The wind was still.
Only the soft flap of weather-torn tents and the distant metallic creak of a swaying lamppost broke the silence as Aiden stepped cautiously across the bloodstained gravel of the CDC outpost's outer yard. The area was mostly cleared—he'd made sure of that—but he wasn't about to let overconfidence get him killed.
He moved low, bow half-drawn, arrow nocked. His eyes scanned every corner, every pile of corpses, every twitching limb.
Phase One: Confirm the Kill
Some bodies looked off—too fresh, too intact. Aiden crept up to one: a man in a tattered military uniform, face hidden beneath a cracked gas mask. The chest wasn't moving... but something about the fingers made Aiden pause.
Twitch.
He didn't hesitate.
Thwip! — Arrow straight through the left eye socket.
[Ding! +2 EXP]
"Not today," Aiden muttered under his breath, moving on.
He continued the pattern: inspect, confirm, execute. A woman with half a jaw missing. A civilian clutching their stomach as if still alive. Each one got an arrow, or a knife thrust straight through the skull—quiet, precise, final.
By the time he'd finished clearing, three more corpses had proven to be just a twitch away from becoming threats.
[Ding! +2 EXP]
[Ding! +2 EXP]
[Ding! +2 EXP]
Phase Two: Tent by Tent
The outer ring of the compound was dotted with military tents—makeshift shelters, triage points, storage areas. Aiden approached the first one, a larger command tent with a torn flap hanging over the entrance. He stepped inside, careful not to make noise.
The interior was a mess of blood, overturned cots, and smashed equipment.
Still, Aiden looted efficiently:
Portable field radios (non-functional, but repairable)
Two sets of tactical knee/elbow pads
A broken but salvageable combat drone (wings shattered, internal processor intact)
Several sealed MREs (Meal, Ready-to-Eat)
Map of the local CDC quarantine zones (some red-marked with 'FAILED')
He stashed everything inside a duffel bag and moved on.
The next few tents had been medical in nature. Blood-splattered tarps, scattered syringes, and discarded PPE lined the ground. But Aiden had learned long ago to look past the horror—focus on what matters.
In these tents he found:
A stash of antibiotics and painkillers
Field surgical tools (some sterilized, some questionable)
Several IV bags of saline and blood plasma
Tourniquets, gauze, disinfectant
Three more IFAKs
He labeled the clean supplies and sealed the rest in secondary bags for later cleaning or disposal.
One tent had been a sleeping area.
Torn sheets. A child's plush toy drenched in old blood. Empty pill bottles.
Aiden took what he could salvage—clothing, dry socks, clean water bottles—and moved on. He paused only briefly to glance at a small photo pinned inside the tent flap. A family. Smiling. Gone now.
He didn't let it linger in his mind.
Final Tent: Ammo Cache
It was buried under the collapsed remains of another tent, and took him a good ten minutes to dig through. But his effort paid off.
Boxes of 5.56 and 9mm rounds
Two frag grenades (carefully stored)
An M1911 pistol in near-mint condition
A cleaning kit for firearms
A partially melted magazine—but the rounds were still usable
Aiden grinned.
"Now that's worth the trouble."
He packed the ammunition carefully, distributing the weight in his various bags and pockets, then took one final sweep through the tents to make sure he hadn't missed anything.
By now the sun had risen high above the ruins of the CDC yard. The last echoes of the morning's violence had faded, leaving only the occasional buzz of flies and distant caws of scavenger birds.
Aiden stood tall, his back to the ruined tents, staring toward the blackened shell of the main CDC building. The real challenge waited inside. But outside, for now, was secure. Clean. Stripped. Silent.
He adjusted his gear, gave his bowstring a quick test pull, and whispered to himself:
"Round two begins now."
Then, with steady steps, he headed for the building.
Aiden approached the main CDC building with focused precision, eyes sharp behind the scratched ballistic visor of his helmet. The overgrown path leading to the front doors was littered with spent bullet casings, half-scorched medical signage, and streaks of dark, dried blood dragged in every direction. The double doors hung half-open—warped, cracked, one hanging slightly off its hinges.
This wasn't just a breach.This had been a slaughter.
With a soft exhale, Aiden pulled the katana from his inventory. Its obsidian blade shimmered faintly, recently cleaned and honed. The M9 Beretta followed—unholstered from the leg strap and cradled in his left hand with the safety still on.
The bow remained secured to his back, a backup for range, but right now it was close quarters—and in hallways soaked with shadows and echoes, Aiden wanted flexibility. Silence if possible. Gunfire only if necessary.
Entering the Lobby
The lobby smelled of rot and mold, the air thick with mildew and the copper tang of long-dried blood. Flickering emergency lights still ran dimly from the backup power, casting sporadic pulses of red light across the floor and walls.
