My bewilderment at the system message took a back seat to the party’s cheers.

  The air still smelled of blood and ozone. The forest, which had been a chorus of roars and screams minutes ago, now seemed to hold its breath.

  Andy went around clapping shoulders and checking on everyone, his voice a ragged mix of relief and disbelief. Nearby, someone laughed a little too loudly, the kind of sound that came more from shock than joy.

  Siva had stored his katana and was walking toward me with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. He was covered from head to toe in Lockjaw’s blood. Most of the others were the same. I seemed to be the only one relatively clean, only lightly covered in mud.

  “Let’s not do that again. We got lucky they were here,” he said quietly, the grin fading into something harder.

  I nodded. He was right, charging in like that had been reckless. We’d been lucky. To his credit, Siva didn’t lecture me but he let the point stand.

  Andy and Shawn came over to thank us again. I waved it off. If they hadn’t helped, we’d all be dead.

  “So, what now?” Shawn asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, rubbing at the mud on my sleeve. “But I need a change of clothes. Can’t take my shirt off, it’s armor. Siva here needs a shower. I’m not traveling with him like this.”

  “Yeah,” Andy agreed. “Let’s get to a Safe Room and clean up.”

  Siva and I stared at him for a beat. “Safe rooms?” I asked.

  Andy just smiled and shrugged. As we left Sungei Buloh, he and Shawn filled us in. We took a longer route to avoid the piles of bodies at the entrance. It was still too raw for Andy and his team. I wanted to go back and see if there was usable gear left on the fallen, but I knew better, people don’t take kindly to that sort of thing. Especially now.

  The forest thinned as we walked, giving way to the cracked asphalt of an old service road. The air grew heavier, humid, thick with the smell of rot.

  Apparently, Safe Rooms were a thing in this world. Any building from the old world that had facilities for rest and refreshment, meaning beds, showers and kitchens, was now deemed a Safe Room. That meant hotels, hostels, chalets, even worker dormitories could be one. We could enter, rest, clean up, and leave safely. The type of building determined the level of comfort you’d get, a dorm gave you the basics, a hotel might almost feel like the old world again.

  Unfortunately for us, northern Singapore wasn’t exactly full of options. There was only one hotel, deep in the Mandai reserves, and that bordered two Crimson Zones. Which left us with only one real choice. Admiralty Prison.

  I could sense the game logic behind that. I was beginning to understand, or at least form a clearer picture, of the design of this world. That was something I wanted to discuss with Siva later, after he’d gotten cleaned up.

  By the time Andy finished explaining, we’d reached where we parked the Honda. The others said they already had transport sorted and would meet us there. I didn’t ask what kind, we were all too tired to care at that point.

  “You know where it is?” Andy asked.

  “Yes. I know exactly where it is,” I replied.

  I used to jog, well, walk, past the prison back when I was still pretending to keep fit.

  A memory surfaced, uninvited. I had come home late from one of those half-hearted walks. The living room was dark, the silence heavy. I pushed open the bedroom door. She was lying in bed, pretending to sleep. I could hear her crying.

  “You okay, dude?” Siva asked.

  I must have been caught in the memory. I gave him a half-smile and said, “Yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here. And no hugging me on the bike. You’re still soaked in blood.”

  He nodded but maintained his death grip on me all the way to the prison.

  The ride to Admiralty Prison didn’t take long. The roads were eerily empty, the streetlights dead, their poles bent from old impacts. The night air was thick with humidity and the faint metallic tang that had become the new normal.

  As we turned into the final stretch, the looming outline of the prison rose from the tree line like a concrete monolith, squat, wide, and fenced in by double layers of steel mesh topped with coils of rusting razor wire. The perimeter lights flickered dimly, powered by whatever strange energy kept parts of this world alive.

  Andy and Shawn were already there, waiting outside the main gate.

  I slowed the bike and stared.

  “Is that… a school bus?” I asked, disbelief creeping into my voice.

  Siva chuckled; the first real laugh I’d heard from him all day.

  A bright yellow bus sat awkwardly against the dull gray of the prison walls, its paint faded and cracked. The words Northvale Primary were still barely visible along the side, half-smeared by mud.

  Andy grinned when he caught my expression. “Hey, don’t judge. Thing runs better than most cars we’ve found. Plenty of space too, we even got curtains.”

  I shook my head, smirking. “Right. The apocalypse, brought to you by the Ministry of Education.”

  They looked better now, still exhausted, still hollow-eyed, but steadier. Survival does that.

  Andy motioned for us to follow as he led the way past the half-open main gate. The first courtyard was a broad expanse of cracked asphalt, hemmed in by tall watchtowers. Beyond that stood the main building itself, low, rectangular blocks connected by narrow corridors, their barred windows dark.

