Sunrise peeked between the towering skyscrapers from the horizon.

I looked at my watch, and it was barely seven in the morning.

I took a deep breath. Never had I ever been this scared before, like I could feel all my arteries constraining against the pressure of my blood and felt my lungs were about to explode. I regretted not hitting the toilet before I went out through the door. But I was already outside.

Death permeated around me, of smoke and rubber, but I forced myself forward, sneaking up to the corner with Logan and Miguel behind me. 

Most of the windows dotting the apartment around the alley had their curtains shut, and I didn't want to risk checking inside if some vectors were hiding within. Some were broken and bloodied. Still, I was on edge heading toward the corner leading to the streets, feeling like the vectors' eyes targeted my back. I swore I saw other people peeking out through the gaps, watching us in this suicide mission.

"Where's the pharmacy?" I asked Miguel.

"Two blocks to our right. It's only at the corner to our left when we get there," he told me.

Taking a deep breath, clearing any malicious thoughts on my impending death out of my head, I cautiously peeked out of the corner. 

The streets were empty.

There were no vectors on sight. I took that as a good sign.

We stepped out onto the alley, heading east toward a Jeep, and cautiously looked at our backs in case a vector decided to show up and eat us. It was only two blocks away but what should've been at least a couple minutes' walk turned to a harrowing twenty-minute ordeal of sneaking, crawling, and hiding. 

Rinse and repeat. 

The street was empty of people when we reached it. However, I couldn't assume that there were no vectors left on the street hiding behind the cars. I told Miguel and Logan to follow my lead, shuffling cautiously down the street. Burning wreckage littered around the street, as well as many storefronts' windows, shattered. I was amazed we lucked out our bookstore's windows stayed intact. We jumped over dead bodies littered on the road and leaned against smears of blood on the car exteriors.

I paused, listening intently. I didn't hear their usual shrieks or any cry for food. I sighed in relief and continued my way down the street.

Make it back in one piece, I repeated it like a mantra. 

It might take time to scout the streets around us, especially with all these cars scattered around and blocking my view. It would take a lot of time trying to search for a safe spot to hide. Then, the prospect of scaling down the streets further upset my stomach too much.

I was afraid I would make so much noise that the vectors would hear me and start coming for me. I swore I heard banging and screams from the other side of the streets, interspersed by a few minutes of silence in between.

So far, no rioters.

I leaned my back against the wall behind a bus. I closed my eyes and listened intently. After several seconds, I didn't hear a moan, growls, or any of the sounds the vectors made on the other side.

I stepped out slowly. 

I aimed my shotgun in front of me just in case.   

No crazies again.

I almost puked at seeing a baby carriage next to one of the apartment townhouses, bloodied and torn. The baby was nowhere to be found. One block down, I noticed the unmistakable demolished front door of an apartment right in the middle of the sidewalk. It was torn off its hinges; the porch had a large number of bloody footmarks.

Broken glass and picture frames lay strewn on the ground, and one flower pot fell from its suspension, spreading dirt all over the welcome mat. Coupled with this chaos, there was blood everywhere.

A scream emanated through the silence.

I scurried back with the others, and we hid behind an SUV parked right across the apartment building.

I heard the unmistakable sound of a window breaking and a woman's scream. 

An Asian woman crawled out of a broken window from the second floor, clearly trying to escape. She screamed again when a small figure wiggled out of the same window. It was a boy of about six years, bloodied and battered, hissing at the woman in front of him. 

The boy looked like her son.

The woman shrieked. A couple more vectors running down the alley had heard her. They clamored up for her at the front porch. She didn't see them, and she plopped down the front porch and right in front of them.

All three of us ducked our heads. It was barely a hiding place, and no doubt, if the infected decided to stay longer, they would find us fast. I hoped they wouldn't.

The woman reached the streets, screaming, the boy right on her heels.

Surprisingly, the two infected men that showed up didn't follow her.

The woman tripped and fell to the ground at the end of the street where we came from, and the two vectors stopped next to the boy several feet away from the woman as if there was an invisible red line that they couldn't cross. The woman sobbed and cried out for her son.

"Jin! It's mama!" The woman exclaimed.

Then, the boy--Jin--walked calmly forward. The malevolent facade shifted to an innocent aura as the boy had returned to his normal self. He regarded his mother with a casual yet curious look, approaching her as what a shy child would meet a stranger. The other vectors watched this exchange with determined, unreadable looks. 

I had no idea what was going on.

"My baby. Please. It's Mama! Yes. Mama!"

The boy continued to approach the woman until they were inches apart. 

The vectors weren't attacking her! 

Yet, I snapped out of my awe on the exchange after I sensed that something was terribly wrong. I stay rooted, bringing my hands to my mouth so I wouldn't breathe so loudly.

The boy extended his hands out to his mother, and after a few moments of hesitation, the woman accepted it. My jaw hanged wide open. I've never seen them behaved like this! Granted, I had only met a few of them last night, but this was vastly different from those I encountered. The woman seemed to relax from this display, and her sobs turned into a wide smile, cooing at her son that he had recognized her.

The boy led her toward the others.

"Oh, Jin! I know you are still in there! I know! A mother always knows!" She said excitedly.

Yet, the two other vectors glowered at her with an insatiable hunger. The boy tugged at her hand, and the woman interpreted it to kneel to his level. She caressed his face and ruffling his short black hair that had been covered with someone's blood. His two pupils from each eye remained fixed on her. The boy released her hand and slowly stepped back.

"Jin? Wha--what are you doing?"

The little boy gave a curt nod to the other two men, signaled the two vectors leaped on top of her. One man had his jaws wrapped around the woman's face while the other yanked out her arm and took a bite out of her. She screamed.

The little boy watched, and a small, satisfied smile crept on his lips.