Three heartbeats. Not his.
Milo stood with his hand flat on the front door. The domain was around twelve apartments he'd never set foot in and he could feel all of it. Every wall. Every floor tile.
The carpet in the hallway. The ugly paisley one. His now. His ugly paisley carpet.
A crack in the drywall of 2911. A window in 2906, broken, actual broken, not Threshold-sealed. Glass on the floor and wind coming through.
And three heartbeats.
Two close together in 2909, far end of the hall. Third one alone in 2907, closer to the stairwell.
The knocking came again. Weak.
"Please. Someone."
From 2909.
He should go. Walk out of his apartment for the first time in seven days. Find whoever was on the other side of that door. Do something about the fact that they were dying.
His feet didn't move.
Left hand shaking. He grabbed it. Old habit. The tremor, the grab. Muscle memory. Except this time what made his hand shake wasn't a memory. It was a real person asking for help.
The knocking stopped.
That was worse.
He walked to his front door. Same knob he'd turned on Day 1. The hallway hadn't changed. Paisley carpet. Mrs. Kowalski's plastic lemons. Except now it was all inside the Threshold.
He turned the knob. Pulled.
Dark. Emergency lighting dead since Day 3. Thin grey strip leaking under the stairwell door at the end of the corridor.
Smelled different out here. Dust and something metallic. Not fresh. The kind that had been sitting.
He stepped forward.
His foot crossed the doorframe.
No wall. No resistance. Just air and carpet. The feeling of being somewhere he hadn't been in months. His knees went soft. Not all the way. That wobble when your legs forget how to do a thing they used to do on their own.
The Threshold hummed around him. Above and below. Every direction. It didn't care which apartment he was standing in. The boundary was what mattered.
[PACT SYSTEM: NOTICE]
Domain Expansion Complete
Domain Level: 2 (Shelter)
Domain Size: Floor 29, Building 7 (12 units)
Population Cap: 15
New Feature: Citizen Registration
Scrip Balance: 139
Level 2. Shelter. Better than Foothold.
He moved down the hall. Footsteps too loud. Every step bounced off walls. Came back at him. He kept flinching at his own echo.
He stopped at 2904. Mrs. Kowalski's. Door open, not broken, like she'd left fast. Plastic lemons scattered inside. Dark smear on the kitchen counter. Old. Dry. Fridge open, empty except for milk that had gone solid.
No Mrs. Kowalski.
Apartment 2905. Door shut. Locked. But the domain told him things about it. Like a blueprint loading into his skull. Two rooms. Nobody inside. And on the counter, cans. Six of them. He could feel their weight through the floor.
Food. Later.
He reached 2909. White paint peeling near the bottom. A towel shoved under the gap between door and floor. From the inside.
He knocked.
Nothing.
"Hey." His voice cracked. Hadn't used it in over a week. Rough. "I heard you knocking. I'm from 2903. Down the hall."
Silence. Three seconds. Five.
Something sliding on the floor. Weight shifting.
"The walls." Woman's voice. Thin. Dry. "Something happened to the walls."
"Yeah. That was me."
"What do you mean that was you."
He pressed his forehead against the door. Wood was warm. Threshold warm. "I have this thing. From the System. Makes walls that nothing can get through. I just made them bigger. Your apartment is inside them now."
Breathing on the other side. Shallow. Fast.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. Which was exactly what someone dangerous would say but he didn't have better material. EMT dropout having his first conversation in a week with a door.
"Sadie," the woman said. "My daughter. She's sick. Hasn't eaten in two days. Maybe three. We ran out."
His hands went cold. The way they used to on pediatric calls. Not a situation anymore. Triage.
"How old."
"Five."
Five years old. Starving. Behind a locked door twenty feet from a kitchen full of canned food he could feel through the floor.
He straightened up. "2905 has food. Canned goods. Can you open your door?"
"It's barricaded. Couch. Table. Dresser."
"Start moving it. Two minutes."
Back to 2905. Locked. He grabbed the handle. He had the Mandate. The Ledger. A hundred thirty-nine Scrip. That was it.
But the door was inside his domain. He could feel the lock. The deadbolt. The latch. Metal sitting in metal.
He focused. Pushed with something that wasn't his hand.
The lock clicked.
[PACT SYSTEM: NOTICE]
Skill Discovery: Warden's Reach (Active) Lv. 1
Manipulate objects within domain boundaries.
Range: 15 meters. Cost: Sustained concentration.
Warden Power Index: 340 to 520
New skill. Later. He needed cans.
Six on the counter. Soup, beans, corn, two tuna, something called Harvest Blend he didn't trust. He shoved them into his shirt and arms and walked back to 2909 with cans digging into his ribs.
Barricade was moving. Scraping. Slow.
Door opened three inches. A face. Dark eyes. Brown skin. Mid-twenties maybe. Hollow cheeks. Cracked lips. She looked like she'd been awake for a week and had decided sleep was something that happened to other people.
"You're real," she said.
"Yeah."
"The walls are warm. The whole apartment."
