The first thing I tell Dome Squad rookies about the accursed Amber Zone is this: make sure you've got enough jet fuel to make the return trip, or don't even think about going near it. Life's simpler that way. Safer, too—assuming you enjoy keeping your limbs attached to your body and your blood inside your skin.
So why was I out here?
Because I'm smart. Responsible. Absolutely did not volunteer because I thought it'd be cool. Also—unfortunately—I was on duty.
I was clamped to the outer Dome wall, boots magnetized to the curved surface, visor flickering against the wind shear. The city behind me was sealed tight in steel and science. The world ahead of me? It looked like someone had crumpled reality and lit it on fire. Ash, fractured glass, twisted rebar, half-eaten skyscrapers—it was like staring at the world's worst documentary on the apocalypse. Gales screamed past in howling waves, throwing bio-organic debris through the husks of towers long dead. The light filtering through the Dome shimmered greenish, and the air reeked of scorched carbon and metal regret.
"Movements just below you, Streights," came the voice in my helmet comm—calm, clipped, and way too familiar. It was Lyre, of course. My designated intel ops and eye in the sky. I peered below.
I didn't even need to zoom in. They were out there. Dozens of them. Crawling through the skeletons of the Amber Zone like termites through bone.
Infected.
Humanoid monsters. Creep Squad, if you want to sound casual. Class B, if you're a government official who needs to make it sound like something that can be treated with medicine and quarterly budgets.
Most of them used to be people. Now they were, er... things. Picture skeletal bodies, black bone spurs erupting from elbows and backs, tar leaking out from places tar should never leak. Their joints jerked like they'd forgotten how to walk, their motions too fast and too twitchy, like they were being controlled by someone with bad Wi-Fi. Their signature amber eyes, laced with the Chrysotrax virus, glowed faint and predatory.
I tapped my shoulder comm, knuckles brushing against the reinforced collar. My blue-and-white Dome armor pressed against the seams of my jacket, scuffed and scarred and still bearing the Dome insignia—a half-circle grid crowned by a glowing atom. My breath fogged the visor until the respirator hissed, cycling in fresh air. Busy day incoming.
"Llet mee iin," a voice whispered. Not in my helmet comm. But inside my head. It didn't sound like a normal voice—it clicked and skittered, like insect mandibles scraping against metal. I'd been hearing it since I was a kid. Thought it was some weird hallucination. Still do. But it always shows up when things are about to go sideways. "Ttoo mmany. I ccan hhelp yyou oobliterate tthem."
I simply ignored it, like usual.
"Commander Streights to Unit Four," I said, steady as I could. "Confirmed multiple hostiles in AZ-9. Class Bs. Ant Type, by the look of their movement. Close perimeter and prep to engage."
One beat of static. Then, "Copy that, Commander."
Jetboots hummed overhead—familiar, grounding. My squad was here. That meant I could move.
I jumped.
Wind hammered against my armor as I launched into the Zone, knees bent, rifle locked to my shoulder. I hit the pavement hard—boots slamming with a thud that echoed down the street. If the Dome's armorsmiths weren't minor miracle workers, I probably would've exploded on impact instead of making that heroic entrance.
My HUD lit up like a fireworks show—red dots everywhere. Too many. Enough that I half expected the screen to short out and flash a friendly reminder that I was definitely, 100%, about to die.
A shriek tore through the air. A Class B exploded from a wrecked sedan, its mandibles twitching, limbs contorting too fast for a human body. Tar streaked its sides. No hesitation. I fired once. Plasma bolt—green and clean—straight through the skull. The infected dropped mid-leap and hit the pavement with a final twitch.
"Two more at your six!" someone shouted.
Already saw them. Still appreciated the call.
I flicked my wrist. My plasma scythe snapped to life with a hiss of heat. The next infected lunged—too fast, too messy. I ducked low and brought the blade up in a green wide arc. Contact. The body split clean through, sizzling down the middle. The third one didn't make it close. My squad dropped in like thunder—seven black-and-blue Elites, all in full-face helmets. We moved like a hive. Plasma bolts sliced the shadows. Data streamed through our HUDs—hostile positioning, armor integrity, output diagnostics.
It was going too well.
Which, in the Amber Zone, is fate's way of laughing at you.
The ground rumbled.
We froze.
The infected shrieked—and scattered. That's how we knew something worse was coming.
