The lab lights flickered again—once, then twice—before stabilizing. The silence in the CDC wing wasn't peaceful. It was thick, tense, and brittle like a pane of glass ready to shatter.
Dr. Arian Velasquez stood over the metal table, watching the map of infection reports spread across the digital screen. Red markers dotted half the country. New ones blinked into existence every hour.
Jess entered behind him, slinging a gear bag over her shoulder. She'd changed into tactical gear, but the tired lines under her eyes hadn't gone anywhere.
"They're calling it an 'extinction-class event,'" she said, voice low. "Military's starting evacuations—only high-ranking personnel and critical scientists."
Arian didn't look at her. He couldn't.
"Are we even trying to fix this?" he asked. "Or are we just buying time until the world burns out?"
Jess stepped beside him. "We're trying. And you—you're still the only one who's gotten close to understanding what this virus is doing."
Arian exhaled sharply. "We don't even have a stable sample. All we've done is watch people die."
Dr. Mason appeared in the doorway, her lab coat stained with sweat and the faint copper shadow of old blood. "We need a live infected," she said without hesitation. "A fresh one. The last samples are degrading too fast."
Arian turned to her. "You want us to go back to Ground Zero?"
"We don't have a choice."
The CDC transport van rolled through the skeleton of the city.
Buildings stood hollow, blackened by fire. Burned cars littered intersections. Once-colorful billboards now hung shredded and ash-streaked.
Arian and Jess sat in silence, the sound of the engine the only comfort. He held the tranq gun loosely in his lap, eyes scanning the roadside. Every shadow was suspect.
"We shouldn't be out here," Jess muttered.
"But no one else can do it," Arian replied. "They're all either dead… or running."
They arrived at Everfield Mall—the first place Eli had attacked after escaping the hospital. Ground Zero.
The glass entrance was shattered. Blood crusted the floor. Torn clothing lay abandoned, along with cellphones that had long since stopped ringing.
"Stay sharp," Arian said, stepping inside.
Their boots crunched over debris. A baby stroller lay tipped on its side. A shoe still sat beside it—tiny, pink, with a cartoon bear on the toe.
Jess turned away. "This is where it started."
A scream cut through the air.
But it wasn't close. Not human.
A sound like static being dragged through flesh. Something primal. Hunting.
From behind a cosmetics kiosk, it burst out.
Faster than Eli.
Twisted limbs. Elongated mouth. Eyes black and hollow.
Jess raised her gun—fired.
Missed.
The thing leapt at Arian, but he sidestepped, slammed it with the tranq dart in the neck. It shrieked—louder this time—grabbing at the needle.
Jess hit it with a second dart—straight into its eye.
It collapsed, twitching, snarling. Alive. But barely.
"What the hell is that?" Jess asked, panting. "It wasn't like Eli."
Arian knelt over it, eyes wide. "It's mutating."
Back at the lab, the lights flickered again as they wheeled the containment pod through quarantine.
Dr. Mason and two biohazard-suited techs met them.
"Is it viable?" she asked, voice strained.
"It's breathing," Arian replied. "Barely."
"Then we still have a chance."
But in his mind, Arian saw the infected's eyes. Blacker than anything he'd seen. And deeper. Like something was in there… waiting.
---
Elsewhere in the city…
Lena and Maya took shelter in the ruins of an old café. Rain tapped on the broken windows. Maya had a small fever. Lena placed a hand on her forehead.
"We just need medicine," she whispered, more to herself.
Down the street, gunfire erupted. A gang was claiming territory—fighting off another group of survivors over a working water pump.
Lena knew they couldn't stay much longer.
The infected weren't the only danger anymore.
Carlos stood over the man he'd killed in his building. The other survivors in the apartment looked at him with something new in their eyes.
Fear.
He had protected them.
But at what cost?
He turned toward the hallway, blood still drying on his sleeves.
"I didn't want to do it," he said quietly. "But I will again."
That night, Arian sat in the lab, alone, watching the infected in the containment chamber twist and gnash its teeth.
Its muscles spasmed unnaturally.
Its bones cracked as they stretched.
It was evolving.
And fast.
Jess entered quietly. "If we don't stop it here…"
"We won't," Arian said. "This isn't just a virus anymore."
He looked down at the data streaming across the monitor.
"It's learning."