The road stretched on forever—cracked pavement, puddles reflecting the moon, no sign of life. I'd been walking for hours, the sound of my boots against the asphalt keeping rhythm with the rain that came and went like a fickle heartbeat.
Everything around me was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that made you start to imagine things.
Then I heard it.
Footsteps. Running. Breathless.
Not mine.
Someone else's.
I stopped dead in my tracks, straining to listen. The sound came from behind me—fast, uneven, desperate. My chest tightened.
And then, a child is crying.
"Help! Please!"
My pulse jumped. I turned around—nothing: just an empty road and fog creeping low over the cracked tar.
"What the…" I whispered.
The crying stopped. The footsteps vanished. But my heart didn't slow down.
"Okay," I muttered to myself. "Either I'm losing my mind or Lily had worse issues than I thought."
I took another step forward—and then I heard it again.
Not far this time. Right behind me.
A man's heavy breathing. A woman's gasp. The sharp, hiccupped sobs of a child.
I spun, gun raised.
Nothing.
The road was empty. The fog rolled past like a curtain.
I rubbed a hand over my face. "Great. First, I steal my sister's body, now I'm hearing voices. What's next?"
But something deep inside me stirred—something not mine. My heartbeat slowed, senses sharpening. A flash, quick and dizzy, burned through my mind—shapes moving through the dark, lights flashing in the distance, the sound of boots pounding dirt. Then came a low, wet growl.
Inhuman. Hungry.
I staggered, clutching my temple. "What the hell…"
The vision snapped off, leaving me panting.
Then I saw it for real.
Light. Flickering through the trees ahead. Torches—or maybe fires. Figures are moving fast—a woman's scream, sharp and real this time.
I should've turned around and kept walking. That's what Lily would've done—or maybe that's what I would've done before all this.
"Keep going," I muttered. "Not your problem."
But my legs didn't listen.
Before I knew it, I was running toward the noise.
Branches whipped against my arms as I pushed through the tree line. The stench hit me first—rotted meat, decay, wet hair. Then came the sound—snarling, guttural, wrong.
The clearing opened up like a nightmare.
A man and woman stood back-to-back, clutching a small child between them. Their clothes were torn, faces pale with terror. Around them, a half-circle of half-human creatures snarled and advanced—things that might've been human once, but weren't anymore. This was the infection in its last stages before complete insanity. There may be some spark of humanity left, but not enough to make any difference for these people.
Pale skin stretched over bones. Eyes glowing faint amber. Their movements are jerky and fast.
"Zombies?" I said out loud, because what else do you call that?
One of them turned toward me, head twitching like a broken machine. Its mouth opened wide, teeth slick with black blood.
"Yeah," I muttered. "Zombie look-alikes. Close enough."
Every rational part of me screamed to run. But that same instinct—the one that didn't belong to me—kicked in again.
I moved before I could think.
The gun came up, smooth and certain. Two shots. Two heads dropped. The recoil bit into my palms, but the rest of me didn't flinch.
The remaining creatures hissed and lunged.
I fired again, backing up, counting my rounds. One missed—damn it—but the others hit clean. A body hit the dirt inches from my boots, twitching.
The man shouted something I couldn't hear. The woman clutched the child tighter, crying.
"Go!" I yelled. "Run!"
They hesitated.
"Now!"
That got them moving. They bolted past me toward the road, stumbling over roots and debris. The kid's wails cut through the noise, raw and terrified.
Another growl rose behind me. I turned just in time to see one of the things lunge from the trees, its jaw hanging loose.
I swung the gun up, but it was too close.
Instinct again—Lily's instinct. My body twisted, arm coming up hard to deflect. I drove my elbow into the creature's throat, followed by a knee to the gut. It staggered back. I didn't hesitate. The machete I'd taken from the scavengers came up in one smooth arc.
The blade bit deep.
The thing went down.
Silence fell again, broken only by the sound of rain dripping from the branches and the faint echo of retreating footsteps.
I stood there, panting, covered in blood that wasn't mine. My hands trembled, but my aim hadn't faltered once.
"The hell was this body? Lily, you're secretive, scank. I'm so mad at you right now."
I looked around at the carnage—five bodies, all of them twisted, twitching, no longer human. Their eyes still faintly glowed in the dark, like embers refusing to die.
I crouched beside one, studying its face. I'd never seen one this far gone, close up. Its teeth were blackened, its veins dark. Not rot. Infection. Mutation. Something alive inside death.
A sickness.
I wiped the blade clean on its ragged shirt and stood. "Lily, what the hell were you mixed up in?"
The forest didn't answer.
I stepped into the clearing where the family had been. They were long gone. Good. Maybe they'd make it.
I should've felt relief. Instead, I felt that pulse again—deep in my bones, like an echo that wasn't mine.
For a moment, everything went hazy.
I saw flashes—Lily standing where I was, holding the same machete, her hands steady. A training field. Men in armor. A gun range. Someone shouting, "Target acquired."
Then nothing.
Just my heartbeat.
When I came to, I was on my knees, the machete buried in the dirt. My breath came in ragged gasps.
Okay. So, add "hallucinations" to the list of fun new problems.
I forced myself to stand. My muscles ached but obeyed, moving with that eerie precision I still didn't understand.
If these flashes were Lily's memories, they were buried deep—and whatever program or experiment she'd been a part of, it had turned her into something far beyond ordinary.
And now, that something was me.
I looked back at the trees one last time, the faint glow of the dead fading into the mist. The family was gone. The danger wasn't.
"Next time," I muttered, "I'm really going to mind my own damn business."
But even as I said it, I knew I wouldn't.
I adjusted the gun, tightened the strap on the backpack, and headed toward the radio tower in the distance—the only thing still shining through the fog.
Whatever was waiting there, it couldn't be worse than what I'd just seen.
At least, that's what I told myself.