”
Ruri didn’t flinch.
“And the others? Your men?”
Elis winced.
“Scattered. Jin tried to fight something. He told me to run. I haven’t seen the rest in days.”
“You ran here?”
Elis nodded, gaze flicking to the front of the shop.
“I didn’t know where else to go. I remembered you as I was passing by here. Our meet-up location was near and I thought- I mean, you always seemed... calm. Like you knew how to survive.”
Ruri paused at that.
She wrung out the cloth and leaned back, folding her arms.
“I’m a florist.”
“You didn’t blink when you stabbed that thing in the head with garden scissors.”
Ruri raised an eyebrow.
“Fine. I’m a very calm florist.”
Outside, something shrieked in the distance.
Elis flinched.
Ruri didn’t move. She poured them both tea instead, fingers steady.
“So the world’s falling apart, and I missed it because I was too busy measuring stem lengths.”
She passed him a cup.
“I should’ve known.” Ruri muttered.
“Birds don’t die in groups. Customers don’t disappear without canceling. And no one goes a whole week without ordering peonies during courting season.”
Elis gave a shaky laugh.
“Only you would connect floral patterns to the apocalypse.”
“I read signs differently.”
They sat like that for a moment. Two bodies suspended in the middle of a collapsing world. Tea steam curled between them like ghostly fingers.
Ruri could hear her heartbeat now, slow, but awake. Like the part of her she’d buried had started stretching in the dark.
Then the front window exploded.
---
Glass rained like sharp snow.
Elis ducked behind the counter. Ruri was already up, snatching the shears again.
Through the jagged frame where her storefront used to be, a blur of motion slammed against the floor with a grunt.
A body. Human-shaped. Bleeding. Breathing.
“Elis!” The man roared, rising in a half-crouch, one arm cradled to his ribs.
“Are you in here?!”
Ruri narrowed her eyes.
Tall. Red jacket. Black hair matted with blood. A familiar face, one of Elis’s harem. The loud one. The one who once demanded a last-minute arrangement at midnight for a post-argument cuddle session.
“Elis.”
Ruri said sharply, “You've got your man crashing through my begonias.”
The man turned toward her then, eyes wild, only to go still when he saw Elis.
“You’re alive.” His voice cracked.
“Thank God. The locator stilled in this place and I thought-”
Whatever emotion flickered across his face was short-lived.
Because the crash had drawn attention.
From behind the man, a wet gurgling noise echoed through the broken glass. Something dragged itself into view, black-skinned, bone-jointed, too many eyes. Another. Then another.
The monsters had found them.
Ruri tightened her grip on the shears.
“Oh no.” She whispered.
“Not in my shop.”
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