Mutated System : Rise Of The Alpha

Hospital Chaos

Nathan started to panic, his eyes darting around the chaos. Outside, the world was ending. Dozens of those things were pouring through the shattered lobby, tearing into anyone slow enough to get caught. The air was thick with the copper tang of blood and the guttural snarls of the undead.

"Nathan! Over here! Get inside, now!"

Dr. Richard was standing at the door of his office, waving frantically. His face was a mask of terror, but he was holding the door open, desperate to get Nathan to safety.

"Move your ass, Nathan! Get in here!" Richard screamed over the din of the carnage.

Nathan finally found his feet, stumbling toward the doctor. But he was too slow.

The orderly who had just been bitten—the one who should have been dead—snapped his head up. His skin had already turned a bruised, mottled purple, and his eyes were glazed with a milky film. With a sudden, explosive burst of speed, he lunged at Dr. Richard.

"Richard, look out—!"

It was too late. The zombie slammed the doctor against the doorframe. Richard let out a strangled cry as the creature’s teeth sank deep into his shoulder, tearing through the white lab coat like it was paper.

"No! Get off! Help me—AGHH!" Richard’s scream turned into a wet gurgle as the zombie tore a chunk of flesh from his neck.

Nathan froze. He stood just a few feet away, paralyzed as he watched the man who had tried to save him get ripped apart. Blood pooled on the floor, staining the very tiles Nathan had walked on minutes ago.

He didn't try to help. He didn't even yell. He just stood there, breathing hard, watching the light fade from Richard's eyes.

"This is it," Nathan thought, his mind surprisingly calm amidst the horror. "The world is going to hell, and I’m already halfway there."

He looked down at his trembling hands, then at the monster feeding on the doctor. A dark, cynical thought drifted through his mind.

"Better to let the cancer take me," he whispered to himself. "I’d rather die as a human in a hospital bed than turn into one of those fucking things."

"I have to get out of here. Now," Nathan thought, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. *I need to get home.*

He couldn't stay. If he stayed, he was just waiting to be cornered in a cage filled with monsters. Nathan spun around, ignoring the screams and the wet, tearing sounds coming from Dr. Richard’s office. He sprinted toward the back exit, his lungs burning with every breath.

The hallway was a gauntlet of nightmares. He dodged a woman who was hunched over a body, her face smeared with gore, and leaped over a fallen gurney. Every shadow seemed to reach for him. People he had passed in the hallway minutes ago were now stumbling, their limbs twitching as they succumbed to the infection.

"Out of the way! Move!" Nathan shoved past a panicked visitor, his eyes locked on the heavy steel door of the rear exit.

He reached the door and slammed his weight against the push bar. But as the door swung open, a shadow lunged from the outside.

"What the—!"

A zombie, dressed in a tattered delivery uniform, slammed into him. The force sent Nathan reeling back onto the floor. The creature was on him in an instant, its breath smelling like a stagnant grave. Nathan jammed his forearm against the monster's throat, keeping its snapping jaws inches from his face.

"Get... off... me!" Nathan hissed, his muscles screaming. His pale hands shook as he fought to keep the black, oily saliva from dripping onto his skin. The creature's strength was unnatural, fueled by a mindless, singular hunger. Its teeth clicked together, desperate to sink into his flesh.

Nathan’s strength was fading. His vision blurred for a second—the cancer choosing the worst possible moment to flare up. "Not like this," he thought grimly. "I’m not dying like this!"

BANG!

The deafening roar of a gunshot echoed through the narrow exit corridor.

The zombie’s head jerked violently. Its frantic movements stopped instantly, and its body went limp, collapsing onto Nathan with a heavy, dead weight. Nathan pushed the corpse off him, gasping for air.

He looked down at the creature's head. A clean hole had been punched through its forehead, and a thick, foul-smelling black blood was oozing out onto the concrete.

Nathan looked up, his eyes wide, searching for the source of the shot. Through the smoke of the discharge, a figure stood in the shadows of the hallway.

Nathan scrambled back, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he stared at the corpse of the creature that had almost ended him. He slowly turned his head toward the source of the shot.

At the far end of the dimly lit corridor, a police officer was slumped against the wall. His uniform was shredded and soaked in a mixture of bright crimson and dark, dried blood. His face was a mask of sheer exhaustion and agony, glistening with cold sweat.

As Nathan’s eyes traveled down, he choked back a gasp. The officer’s left leg was gone from the knee down. A makeshift tourniquet was tied bone-tight around his thigh, but blood still seeped through the fabric, pooling on the linoleum floor. Despite the catastrophic injury, the officer’s hands remained steady, his service pistol still raised, smoke curling lazily from the barrel.

The officer let out a wheezing, wet cough and looked up, his eyes bloodshot and narrowing as he struggled to keep his focus on Nathan.

"Don't... just stand there," the officer rasped, his voice barely a whisper. "More of them... are coming."