Adventure of Aries 1

A white flash folds the world away. Aries drops into the living room of 1529 Ghent Street, Route 66, landing upright on dusty hardwood with a spear in hand.

The house is dark and stale, its curtains drawn against the daylight. A kitchen opens to the east, while a narrow hall leads toward bedrooms and the front door.

Something unseen settles behind Aries's awareness: an infinite storage system, ready to accept or return objects without weight or visible machinery.

The spearhead catches a thin stripe of gray light. Dust hangs motionless, but somewhere beyond the walls, a low dragging sound passes along the street.

A deadbolt clicks faintly in the distance, followed by two dull impacts against a neighboring door. The house remains still, waiting for Aries's first move.

Aries crosses the dusty living room toward the front door, keeping the spear angled forward. The dragging sound outside fades beneath the floorboards.

He plants the spearhead against the deadbolt housing and levers carefully. Old wood creaks, metal gives, and the lock disengages.

The door opens onto a pale morning street. Ghent Street lies empty between parked cars, with weeds lifting through cracked pavement and curtains hanging still.

Cool air enters the stale house, carrying dust, distant traffic silence, and a faint sour odor from somewhere beyond the neighboring houses.

Across the road, a sedan rests crooked against a mailbox. Its driver-side door stands open, while a newspaper skitters once along the gutter.

Behind Aries, the unlocked house remains dark and quiet. Ahead, the street offers clear sightlines in both directions, its abandoned stillness waiting to be searched.

Aries eases the front door shut and checks the deadbolt. The latch catches, sealing out the pale street and leaving the house dim again.

He searches the living room first, then the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets. Dust coats everything, but the obvious shelves hold only empty packaging and brittle papers.

In the pantry, a swollen lower shelf gives way under his search. Cans and glass jars tumble down, and one jar shatters against the floor with a sharp crack.

The noise rolls through the quiet house. Aries finds two sealed cans among the debris, but their labels are unreadable and the shelf is now unsafe to search.

He moves into the hallway and checks the bedrooms. Most drawers are empty, yet a wardrobe stands oddly far from the wall, its legs leaving fresh-looking gaps in the dust.

Behind it, a narrow floor hatch appears beneath a loose rug. The cans can be stored, but the unopened space offers the clearest remaining chance for useful supplies.

Aries steps around the broken glass and shifts the fallen cans aside. Beneath the debris, he finds one intact glass jar with a cloudy film on its lid.

He wipes enough grime from the jar to grip it, then pulls the loose rug farther back. The narrow hatch yawns into darkness below.

Aries draws his arm back and throws the jar into the hatch. It drops out of sight, strikes something below, and breaks with a sharp crack.

The impact echoes through the floorboards and travels down the hallway. Dust sifts from the hatch rim while the house settles around the sudden noise.

Nothing answers immediately. The jar is gone into the space beneath the house, but its break has announced Aries's presence to anything listening nearby.

Aries gathers curtains, clothing, and flattened cardboard from the bedrooms, layering them into a thick bundle beside the hatch. The materials are dusty but intact.

He reaches for the loose rug to wrap around the bundle, but its far edge disappears beneath the wardrobe. Pulling it free would drag the heavy furniture across the floor.

Aries knots the curtains around the clothing instead, adding cardboard over the outside. The improvised padding forms a bulky sleeve, but the layers shift whenever he lifts it.

He presses the bundle against the hatch rim to test it. One corner collapses, exposing a gap wide enough for teeth or fingers to reach through.

The failed padding slumps beside the opening, its loose knots and torn cardboard making it unsuitable for protection. The wardrobe remains wedged over the rug's trapped edge.

Aries lowers himself through the narrow hatch, keeping his spear close and placing each foot on the exposed joists. Dust brushes his face as he descends.

His weight shifts the frame with a muted creak. One knee slips against a splintered board, scraping his skin, but he catches himself without dropping anything.

He reaches the cramped space beneath the house and settles onto packed earth. Above him, the hatch remains open, a dim rectangle of hallway light.

The broken jar lies nearby in scattered glass, its cloudy contents soaking into the dirt. The sour odor is stronger here, mixed with damp wood and old dust.

Aries's careful descent has succeeded, but the scrape stings and the single creak has carried through the house. Beneath the floor, he is now concealed from the street.

Aries crawls beneath the joists, sweeping aside damp insulation and loose dirt with the spear shaft. The cramped space holds cobwebs, splintered boards, and scattered household debris.

Near a foundation pier, his fingers find a dented plastic storage bin. Its lid sticks, and prying it loose knocks a board against the joists with a sharp clack.

Inside are a working flashlight, two unopened battery packs, a small first-aid kit, and three sealed bottles of water. The supplies are dusty but usable.

Aries drags the bin toward the hatch, packing the contents against his chest one item at a time. Dirt grinds into the scrape on his knee, making it sting.

A second search turns up a short length of copper wire and a folding utility knife beneath the bin. He adds both to the recovered supplies.

The crawlspace search is complete. The useful items are gathered beside Aries beneath the open hatch, while the noise hangs briefly in the quiet house above.

Aries opens the invisible storage system and places the flashlight, batteries, first-aid kit, water, copper wire, utility knife, and remaining supplies inside. The items vanish without weight or sound.

He retrieves the first-aid kit, cleans the scrape with an antiseptic wipe, and wraps his knee in a firm gauze bandage. The sting settles beneath the dressing.

Aries switches on the flashlight and climbs through the hatch. Its white beam cuts across the hallway, revealing dust disturbed around the wardrobe and faint tracks near the front door.

He searches the bedrooms, opening closets, drawers, and boxes. A sealed roll of trash bags, a sewing kit, and two candles turn up beneath old linens.

In the bathroom cabinet, Aries finds unopened soap, disinfectant, and a nearly full bottle of pain reliever. The kitchen yields a manual can opener and a box of matches.

He stores the new supplies with the rest, then sweeps the flashlight across the quiet rooms. No movement appears, and the house remains secure for now.

Aries lays the folding knife alongside the spearhead and winds copper wire tightly around both handles, pulling each loop snug with the pliers-free leverage of the spear shaft.

He sets one candle beneath the binding. The flame heats the wire and softens melted wax around the wraps, which settles into the gaps as the improvised seal cools.

The candle burns down several centimeters before Aries snuffs it. The knife is fixed beside the spearhead, forming a rigid two-bladed point.

Testing the weapon against a floorboard makes the new blade flex once, then hold. The copper has not melted, but the wax-packed binding keeps the knife from shifting.

A metallic scrape and a brief clatter echo through the hallway when Aries lowers the reinforced spear. Dust trembles from the ceiling, and the quiet house carries the sound.

Aries takes the reinforced spear and unlocks the front door. He steps onto the porch, easing it nearly shut behind him, while the spent candle and remaining supplies stay inside.

The earlier metallic clatter has cost him silence. From two houses west, a dragging scrape answers, followed by a dull impact against wood.

Aries crosses the street along the cover of parked cars. Through a torn front window, he sees an adult man, a broad-shouldered figure with thinning dark hair and a torn tie in a stained office shirt repeatedly striking the locked side door.

The figure turns at the faint crunch of gravel. Gray skin, clouded eyes, and a slack jaw identify him as a zombie, while another scraping sound comes from deeper inside.

Aries has determined the outside noises: one zombie is trapped or contained in the neighboring house, and at least one more movement is audible within. The street remains otherwise empty.

The zombie slams into the side door again, louder now. Its head snaps toward the street, suspicion drawn by Aries's crossing, but the locked entrance still holds.

Get past the zombie