Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

Milo never liked close combat.

Give him a pistol, a Molotov, even a crowbar—but knives? That was Tess's domain.

And today, it was her classroom.

They'd made camp at an abandoned wilderness survival school just outside the city—a relic from before the fall, still stocked with archery targets, rusted climbing gear, and training dummies now riddled with bullet holes.

Ryder was out scouting. Lara was resting. And Tess had found a stash of old combat blades in the instructor's locked office.

She tossed one at Milo.

He fumbled.

"You're getting better," she said with a sly grin. "Or at least slower at dying."

"Comforting."

She stepped in behind him, adjusting his grip. "Elbow in. Shoulders loose. You don't fight like a soldier. You fight like someone trying not to get hurt."

He turned to her. "Isn't that the point?"

"No," she whispered. "The point is to make sure they don't walk away."

They trained for hours.

Sweat slicked his skin. The fire in his veins—the Phoenix-9 mutation—flared every now and then, his hands pulsing faintly beneath the surface. But the glow didn't scare Tess.

She never flinched.

She only circled.

Corrected.

Mocked.

Encouraged.

"Again," she said. "Strike and pivot."

Milo lunged.

She sidestepped easily, kicking his foot from under him. He landed flat on his back, wind knocked out.

She leaned over him. "You'll never win like that."

"Didn't know this was a fight."

"With me? It always is."

That night, they sat by the makeshift fire pit, their blades between them, steam rising from instant noodles like incense in a broken temple.

Milo looked at her, her face bruised from earlier training, hair messy, eyes focused on the stars peeking through the cracked ceiling.

"You don't have to teach me," he said. "I know what's coming. You saw my symptoms."

"Exactly," Tess replied. "If that thing inside you takes over, I want the fighter part of you to be the last to burn."

"Is that all I am to you?"

She paused, then leaned in.

"No. But it's the part I can't afford to lose."

Later, he woke to screaming.

Not hers.

Not his.

Just a memory.

Of the first time someone called his name and he couldn't save them.

He stepped outside, gripping the blade she gave him.

Tess was already there, silhouetted against the moonlight, practicing her own forms. Sweat glistened on her arms. Each strike was fluid. Precise.

He watched her move like poetry with a purpose.

And in that moment, he realized—

This wasn't about blades.

This was her way of keeping people alive.

Including him.

She wasn't just training him to fight.

She was training him to stay.

Even if the fire inside tried to pull him away.