​The green vine that had just dropped from the dark canopy remained coiled around our caved-in front grill. ​Through the blood-smeared windshield, the twin beams of our headlights cut through the fog. Just off the edge of the road, a figure was standing perfectly still on a tree root.​"Is that a living person?" Sara whispered. Her words barely formed. "If so, what is he doing there?"The figure was tall, draped in dark fabric that blended seamlessly with the shadows of the woods. A full featureless mask covered its entire face.​Rina leaned forward, "shit. He is spreading something in the air and it seems to be controlling the trees."​I followed her observation. That's true. The masked figure held a small canister in one hand. An almost invisible yellow mist was drifting lazily into the forest air. Wherever the mist touched the bark, the branches twitched. The vines writhed. ​The man slowly turned his head. Even without visible eyes, I could feel his gaze locking directly onto o

​"Who the hell are you?" I retracted my hammer moving to stand over Rina.​"We’re the ones who didn't shoot you," the man grunted revving his pole-saw to chew through another wave of flesh. "There’s a hidden base three blocks under the subway lines. Uninfected people. We are residing there."​"Why should we trust you?" Sara yelled, wiping infected blood off her cheek with a trembling hand.​"You guys got any choice? If you stay up here, you'll be dead in sixty seconds!" the woman fired her last rounds and reloaded flawlessly. "We came up to scavenge, not to babysit! Follow us to the grate, or stay and get eaten!"​I looked at Gulp. He was surrounded. Drako was running low on breath. Midnight was bleeding from a shallow scratch on his flank.​"Recall!" I shouted. Drako, Gulp, and Midnight vanished back into the system's reserve in a flash of light.​"Lead the way!" ​"Move! To the alley!" the man roared.​We sprinted. My leg burned like fire but I forced the pain down, dragging Sara

The stagnant air of the underground carried the silent despair of fifty people who had long forgotten what the sun looked like.​"There's a maintenance valve hidden behind the old water cisterns," Elias voice carried over the crackle of the fire barrel. "It connects to an industrial intake pipe. It runs straight through the bedrock where the main horde is clustered. It outputs right into the laboratory's secure rear loading bay."​I traced the faded blue line running beneath the grid. "Then that's our entry point."​"It’s a dead end," Jax muttered from the shadows behind me. He sat on an overturned plastic bucket. "The outer valve is just iron, sure. We can cut that. But the inner threshold? The actual loading bay doors are a solid five inches of reinforced corporate titanium. They operate on an Aegis-7 biometric encryption grid. Retinal scan, dermal pressure, thermal matching. If we touch that console without clearance, we'll be trapped in the pipe while the automated vents suck th

Jax stepped closer, his shadow falling over the three of us. He looked down at Rina, then at Martha.He didn't say a single word but he slowly reached down and turned the power switch on his pole-saw completely off.The mechanical rumble died away entirely, leaving only the sound of Sara’s hysterical sobbing echoing through the endless corridor.​"Zilu..." Rina’s voice changed. It was losing its human rhythm. Her jaw clicked slightly as she tried to form the words.Her eyes began to cloud over with that familiar dead film."To take care of this virus... leaving the fate in us. You have to finish it. You, Sara and those friends..."​She let out a sharp wail as another severe tremor racked her spine, arching her back completely off the floor.Her fingers flew to her throat, her nails scratching at her own skin as the virus began to override her central nervous system.The clicking sound—the unmistakable horrific language of the monsters down here began to rattle deep inside her chest.​

A hiss sliced through the silence of the corridor.​The air vents above me, which had been dead just moments before, suddenly shuddered back to life. A pale-yellow mist began to pour down the doom. ​I coughed, immediately pulling the collar of my jacket over my mouth.​It was too late. The moment the gas touched my lungs, it tasted like rotting fruit mixed with blood scent. My vision swam. ​My legs felt heavy as if I were wading through deep water. The digital System interface in the corner of my eye began to stutter, spitting out lines of corrupted text that I couldn't read.​I dragged myself forward. I need to find a way to get back to the group.​As I stumbled down the endless hallway, the walls began to change. Suddenly I heard a sob echoing from the shadows ahead.​I froze. The grip on my Black Iron Blade slipped slightly in my sweating palm.​"Zilu...?"​My heart stopped. ​"Who?" I gasped. My throat burning from the yellow mist. I took a clumsy step forward. "Rina? Is... i