Cracks spread across the concrete. Dust curled into the air like something breathing. Something scraped from beneath the collapsed statue of an old Dome founder. Then it rose.
Slow. Intentional. Like it had waited for an audience.
"Oh," I muttered. "Perfect timing."
It wasn't a Class B.
Didn't need my visor to tell me that. I felt it. Deep in my spine. Every instinct told me to back off. But I didn't. Because I'm the kind of idiot who makes eye contact with a biomutant horror and thinks, You know what? I bet I can win this.
Its upper torso was vaguely human—female, maybe—but deeply, fundamentally wrong. Tar-black strands hung from its head like living nerves, writhing as if they had minds of their own. The face was just a pale stretch of skin, pulled tight over where eyes should've been—blank, veiny, expressionless. Except for the mouth: wide, jagged, split down the middle into mandibles that twitched like they were starving for something warm. Its torso bristled with too many arms, each ending in a curved bone-forged blade. And below? Insect legs. Armored. Serrated. Grinding against the concrete with every step like it hated the ground for existing.
Then my HUD confirmed what I already knew.
SCAN COMPLETE
CLASS A – SCOLOPENDRAX
THREAT LEVEL: EXTREME
It rose to its full height, limbs spreading like it wanted to be worshiped. In one of Nash's video games, the boss music would start here—something loud and orchestral with evil Latin chanting.
My squad looked to me.
Then came the noise. A rapid clicking noise that seems to reverberate from its whole body. Not a roar. Not a hiss. Just that rhythm. Mechanical. Precise. Like the countdown to a panic attack.
"Ranger Squad 7, Streights!" Lyre's voice snapped into my ear. "Fall back to the Dome wall! It can't reach you there!"
My squad obeyed immediately. They trusted her voice like scripture.
Me? I ran at it.
Because every Dome Squad Commander dreams of this moment—facing a Class A and surviving. Or at least dying epically.
"Llet's ddefeat iit ttogether!" that distinct voice inside my head came back, offering another bargain. "Llet mme iin aand Ii'll cchop aall tthe aarms oof tthat ccentipede llady!"
"Shut up. This one's mine!"
Jetpack flared, plasma scythe blazing neon-green. Adrenaline punched through me. I aimed straight for its nightmare throat, hoping to end this in one attack.
"CURSE YOU, CENTIPEDE LADY!"
"Mr. Streights." The voice was real.
Cold water, right behind my ear.
Wait, the voice never called me like that before.
I turned around, thinking it was one of my squadmates.
"Lyre said Fall back!"
"Ray Streights." The voice sounds sterner, like a history teacher.
Wait.
The whole place suddenly shattered. The world blinked white.
* * *
I blinked once. Twice.
The third confirmed what's going on.
No Dome. No monsters. No plasma scythe.
Just a dead-quiet classroom, a pen stuck to my cheek, and about twenty classmates staring like I'd just badmouthed a Class A.
So that was fantastic. Really doing great today.
A few chuckles broke the silence. Then a couple of full-on laughs.
Only Lyre Carrow—my close friend and self-proclaimed handler—looked like she was physically dying of secondhand shame. Half her face had vanished into her palm, probably as a defense mechanism.
At the front, Mr. Halward stood with his arms crossed and the soul-deep scowl of a teacher who'd officially given up on the concept of youth. His glasses reflected the overhead lights like an accusation. His blue educator vest practically radiated disappointment in high definition.
"Good of you to rejoin us, Mr. Streights," he said. "Though I'm afraid I won't be following Ms. Carrow's retreat order."
I sat up straighter, the heat of a thousand suns setting up camp in my face.
"Sorry, sir," I muttered, flicking the pen off my cheek like it's the reason I fell asleep.
My glasses slipped—Nash's latest prototype, designed to tint my amber eyes into something more socially acceptable, like brown. I shoved them back up, trying to look like an attentive, fully functional sophomore and not a guy who'd just sleep-talked his way through a centipede boss battle.
Didn't help. My hair still stuck up like I'd lost a fight with static. My skin had that signature Dome-sickly, pale-olive tone, and the scar down my left cheek—thin, surgical, permanent—made sure no one forgot I'd been through things. Probably too many things.
"Back to the discussion," Halward said, massaging his bald head—his version of a sigh. "Mr. Streights. What triggered the ANW–Oriental War of 2050?"