  “The Safe Room extends to the front block,” Andy explained, his voice echoing faintly through the open corridor. “We didn’t go any deeper. The second gate won’t open. It’s sealed off, like the system doesn’t recognize it as part of the Safe Zone.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing toward the shadowed corridor beyond. “Besides, it’s pitch dark past there, and there were more than enough rooms in this section. No point pushing our luck.”

  Fair enough.

  The interior of the first block was surprisingly clean. There was no smell of decay, no blood, just damp concrete and the faint ozone hum that seemed to mark the Safe Rooms. A translucent barrier shimmered faintly across the inner gate, a soft blue film of light. Siva reached toward it but stopped short.

  Andy gestured toward the nearby cells. “These are the rooms. Not great, but they’re safe. The system locked the doors open, so we just picked the ones near the front.”

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  He pointed toward a narrow corridor branching left. “Showers are that way. Running water, somehow. Don’t ask me how. It’s… weird. The grime just disappears.”

  “Magical cleaning showers,” Siva muttered. “That’s convenient.”

  “Yeah,” Andy said with a tired laugh. “After two days in that jungle, it’s the closest thing to heaven I’ve seen.”

  I stepped into one of the cells. The air was cool, dry. A faint glow came from the walls though there were no visible bulbs. There was a simple cot, a sink, and a squat toilet. I’d seen a documentary once about Singapore’s prisons. There were no beds nor pillows, just a thin mat and a single blanket. Prisoners had to choose whether to use it for warmth or as a cushion. The thought lingered, a quiet reminder that even the old world hadn’t been kind.

  “Come find us in the mess hall when you’re done,” Andy said, pointing down a dim corridor. “It’s just past the control room.”

  Both of them gave a quick wave before heading off, their footsteps fading into the quiet.

  The shower block was down a narrow corridor, the walls flaking with old paint and water stains. The floor tiles were the dull, institutional kind, gray, functional, and cold underfoot. Rows of open stalls lined both sides, separated only by half walls that barely reached the waist.

  “Prison showers,” Siva muttered, eyeing the layout. “Guess privacy wasn’t part of the reform package.”

  “Neither was dignity,” I said quietly. “You lose that with freedom here.”

  We hesitated at the entrance. Each stall had a single showerhead jutting from the wall, but there were no taps, no knobs or any visible controls, just metal and concrete.

  “Here goes nothing,” Siva said, stepping under one.

  The water came to life the moment he stood there, steady, clean and perfectly warm. It ran over him in clear sheets, washing away blood and grime, the red running down the drain until it faded completely.

  I followed. The sensation was grounding. Real warm water, a solid floor, the simple comfort of being clean. My shoulders eased for the first time in what felt like forever. The weight of mud and fear lifted, carried away by something as mundane as running water.

  For a while, neither of us spoke.

  Then Siva exhaled, voice softer now. “Feels good to just… not stink like death.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah. Almost feels human again.”

  When we stepped out, our clothes clung wetly for only a moment before drying on their own, some kind of automated system built into the Safe Room. Efficient, clinical and impersonal.

  Siva ran a hand through his now-clean hair, sighing. “Man… I didn’t realize how much I missed this.”

  I glanced up at the ceiling, watching the faint blue shimmer of energy tracing along the edges of the room. The sound of the water had stopped, leaving only the hum of whatever powered this place. It was quiet.

  Even in safety, this world felt… artificial. Manufactured. Like we were living inside someone’s idea of comfort rather than the real thing.

  Still, for the first time in days, I didn’t mind pretending.

  The mess hall was brighter than I expected.

  Fluorescent panels embedded in the ceiling gave off a clean, steady glow. The room itself was spare but functional with rows of steel tables bolted to the floor.

  Andy’s group was already there, spread out across a few tables. They looked better cleaned up. The looked calmer. Survival had a way of resetting people quickly.

  The tables were covered with food. Not hot cooked meals, but a spread of microwaveable packets of fried rice, noodles, curry puffs and canned drinks. Familiar supermarket brands stared back at me from bright plastic packaging. Giant, Sheng Shiong, the lower-end supermarkets you’d find in every neighborhood, apparently still open for business in this strange new world.

  Siva gave a low whistle. “Okay, not what I expected from prison dining.”

  Andy chuckled. “You’d be surprised what counts as food these days. We stocked up earlier. You can walk into any supermarket and ‘collect’ whatever you need and the system adds it straight to your inventory.”

  “Wait, that works anywhere?” I asked.

  Shawn shook his head. “Only at certain chains. Giant and Sheng Shiong work fine, they reset their stock daily. The higher-end ones like NTUC or Cold Storage, well, I’ll explain that later.”

  Siva grinned as he grabbed a can of 100Plus. “Awesome…”

  That earned a few small chuckles from nearby tables, quick, genuine bursts of humor before things quieted again. No one was joyous, but the heaviness had lifted, replaced by a quiet kind of peace.

  Andy motioned for us to sit with him and Shawn. The others kept to their own groups, talking in low voices. The soft hum of the Safe Room’s energy barrier vibrated faintly through the walls, steady and constant.

