Blood Roots

Like a red geyser, blood erupted from the woman's shoulder.

Eli flinched.

He didn't recognize her—student, teacher, assistant, it didn't matter. She looked to be in her late thirties. Blond hair tied in a neat ponytail, now instantly matted with blood. The crimson soaked down her coat in a sickening arc, too much, too fast.

She screamed—a horrible, ragged thing that tore through the courtyard like a warning siren.

Halden's eyes went wide.

He faltered.

The dome shattered.

Not quietly. Not with a fizzle or a fade.

It snapped, detonating in a concussive blast of air like a sonic boom. The pressure collapsed inward, then blew outward in a shockwave that slammed into everyone in the courtyard. Eli stumbled, arm up to shield his face as debris lifted around them.

Temp barked frantically.

Bria screamed—not in fear, but in effort—trying to hold the injured woman upright. Mist swirled around her arms, trying to clot the blood, to seal the wound, but the infected saliva had already done its work. The woman's eyes rolled, veins darkening like ink spreading through water.

She convulsed.

"No—no, no—" Bria backed up, still holding on, her magic confused by her hesitation. "Help me!"

Halden collapsed to one knee. A hand to his head. His mana-core—rooted in his skull—flared with pain. The veins on the side of his forehead bulged, and his breath caught in his throat. "The dome—" he rasped. "I lost it—"

"Forget the dome—Professor!" Eli snapped, stepping forward. "Bria, let her go!"

But it was too late.

The infected student—the one who had bitten her—twitched once, then screamed, a feral, warbling sound. His skin had fully greyed now, lips cracked and oozing. He leapt forward like a wild dog, targeting the next nearest person—Mitchel.

Mitchel screamed, stumbling back. His sleeve caught on a jagged bit of fallen railing, tearing open. The infected slammed into the ground where he'd just been, claws scraping stone, jaw snapping inches from flesh.

Eli didn't hesitate.

He thrust his palm forward.

The air imploded.

A vacuum pulse snapped between him and the attacker, pressure dropping in a split-second flash before rebounding in a concussive blast. The zombie was hurled sideways, spine-first into the stair rail. Bones cracked. It twitched, dazed, but not done.

Bria let the woman drop. Her body had gone limp, breath stopping mid-sob. Bria's hands shook as she staggered backward, forming dense mist blades from her fingertips, eyes wide with panic.

"Mitchel! MOVE!" Eli shouted.

Mitchel rolled clumsily, barely avoiding the infected's second lunge.

Another scream echoed—from someone else. The chaos spread instantly. Survivors broke formation, some running, some casting defensive spells. A lightning bolt cracked into the side of the building. A fireball exploded against the far wall, missing its target entirely and catching a row of bushes instead.

Eli grabbed Temp's collar, pulling him close.

"Don't let any more get bit!" he barked, already moving toward the infected.

The zombie shoved off the ground, faster than before. It lunged toward Bria now.

This time, she didn't freeze.

She slashed outward—two arcing blades of mist cleaving through the air. One hit. It carved a steaming gash into the zombie's chest, slowing it, but not stopping it. The thing didn't feel pain.

Halden growled, still kneeling, but raised a hand toward the sky. A spear of high-pressure wind howled into being, like a localized jet stream, and slammed into the creature from above.

It flattened it.

Concrete cracked.

The courtyard fell silent again for a breath.

But only for a breath.

The bitten woman twitched.

Then her eyes opened.

Glassily. Wrong.

Bria took a step back, shaking her head.

"No… I—I was holding her—"

She was already turning.

And she was inside the group.

Eli felt his stomach drop.

This wasn't just a breach.

This was a collapse.

"Everyone!" he shouted. "Fan out! Don't cluster! DO NOT get touched!"

Temp snarled, fur up, circling Eli's side.

A second infected inside their safe zone.

How many more were already bleeding? Already bitten?

How fast would it spread now?

Halden, voice ragged, managed to speak through clenched teeth. "We're losing control."

Eli didn't argue.

Because they already had.

The woman twitched again.

Then rose.

Not like a person. Not anymore. Her limbs jerked with unnatural tension, her joints misaligned by the infection coursing through her blood. Her mouth gaped—silent—but her eyes were wide, unblinking. They didn't roll back like the others. They stared.

Bria stumbled back, voice cracking. "No—she was dead! I felt her stop breathing!"

Eli took a step forward, heart pounding, knife half-raised—but she moved first.

Her hand snapped outward, fingers twitching like puppet strings—and the earth responded.

Roots.

Not just from grass or soil, but from beneath the cracks in the courtyard. From under the stone tiles. Something deep responded to her magic, and it exploded upward.

Thick, knotted tendrils of bark and vine burst from the courtyard like landmines.

One of the students—a thin boy with copper hair and a shield glyph halfway drawn—was closest.

He didn't even get the chance to scream.

The roots didn't just grab him. They invaded.

One wrapped around his ankle, yanking him down hard enough to dislocate his knee with an audible pop. Another slammed into his chest, driving the air from his lungs as he hit the stone. But it didn't stop.

The roots shifted, split—thin filaments peeling off like surgical threads.

They wormed their way into everything.

One punched through the corner of his eye, the wet sound of rupturing jelly filling the space with a sickening shluck. Another coiled up his nose, bursting capillaries as it slithered deep, curling into his sinuses like a burrowing parasite. More pushed past his lips, scraping against teeth before vanishing down his throat. His body arched. Every muscle tensed.

But it was the ears that made Eli freeze.

Two hair-thin roots slithered into the boy's ears, twisting past the canal, into the skull.

He began to seize.

Veins bulged. His eyes—one burst, one still intact—rolled wildly, then focused for just a second.

He looked conscious.

