The first thing to assault Caelan's senses was the smell.
It was a cloying, heavy scent, a foundation of rot and decay layered with the acrid tang of old smoke and something metallic and coppery that tickled the back of his throat. He coughed, a dry, rasping sound that echoed in the oppressive silence. His eyes cracked open, gritty and sore, and the world swam into a blurry focus of grey and brown.
He was lying on his side, his cheek pressed against the cracked, weed-strewn asphalt of what looked like a derelict parking lot. He pushed himself up, his muscles protesting with a dull ache. He was wearing his favourite clothes: worn-in jeans, a simple black t-shirt with a faded band logo, and sturdy walking boots. Mundane. Familiar. A stark contrast to the absolute desolation surrounding him.
The parking lot was vast, belonging to what might have once been a sprawling supermarket or a mall. The building itself was a skeletal ruin, its glass facade shattered into a million glittering teeth on the ground. Walls were blackened with soot, and a large section of the roof had caved in, leaving a gaping maw open to the bruised, overcast sky. Cars, rusted and weather-beaten, were scattered at odd angles, many with their doors hanging open like broken jaws.
Silence. Not the peaceful silence of the countryside, but a dead, predatory silence. No birds sang. No wind rustled through leaves, for most trees were bare, their branches like skeletal fingers reaching for a non-existent sun. The world felt… empty. Held in a perpetual state of waiting.
Caelan's heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum against the backdrop of quiet dread. "Hello?" he called out, his voice sounding small and fragile in the open space.
The only answer was the faint, whisper-soft scrape of something dragging against the pavement.
He froze, every nerve ending alight. He slowly, carefully, turned his head towards the sound. It came from beyond a row of derelict sedans. A shape emerged from behind a rust-pocked van. It was a man, or what was left of one. His clothes were shredded and stained with dark, dried fluid. His skin had a waxy, grey pallor, and one of his arms hung at an impossible angle, bone jutting through torn flesh. But it was his eyes that stole the breath from Caelan's lungs. They were milky, cataract-white, and utterly devoid of thought or reason. They were fixed on him.
The man shuffled forward, a low, guttural moan escaping his slack lips. Another figure emerged, then a third. A woman in the tattered remains of a business suit, her jaw hanging loosely. A teenager with a backpack, his face a canvas of dried blood and putrefaction.
Zombies.
The word slammed into Caelan's mind with the force of a physical blow. Not the fast, raging kind from some movies, but the classic, shambling horrors. The relentless, inexorable tide of death. His blood ran cold. This wasn't a dream. The grit under his fingernails was real, the stench of decay was real, and the approaching moaning horde was terrifyingly, irrefutably real.
Panic, sharp and blinding, seized him. He scrambled backwards, his boots slipping on loose gravel. His mind was a maelstrom of denial and terror. How? Why? Where am I? He was supposed to be in his apartment, scrolling through lore forums, debating the tactical viability of different Space Marine chapters.
The dead were closing in, their numbers growing as more shuffled out from behind cars and from the shadowy maw of the ruined store. Ten. Twenty. Maybe more. Their moans blended into a single, horrifying chorus. Caelan's back hit the cold metal of a car door. It was a dead end. He was going to die. Torn apart by mindless things in a world he didn't know.
And then, it happened.
As the closest zombie reached out with grimy, grasping fingers, the world stopped. The moaning ceased, the shuffling feet froze mid-scrape, a drop of putrid drool hung suspended in the air from the woman's chin. Everything was locked in a silent, grey tableau.
In the void of his mind, a new presence bloomed. It wasn't a sound or a sight, but a pure, conceptual understanding that flooded his consciousness.
[System Initialized. Welcome, Administrator.]
The text, a crisp, cobalt blue, hovered in his mental vision, superimposed over the frozen scene of horror.
[Threat Level Assessment: Critical. Environment Classification: Post-Apocalyptic, Undead Contamination (Standard Strain).]
[Administrator Vital Signs: Elevated. Adrenaline Spike Detected. Recommend Immediate Action.]
Caelan's panicked thoughts stuttered to a halt, replaced by dumbfounded awe. A System? Like in the stories?
[Initial Resource Grant Allocated. You have been awarded 100 Requisition Points.]
[Requisition Store Unlocked. You may now summon assets from the Armory of Man.]
A mental list unfurled, vast and overwhelming, but a few options glowed brighter than the rest, presented as primary choices.
