Beneath the skin!
As the first screams pierced the twilight, police and emergency services mobilized swiftly. But nothing in their training had prepared them for the nightmare of being attacked by the very people they were sworn to protect.
BANG!
The apartment door exploded inward with a thunderous crash, kicked clean off its hinges. Two officers swept in, weapons raised, eyes sharp and scanning every shadow.
Just moments earlier, they'd received a frantic report, someone heard cries for help echoing from this very unit. Without hesitation, they rushed from a nearby post to investigate.
"What the... what the fuck?" the lead officer choked out. His face paled as bile rose in his throat, forcing him to double over and gasp for breath.
His partner, a young woman with a tight, dirty blonde bun and a steel-hard glint in her eyes, froze mid-step. Even with her grit, she flinched at the sight before them.
Blood and viscera coated the apartment like someone had painted the walls with butchered bodies. Organs and chunks of meat were scattered across the floor, forming a crimson breadcrumb trail leading into the next room.
There, a television flickered cheerfully, an old sitcom playing a laugh track over the horror unfolding just feet away. And beneath its warm glow sat a woman crouched on the floor, hunched over something wet and mangled in her trembling hands. She was feasting ravenously.
"Ma'am," the female officer barked, voice cracking slightly, "drop whatever's in your hands and put them behind your back. Now!"
The male officer drew closer, gun steady, the metallic click of cuffs in his hand echoing through the room.
The woman stopped chewing.
SPLAT.
The wet smack of something meaty hitting the floor made them both flinch.
Slowly, she began to stand, rising to her full height. Her eyes remained locked downward, her movements stiff and unnatural.
She didn't speak. Didn't scream. Just stared blankly, the blood still dripping from her chin.
The two officers exchanged a tense glance.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The male officer inched closer, hand outstretched to make the arrest. "Ma'am, don't make me—"
She moved.
A sudden swing. An inhumanly fast blur.
The backhand cracked across his face with bone-snapping force, launching him backward through the air like a ragdoll.
CRASH!
He slammed into the television, sparks erupting as glass shattered and the screen went black, snuffing out the laughter.
The female officer leveled her firearm at the blood-soaked woman, voice rising to a panicked shout as she threatened to open fire. But from the male officer's perspective, everything was muffled, the world had drowned in a high-pitched ringing. His ears throbbed. His head swam.
A thin trail of blood trickled down from his forehead as he looked up through hazy eyes. He saw his partner yelling, fierce and determined, but all he could hear was that incessant whine.
The strange woman turned toward her, lifting her head slowly. Her eyes were wrong, gleaming pink with pitch-black sclera, wide and hungry like a predator's.
Then she screamed.
A guttural, hellish roar tore from her throat, shaking the very air in the room. She lunged, almost flying, teeth bared like jagged ivory blades, her body a blur of fury and gore.
BANG!BANG!BANG!
The ringing broke.
Sound returned all at once, just in time for the male officer to see the pink-eyed woman slam to the ground, two bullets buried in her chest, the third punched through her neck just above the collarbone.
Smoke curled from the barrel of his partner's pistol. Her hands trembled, her breathing ragged, but she still remembered to reach for her walkie-talkie.
"Officer down, need an ambulance, now!"
She approached the body, cautiously kneeling to check for signs of life.
Sigh...
A hot breath escaped her lips as she shook her head. Her shoulders slumped. Relief. For now.
She turned as her partner staggered to his feet, swaying slightly but upright.
"I'm sorry," she said, voice tight. "I tried to warn her."
He gave a tired smile and patted her shoulder.
"You did good, kid. You kept your head. Probably saved us both."
A faint warmth passed between them, her cheeks flushed pink as she looked away, and he scratched the back of his neck in awkward relief. But neither of them noticed the tiny silhouette shifting in the shadows of the far doorway.
Something moved.
Low to the ground. Slow. Predatory.
Before either officer could react, a sharp pain stabbed through the woman's leg.
She gasped, looking down, and screamed.
A child.
No, something wearing a child's skin.
Its left cheek was torn off, exposing bone and glistening muscle. Its belly was ripped wide open, intestines dragging behind like party streamers. Its pink eyes gleamed.
It had its teeth buried deep in her thigh, tearing away a hunk of flesh with a sickening crunch.
A spray of blood painted the air.
BANG!
The male officer shot the creature, pinning it face-first to the ground. The child thrashed wildly, distracted by the chunk of thigh meat still in its mouth. The female officer collapsed, reaching for her cuffs, but her vision was already swimming, limbs trembling.
Black veins spread rapidly from the wound on her leg, pulsing under the skin like ink dropped in water. Her irises began to shimmer with a faint pink glow.
She didn't notice.
The male officer turned away from the child and growled, "Stop resisting! I'm trying to help you!"
The little monster hissed, still snapping at him like a rabid turtle.
Behind him, something shuffled.
He ignored it.
He shouldn't have.
His partner had dropped her cuffs. Her body was spasming violently, her bones twisting beneath the skin. Her eyes glowed brighter. The whites turned black.
The seizures stopped.
She stood.
And lunged.
Her teeth clamped down around the back of his neck and tore.
A thick chunk of flesh ripped free with a spray of blood that splattered across the floor and walls. The male officer stumbled, gasping, but he couldn't breathe. He fell to his knees, clutching at his ruined throat, eyes wide with confusion and betrayal.
Only wet, bubbling gurgles came out as he stared at her, his partner, now grinning, eyes alight with hunger.