At the far end of the lobby, a few overturned desks and a barricade of filing cabinets were surrounded by bloodstains—and two walkers.
Military uniforms.
Helmets half-gone. Arms twitching. Helmets bearing faded CDC patches.
Aiden moved in.
Step. Slide. Step.
One walker groaned and turned.
Too late.
Shhhhlick!The katana whispered through the air and severed its head cleanly.
[Ding! +2 EXP | +1 Stealth Bonus EXP]
The second one lunged—but Aiden side-stepped and drove the blade through the skull from below, punching up through the chin and out the crown.
[Ding! +2 EXP]
He wiped the blade on a torn CDC banner and sheathed it. Silence returned.
Deeper Into the Halls
Aiden moved cautiously through the winding, concrete hallways of the facility. Signs on the walls pointed to multiple wings:
Diagnostics & Research
Containment Wing
Armory & Security
Medical Triage
Data Archives
He made a mental plan:
Clear key threats.
Loot any equipment (especially medical supplies and records).
Locate server rooms or data storage.
If the armory still exists—jackpot.
As he moved, every creak of floor tile or flutter of loose paper made him pause. Shadows in the distance danced like ghosts. He kept the M9 lowered, finger near the trigger guard—but avoided firing. Noise was death here.
First Encounter – The Screamer
In one corridor, just before a surgical wing, Aiden saw it: a walker missing its jaw, but with lungs still functional. It stood rigid in the dark, twitching. Not a regular one. A screamer.
If it saw him—it would howl.
Aiden crept closer... katana drawn.
One shot to the head would solve it.But then every walker in the building would come.
Instead, he waited for a flicker of the light.Then lunged.
Schhhck!
The blade pierced through the back of the skull before the walker could even inhale.
[Ding! +2 EXP | +2 Stealth Kill Bonus EXP]
Aiden exhaled slowly and kept moving.
Loot Along the Way
Each room he passed, he checked:
Medkits sealed in lockers
Clipboards with infected subject data (might be worth something)
Gas masks, half-used but fixable
Lab coats with ID badges (possible clearance use)
A working bodycam with footage (stored to inventory)
Stimulant injector pens labeled "Adrenaline – For Emergency Field Use"
He pocketed everything that wasn't bolted down.
In one locker room, he found a digital keycard with "Level 3 Access" printed on it.
Final Room – The Morgue
He came to a sealed room with frosted glass and reinforced steel. The sign read Pathology Cold Storage. The temperature in the hall dropped noticeably.
Aiden keyed the door open with the ID card. Inside—rows of cold drawers.
And three walkers, one in a lab coat, another still strapped to a gurney, and one dragging itself across the floor missing both legs.
No hesitation. Aiden executed them one by one—clean, cold, efficient.
[Ding! +2 EXP]
[Ding! +2 EXP
][Ding! +2 EXP | +1 Critical Execution Bonus]
He looted the room of any drugs, surgical tools, and two small vials marked with red biohazard symbols. No clue what they were—but the system tagged them as high-value.
Exit Strategy
With a backpack now heavy with loot, Aiden returned toward the lobby. The way out was still clear—for now. He glanced back down the corridor once more.
The CDC was still full of locked doors, deeper wings, and danger.
But he'd survived Round One.
He secured the entrance, sealed the locks, and vanished back into the ruins.
The sun was rising again.
And Aiden was just getting started.
Inside the gutted remains of the CDC outpost, Aiden moved like a shadow—every hallway he had already cleared was now his domain. The only sounds were the crunch of debris under his boots and the soft flicker of emergency lighting still pulsing low red through the vents.
The outer compound was looted, the tents searched, gas stored, and equipment stripped. Now came the most valuable part of this operation: the knowledge buried deep within the scorched files and overturned labs of the CDC.
Inside the Research Wing
Aiden stepped through the final set of security doors, using the Level 3 keycard he had looted earlier. The lab had been trashed during the last stand—blood splattered the walls, and broken glass crunched underfoot. But some things remained miraculously intact:
Data servers humming faintly
Locked filing cabinets
A backup generator blinking low on fuel
A whiteboard still scrawled with diagrams, timelines, and chemical formulas
He opened one cabinet. Stacks of printed reports. CDC Analysis Logs. Test Results. Virus Behavior Documentation. Names of virologists now long dead.
He quickly flipped through them, scanning the headers.
[Project: Reanimation Pathogen – "WILDFIRE"]Classification: Extinction-Level InfectionOrigin: Unknown. Airborne dormant vector, waterborne stable.Activation: Bite or exposure to infected necrotic fluid (saliva, blood).Mutation: Universal infection confirmed—all tested hosts reanimate upon death.Notes: Reanimation occurs without higher brain function. Destruction of the brain is the only known method of neutralization.
