Alexandre's eyes cracked open, assaulted at once by the blinding glare of the midday sun.
He lay sprawled on warm, gritty sand. His skin was slick with seawater. He was completely naked, the only thing on his body being the Pip-Boy still fastened securely to his left arm. For a moment, he just stared up at the sky, piecing his mind back together, trying to remember how he'd ended up in this place.
He gritted his teeth and climbed to his feet, shaking the clinging sand from his legs. A quick look around told him everything he needed. He was on a beach—a long, narrow strip of white sand edged by water so clear he could see each ripple slide over the shells, and behind him a looming wall of tangled jungle. Trees towered overhead, their broad leaves swallowing the sun, and from somewhere in the shadows birds shrieked and called to each other, all too cheerful in the face of his growing sense of unease.
But it wasn't just him.
Scattered nearby, half-buried in sand and seaweed, were dozens of familiar shapes—other Hunters from his cohort, every last one as naked as newborns and looking about as lost. A few were still passed out, but most were starting to stir, confusion and fear freezing on their faces as they took in the scene.
The illusion of peace shattered in an instant. A chorus of panicked shouts rang out from somewhere down the beach, sharp and ragged enough to make Alexandre's heart pound in his chest. The jungle heaved, the leaves of its trees shaking as something crashed through the undergrowth, sounding far too close for comfort. The Hunters—all of them—snapped to attention, eyes wide and muscles tensed with dread.
Monsters burst from the dense wall of green without warning: gray, shambling figures with twisted limbs, festering wounds crawling over their bodies, and eyes that were nothing but milky emptiness. Their jaws yawned open in voiceless hunger, unleashing guttural growls that seemed to scrape the bark from the trees. The stench came next—a wave of putrid, rotting air.
His instincts took over. With a practiced flick, Alexandre called up his Pip-Boy and activated tactical view, hoping for a quick read on what exactly they were facing.
╔═══════Aurora Nexus: Inspection Mode ═══════╕
╟─╼[Character] [Zombie]
╟─╼[HP] 100
╟─╼[LvL] 5
╟─╼[Tier] E-
╟─╼[Biology] Zombie
║ ╰╼[Type] Walker
╠══════════════╡
╟─[SUMMARY]
║"This creature is hungry. We advise you to convince it to adopt a vegetarian diet!"
╟─[Fighting Advice]
║ The body has increased resistance to most physical damage. Aim for the head.
╚════════════════════════════════════╛
Zombies—savage, rotten, and hungry for flesh.
Well, that was to be expected.
Alexandre exhaled slowly, feeling a cold surge of adrenaline prickle at his skin. The beginnings of a grin almost as animalistic as the Zombies themselves spread across his face.
An island full of monsters would be a nightmare for most, but not for him. The Hunters weren't the prey here.
The zombies were the ones trapped with him.
***
A few months earlier… January 14, 2036
It was early morning, before the sun had risen. A young man, only twenty years old, was doing sit-ups in his small, modestly furnished New York apartment while the TV blared in the background.
"Today, Dr. Goldberg's final appeal came to an end," the news anchor reported. Though the hour was early, the news which the whole world had been waiting on could not be delayed.
"The Special Grand Jury assigned to investigate Dr. Goldberg previously found him guilty of the charges which the government had levied against him: that Dr. Goldberg conducted illegal and inhumane experiments on over 2,600 children between the years of 2025 and 2027 during the so-called 'Genesis Project.' A vast body of evidence proved that, of these thousands of children, not a single one survived the experiments.
"Despite these horrific crimes against humanity, New Yorkers turned out in record numbers to protest these charges, supporting the former researcher as a hero, not a monster. It is, of course, a popular opinion that the horrors of the Genesis Project should be forgiven, due to its role in the creation of the Hunters.
"Nevertheless, Dr. Goldberg has been found guilty. The Supreme Court—which at first seemed unwilling to even accept the defendant's petition for certiorari—has finally rejected the doctor's appeal at the highest level. In addition, the President, despite the will of the people, has chosen not to pardon Dr. Goldberg."
The reporter paused, seemingly overcome by emotion for the briefest moment. When he spoke again, his voice was completely flat. "Dr. Goldberg is sentenced to death by hanging. This sentence will be carried out in three days."
The young man paused, sweat beading on his forehead, and stared at Dr. Goldberg's face on the TV. He finally pulled his attention away from the TV and returned to his vigorous sit-ups, trying to focus on his workout.
But no matter how much he exerted himself, his thoughts kept drifting back to the doctor whose fate had just been dictated by a handful of people who fervently believed they were bringing justice to a world that had very little justice left.
The young man's name was Alexandre Hautville. He was the only survivor of the experiments which had earned Dr. Goldberg his death sentence.
The people of the world had become self-righteous in the last couple of years. During the Great Wave, when Virus Z's zombie horde threatened to devour the entire world, the world governments had eagerly pursued virtually every method proposed to fight the plague, including nuclear weapons and the rising field of biotechnology.
The Genesis Project had been one such method—and had been heavily subsidized by every remaining world government after the entirety of Afro-Eurasia fell to the Great Wave. In the face of total annihilation, the world had thought nothing of using children as the subjects in new biotech experiments.
Even though, of the 2,600 children who were subjected to these experiments, Alexandre was the only survivor. He'd been only eleven when the procedures on his body began.
The world didn't know he still existed. He wanted to keep it that way.
Though they'd been happy to fund Dr. Goldberg's research when it seemed the world was about to end, humanity proved to be quite fickle. When the Great Wave finally stopped in 2027 and humanity started to recover from the threat of Virus Z, the governments of the world realized they could no longer publicly support a man who experimented on children—though they would still happily make use of the saviors which these experiments had created.
After all, the "Hunters" that could now be created from the Genesis Project's biotech research were the clear path forward for humanity to redeem itself.
These superhumans wielded a variety of incredible powers, but their most interesting trait was their immunity to Virus Z. This was especially astounding because of Virus Z's unceasing ability to evolve, making the infected stronger, more agile, and more animalistically intelligent, all with the sole aim of spreading across the entire world.
But though everyone was exuberant at the existence of the Hunters, that didn't always extend to the man who was, after a fashion, their father.
Indeed, many ordinary people felt only shocked hatred toward Dr. Goldberg for what he had done.
Yet, many others saw no reason to demonize him now: Dr. Goldberg had done what was necessary to ensure humanity could survive. The lives of 2,600 children were a small cost compared to the three million souls who had already been devoured by zombies.
A small cost compared to the 85,000,000 square kilometers of Afro-Eurasia, three massive continents which might never be inhabited by normal humans again.
But even still, there was more to Dr. Goldberg's experiments than even the indignant public knew about: when the world governments began their campaign against Dr. Goldberg, they also made Alexandre an offer: if he kept silent about what he'd seen in the labs, they would provide him a comfortable home in the depths of Canada, along with a pension of several thousand dollars per month.
But Alexandre had rejected this offer.
The only thing he wanted in exchange for his silence was a new identity, a blank slate from which he could forge his own fate.
The day he made this decision was the day he'd chosen the name Alexandre Hautville. In his mind, it was as though he'd been born anew.
***
The decades-old digital clock hanging above Alexandre's TV beeped, announcing that it was now 6 AM.
"It's time," he muttered to himself, and rose from the dingy floor of his apartment's living room. It was the big day—the day he was going to become a Hunter! At long last, the excitement of the day's coming events filled his mind, allowing him to push away the thoughts which the TV had planted in his brain.
Alexandre quickly showered, grabbed a sandwich, and left his apartment for what would be the last time in a long, long while.