Red Mist Jakarta: Second Chance

The Violet Pulse

The damp air of the Monas tunnels hung heavy with the smell of stagnant water and decaying trash, sticking to Budi’s skin like a greasy film. The team moved in a tight cluster through the gloom, their boots splashing rhythmically against the flooded floor of the maintenance level. Above them, the massive stone foundations of the national monument groaned under the weight of the city, a low-frequency hum vibrating directly through the soles of their shoes.

“Wawan, tell me your little tracking tablet isn’t leading us into a literal septic tank,” Ageng whispered, his voice pitching high with panic as he swept the barrel of his G2 back and forth across the shadows. “Because I’m ninety percent sure my boots are dissolving in whatever chemical runoff we’re wading through.”

“It’s not a septic tank, Ageng, it’s a secondary drainage trunk,” Wawan muttered back, his face illuminated by the harsh blue glow of his device as his fingers flew across the cracked screen. “And according to the architectural blueprints, we’re right beneath the historic inner chamber. Just keep walking and stop complaining about your footwear.”

“Easy for you to say, kid. You’re not the one carrying thirty pounds of gear through a subterranean swimming pool of doom,” Ageng snapped, ducking sharply as a cluster of low-hanging iron pipes brushed his shoulder. “Budi, tell him we need to turn back. This place feels like a mass grave waiting for an audience.”

Budi didn’t answer immediately. He stopped dead in his tracks, raising a hand to signal the group to freeze. The violet light pulsing faintly beneath the skin of his forearm flared for a fraction of a second, sending a sharp, electrical jolt shooting up into his neck. He closed his eyes, filtering out the ambient dripping of water and focusing on the subtle, discordant frequencies echoing through the damp concrete walls around them. It wasn't just machinery anymore. It was breathing.

“We’re not turning back, Ageng,” Budi said, his voice cold and flat as he chambered a round with a sharp, metallic clack. “And you’d better raise that weapon, because we aren't alone down here anymore.”

“What do you mean, not alone?” Maya stepped up beside him, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the murky darkness ahead where the tunnel opened up into a wider junction. “I don't see anything on the thermal feed.”

“Thermal doesn't matter when they’ve been soaking in the runoff for months,” Budi replied, his jaw tightening. “They’re body temperature-matched to the water. But I can hear their pulses. Dozens of them. And they’re moving fast.”

Before Maya could press for details, a low, wet gurgling sound echoed from the shadows ahead, bouncing off the curved concrete walls. It sounded less like human speech and more like air being forced through waterlogged lungs. The beam of Wawan’s flashlight cut through the gloom, sweeping across the brackish water and illuminating a nightmarish sight blocking the far end of the corridor.

Half a dozen figures stood waist-deep in the water, their skin bloated, gray, and translucent, stretched taut over emaciated frames. Their eyes were milky white, devoid of human recognition, fixed entirely on the source of the light. These weren't the nimble, twitching jumpers from the upper towers; these were the Drowned survivors of the initial collapse who had retreated into the flooded maintenance levels, slowly losing their minds and bodies to the aggressive contamination seeping through the foundations.

“Holy mother of—” Ageng gasped, his voice catching in his throat as he raised his pistol, his hands trembling violently. “What are those things? They look like they’ve been marinating in a toxic waste dump since last year!”

“They have,” Budi said, stepping forward protectively as one of the figures let out a harsh, bubbling shriek and began splashing aggressively through the water toward them. “And they don't want to talk about our rescue plan, Ageng. They want our rations. And our air.”

“Fire?” Wawan asked, his voice cracking as he fumbled for his own sidearm, dropping his tablet into the shallow water with a sharp splash.

“Only if you want to attract the whole hive!” Maya yelled, unholstering her combat knife with a slick hiss of steel. “Use melee or aim for the limbs! Don't puncture their skin the fluid in those bodies is practically liquid rot; you don't want that splashing in your face!”

The lead Drowned lunged forward with surprising speed, its jaws unhinging in a grotesque simulation of a scream. Ageng panicked, squeezing the trigger of his G2 three times in rapid succession. The deafening cracks of gunfire echoed thunderously through the narrow tunnel, muzzle flashes illuminating the terrified faces of the team in strobing bursts. Two of the rounds caught the charging attacker in the chest, tearing through waterlogged tissue, but the creature didn't even slow down; it collided heavily with Ageng, sending them both crashing backward into the stagnant water with a massive splash.

“Ageng!” Budi shouted, lunging forward through the knee-deep filth and grabbing the back of Ageng’s tactical vest, hauling the thrashing, cursing man upward just as another of the mutated survivors lunged out of the gloom with rusted rebar raised high.

“Get it off me! It smells like a dead fish factory!” Ageng shrieked, swinging his heavy weapon like a club and smashing the butt of the pistol hard against the attacker’s temple with a sickening crunch.

Maya didn't hesitate. She stepped past Budi, her knife flashing in the dim light as she drove the blade deep into the shoulder joint of the second Drowned, twisting it violently to leverage the creature away from them before shoving it backward into the murky current. “Keep moving! Don't let them pin us against the bulkhead!”

“Wawan, grab your tablet!” Budi ordered, firing a single, calculated shot into the knee of a third attacker lunging from a side alcove, dropping the creature instantly without risking a wider splash. “We need that map if we’re going to find the dry vertical shafts before the rest of the swarm wakes up!”

Wawan scrambled frantically in the water, his fingers grasping around the submerged electronics before pulling the flickering device up with a groan of relief. “It’s fried! The screen is completely dead, Budi! I can't read the layout anymore!”

“Then we do it the hard way,” Budi snarled, grabbing Wawan by the collar and shoving him past Maya toward a heavy steel access ladder set into the back wall of the junction. “Up the ladder, all of you! Now!”

“What about you?” Maya yelled over the rising cacophony of shrieks and splashing water echoing from every direction of the flooded maze as more shapes began to materialize in the darkness. “Budi, your arm is glowing again—don't you dare try to play hero!”

“I’m not playing hero, I’m buying us ten seconds!” Budi snapped back, pulling a heavy flash-bang grenade from his belt with his teeth, yanking the pin, and tossing it directly into the center of the approaching horde before turning to follow the others. “Climb!”

The corridor behind them erupted in a blinding, magnesium-white flash accompanied by a concussive shockwave that rattled their teeth and turned the water to boiling foam. Screams of agony echoed from the Drowned as the team scrambled desperately up the rusted rungs of the ladder, their muscles burning with exhaustion and adrenaline. Budi was the last up, slamming the heavy overhead hatch shut just as a pair of bloated, gray hands clawed frantically at his boots, desperately trying to drag him back down into the dark.

With a final, desperate heave, Budi locked the heavy iron latching wheel into place, sealing the hatch tight against the nightmare below. He slumped heavily against the curved metal wall of the dry stairwell above, chest heaving as he stared down at his forearm. The violet light beneath his skin was pulsing faster now, a rhythmic, cruel heartbeat that synced perfectly with the vibrations of the monument around them.

“You okay?” Maya asked, her breath coming in ragged gasps as she wiped soot and water from her cheek, her eyes searching his face with intense concern. “Budi, talk to me. How bad is the decay spreading?”

Budi looked up, his expression grim as he flexed his fingers, watching tiny arcs of violet static dance across his knuckles. “It’s not spreading, Maya. It’s adapting.” He stood up, turning to face the long, dark, upward-spiraling staircase that vanished into the shadows above them. “And I think it just figured out where we’re going.”