When the light faded, the city was no longer a city. It was a graveyard of glass and flame.Lisa lay flat on the ground, her body aching, her ears ringing. She couldn’t tell if she was breathing at first. The air was hot, sharp with smoke, and the taste of ash coated her tongue. All around her, the sky burned red, not with fire, but with light. The air itself glowed faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat.She turned her head. Beside her, Kevin was lying still, his small hand gripping her sleeve even in unconsciousness. For one awful second, she thought he wasn’t breathing. Then his chest rose and fell, slow but steady. “Kevin,” she whispered, shaking him gently. “Hey. Wake up, honey.”He groaned softly and opened his eyes. “Lisa…?” His voice was weak. “Where are we?”Lisa looked around, though she didn’t know how to answer. The street they had been standing on no longer existed. In its place was a wide scar through the earth, deep, black, glowing faintly at the edges. The buildings arou

The city trembled long after the light faded. Dust and smoke drifted across the ruins like low clouds, carrying the smell of metal and ash. Every surface still glowed faintly red, breathing in slow pulses. It felt as though the ground itself was alive, listening.Lisa pulled herself from the rubble, coughing hard. Her hair clung to her face, her hands were bleeding, and her lungs burned from the heat that lingered in the air. Beside her, Kevin crawled out from under a sheet of broken metal, his small face streaked with grime and fear. “Lisa,” he whispered, “it happened again.”She nodded weakly. “I know.”The crater where the tower had stood was gone now, replaced by a swirling field of red dust and shifting light. The Hive’s hum was different. Slower. Deeper. Each vibration carried a strange rhythm, like a heartbeat echoing from the earth itself.Dalton shouted from nearby, his voice hoarse. “Everyone still breathing, sound off!”A few faint replies came from the wreckage. The su

The sky above the ruined city never turned blue again. It stayed the color of embers, red, gold, and gray, a sky that looked like it was always on the edge of fire. The wind was thick and hot, carrying the smell of ash and something faintly sweet, like burned flowers. Every few seconds, the ground pulsed underfoot. The Hive was alive, waiting.Dalton stood at the lip of the crater and looked down. The pit was huge now, miles across. At its bottom glowed a faint red heart, the core that once had been Jonah’s prison. It pulsed like a living thing, sending waves of light up through the cracks in the earth. Dalton’s jaw clenched.He was exhausted. His hands shook as he checked the metal canister at his feet, heavy, scarred, painted with warning stripes. Inside was enough chemical fire to melt through anything still beating below. He muttered to himself, “You had your chance, Jonah. Whatever you became down there, I can’t let it spread.”He bent down and began to twist the ignition val

The world was quiet, but it was not peaceful. The air still shimmered with red dust, drifting down from the shattered sky like slow-burning embers. The crater was a wound in the earth, wide, breathing, faintly glowing, and far beyond its rim, on a cliff of cracked concrete, three men in black armor watched through high-scope lenses.Their suits hummed softly, marked with the seal of the old government, Division Aegis, the people who had once claimed to “contain” the outbreak.Agent Korrin Vale lowered his scope and rubbed his eyes. “It’s active again.”Beside him, his partner Serra Jin, a woman with short hair and a scar along her jaw, didn’t look away from her monitor. The green lines flickered and pulsed like a heartbeat. “No,” she said quietly. “It’s… evolving.”Korrin frowned. “We leveled that city three times. Dropped plasma bombs. Nuked half the district. There shouldn’t be anything left to ‘evolve.’”Serra didn’t answer. She adjusted the focus on her scanner, the sound faint

The morning never truly came. A dull red glow replaced the sun, spreading over the city like an old wound that refused to heal. The air moved slowly, heavy, and warm, as if the sky itself was exhaling. Jonah walked first, boots crunching on the cracked street. Lisa followed close, keeping one hand on Kevin’s shoulder. None of them spoke. Every step echoed through empty buildings that still trembled with faint light under the surface.The world around them pulsed in rhythm. Thud… pause… thud… pause.It was not wind. It was not the machines. It was the city breathing. Jonah stopped in front of a wall. Faint veins of red light ran through the concrete, rising and falling like the lines beneath skin. He reached out. When his fingertips brushed the surface, it felt warm. Alive. Lisa’s voice broke the silence. “It’s everywhere, isn’t it?”Jonah nodded slowly. “The Hive’s reach… it’s inside everything now. The ground, the air, maybe even us.”Kevin tugged at Lisa’s sleeve. “Is it gonna e