He held up the cans. "She needs water first. 2908 might have bottles."
"I know she needs water." Sharp. Then softer. "I know."
"Lena," she said. "Lena Moss. Sadie is my daughter."
"Milo. 2903. I'll be back."
He tried 2908. Door unlocked. Four bottles of Dasani on the counter. Room temperature. Perfect.
Back to 2909. Door wider. Couch shoved halfway. Behind Lena, on a mattress dragged into the living room, a girl. Small. Curled on her side. Brown hair matted with sweat.
Sadie. Five.
He forced the water through the gap. "Small sips. Not fast. She'll throw it up."
Lena took the bottle to the mattress. Knelt. Lifted the girl's head with one hand. Steady.
"You a doctor?"
"EMT. I quit."
"Why."
"It didn't work out."
Sadie drank. Three sips. Coughed. Lena pulled the bottle back. Held her. Looked at Milo through the gap with that expression he knew. Parents in ambulances. The look that says keep her alive and I will do anything.
He opened the Ledger.
[PACT SYSTEM: CITIZEN REGISTRATION]
Lena Moss: Severe Dehydration, Malnutrition
Sadie Moss (Minor): Fever, Severe Dehydration, Critical
[REGISTER? Y/N]
Yes.
[Population: 1 to 3]
The Threshold pulsed. Air in 2909 shifted. Warmer. Domain accepting its new people.
Sadie's breathing got steadier. Or he wanted it to be steadier. Hard to tell.
"Three heartbeats," Milo said. "When the domain expanded. You, Sadie, and someone in 2907."
Lena's face changed.
"I heard banging from 2907 on Day 2. Fighting. Then quiet. Day 4, cooking smoke came under my door. Someone had food and fuel while we were starving." She paused. "I knocked. They didn't open. Said something through the door."
"What."
"Go away or I'll make you go away."
[PACT SYSTEM: NOTICE]
Domain Alert: GREEN to YELLOW
Stairwell Access: Floor 29
Movement Detected: Sub-level
Count: Multiple
Direction: Ascending
The stairwell. Something coming up. Not one thing. Multiple.
Vibrations through the floor. Weight. Things with too many legs climbing stairs.
The stairwell door on Floor 29 was broken. The Stalker had bent the metal earlier. The Threshold covered the hallway, everything on this floor, but the stairs between 28 and 29 were outside the domain.
And things were climbing them.
"Get inside," he told Lena. "Barricade. Now."
He was already moving. Down the hall toward the broken stairwell door. Metal frame bent inward. Door hanging off one hinge.
Beyond it, darkness. Wet clicking. Louder.
Crawlers. Rank F. Dog-sized. A lot of them.
Anything crossing into Floor 29 would hit the Threshold. But the door was broken open and if enough Crawlers piled in, dead ones would stack and live ones would climb the bodies.
Warden's Reach. Fifteen meters. Door was close enough.
He focused on the broken metal. Pulled.
The door groaned. Scraped on concrete. Two inches. Three. He was pulling with something in his chest that connected to the Threshold the way nerves connect to fingers.
Clicking closer. Shapes in the stairwell. Dark. Shiny. Moving fast.
Harder. His left hand went dead. Not the tremor. The whole hand. Pins and needles climbing past his wrist.
First Crawler hit the doorframe as the gap narrowed. Body smashed into the Threshold. Blue flash. Gone.
[Scrip: +14]
Second. Third. Climbing over each other. Each one hit the boundary and burst. Blue light in the stairwell like a broken fluorescent.
He pulled the door the last two inches. Frame too bent. Three-inch gap. Enough for an arm. Not a body.
Arm came through. Segmented. Black.
Threshold took it.
[+6]
Six cents for an arm.
More arms. Reaching through and dying. Corridor smelled like burned plastic and something sour.
[Scrip Balance: 139 to 243]
He backed up. Left hand hanging dead at his side. Head pounding. Whatever Reach cost, it wasn't free.
But the door held. Gap too small. Threshold covered the rest.
For now.
"Milo."
Lena. Standing outside 2909. Looking at his left hand hanging limp. At the stairwell door rattling.
"2907," she said. "They just opened their door."
He flexed his left hand. Feeling coming back. Needles. He looked past her down the hall.
A woman in the doorway of 2907. Short. Stocky. Dark hair pulled back tight. Holding a makeshift spear, mop handle sharpened at the end, electrical tape on the grip. The way she held it was practiced.
She wasn't looking at Lena. She was looking at Milo. At the stairwell door behind him, blue light flickering in the gap where Crawler arms kept reaching through and dying.
"Are you the reason they can't get in?"
Milo nodded.
She looked at the door. At him. Her mouth pressed flat. She shifted the spear in her hand. Rolled her shoulder.
Something bigger hit the door from below. The metal groaned. The whole frame shuddered.
"Priya Bhat. Four years Army Reserves." She was looking at the gap in the stairwell door. Not at him. "Never saw real combat. I'd like to fix that."
The door shuddered again. Harder. The gap that had been three inches was four now.
Something on the other side breathed.