[Available Summons (Starter Package):]
[Imperial Guardsman Squad (Cadian Pattern)]
Cost: 100 Requisition Points
Description: 50 battle-hardened soldiers of the Astra Militarum, equipped with lasguns, flak armor, and frag grenades. Loyal, disciplined, and effective in numbers.
Note: Requires leadership and logistical support for sustained operations.
[Adeptus Astartes Battle-Brother (Unassigned)]
Cost: 100 Requisition Points
Description: One transhuman warrior of the Adeptus Astartes, encased in Mk. X Tacticus power armor. Equipped with an Astartes chainsword, a Bolt Pistol, and a Cawl-pattern Bolt Rifle. Genetically engineered for war, a singular engine of destruction.
Note: Self-sufficient. Unwaveringly loyal to you as his supreme commander.
Caelan stared at the options, his terror momentarily forgotten, replaced by a surge of something else. A frantic, desperate hope mixed with the sheer, unadulterated coolness of it all. He was a fan. He knew what these titles meant.
Fifty guardsmen. A small army. They could form firing lines, set up perimeters. But he wasn't a commander. He didn't know how to lead men in battle. They would need orders, food, water, a place to sleep. They were mortal. They could be overwhelmed, torn down one by one.
Or… one Astartes.
A Space Marine. An Angel of Death. A demigod in ceramite, bred and built for nothing but slaughter. Eight feet of genetically perfected muscle and bone, wrapped in armor that could shrug off small arms fire, wielding weapons that fired miniature rockets. Against these shambling, slow-moving corpses? It wouldn't be a fight. It would be a cleansing. For immediate, overwhelming survival, there was no other choice.
I choose the Astartes, Caelan thought, focusing his entire being on the selection. Summon him. Now!
[Acknowledged. Requisitioning Adeptus Astartes Battle-Brother. 100Points Expended.]
Time resumed its flow. The zombie's fingers were inches from his face.
And then reality tore open.
A spot in the air ten feet in front of Caelan shimmered, distorting like a heat haze. The shimmer solidified into a blinding orb of golden light, which then imploded with a sound like a thunderclap and the sharp scent of ozone. In its place, something impossibly massive now stood.
It was eight, maybe nine feet tall. Its form was bulk and brutalist functionality, encased head to toe in thick plates of gunmetal-grey ceramite armor, unadorned by any chapter markings or heraldry. The only symbol was a stark, two-headed eagle—the Imperial Aquila—emblazoned on its chest. The helmet was a grim, beaked affair, its optical lenses glowing with a baleful crimson light. In one gauntleted hand, it held a bolt rifle the size of a mortal man's cannon. A heavy, blocky bolt pistol was holstered on its thigh, and strapped to its other hip was the brutal, saw-toothed form of a chainsword.
The air displaced by its arrival washed over Caelan, thick with the scent of machine oil and sanctified promethium. He could feel the sheer, oppressive presence of the warrior, a weight in the air that promised absolute violence.
Then, the impossible happened.
With a hiss of powerful servos and the resonant clang of ceramite on asphalt, the giant warrior dropped to one knee. It bowed its helmeted head before Caelan, the very picture of fealty and submission.
A voice, deep and resonant as a cathedral bell, crackled through the helmet's external vox-grille. It was devoid of emotion, a monotone of pure, unwavering duty.
"My Lord. I am yours to command."
Caelan's jaw was slack, his mind reeling. Before he could form a coherent thought, the Astartes' helmet snapped up. The red lenses swept across the parking lot, scanning the shambling horde that had, for a moment, paused in dumb confusion at the thunderous arrival.
A string of data-runes flickered almost imperceptibly across the warrior's lenses, visible only to Caelan as a faint overlay from the System. [Multiple hostiles detected. Classification: Tainted Flesh-forms. Sub-human. Threat: Minimal to self, Critical to Lord Administrator.]
The Astartes' head canted slightly, its crimson gaze locking back onto Caelan. The deep voice echoed once more, cutting through the rising chorus of moans.
"Threats detected. Permission to engage and purge the unclean, My Lord?"
The words snapped Caelan out of his awe. The zombies were beginning to shamble forward again, drawn by the new stimulus. The question hung in the air, a simple request from a weapon awaiting its trigger. Fear still coiled in his gut, but it was now overshadowed by the raw, unholy power kneeling before him. He was no longer the prey. He was the master of the predator.
He took a shaky breath, finding a sliver of resolve he didn't know he possessed. He pointed a trembling finger at the approaching dead.
"Permission granted," Caelan said, his voice stronger than he expected. "Eradicate them all."