[NEW MISSION: RESCUE OPERATION]
[OBJECTIVE: LOCATE AND SECURE LIVING SURVIVORS]
[DETECTED LIFE SIGNS WITHIN 0.8 MILES: 6]
[TIME LIMIT: 2 HOURS BEFORE CORRUPTION SATURATION]
[REWARD: +500 EXP, RANK ADVANCEMENT TO E]
[ACCEPT MISSION?]
Eli stared at the floating text, his mind was reeling.
Six people less than a mile away.
Two hours before corruption saturation, whatever the hell that meant.
He looked at the burning city. The screaming had dulled into a constant background noise.
'I can't save everyone.'
The reality felt clinical.
"Yeah. I accept," Eli said quietly.
[MISSION ACCEPTED]
[WAYPOINT SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
[FOLLOW THE MARKER]
A glowing blue arrow appeared in his vision, pointing northeast toward the residential area beyond the hospital parking lot.
Eli started walking.
*******
The streets turned into a graveyard.
Cars abandoned at crazy angles, with the doors left open and keys still in ignitions. People should have run and left the cars behind.
Eli passed a minivan with a child's car seat in the back. It was empty.
A body wearing a flannel shirt lay face down near the entrance gate of a nearby apartement. It was a male, maybe forty. There was a wedding ring on his finger.
Eli couldn't help to check his pulse.
The man was already dead, yet the body hadn't started glowing. But it would, eventually.
He didn't know how long it would take. The system hadn't given him a timeline for fresh corpses.
Eli kept walking.
A city bus had crashed into a fire hydrant, its water spraying everywhere, pooling in the gutter.
A police car sat empty, its lights still flashing, but the driver's door opened.
And so many bodies. Some were just lying here and there. The others were moving.
The system counted four corrupted souls within his surroundings.
[CORRUPTED SOULS DETECTED: 4]
[CORRUPTION LEVELS: 31%, 28%, 45%, 53%]
[ADVISORY: AVOID ENGAGEMENT UNLESS NECESSARY]
Eli could see them, shuffling around the street. One was trying to open a car door, pulling at the handle with jerky movements.
Three of them below fifty percentages. One above.
The one at 53% was a woman in a business suit, she was moving faster and more coordinated than the regular ones.
Suddenly, she turned her head toward him.
Her eyes were glowing brighter than the others.
And she smiled.
"Shit," Eli cursed.
She sprinted toward him at full speed.
Eli barely had time to dodge. Her claws raking across his shoulder as she blew past him.
'She's fast. Way faster than Jason Reeves was,' Eli thought.
Pain exploded through his arm.
He spun but she was already turning back.
She lunged again.
This time, Eli was ready. He side stepped, reached out with his mental grip, and grasped the soul inside her chest.
The soul was worse than Jason's. Hers was slippery and jagged, like grabbing a handful of broken glass.
Yet he held on, and pulled.
The revenant's soul fought him every step of the way, but he was stronger now.
He yanked hard and it ripped free.
The body collapsed and the corrupted energy rushed into him.
Mellisa Park. 34. Financial advisor. Died in the car crash.
Eli gasped as the memories dissolved into his mind.
[CORRUPTED SOUL CONSUMED]
[+150 EXP]
[HUMANITY INDEX: 80%]
She was already dead, and corrupted past fifty percent. There was no saving her.
The razionalization of him killing her came easier this time.
Eli sighed, and jogged forward, avoiding the other three corrupted souls. They were below fifty percent, so not aggressive yet.
'They are not my problem right now.' He hated how easily that thought came, but there was no way to avoid it.
[WAYPOINT UPDATE: 0.6 MILES]
The arrow pointed toward a residential street where most of the houses were dark. There was no fire here. Only a few houses still had power, maybe running on generators.
Eli followed the waypoint arrow to a two story house with a white picket fence.
[LIFE SIGN DETECTED: 3 INDIVIDUALS]
Eli approached the door and knocked.
"Hey! Anyone in there?"
Silence.
He knocked again, louder this time. "I'm not one of the corpses! I'm here to help!"
Still nothing, no answer came out.
Then, a muffled and scared voice sounded from upstairs.
"Go away!"
It was a young male's voice. Maybe a teenager.
"I'm not infected. I'm with—"
He stopped. How was he supposed to answer, he was with the system? That sounded insane.
"... I'm with the emergency service. I'm here to evacuate you," he lied.
"Bullshit!" the voice shouted back. "Everyone's dead!"
Eli grimaced. Fair point.
"Look," he said. "You've got maybe two hours before this whole area is overrun. I've got a safe route. You can either trust me or wait here and die."
Silence descended.
Then, the sound of footsteps running down the stairs could be heard.
Next, there was the sound of heavy furniture scrapped across the wooden floor.
The door opened in a slight crack.
Then a kid around sixteen, maybe seventeen—stared out at him with baseball bat in his hand.
Eli could see that his eyes were red from crying.
"You're really here to help?" the kid asked.
"Yeah. I am," Eli said.
The kid looked him over, saw the blood splattered on his white medical coat. And his eyes froze at the faint glowing blue around his hands.
"You're glowing," the kid said flatly and wanted to close the door.
Eli's hand instinctively held the door open. He looked at his hand pressed on the door, and saw the glowing blue.
'Shit.'
He totally forgot that he was also glowing.
"I-It's… complicated," he said, looking at the struggling kid that was trying hard to close the door uselessly.
"I'm not one of them. I'm still human."
"That's what they all say in the movies before they turn."
"This isn't a movie."
"No shit."
Eli sighed. "Look, kid. What's your name?"
"Marcus."
"Marcus. I'm Eli. And I'm telling you right now. If you stay here, you're dead. The corrupted souls are getting more aggressive. In a few hours, this whole neighborhood will be swarming. You want to take that chance?"
Marcus stared at him for a long moment.
Then slowly, he opened the door wider.
"There's two others," Marcus said. "My sister and my neighbor. Mr. Chen. He's old. Can barely walk."
Another Chen.