My brain, still back in AZ-9 dodging mandibles, shrugged. I shrugged back.
"Uh... the assassination of President Yuxun?"
Silence.
Someone exhaled through their nose—the universal sound of academic pity.
I sank back into my seat like I was attending my own funeral. My GPA handed me a shovel.
"Ms. Carrow?" Halward said, with the weary relief of a man trading in a glitchy flashlight for a floodlight that actually reads the manual.
Lyre stood. Blonde hair twisted into a half-updo, tied with the same black ribbon she'd worn since we were seven. Her dark blue eyes slid toward me, one brow raised with the practiced precision of someone who'd spent ten years perfecting the art of nonverbal disappointment.
"The trigger was bioweapon treaty violations by both the Allied Nations of the West and the Oriental Coalition," she said smoothly. "At a covert site in the Tarmes Trench. That's where Chrysotrax was first discovered."
"Correct," Halward said. "Thank you, Ms. Carrow."
She smirked. I rolled my eyes.
Halward tapped the holoboard behind him. Instantly, the transparent surface lit up, projecting a 3D holographic map of Eurasia. Red dots pulsed like open wounds, casting faint crimson glows onto his already irritated face. With a flick of his finger, he zoomed in on one of the blinking markers until it filled half the room—terrain, stats, and footnotes unfolding like digital origami.
"And that," he said, pausing for maximum dramatic dread, "led us directly to where we are now: a dome-dependent society. Contained. Constrained. Locked behind layers of metal and science."
I put my hand under my chin. We've already heard of this since we were in second grade. That we live in this Dome and that we should be grateful blah blah.
Ten minutes before club time. Please save me.
He waved again. The hologram shifted seamlessly into grayscale footage—people in masks, soldiers in biohazard suits, cities crumbling into ash and silence. Halward narrated it like a particularly depressing weather forecast.
I wondered—just for a heartbeat—what it was like outside the Dome.
Then I shoved the thought down so far it would need a passport, a clearance badge, and a ten-page permission slip signed by Halward himself to ever resurface. No way was I going to get dream-jumped twice in one period.
"Class Bs," Halward continued, voice dipped in grim narrator mode, "like the one Streights is apparently fighting earlier, are real. They're not just horror stories or propaganda pieces. They're what happens when science breaks its leash."
I groaned. How far did I sleep-talk?
He tapped the board again. The screen shimmered—then there she was.
The Scolopendrax.
My dream, now playing in HD horror above Halward's head like part of the syllabus. Students leaned back instinctively. A few gasped. Someone whispered, Is that thing real?
Yeah, it's real. I almost got its mandibles in my face not ten minutes ago—well, sort of.
"And Class A monstrosities like this," Halward said, stepping into the glow of the projection, "is what happens when ethics fail. When ambition outpaces responsibility. When we engineer ourselves into extinction."
He folded his arms like a punctuation mark and let the image of the centipede lady hover. The Scolopendrax hung mid-lunge, claws raised like it was choosing who to eat first.
"Any questions?"
Nobody said anything. Not a peep. One guy yawned like the end of civilization bored him. A girl coughed discreetly into her e-textbook. Somewhere in the back, I heard the faint beep of someone's notes auto-saving our collective shame.
Then it happened—my saving grace.
The bell rang, sharp and digital, with all the emotional intensity of an angel descending from the sky to save bored teenagers.
The class got up, carrying their bags, some donning their club jackets for club activity time.
"Streights," Halward said, just as I got to my feet. Because of course he did.
"A word."
I sighed, picking up my club jacket and textbook with the enthusiasm of a rock being told to attend remedial geology.
Lyre appeared beside me, arms crossed, eyes already judging. Less disappointed tutor, more exhausted best friend.
"President Yuxun wasn't even alive during the 2050 War."
"It was either that or the invention of hair-growing cream. I panicked, okay."
She stifled a laugh and rolled her eyes in the same motion—classic Lyre multitasking. "I'll wait at the extraction point, Commander Streights. At least pretend you combed your hair."
I gave her a mock salute and dragged a hand through the disaster zone on my head.
Commander Ray Streights. In my head? Elite supersoldier. Plasma-slinging mutant-slaying legend.
On paper?
A sixteen-year-old who's on the verge of flunking post-war history.
So far, high school's scarier than anything in Amber Zone 9.
But something tells me that won't be true much longer.