Suffocation

"What do you mean, let us decide for ourselves?! Where are your reinforcements?" A middle-aged man in a police uniform roared into the communicator. "Communications are down? Damn it!"

Smack! His anxiety-fueled rage took it out on the communicator, which he hurled viciously to the ground.

"Chief! At this rate, the barricade will be breached!" A young officer who had run over from the front reported.

The chief's head was full of white hair. He was clearly an old official on the verge of retirement, someone who should have been enjoying his later years, yet he had encountered such a disaster. Still, he looked fairly robust and could remain active on the front lines.

His face was carved as sharply as a blade, and the passing years had left indelible marks upon it. His gaze was resolute, the expression he had worn since his days in the military, though the exhaustion beneath it could not be concealed.

He looked into the distance. "Of course. We're short on manpower—we've even pulled in people from the accounting department." His tone was low. Though years had given him considerable composure, he could not help feeling deeply impatient now.

"But!" The young officer grew agitated...

The chief turned his head. "Do you know what the order from above just said? 'As long as we can maintain public order, we can do whatever we want!'"

"Looks like they're having a hard time over there too..." Cold sweat beaded faintly on the young officer's forehead beneath his cap. He was no greenhorn; after several years at the station, he understood perfectly well the weight those words carried.

"The final order from the National Police Agency was to do everything we can, to the best of our ability."

"Then please give us the order immediately!" The young officer was agitated, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. His eyes were filled with determination as he looked at the chief. "Even if there are still unharmed civilians on the bridge and across the river, we can only sacrifice the few to preserve the greater whole!"

Bang!

At those words, anger flashed faintly across the chief's face. He slammed a fist into the window of the police car beside him, ignoring the palm reddened by the recoil. His darkened expression alone could have frightened a child to tears!

Of course he knew everything the young man said was right. If he had to make a choice... then this was the only way!

His family was still on the other side of the bridge...

The night wind grew stronger and stronger. The cherry trees by the river gave off their fragrance, their petals drifting with the wind across Choujyu Bridge. Under the moonlight, they looked like tiny angels floating through the air...

Looking down, one could see the place where Kurumi and the others had fought fiercely against the dead just moments ago. It had already been surrounded by the dead once more. People kept running out from the city, but... most of them failed to break through the vast "net" formed by the dead.

They were either eaten, or completely turned into the dead themselves. This method of constantly replenishing their numbers was simply inconceivable!

Roars, cries for help, curses, sobbing, screams... and the bone-chilling sound of corpses being gnawed on.

Some of the dead had their teeth shattered against bone, yet they did not stop. They felt nothing at all, wanting only to tear off another scrap of flesh.

The sight was enough to make one's scalp crawl. Some abandoned their companions, some chose to live and die together, and some jumped into the river. The current was too swift; after their heads surfaced a few times, they vanished without another sound.

Evil played out here. Even beneath the bridge piers, several punks had kidnapped a beautiful woman. Their nerves stretched taut, they were already nearing madness.

Things they had once only thought of but never dared to do were now being carried out!

After confirming there were no dead nearby, the four men held down the struggling, screaming woman. One of them undid his belt. The despair in her eyes gave them pleasure, and just as he was about to force himself into her...

It was too dark. None of them noticed the bite mark on the back of her shoulder...

In the middle of the bridge, a "mountain of cars" separated the dead, but the situation remained far from optimistic. They could climb over at any moment... naturally, after they had finished enjoying the feast on their side.

Komuro Takashi and Hirono Toda stood on the balcony, continuously observing the situation through military binoculars. At the very least, they could make some preparations for tomorrow's escape...

Kurumi curled up on the sofa, not wanting to move at all. There was only one program left on television, but what it was showing now piqued her interest a little~

On the television, a sleazy man with a pointed nose kept shouting slogans at the crowd. At a time like this, people instinctively wanted to huddle together for warmth. Following the man's inflammatory words, they repeatedly argued with the police maintaining the blockade!

Bang!~ Thud...

The sound of gunfire, even amid the clamor on the bridge, suppressed all unrest!

The sound produced by the bullet's explosive discharge carried through the night sky, loud enough for even Kurumi, far away in the apartment, to hear.

"Things are getting more and more interesting~" At last, a faint smile formed on her languid face. Deep in her wine-red eyes seemed to be reflected the collapse of the police blockade and... the bridge filled with the dead!

The officer who had fired stood frozen. The dead were steadily closing in. Facing these things for the first time, their minds had already been stretched to the breaking point; the slightest tug would touch a raw nerve!

A young mother held her bitten child and repeatedly begged the police ahead for help, but in the end, she was bitten as well and became one of the dead.

The rapidly spinning bullet passed through what had once been a beautiful head, splattering blood across the ground. She—or it—was dead beyond all doubt...

The officer who had fired fell silent. Aside from the sounds of the dead moving, the entire bridge was utterly quiet. The calm felt eerie! In the end, the oppressive atmosphere was shattered by an enraged roar from the agitator.

"Those hateful cops have finally opened fire on civilians!..." He spoke incredibly fast, and foul saliva kept spraying from his gap-toothed mouth, but no one noticed that now—except Kurumi. He disgusted her...

The slogans shouted by the sleazy, pointy-nosed man were quickly accepted by the surviving civilians, who began condemning the police one after another...

No one dared to stop them!

At last, the chief approached with a grim face, patted the man on the shoulder, and said with what little patience he had left, "Disperse now. It's dangerous for you to stay here too."

The pointy-nosed man shouted at him, "Excuses! Nothing but excuses! You're trying to cover up all those filthy things the government has done!..." As he spoke, he kept waving his arms, as if such "body language" could make his incitement more persuasive.

"I'll say it one more time. Disperse." The chief's voice held no emotion. This was also his final warning.

"I firmly oppose this! Get lost! Get lost! Get lost!"

The crowd behind him began shouting along with the pointy-nosed man. "Get lost!..."

The chief placed a hand on the small of his back, already touching the cold, black body of his gun. His tone did not fluctuate in the slightest. Amid the crowd's condemnation, no one could hear what he said next. "Orders from above. As long as we can maintain public order, we can do whatever we want."

"Legally speaking, it may be absurd, but orders are absolute." He held the police revolver in his right hand and pointed it at the pointy-nosed man.

"Huh?"

Bang!

The pointy-nosed man managed only a single questioning sound before the bullet blew apart his head. The gunshot silenced those who had been loudly protesting. Then... the television screen turned to static once more...

Kurumi, curled up on the sofa, suddenly received a warning from her keen senses. Someone was behind her!

When she turned around, Shizuka Marikawa, clad only in a bathrobe, pulled her into her chest.

"Pfft~"

The little head topped with smooth black hair was buried between a pair of G-cup bunnies, the scents of body wash and milk mingling together.

Kurumi could barely breathe!