He looked at them.

Then the roots pulled.

Every orifice in his face—nose, eyes, ears, mouth—poured blood as the roots dragged inward, drawing everything out. It wasn't just a kill. It was consumption. His skin split along the jaw, muscle tearing open in strips as the pressure built from inside.

The body went limp.

The roots let go.

It had taken less than five seconds.

Silence dropped like a bomb over the courtyard.

Bria fell to her knees, hands to her mouth— desperately trying to avoid to vomit. Halden didn't move—still knelt, staring with a distant, broken look. Mitchel was hyperventilating.

Eli couldn't breathe.

He felt Temp press against his thigh, growling low, but not barking. Even the dog understood now.

This wasn't a fight.

This was a slaughterhouse.

She dropped to her knees beside the body—what was left of it—and plunged her hands into the gore. Fingers scooped into ribs, peeled back bone and viscera like it was paper. She buried her face in the ruin, feeding, snarling wetly as blood ran down her chin in rivers.

The roots around her twitched, mirroring her frenzy—like they were tasting too.

Eli blinked, breath caught halfway in his throat, eyes wide and fixed on the scene in front of him.

The world seemed muffled—like sound had dropped away, drowned in the wet, tearing noises echoing off the courtyard stone. The stench of blood and ruptured flesh filled his lungs.

Then something inside him shifted.

No more standing still.

He moved in a blur—knife already in hand. With a flick of his fingers and a focused breath, he compressed the air around the blade into a narrow, accelerating burst. The pressure whined, building with razor precision as the weapon launched forward like a bullet.

Crack.

The blade hit the back of her head with such speed it punched through clean, exiting in a red mist on the other side before cracking into the concrete below. Her body went rigid, then slumped silently over the twitching remains she'd been feeding on.

The roots froze and fell to the ground— devoid of all life.

Bria stared at the corpse.

Her breath hitched. Hands still raised like she could somehow undo it, drag the roots back into the earth, stuff the screams back into silence. Her lips moved but no sound came—just the trembling stutter of someone trying to rationalize the impossible.

"She was just…" Bria whispered, eyes glossed. "She was just talking—I touched her—"

"She's gone," Halden said, not unkindly, but firm. "We need to move."

Bria didn't hear him.

The professor took one shaky step toward her, face drawn tight with exhaustion. "Bria. The shield's down. We're exposed, and that sound just rang across half the district. We have to go."

But she stood frozen, knees wobbling, shoulders convulsing with each shattered breath. Her fingers curled like claws into the air, skin wet with condensation and blood both.

A groan echoed from beyond the courtyard gates. Then another. Too close.

Eli turned, heart slamming against his ribs again. He grabbed Mitchel by the arm, hauling him from where he'd stumbled to the ground. The younger student's face was pale, his eyes fixed on the mangled body lying just meters away.

"Mitchel," Eli snapped. "Get up. Move."

Mitchel blinked, then nodded shakily, legs barely working but obedient.

The groans multiplied.

Temp barked low, fur bristling. Shadows shifted at the courtyard's edge.

Halden stepped beside Bria and gripped her shoulder—not gently, not harshly either, but enough to force her to feel it. "Bria, now. You break down later. Not here. Not while they're coming."

Bria didn't look at him. But her breath caught. Froze.

Then she nodded, barely, and let herself be pulled.

The dome was gone.

And the dead were on their way.

They moved in a tight cluster.

Eli kept his knife drawn, the other clenched tight in his fist, ready to fling again if needed. Bria walked like she was sleepwalking, her shoulder still under Halden's grip. Mitchel limped beside Eli, both hands shaking so badly he couldn't have cast a spark even if his life depended on it.

Temp led the way now—low, silent, alert.

The campus grounds were unrecognizable. Smoke curled through the air, mixing with the scent of blood and scorched grass. Bodies lay in broken sprawls across cobblestone walkways and shattered benches. And not all of them stayed still.

They weren't the only survivors left.

Four other students had fled with them after the dome collapsed and the woman with the root-magic dropped—dead, finally—beside her mangled victim. That left four running alongside them now.

"Over here!" one of them shouted—Tannis, a third-year combat student with fire magic sparking from his hands. He and a girl Eli didn't know veered left, toward the campus greenhouse.

"No! That's a dead end!" Halden shouted after them.

Too late.

They vanished into the garden paths between twisted hedges and shrapnel-strewn flagstones—and never came back.

The remaining two students followed closely behind Eli's group. They were barely a few steps behind when a snarl split the air. A mangled infected lunged from a fractured sculpture alcove, grabbing one of them around the neck. The other tried to cast—a crackle of lightning forming at his palm—but another zombie barreled into him, teeth sinking into his shoulder mid-spell. The lightning misfired, exploded point-blank, and both bodies hit the ground in a haze of smoke and blood.

"Keep going!" Halden shouted. "Don't stop!"

Eli grabbed Bria again and shoved her forward. Mitchel was gasping now, his limp worsening. But he ran.

They passed the quad.

A pair of infected hunched over a fresh corpse, fingers digging and twisting through the ribcage like they were searching for something. One turned its head at the sound of footsteps—but didn't chase.

Not yet.

"There!" Halden barked. A set of double doors up ahead, half-burned banners sagging on their mounts. The auxiliary gym. Smaller than the main one, but reinforced. Solid.

Temp bolted first, barking once.

They crashed through.

Halden grabbed a discarded bench together with Mitchel, and wedged it tight beneath the handle.

The banging started almost instantly.

But for now, they were inside. The emergency lights cast a dim orange glow over the sweat-warped floorboards and storage cages. Mats stacked high cast long, uneven shadows. No movement. No groans. Just their own breath.

They were safe.

For now.