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The moment Jack shut down the mainframe, the entire Hive fell into darkness. Machines stuttered and died.
On the containers holding the Lickers, the calm green lights blinked over into flashing red—danger status.
Scattered throughout the Hive, Umbrella's special ops soldiers started noticing strange shadows moving silently behind them.
Meanwhile, Alice and her group were debating how to regroup with their missing captain when the sound of metal scraping across concrete echoed sharply through the halls.
"Quiet."
Alice immediately signaled the others to stay silent.
The group froze, listening. The dragging sound grew closer, followed by the uneven thud of footsteps approaching from all sides.
Two of the commandos raised their weapons and edged forward. That's when a figure emerged—a man staggering toward them, dragging a fire axe along the ground.
His flesh was rotting, his eyes pale and dead. He grinned at the sight of living humans like a starving wolf stumbling across prey.
"They're everywhere. We're surrounded."
Alice spun, scanning the halls. Shadows were pouring in from every direction.
Dozens of corpses—workers in Hive uniforms—shambled forward with pale, twisted faces.
Some were half-decomposed. Some had lost half their faces. Others were bent and broken at impossible angles. And yet… they kept moving.
"The dead… why are they walking?"
"Doesn't matter. Just shoot them."
The two commandos didn't hesitate. They opened fire, bullets tearing through the swarm.
But without knowing the weak point, their shots were useless. The zombies just kept coming.
Overwhelmed, the four of them fell back down a side corridor, desperately retreating from the growing horde.
Elsewhere, Jack stepped out of the mainframe chamber, just in time to hear the sound of something charging down the same passage he had entered from.
He froze, waiting, eyes fixed on the tunnel.
A second later, several Lickers crawled out, their massive claws scraping across the walls as they swarmed into the room.
"Come on, little bugs."
Jack raised his hands. His armor melted again, shifting into curved blades gleaming under the dim emergency lights.
One of the Lickers let out a guttural roar before leaping at him.
In a single motion, Jack swung—his blade split the creature clean in half. The two pieces hit the ground with a wet slap.
The others screeched, enraged, and lunged at him from every direction.
One climbed onto his back and sank its teeth into his shoulder.
Jack snarled, grabbed the beast, and hurled it across the room. He punched another out of the air with a single crushing blow.
The Lickers tore at his black armor, ripping jagged gashes into it. But the wounds sealed almost instantly, the material knitting back together as if nothing had happened.
Jack fought his way through the room, cutting down the Lickers that lunged at him from every direction. One by one, he struck them down until the place was silent.
A few minutes later, he stepped out, leaving behind nothing but piles of mutilated corpses, and started searching for any sign of Alice.
…
Meanwhile, Alice and her group had been fleeing from the relentless horde of zombies. In the chaos, she got separated from the others and ended up alone, stumbling into a small room connected to a laboratory.
The moment she stepped inside, her chest tightened. Iron cages lined the walls, every single one torn open with gaping holes. Bits of flesh and tufts of fur still clung to the twisted wire.
Whatever had been trapped inside was long gone. From the size and shape of the cages, Alice quickly realized they had been holding dogs—infected dogs. Zombie dogs.
And now they were loose.
The room was eerily quiet, but judging from the number of cages, there had to be at least forty of them lurking somewhere in the shadows, watching and waiting.
Dogs always had sharp noses, able to sniff out the faintest scents in the air. And once they'd been turned into zombie dogs, that sense didn't dull—it only made them even better at tracking down living prey.
Alice's instincts screamed at her. Someone—or something—was watching.
Blood smeared the walls and floor, thick and sticky, the metallic stench turning her stomach.
Then she noticed it. On the ground, just a few steps away, lay a red fire axe. She rushed over and snatched it up, gripping the handle tight.
Drip… drip…
The sound of water—or something like it—hitting the floor echoed in the silence.
Alice froze and turned her head slowly. Her face hardened.
Out from the darkness crept a zombie dog. Its skin was gone, peeled away to reveal raw, exposed muscle. Its pale, gray eyes fixed on her as blood dripped steadily from its mouth.
It opened its jaws wide, growling low in its throat.
Alice instinctively stepped back.
The creature noticed the movement and lunged.
Alice spun on her heel and bolted, darting through rooms as fast as she could. Behind her, claws scraped against the ground as the zombie dog chased after her, relentless.
They zigzagged through hallways, one human and one beast, moving at frightening speed.
Then, in one sharp move, Alice skidded to a stop, twisted to the side, and barely slipped past the dog's snapping jaws.
The creature missed its strike, stumbled, then turned back, its guttural snarl echoing as it charged her again.
Alice braced herself, swung the axe with all her strength—
—and the dog ran headfirst into the blade.
The axe split it clean in two.
Alice stood over the twitching halves, panting, trying to catch her breath. But then her gut twisted. She looked up and realized she wasn't alone.
Dozens more zombie dogs had appeared, circling her, baring their teeth, their eyes glowing with hunger.
Alice's face hardened. She stepped back once, then spun and bolted toward the exit.
The pack let out a chorus of snarls and bounded after her.
"....."