The Truth Confirmed
As he sat on a broken desk reading the printouts, a sick calm washed over Aiden.
"Everyone is infected,"
"It's not just the bite—it's death itself."
"The bite just accelerates the process. It activates the dormant virus and kills the host with necrotic shock."
"Reanimation occurs within minutes. There is no cure."
He leaned back in the cracked office chair, holding a dusty binder in his hand and muttering to himself:
"So it's true… No one's safe—not even in death."
He gritted his teeth and looked around. This wasn't just a random infection. This was engineered. Too precise. Too fast. He flipped to the last page of one document:
"Recommendation: Quarantine protocols are useless. No containment is possible. Recommend immediate large-scale sterilization of infected zones via incineration."
Salvage and Storage
With the lab cleared of threats, Aiden gathered anything useful or valuable:
Portable diagnostic equipment
Virus analysis samples (sealed vials)
Anti-biological suits (damaged, but usable with repairs)
Metal storage cases with syringes and tagged blood vials
A hard drive from the main data terminal
Detailed anatomical breakdowns of the infected for study
He loaded it all into duffel bags and storage crates, one by one feeding them into the system inventory. He made a note to sort them later—some of this could be incredibly useful… or dangerous.
Before leaving, he stared one last time at a faded picture on the lab wall. A group photo—doctors, soldiers, and scientists smiling. All of them long dead now. Maybe walkers. Maybe burned. Maybe worse.
Aiden clenched the photo in his glove before dropping it in a nearby waste bin. He wasn't here for sentiment. He was here to survive.
[Ding!][ Quest Completed: CDC Outpost Investigated]Rewards: +150 EXP | Virus Data Logged | Biological Research Tools Unlocked]New Knowledge Acquired: Universal Infection Confirmed. Death = Reanimation. Bite = Trigger. Destroy the brain = Only cure.]
Outside, the wind rustled across the empty outpost walls.
Aiden emerged into the morning light, heavier with truth—but stronger. More prepared. As he loaded the last crate into his truck and locked it down, he muttered under his breath:
"Now I know the rules… and I ain't dying easy."
And with that, the engine growled to life, and he disappeared once more into the wild world of the dead.
The engine of Aiden's war-rigged truck snarled as he turned onto the ruined streets leading toward the wealthier residential district, the kind of place that once hosted garden parties, marble-tiled foyers, and the illusion of safety. Now it was nothing but broken gates, empty homes, and silent mansions haunted by the dead.
The reinforced tires crunched bone and flesh beneath them as Aiden plowed through a slow-moving line of walkers that wandered into the road—unaware, unthinking, doomed. Their skulls shattered under the weight, leaving red smears behind as the truck rumbled on, suspension hissing but holding.
Internal Monologue: Aiden's Thoughts
His gloved hand rested on the wheel, eyes scanning the crumbling mansions ahead. But his mind? It was back in that CDC outpost.
"Everyone's infected… Even me. Even if I never get bit, the second I drop—I'm one of them."
The weight of it pressed down hard. He'd known it deep down, sure. The signs were there. But seeing the truth in black-and-white, sealed documents, buried in government-grade research, was something else entirely. It felt like fate was already written.
"So the bites... they're just a damn shortcut."
Aiden's jaw clenched as he swerved around a burned-out SUV. It wasn't fear in his gut—it was cold resolve.
"Then I better make damn sure I don't die. Not by mistake. Not by trust. Not by mercy."
Arrival: The Gated Community
Ahead loomed wrought-iron gates, bent and broken. A stone sign still read "Silver Pines Estates" in cracked gold lettering. The rich had locked their doors, boarded their windows, and waited for help. But help never came. All that security did was trap them with the monsters they became.
Aiden stopped the truck just before the entrance. He stepped out, gear clicking in place: modular helmet locked on, ballistic visor down, M9 on his thigh, katana sheathed at his back, and bow slung over one shoulder.
"Let's see if the rich died with their toys…"
He checked the map again. Solar panels, tools, backup generators, and maybe—maybe—a fortified panic room or two with untouched supplies.
Mission Objective: Search the Rich District
Goals:
Scavenge solar panels, batteries, and electrical systems.
Check homes for high-grade weapons, medical supplies, and tools.
Locate safehouses or bunkers that may still be sealed.
Map the area for future shelter or base operations.
As Aiden crossed the threshold of Silver Pines, bow in hand and a silent rage beneath his calm expression, a single walker in a suit staggered toward him—half a face, no jaw, a Rolex still ticking on a bone-white wrist.
Thwip!
The arrow drove through the eye socket. The body collapsed. Aiden didn't slow down.
"Luxury never meant survival."
And with that, he vanished into the mansion-lined streets, ready to strip the last wealth of the dead for the living.
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