  We ate in silence for a while. The food was ordinary, nothing too fancy but it tasted like normalcy. After everything we’d been through, that was enough.

  Siva leaned back, exhaling. “It’s not great, but it’s food that won’t kill us. I’ll take it.”

  Andy gave a faint smile and a nodded.

  After the meal, someone surprised us with dessert of tubs of ice cream. They’d pulled them straight from their inventories, still cold. We sat around the table eating spoonfuls of Neapolitan, the quiet hum of the Safe Room filling the space between our words. It was strange, almost surreal, to be sitting in a prison, eating ice cream, like the world hadn’t completely gone to hell.

  Shawn explained that here, we were safe. We could theoretically stay as long as we wanted, as long as we had food. Nothing could get in. The Safe Room’s boundaries extended to the outer walls. The mobs wouldn’t cross the shimmering barrier, no matter how aggressive they were outside.

  They’d found this place by accident, running from a swarm of giant bees that had ambushed them during a scavenging run. The prison gate had registered as a Safe Zone the moment they stepped through. It became their haven ever since.

  As they talked, I learned they were all from the same logistics firm. They’d been on a corporate retreat at a nature camp near Kranji, when everything fell apart. One moment, it was an ordinary team-building weekend. The next, the sky had turned red, the air cracked with static, and people started screaming.

  They’d been fighting and running ever since.

  Andy’s tone darkened slightly as he told us how one of their fallen teammates, someone named Ming Hao had been the first to notice the pulsing red borders of the Crimson Zones. He’d believed they meant something. Maybe a way out, or a clue to how this world worked. They’d followed his lead, until Lockjaw tore their group apart.

  They’d been trapped here for two weeks. Two long, brutal weeks.

  When they finished, I told them my story, from the moment I “woke up” in Chong Pang, to meeting Siva, to finding them here. I kept it simple. Even after saying it out loud, it didn’t feel real.

  Siva, though, said nothing. He just listened, quietly eating his ice cream, eyes fixed on the melted streaks forming in his bowl. When Shawn started to ask, I caught his gaze and gave a subtle shake of my head. He hesitated, then nodded and let it go.

  I hesitated but decided now was as good a time as any to share what's been circling in my head.

  “You know,” I began, leaning back in my chair, “I think I can see what the system’s doing. Think about it, we’re in the north of Singapore. What’s here? The Zoo, the nature reserves, the wetlands. I think the system’s taking what already exists and… amplifying it. Turning the natural world into a battleground. In this case, we are covered in overgrown jungle. Even the residential areas.”

  The table went quiet. I took their silence as an invitation to keep going.

  “You noticed that last message? I haven’t gone through it all yet, but it said there are four more bosses in the north area. Has anyone tried leaving the north? Heading east? Going home? Looking for family or friends?”

  A murmur spread through the room. Finally, one of the other survivors, a woman sitting two tables away, spoke up.

  “We tried,” she said softly. “Three of us made it as far as Ang Mo Kio. There’s… something there. An invisible wall. You can’t see it, can’t touch it, but it’s like the air itself turns solid. We thought it was a bug, so we tried again, taking different routes at different times. Nothing. You just can’t cross.”

  Andy nodded grimly. “She’s right. We even checked the map interface. The whole border’s grayed out. There are no path markers, no fast travel points, nothing. It’s like the system doesn’t want us leaving our quadrant.”

  Siva frowned. “So we’re boxed in. Literally.”

  “Maybe not forever,” I said slowly, the thought taking shape as I spoke. “What if the barriers only come down after we clear everything inside? The message said: ‘Defeat all five bosses to leave the Northern Sector.’ Maybe that’s the key. Maybe each sector’s locked until it’s cleared.”

  “That’s… a big maybe,” Shawn said, rubbing his temples. “We barely survived one boss. You really think we can handle four more?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But sitting here waiting won’t change anything. If this world runs on rules, then there has to be a way to break, or at least bend them. Maybe clearing all the sectors is the way home.”

  Siva looked at me, quiet for a long moment. “You think we can really get back? To our world?”

  I met his gaze. “I have to believe that. Otherwise, all of this… means nothing.”

  The table fell silent again, the kind of silence that hangs just before a decision is made.

  Andy exhaled slowly, his expression firming. “If what you’re saying is true… then clearing the bosses isn’t just your mission. It’s ours too. We all want to go home.”

  Shawn nodded beside him. “Yeah. If fighting our way through this madness gets us one step closer to that, then count us in.”

  I looked between them, their faces worn, but determined. For the first time since this began, it felt like we weren’t just surviving. We had direction.

  Four bosses left. One sector.

  A possible way home.

  Next chapter, we’ll start exploring what lies beyond the Safe Room as Chris and Siva set a clearer course forward. The map’s starting to make sense… but so are the risks.