2025-07-05 03:27:08The world hadn’t always been like this.
Once, people laughed on the streets. Children played outside. Friends ate lunch without fear. But now, the streets were empty. Doors were locked. People whispered behind thick curtains, too scared to step outside.
Something had changed. Something terrible.
Jonah didn’t know when it started exactly. Maybe it began when the rain wouldn’t stop. Maybe it began when people started getting sick. But he remembered the moment it all fell apart like it happened just seconds ago.
It started as a normal day. The rain had been falling for two days straight. Thick, heavy drops smacked the windows of the tall office building where Jonah worked.
Gray clouds pressed down on the city like a giant hand. Nobody wanted to be at work, but there they were, staring at computer screens, typing half-heartedly, wishing they were anywhere else.
Jonah sat by the window, tapping a pen on his desk. His eyes were on the storm outside, but his thoughts were far away. His back ached. His fingers were sore. The project he had been working on for the past week never seemed to end.
“I should quit,” he muttered to himself.
Clara, who sat two desks away, leaned over and smiled. Her short black hair was tied up in a loose bun, and her brown eyes had a spark in them even though she looked just as tired as everyone else.
“No umbrella, no quitting,” she said with a small laugh. “Unless you want to swim your way home.”
Jonah gave her a tired look. “I don’t care if I drown. This job is sucking the life out of me.”
“Then stop letting it,” Clara replied. “We finish this project, and we leave. Simple.”
She always said things like that. Like it was easy. Like everything would be okay.
Jonah wished he could believe her.
The day moved slowly. Rain tapped the glass like a ticking clock. Everyone looked exhausted. The office lights flickered sometimes, but nobody paid attention.
That’s when Conor came back. He was the head of the project team, a tall man with sharp cheekbones and a stiff walk. But today, he looked… different.
His skin looked pale. His collar was damp. There was a strange red rash creeping up his neck.
Jonah watched as Conor walked to his desk, sat down slowly, then almost immediately stood back up and hurried to the bathroom again.
“That’s the third time,” Clara whispered. “In the last hour.”
“Maybe he’s just sick,” Jonah said, though something inside him felt uneasy.
Clara didn’t answer. She kept watching the hallway where Conor had disappeared.
Minutes passed. Conor came back, dragging his feet. His eyes were dull. He sat down and stared at his computer screen without moving.
Jonah kept glancing at him. Something was wrong. But he had work to do, and nobody wanted to get scolded for slacking.
Helen, the team manager, walked by. She was strict, short-tempered, and always carried a clipboard like a weapon.
“Conor!” she snapped. “We’re behind schedule. Stop spacing out!”
Conor didn’t answer. Helen marched up to his desk. “I said…”
Suddenly, Conor jerked his head up. His eyes were empty. No light, no emotion. Just gray and glassy.
Then he screamed. Everyone froze. Without warning, he jumped to his feet and grabbed Helen’s shoulders. Before anyone could react, he sank his teeth into her neck.
The sound was terrible. A loud crunch. A wet rip.
Helen let out a choking scream, but it didn’t last long. Blood sprayed across the desk. She fell to the floor, twitching.
For a moment, the office was completely silent. Then panic exploded.
People screamed. Chairs fell. Computers were knocked over as everyone rushed toward the exits.
Jonah grabbed Clara’s hand without thinking. “Run!” he yelled.
She didn’t ask questions. She just followed.
They sprinted through the maze of cubicles, dodging terrified coworkers. A man crashed into a filing cabinet. Another woman slipped in a pool of blood.
More screams echoed behind them.
“Jonah, I can’t keep up!” Clara gasped. “You’re too fast!”
Jonah looked back. Her face was pale. She was shaking.
“I’m not leaving you,” he said, tightening his grip on her hand. “Just a little farther. We’ll find a safe room. Somewhere to hide.”
They ran down the hallway and turned into a side corridor. The lights flickered again, then went out for a second.
Darkness.
Then a buzzing sound. Emergency lights clicked on, red and dim.
“Something is very wrong,” Clara whispered.
Jonah nodded. “Conor wasn’t sick. He was… changed.”
Behind them, they heard another scream. And then more.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the main hallway. And strange sounds too, groans, like someone in pain… or someone hungry.
“Come on,” Jonah said. “This way.”
He pulled Clara into a storage room and quietly closed the door. It was small and dark, full of shelves and dusty boxes. He locked the handle and backed away.
Clara slid to the floor, breathing hard. “What were those things?”
Jonah looked at her. “People. But not anymore.”
Silence filled the room. Only the sound of the storm outside reminded them the world hadn’t ended. Not yet.
“Do you think they’re all infected?” Clara asked. Her voice was shaky.
“I don’t know,” Jonah said honestly. “But if we stay here too long, we will be too.”
The storage room grew cold. Time passed slowly. Jonah could hear distant footsteps and muffled screams. Each one made his heart beat faster.
He tried to think. Tried to remember if there were exits nearby. He had worked in that building for three years, but at that moment, it all felt unfamiliar.
Then there was a sound outside the door. A soft knock. Jonah froze. Clara held her breath.
Another knock. Then, scratch… scratch… Something, or someone was dragging their fingers across the door.
“Jonah,” Clara whispered, “don’t open it.”
He didn’t plan to. But suddenly…BANG.
The door shook hard. Jonah grabbed a metal rod from one of the shelves.
BANG.
A hole cracked in the wood. Then a voice came from the other side. “…help…”
It was a man’s voice. Weak. Struggling. Jonah looked at Clara. She looked back, eyes wide.
