The smell hit before the light—hot metal, dried blood, and something rancid, like a corpse left out too long in the sun.
Nice crept forward, every step deliberate over shattered tiles. He held a worn pistol in his right hand, flashlight in his left, cutting a beam through the darkness ahead. The corridor walls were warped and blistered, bubbling like burned skin. Bloodstained writing crawled across the walls in jagged finger strokes. An old nurse's station pulsed faintly, as if something inside it was still breathing.
"Real welcoming place," he muttered, mostly to himself.
Nice was twenty-four, tall and lean, with the kind of build that looked effortless—athletic without trying. His dark brown skin caught the faint sheen of his flashlight, smooth where it wasn't scarred. Sharp cheekbones, strong jaw, and full lips—there was something striking in his face, even now, caked with dust and shadow. His eyes were dark and alert, always scanning, full of thought and something deeper.
He wore survival like a second skin: a patched tactical vest over a fitted, black hoodie with one sleeve torn off, reinforced jeans, fingerless gloves, and a blade strapped to his thigh. His black hair was cropped short—clean and sharp like everything he did. Even here, in this ruined world, there was something undeniably handsome about him. But it wasn't pretty-boy polish. It was the kind of look that said, this guy gets out alive.
This used to be St. Germaine's Hospital.
Now it was a graveyard.
The hallway walls were coated in something veiny and gray-pink, stretched across like rotting skin. Black, wormlike cords hung from the ceiling, twitching now and then like they were dreaming. Beneath his boots, something sticky clung to the soles—an invisible layer of slime that squelched with every step.
A noise echoed from deeper inside.
Slap. Suck. Pause. Slap.
Nice stopped. Held his breath.
The sound went silent.
Then started again.
Slower. Closer.
He moved carefully through a doorway and stopped cold.
A broken window revealed a child's playroom. Plastic chairs lay on their sides, crayons scattered across a dusty rug. A chalkboard still had faded stick figures drawn on it. The whole thing felt… wrong. Untouched. Like the past hadn't quite let go.
But the bodies told a different story.
Dozens of small shapes were heaped in the center of the room, draped in tattered clothes, limbs twisted together like melted mannequins. Some looked asleep.
Most didn't.
Then one moved.
Nice stepped back, slow and silent.
His boot clipped a metal tray on the ground.
Clatter.
The glass spiderwebbed instantly.
A low moan slithered out from behind it—two voices layered over each other, soft like lullabies with static distortion.
Then they started to rise.
They weren't children anymore.
The creature that pulled itself forward had eight legs—half of them too human, the others long, insect-like, jagged at the joints. Its head peeled open like a diseased flower, raw red flesh unfolding into petal-shaped flaps. From the center, a single yellow eye rolled into place and locked onto Nice.
"Shit," he whispered.
He turned and ran.
The hallway came alive behind him. Veins along the walls swelled and throbbed. Tendrils lashed out, snapping toward his legs. Nice vaulted a collapsed gurney, boots splashing through a slick puddle of something that hadn't been water in years. Behind him, a sound rose—part scream, part siren. Not mechanical.
It was alive.
And it was hungry.
He slammed through a pair of double doors—
—and froze.
The operating wing.
Dozens of bodies hung from the ceiling by thick cords plunged into their spines. Some wore rotting hospital gowns. Others were stripped bare. Most were twitching, eyes open, tracking him like he was something they half-remembered from a dream.
One woman above him repeated a whisper: "It's okay… it's okay… it's okay…" over and over. Her mouth had been sewn shut.
The sound came from her throat, wet and strained.
Nice didn't raise his weapon. Couldn't.
There was no saving these people.
He looked away, tried to breathe.
A voice spoke behind him—glitchy, cracked.
"Nice… is that… you?"
He spun.
A man stepped into the room. Or what was left of one.
Half his face was gone, replaced by bone plates jammed into flesh, fused into the skull like armor. One eye still blinked. The other was a glossy black orb. His right arm had burst into tendrils, each one ending in a bone spike. His clothes were scorched. But the eye—the one that still blinked—was familiar.
It was his brother.
"Run," the thing said. "They're… still learning…"
Then it charged.
Nice dove, rolled, and fired.
The first bullet ripped through its shoulder. The creature shrieked—high-pitched, inhuman.
He kept pulling the trigger.
One. Two. Five. Ten. Until click.
Click. Click.
His hand kept squeezing the trigger. His breath came in short bursts. The body lay twitching in a pool of thick, black-red fluid.
Then—laughter.
His own.
It started low, bitter. Then it rose—emptier, sharper. The kind of laugh that comes from somewhere cracked and broken.
Because the thing lying in front of him wasn't just another monster.
It was his brother. The same brother who'd protected him as a kid. Who taught him how to throw a punch. Who once promised to come back from a supply run and never did.
And now he was just another puppet.
Another experiment.
Nice stared down at the corpse until the room felt cold.
That's when it hit him:
This world wasn't going to save itself.
No rescue. No cure. No army coming.
Just these things. These arrogant invaders, these flesh-warping monsters that thought humans were nothing more than meat to study.
They were wrong.
Humans weren't just meat.
Nice stood up, reloading his pistol with steady hands. No more shaking. No more hesitation.
"If no one else is gonna stop you," he said, stepping over his brother's ruined body, "then I will."