The door to the first warehouse screeched open with a reluctant groan.
Dust spiraled in the dim light that trickled through the shattered roof. Inside, rows of metal shelves stood like grave markers—some still stacked with crates, others toppled as if something had ripped through in blind rage. It smelled of rust, rotted plastic, and something worse—something feral.
We moved carefully, our boots echoing in the silence.
"Why here?" Zeke asked. "There's nothing useful—"
"Shh," Elle cut in, lifting her hand.
We all stopped.
Thud.
A soft, dragging noise scraped along the far wall.
Thud.
We crouched behind a half-toppled shelf. My heart pounded against my ribs, every sense lit like fire. Through the gaps in the metal, we saw them.
Zombies.
But not like the ones we'd seen before.
These wore uniforms. Lab coats. Military armor. And most chilling of all—their faces bore no rot. Their eyes glowed faint blue, and they moved in calculated silence.
"What the hell…" Elle breathed. "They're not… mindless."
We watched in frozen horror as one of them dragged a body across the floor.
A child.
Limp. Bloody. No older than seven.
They tossed her onto a pile of corpses near the back. Dozens of them. Families. Women, men, teenagers. All murdered.
"No," Zeke whispered. "This wasn't an attack. This was an execution."
Elle covered her mouth, her whole body trembling.
Suddenly, a voice echoed from above. Crackly and mechanical. A loudspeaker.
"PURGE CYCLE COMPLETE. FAMILY UNITS ELIMINATED PER PROTOCOL. AWAITING NEXT BATCH."
I stared in disbelief.
"They didn't just abandon the infected," I said. "They sacrificed the survivors."
"Why?" Elle choked out. "Why would they—"
Zeke pointed to a blinking console beside the loading dock. "We need to know."
I sprinted toward it while they covered me. The screen was old, but still working. A log flickered open:
"Warehouse Site 01 – Civilian Clearance Operation. Infected Family Members suspected of dormant mutation gene. Eliminate all potential carriers. Minimize spread. Authorization Code: Genesis Flame."
My name again.
"Every family that showed signs," I said quietly. "They killed them. Without confirmation. Just a suspicion."
Zeke's fists clenched. "This was never about containment. This was a cover-up."
I looked toward the pile of bodies again—and felt my legs go numb.
Near the top…
A girl.
Short brown hair. Freckles. I recognized the jacket. I'd given it to her.
"No," I whispered.
Elle stepped closer. "Allen—"
"My cousin, Mila. They told me her family escaped the city."
I swallowed the scream crawling up my throat.
"She was just ten."
Suddenly, a growl split the silence.
One of the zombie soldiers had noticed us.
Its head snapped in our direction.
"RUN!" I shouted.
We bolted for the far exit, dodging through the shadows as the creatures came to life. No slow shuffles now—these were fast, relentless.
I turned and hurled fire toward the closest one. It shrieked as the flames swallowed it, but two more took its place, screeching in perfect unison.
We burst through a side door and into the alley behind the warehouse, lungs burning, boots slamming pavement.
Elle shouted, "To the canal! There's a tunnel near the water!"
Zeke limped behind us, blood streaking his leg from a fresh wound.
I looked back one last time.
The warehouse.
The bodies.
The blinking screen.
GENESIS FLAME – CLEANSING INITIATIVE ACTIVE.
They were still killing.
And somewhere inside me, something snapped.
I wasn't just surviving anymore.
I was going to expose them.
Burn it all down.
The canal stretched before us, its murky water flowing sluggishly beneath the moonlight. But the night, once serene, had turned into something far darker. We could hear the distant shuffling of the zombie soldiers, their eerie growls echoing in the empty streets as they followed us.
"We're almost there," Elle panted, her face pale, but determined. "The tunnel's just ahead."
Zeke's leg dragged behind him, and I caught him by the shoulder. "You need to stay with us, Zeke. Don't fall behind."
He gave me a grim nod, but the pain in his eyes was unmistakable. We were all running on fumes—our bodies shaking from exhaustion, our minds rattled by the horrors we had witnessed. But there was no choice.
We had to get out.
The sound of approaching footsteps grew louder. I risked a glance over my shoulder. The soldiers were getting closer, their glowing eyes piercing the darkness like predators closing in on their prey.
But it wasn't just them I was worried about anymore.
Something else was moving in the shadows, something far darker than the walking dead.
A whisper of movement—a rustle in the air, the sense of something watching us. My instincts screamed at me to keep running, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something far worse was out there, lurking just beyond the edge of the canal.
Elle slowed, her breath catching in her throat. "Did you hear that?"
I turned, my pulse pounding in my ears. The alley was empty. The shadows stretched long and jagged, but no figures moved—except for the faint glimmer of the zombie soldiers, still far behind us.
"It's nothing," I said, trying to convince myself. "Keep moving."
But then the ground beneath us trembled, a low, rumbling growl vibrating through the concrete. The canal itself seemed to shiver, as if the earth was awakening.
I glanced up just in time to see a figure step out from the shadows. The silhouette was tall—too tall. Human, yet not.
A monstrous figure, cloaked in darkness.
Elle gasped, taking a step back. "No… it can't be."
I froze. I knew that shape.
The creature's head tilted, the faint outline of its glowing eyes cutting through the dark. Its mouth cracked open with a sickening sound, revealing rows of jagged teeth. It was like looking into the abyss.
It was one of them. One of the things I had seen in the lab. But this one... it was different. It was more. It knew me.
"Allen," the creature rasped, its voice low and mechanical. "I have waited for this moment."
The ground shifted again, and the shadows stretched forward, as if the night itself had come alive, crawling toward us.
"Run!" Zeke shouted, his voice filled with panic. But his body wouldn't cooperate.
I didn't hesitate. I grabbed Elle's hand and yanked her forward, pulling her into a full sprint. Zeke followed behind us, his breaths ragged.
But as we reached the mouth of the canal, I felt something else. A presence behind me—a pressure that had no right to exist.
The creature wasn't just chasing us.
It was controlling the darkness.
The shadows surged forward in waves, thick as ink, wrapping around us, suffocating the air. The distant echo of the zombie soldiers' footsteps had stopped. The air was thick with silence, and that was worse.
"Run faster!" I urged, my heart hammering in my chest.
Elle's face was pale, her eyes wide with fear, but she didn't slow. We reached the tunnel entrance—but as I turned to look, I saw the last thing I wanted to see.
The creature was still there, its eyes glowing brighter than ever, watching us with a kind of sick satisfaction. And it wasn't alone.
The shadows around us began to shift again, coalescing into new forms. Not zombies, but something worse.
It was a trap.
And we had walked straight into it.
---