“Please…” the voice said again. “I’m not… like them…”
Should they open it? Could they risk it?
Jonah’s hand tightened around the rod.
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Chapter 249. The Reborn Serra
The first signs appeared at the edge of New Crest’s main plaza. Jonah was walking along the light-threaded boulevard, cane tapping against stone that glimmered faintly with the breath of the city. The hybrids moved in synchronized streams around him, their skin flashing muted amber and violet bands. He paused at the intersection of the luminous avenues when the crowd parted, not with force, not with awareness, but as if they recognized something beyond perception.A figure stood there, framed by the rising sun reflecting off the crystalline spires. She was serene, hands clasped lightly at her waist. The crowd immediately slowed, their steps measured. Jonah’s cane struck the ground once, twice, and he waited. Something about the figure’s stance, the subtle tilt of her head, felt familiar.She stepped forward. Her movement was precise, calculated, yet effortless. Every hybrid nearby pulsed in gentle alignment, a chorus of warmth and light. Machines ceased minor processes mid-task. D
Chapter 248. Dreamers of Light
The first report came in just before midnight. A perimeter drone over the southern fields adjusted its angle and slowed its sweep. Its sensors flagged movement where there should have been none. The land beyond New Crest had been empty for months. No roads. No settlements. Only soil, stone, and old growth.The drone recorded a lone figure walking barefoot through the grass. The person did not carry light. The ground beneath their feet glowed faintly with each step. The drone zoomed closer. The glow did not burn. It spread slowly, like frost forming in reverse.The figure stopped. They knelt. The drone feed cut for three seconds. When it returned, the soil beneath the figure had changed. Crystalline veins ran through the dirt. They pulsed once, then went still. The figure remained kneeling. Their head tilted back. Their eyes glowed faint gold.In New Crest, the alert passed through systems without urgency. No alarms sounded. No emergency protocols engaged. The Comfort smoothed the
Chapter 247. Kevin’s Confession
The door to the upper archive closed with a soft seal. No lock engaged. No guard waited outside.Jonah stood near the window, his back to the room. The city stretched below him in layered light. The Comfort drifted through the air like a low pressure change. It did not hum. It did not pulse. It simply existed, smooth and even.Footsteps crossed the floor behind him. They stopped three paces back. Kevin did not speak. Jonah waited.The silence lengthened. The city lights below shifted in slow waves, matching one another without lag. A flock of delivery drones altered course at the same instant, as if sharing a single thought.Jonah kept his hands on the stone ledge. His fingers pressed until the skin paled. Kevin cleared his throat once. He did not try again. Jonah said nothing.Kevin moved to the table at the center of the room. He set something down. Metal tapped stone. The sound echoed too sharply.Jonah turned. Kevin stood with his shoulders slumped forward. Dark rings marked the
Chapter 246. Council of Unease
The council chamber was silent before it even began. The domed ceiling reflected muted light from the hybrid resonators along the walls. Jonah stepped through the entryway, the stone floor cold beneath his boots. The hum of the city outside seemed distant here, absorbed into the polished surfaces and the quiet hum of the machines stationed in corners.At the front, representatives had already gathered. Humans sat stiffly on benches carved from bio-luminescent stone, their hands clasped or resting on knees. Breath-Born interfaces hovered in stilled patterns above their nodes, awaiting input. Hybrids, standing on raised platforms, pulsed faint streams of light across their skin, synchronizing in patterns that conveyed collective attention. Jonah felt the subtle pressure behind his eyes as he entered, the shared presence of a network that had grown far beyond what he had ever imagined.He counted faces. Some humans were familiar, leaders from distant settlements and emissaries from c
Chapter 245. The Eden Frequency
Jonah sat alone in the monitoring room, the glow of the city beneath him muted by the late-night haze. Screens lined the walls, each one alive with feeds from across New Crest, and beyond. He ran his fingers over the control panel, checking signal strength, adjusting filters, running analyses he had long since memorized. Then the first anomaly appeared.A soft spike on the neural-sensor array. Not sound. Not vibration. A pressure felt behind the eyes, like the hollow of a hand pressing lightly against a skull. Jonah paused. The graph jumped again, slight, precise, almost imperceptible to anyone not looking for it.He toggled the filter. The spike synchronized with another feed, halfway across the hemisphere. Hospitals. Trauma wards. Emergency response centers. Jonah watched footage from one ward: a child convulsed, a nurse leaning over, panic in every motion, and then it stopped. Mid-motion, the child froze, limbs still. The nurse blinked. Her hands lifted, trembling, and then lo
Chapter 244. Jonah’s Dream of Silence
Jonah woke before the sun, gasping. The bed beneath him had not moved, yet the air felt heavy, as though it carried a memory he could not place. His hands gripped the edge of the mattress, knuckles whitening. Outside, the towers loomed like sentinels, their usual hum fractured. He could hear it immediately: the pulse was off, skipping beats, a stutter in the rhythm that had guided the city for decades.He swung his legs over the side, boots hitting the cold floor with deliberate weight. The wind through the open window cut across his face, sharp, stirring papers that lay stacked on the workbench. Instruments blinked in a half-sleeping rhythm, lights cycling slower, colors blurred, gauges rising and falling without pattern. The hum from the hybrid grids outside was erratic, and even the low-frequency vibrations that ran through the stone foundations of New Crest shivered with uncertainty.Jonah stepped to the window, hands pressed against the cool glass. Below, the city seemed wron
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