The pink-eyed child clambered onto his chest, claws digging into his ribs, tearing through his shirt, then deeper.
His vision darkened. His body stopped struggling.
His final sight was a blur of crimson and black, his partner biting into the side of his neck like it was a thick and extra rare steak… and the child gnawing at what might've been his liver.
This happened all over the city, and emergency services were being overwhelmed to a degree that could not be overstated.
About five minutes before everything truly spiraled out of control, William and the other heroes who had gone to handle the meteor shower returned to base. What greeted them was chaos, people were running in every direction with paperwork in hand, and soldiers were heavily armed, ready for anything.
"Wonder what's going on..." William muttered under his breath, exhaling deeply as he allowed himself a moment of relaxation before heading further into the base.
As the group moved forward, they naturally split off, each heading towards their own destinations. William lingered behind, taking a deep, tired breath and cracking his neck. He only started moving when a commotion caught his attention.
"STOP!"
A guard at the entrance shouted, his voice firm, as a civilian approached. The man had a significant chunk of his leg missing and was hobbling forward, seemingly unfazed by the guard's warning.
The strange civilian continued his advance, ignoring the threats of violence. He had made it halfway down the ramp when the guard fired a warning shot off to the side, halting the wounded man's progress.
Suddenly, a deep pink glow radiated from the man's eyes. He reeled back, letting out an inhuman roar that transitioned into a piercing shriek. The sound was so intense that even the glass nearby trembled faintly from the vibrations.
Without warning, the man charged at the guard.
Remaining calm, the guard adjusted his aim, targeting the feral man's legs.
With a precise burst of gunfire, the man crumpled to the ground, his legs rendered useless as bullets tore through them, forcing him to fall face-first onto the ramp.
The guard approached the man while flanked by two of his heavily armed companions who were prepared to turn the man into a pink mist if he so much as twitched.
William approached the door just as the presumably dead feral man reached out and attempted to swipe at the guard.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Before the man's bloody, clawed hands can reach the guard's neck, his companions hit him with gunfire that borders on overkill, but before the guards can celebrate, they see more pink-eyed people rushing at them in the hundreds.
"FALL BACK!"
They retreated completely, and as they entered, one of the guards pressed a large red button after forcibly removing the glass, and the sound of large gears and mechanical components shuffling around, and William watched in absolute confusion as the ramp raised, blocking off the entrance to the base as the pink-eyed feral people began falling off the edge.
"What the hell is going on?" William thought before turning around and heading to the situation room with haste.
"If anyone knows what is going on it's Cecil!"
WHOOSH!
William practically burst into flames to increase his speed, but eventually arrived at the sealed door to the situation room, where he could make out the distinct yelling of Cecil on the other side.
Before William could even knock, however, the door slid open, and Cecil gestured for him to enter as he continued to look at the monstrous number of displays before him.
Cecil had access to every camera in the city, and what he witnessed filled him with horror.
"I'm going to need you and the other heroes. Everyone is being deployed; this is serious, potentially catastrophic, and it needs to be stopped immediately. Get ready!"
William let out a sigh of exasperation but nodded, thinking to himself, "At least I haven't taken off the suit yet. Ready to go, Aura?"
A voice from within the suit responded with subtle excitement, "Confirmed, master!"
Without hesitation, William raced back the way he came, floating upward as a skylight opened to allow his swift exit from the base's protective confines. Rising above the city skyline, he surveyed the scene from above.
What he saw made his hair stand on end, and his eyes narrow into pinpoints.
The city that had just recovered from the meteor shower was now being overrun by hundreds and thousands of pink-eyed people, all reaching and clawing for the next scrap of flesh.
People naturally tried to fight back but were inevitably overwhelmed by the number and became one with the horde.
William's irises glowed with burning energy as he raised his hand and summoned his translucent, blood-colored longsword, which sat lovingly in his grasp.
In his other hand, flames erupted and extended from his fingers like claws, and with a valiant roar, William leaped into the fray like a bird of prey.
"HAAAAAAAYAAAAA!" William's roar got the attention of the pink-eyed infected nearby, saving a man who was fighting the infected people off with a bat from the top of a news van.
William's body smashed into the ground with great force, crushing the infected directly within the impact zone and sending the rest flying off in all directions, some smashing into walls with a wet crunch and others going through entire windows.
Sensing a potential Pulitzer on the horizon, the man in the news van, clearly a surviving news channel person, picked up the camera from his companion, who was now part of the horde, and began recording live.
"This is Rob Elgas, reporting live from the epicenter of the ravenous hordes that have overrun our once-lovely city. Bringing you the action as it unfolds, we now witness a rare and personal glimpse of one of the newest heroes stepping into the fray!"
As Rob narrated, William was already plunging into the seemingly endless hordes that instinctively steered clear of Rob, enabling him to document everything in complete silence, ensuring he remained undetected.
Terrified people huddled together in front of their muted TVs, relying on the closed captions to grasp the gravity of the unfolding chaos.
WHOOSH!
A fiery burst erupted from William's fingers, slicing through a zombie into several massive chunks before continuing its path through four more, finally dissipating in a wave of searing heat.
Suddenly, a pink-eyed zombie leaped from behind, aiming its gnashing jaws at William's neck. But before it could strike, a gunshot cracked through the air.
BANGx2!
The zombie's head disappeared in a cloud of red mist.
Conor emerged from the now-cleared entrance, twin hand cannons at the ready, his eyes gleaming with anticipation for the battle ahead.