The Weight of Progress

One of them lunged, its arms flailing, and I barely managed to dodge it, my heart hammering in my chest. The hallway was suddenly alive with them, crawling, sprinting, screaming—a swarm of horrors I couldn't outrun.

"Move!" Marisol shouted, her grip tight on my arm as she yanked me forward. "We need to get to the emergency exit, now!"

I didn't need to be told twice. My legs pumped beneath me, the flashlight beam leading the way as we sprinted down the hallway, the sound of pounding footsteps and shrieks growing louder with every passing second. Behind us, the Sunod were closing in. One of them launched itself at us, its fingers scraping against the wall before it snapped at my heels, its teeth gnashing with a feral hunger.

I felt Marisol's hand tighten around mine as she pulled me into a sharp turn toward the emergency exit. The door was ahead—just a few more steps.

We burst onto the street, gasping for breath as the cool night air hit me like a slap. It was a stark contrast to the suffocating heat of the lab, the oppressive air still clinging to my skin. But there was no time to enjoy it. The chaos of the city hit me immediately.

Sunod—dozens of them, their twisted bodies illuminated by the flickering neon lights of abandoned shops—swarmed the streets, crawling over cars, tearing apart whatever they could reach. The eerie glow of the streetlights cast a sickly pallor over their grotesque figures, and the wails and snarls echoed like a nightmare come to life.

In the distance, I saw a group of survivors—men and women with makeshift weapons—standing in a desperate, futile defense. Their barricade, a haphazard stack of furniture and scrap metal, was crumbling under the relentless assault of the Sunod, who tore at it like animals hungry for flesh.

"Where do we go?" I shouted over the noise, my voice barely reaching Marisol as we ran through the streets, weaving between overturned vehicles and debris.

"There's a safehouse near the old port," she said, her voice strained, raw from the effort. "If we can make it there, we might have a chance."

I didn't question her. There was no time for that. We pushed forward, my muscles burning with each step, my lungs screaming for air. But the moment I even thought about slowing down, the sharp, primal instinct that told me I'd be a corpse if I stopped did kept me going. One misstep, one hesitation, and we'd be swarmed.

I thought of Raj and Dr. Miranda. Good thing I didn't bring them with me here in the Philippines.

As we rounded a corner, a sudden movement caught my eye. A flash of pale, bloodshot eyes, and then a Sunod lunged from the shadows, its body slamming into me with terrifying speed. Its jaw snapped open, revealing rows of jagged teeth as it reached for my throat.

I swung the baton with every ounce of strength I had. The impact was sickening—my arm jarred as it connected with the Sunod's skull. It let out a guttural snarl, its hands clawing at me with wild, desperate fury.

Before I could react, Marisol fired her stun gun. A high-pitched crack split the air, and the creature's body convulsed, jerking violently before it collapsed to the ground with a sickening thud.

"Don't stop!" Marisol shouted, grabbing my arm and pulling me forward.

We sprinted again, the sounds of snarls and screams growing louder with each passing second, the Sunod hot on our heels, relentless in their pursuit.

Ahead, the safehouse came into view. A warehouse—old, reinforced, the entrance heavily barricaded with what looked like anything survivors could find. There were no signs of life outside, just the silence of a place hiding from the horrors of the world.

Marisol didn't slow down. We reached the entrance, and a group of survivors—men, women, even children—stood guard. They barely looked up as we approached, their faces etched with a mixture of desperation and determination. Their eyes flicked to the bloodstains on our clothes, but they didn't question us. They opened the door without a word, quickly slamming it shut behind us as the wails of the Sunod outside grew louder, their desperate cries filling the air.

Inside, the atmosphere was thick with tension. A small group of survivors huddled together, their eyes scanning us warily, whispering to each other. They hadn't seen this many people alive in a while. Fear clung to the air, thick enough to cut with a knife.

Marisol didn't hesitate. She moved like someone with a purpose, her footsteps quick and determined. The survivors in the safehouse watched her silently as she made her way to the far corner where a makeshift command center had been hastily assembled. The air in the room felt thick—too quiet for comfort, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.

Maps of the city, some of them torn and crumpled, were tacked to the walls with fraying tape. A few old radios sat on a rickety table, their cracked surfaces covered in dust. The buzz of static came from one, but no one dared to touch it. A battered laptop sat nearby, its screen flickering like a dying heartbeat, the cursor blinking over a map of the city—empty, save for the red blotches marking Sunod locations. The only other sound was the quiet tapping of Marisol's fingers on the laptop's keys. Her face was set in concentration, but there was an edge of weariness to her movements that hadn't been there before.

I stood there for a moment, watching her, trying to ignore the weight pressing on my chest, the pounding in my head. The adrenaline that had kept me running was now slipping away, leaving only the raw, gnawing exhaustion behind. "What now?" My voice came out hoarse, more fragile than I intended, my breath still uneven from the sprint. The air inside the safehouse felt suffocating, but outside... outside was even worse.

Her eyes flicked up to meet mine, dark and unreadable. She didn't speak at first, and I could feel the tension between us, a heavy silence that seemed to stretch on longer than it should. Then, without a word, she pulled something from inside her jacket.

Her fingers lingered on it for a moment, almost like she was considering something. Then she held out the necklace to me. A key dangled from it, its edges worn from years of use, its meaning heavy with unspoken weight.

"Go get some rest," she said quietly, the softness in her voice somehow more unsettling than if she had yelled. It was too calm, too controlled for the chaos we had just escaped. "We'll talk at dawn."

I took the necklace, but my fingers were numb, the coldness of the metal biting into my skin. I couldn't tear my gaze away from her—those tired eyes, the tight set of her jaw. She wasn't the same person I had known before. There was something darker in her now, something she was carrying that she wasn't sharing with me.

I opened my mouth to protest, but the words never came. She had already turned her back to me, her attention fully absorbed by the laptop now. Her fingers flew across the keys, her eyes scanning the screen with a focus that was almost mechanical, as though whatever was on that screen was more important than anything else. Than me. Than the world.

I stood there, a part of me wanting to demand answers, but another part—something deep down—knew that the world had shifted in a way I couldn't understand yet. There were no easy answers. Not here. Not now.

With a sigh that felt like it came from the depths of my soul, I turned toward the back corner of the room. A small makeshift cot sat there, barely more than a thin blanket on a pile of cracked wood. The shelter was cramped, a tiny sliver of space, yet it somehow felt like it was miles away from everything else. I collapsed onto it with a groan, the weight of the day pulling me down.

The room was eerily silent for a moment, save for the distant echoes of the Sunod's wails outside. Their cries bled through the walls, faint but chilling, like the death throes of something monstrous. My body ached, every muscle screaming, but it was the thought of those things outside—those things that had once been people—that kept my mind awake.

I stared up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the shadows that danced there, the flickering light from the corner casting them into grotesque shapes. Every creak, every groan of the building felt like the sound of death closing in, the inevitable presence of something worse than anything I had ever imagined.

My mind was buzzing with a thousand questions, but I couldn't escape the pull of exhaustion. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in my gut. The sound of Marisol typing, the clicks of her keyboard, filled the quiet—like a ticking clock counting down the moments we had left.

Somewhere in the dark, I wondered just how much longer we'd survive.