We ran.
No time to scream. No time to think. Just feet pounding against the tunnel floor, breath sharp and frantic in our lungs.
Behind us—metal screeched, concrete cracked, and the creatures howled like wolves wired with electricity. The echo was deafening, the kind that burrowed into your chest and made your heartbeat stutter.
Zeke was dragging his leg, teeth clenched in agony. Elle was ahead of us both, flashlight bouncing wildly in her hand. Blood stained her shirt—Zeke's, not hers—but it didn't matter. Not now.
"They're gaining!" she cried.
I knew.
I could feel them in my bones.
Like they were part of me. Or maybe I was part of them.
No.
Not anymore.
A wall of pipes loomed ahead, broken and tangled—blocking our only escape route. We skidded to a stop.
Trapped.
"They're here!" Zeke shouted.
The creatures turned the corner—sprinting on all fours now, limbs lengthened, mouths stretching wider than human jaws ever should. The leader's eyes flared with a sick green light.
Elle raised her knife, trembling. "We die here?"
"No," I whispered.
I stepped in front of them.
The blood inside me boiled.
I didn't know how it worked—I never had. But I knew something lived inside my veins. A power born from mutation, forged in pain and silence. Maybe it was radioactive. Maybe it was evolution. Or maybe it was just… me.
I let it rise.
My skin pulsed with heat, light cracking across my chest like lightning under flesh. My vision blurred—but I saw them clearly. The monsters. The ones that chased us. The ones that wanted me.
They reached out.
I raised my hand.
"Burn," I whispered.
And the tunnel ignited.
Flames erupted in a surge of raw, crimson energy—not normal fire. It roared from my palms in a wave, crashing into the creatures like a living storm. Their shrieks shattered the air as they twisted and convulsed, their synthetic limbs melting, their skin splitting, their machines failing.
The heat scorched the walls, danced along the ceiling.
Elle and Zeke shielded their faces as I screamed—not in pain, but release. Pure fury. Pure instinct.
When it was done, silence fell.
Smoke choked the air. The creatures were nothing but twisted metal and ash.
I collapsed to my knees, panting, my hands steaming.
Zeke stared. "What the hell was that?"
"I… I don't know," I rasped. "But it listens to me."
Elle dropped beside me, breathing hard. She looked at the scorched remains.
Then something in her broke.
She shoved the knife aside and buried her face in her hands.
"We can't keep doing this," she sobbed. "We can't keep running, Allen."
I turned to her.
Her body shook with grief, fear, exhaustion—all of it hitting her now like a wave too strong to stand against.
"I just wanted to finish school," she whispered. "I just wanted to dance at graduation. I wanted a future."
I touched her shoulder gently.
"I know," I said. "So did I."
She looked up, eyes rimmed with tears and ash. "What if there is no future left?"
"There is," I said. "But it's not behind us anymore. It's through this hell. One step at a time."
Zeke sank down beside us, grimacing from his leg.
"I hate to interrupt this emotional moment," he muttered, "but you roasted those things like marshmallows. That power of yours? We need to talk about it."
"I don't understand it yet," I said honestly. "But I know this…"
I looked back at the smoldering corpses.
"They're changing. And so am I."
Elle reached for my hand, still trembling.
"We'll stay," she said softly. "But don't lose yourself to it, Allen. Please."
I gave her a small nod. "I'm still me."
But even as I said it, I wasn't sure I believed it.
The fire hadn't just killed those things.
It had felt good.
Too good.
And that scared me more than anything else in that tunnel.
---
Chapter: Whispers in the Firelight
For a while, we just sat there—three specks of breath and heartbeat in a tunnel of scorched death.
My hands still crackled faintly with leftover heat, glowing dimly like dying embers. Elle hadn't let go of me, and Zeke's silence was finally replaced with steady, if cautious, breathing.
We were alive.
But I couldn't shake the thought echoing inside me.
I liked the fire too much.
The way it obeyed. The way it lashed out when I called. It was more than just survival—it felt right. Like I was built for this end-of-the-world chaos. And that scared me almost more than the monsters.
"Do you think it's safe to move?" Elle asked softly, her voice hoarse.
Zeke grunted. "Safe's a myth now. But we've gotta go. They'll come back. Or others will."
I stood slowly, every muscle aching like I'd run through fire. "There might be another exit ahead. If this was an old transport tunnel, it has to lead somewhere."
"Lead to hell, probably," Zeke muttered, standing with a wince.
We packed what little we had—Elle's flashlight, the water bottle nearly empty, a flare Zeke had found in a broken supply box, and a dented map of the city's underlines.
As we walked deeper into the tunnel, the air grew colder, heavier. The walls were wet. Pipes above us hissed with leaking steam.
We followed a fading yellow stripe along the floor that used to mean safety.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
And then—
A soft, metallic tap.
Like nails on steel.
We froze.
"Don't," Elle whispered, stepping in front of me.
But I moved toward the sound, drawn to it like some invisible thread pulling me forward.
That's when I saw it.
A figure.
Not one of the creatures.
A person.
They stood still in the shadows, cloaked in rags and grime. Their face was half-covered by a broken gas mask. One eye peered through the cracked glass—glowing faint blue.
"You should not be here," they rasped.
Zeke raised the flare. "Who the hell are you?"
The figure didn't move. "You burned them."
I said nothing.
"You're one of the first, aren't you?"
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
The person took a step closer. I noticed the trembling in their arms, the twitch in their jaw.
"They said you were destroyed. But I see now—they hid you instead."
"Who?" Elle demanded. "Who hid him?"
The figure tilted their head, like studying me.
"Your blood… it's not just power. It's a key."
"A key to what?"
Their voice dropped to a whisper.
"To them. To all of them. You're not fighting the infected. You're waking them."
My stomach dropped.
"What?"
The tunnel suddenly shuddered. A deep, rumbling groan echoed from the earth below. Dust rained from the ceiling.
The figure began to back into the dark.
"They're coming," they said. "The ones beneath. The ones who sleep until you call."
"Wait!" I stepped forward. "What do you mean?"
But they were gone—swallowed by shadow.
The lights flickered once.
And from the far end of the tunnel…
Came singing.
Children's voices.
Soft.
Sweet.
Haunting.
"Ashes… ashes… we all fall down…"
Elle gripped my arm. "That's not real."
But it was.
It was real.
Because the ground beneath us cracked.
And something ancient began to rise.
---