The hard concrete beneath Daniel’s boots felt like a blessing after the crawl down the elevator shaft. Every creak in the rope, every subtle shift in the root he’d anchored it to, sent tremors up his arms, the vibrations echoing in the shaft’s narrow chamber. Each sound had frozen him in place, heart thudding in his throat, braced for the moment the root gave way. If it did, he knew there’d be no saving him. No miracle herb or first aid spray would put his legs back together, assuming he survived the fall at all. With the weight of his gear, his chances were worse than slim.
But that moment never came. One agonizing step at a time, he worked his way down until his boots finally hit solid ground. The shaft walls of concrete and steel, surprisingly clear of overgrowth, stood firm around him. He leaned against the nearest surface, letting himself breathe. The rasp of his respirator echoed softly in the quiet. Sweat rolled down his spine, trapped beneath the seal of his mask, but he didn’t care. The climb down felt like it had taken hours, despite what could have only been minutes at most, and he enjoyed the feeling of solid concrete under his feet. That was enough.
The dim green of the glow stick below cast faint light across the floor as he looked around. His eyes landed on a torn hiking pack beside a shattered shotgun, both broken from the fall. The weapon was little more than splinters, its polymer frame burst apart, the barrel bent in a shallow curve.
The pack, though, was more interesting. Instead of the climbing gear he'd been expecting, it was filled with fragments of electronics; components he didn’t expect to see and barely recognized, and only then from the few books he'd studied on the subject. Wires and damaged circuit boards poked through the torn bag, all of it from the impact. They were lock bypass tools, homemade hacking devices, and other things he couldn’t identify. Definitely not what any normal hiker would carry. He crouched lower, picking some of the parts out, trying to piece together what it meant.
By then, he’d come to realize something far more significant had been going on here. This sealed it. Whoever had come before him hadn't been random or innocent. They had come with a purpose, and now they were dead for it. The whys didn't really matter though, at least not now. He needed the hows instead, and the question of how to get the power back on was the one that pressed the most.
He was about to stand when something caught his eye- a grenade, mostly intact. It had landed just outside the bulk of the gear, the metal scratched and scuffed but still clearly whole. That it hadn’t detonated on impact was a small miracle. He reached for it slowly, expecting damage, but the pin and spoon were still in place and the safety was tight. Looking at it, it was standard military issue, an M67 if he remembered right, roughed up but functional. He latched it onto his vest and stood, his eyes drifting back toward the sealed doors ahead.
They were heavy steel, thicker than the ones above, set into reinforced framing. A hand-crank stood off to the side, half-rusted and caked in grime, the teeth of the gear barely visible beneath layers of corrosion. He braced himself and started to turn it, but the mechanism gave no ground at first, frozen in place from years of disuse. He shifted his weight and tried again, every inch a brutal contest between seized metal and his own strength. The crank groaned, a high-pitched shriek of metal grinding against metal that echoed up the shaft like a scream.
The mechanism lurched, jerking in short spasms, and he had to throw his full body into each rotation. The muscles in his arms burned, his shoulders screaming with each movement. His gloves slipped once, the handle jerking hard enough to nearly throw him off balance. He reset his grip and forced the crank again, every slow rotation a battle. When the gap was finally just wide enough to squeeze through, he let the handle go and leaned against the frame, breathing hard before shouldering his way through into the space beyond.
The difference was immediate. The hallway ahead looked untouched by the rampant foliage that had consumed the hospital above. The floor was white marble, clean and smooth, its polished surface dull with time and dust. For the first time since entering the building, the scent of rot no longer clung to his throat, the air here sterile, dry, and almost cold. Some roots still lingered, thin tendrils hanging from hairline fractures in the ceiling, but they were sparse, and tiny, as though whatever force fueled the growth above had failed to take hold this deep underground. He cracked another glow stick and dropped it behind him, its dull light casting a weak incandescent trail back toward the heavy elevator doors. The silence pressed in closer now, broken only by the tap of his boots and the faint whine of his Exoframe’s servos. He kept his eyes moving, scanning corners and vents, but nothing moved.
The corridor split into an intersection with simple metal placards bolted to the walls. Straight ahead was the Generator Room, to the left was the Chemical Lab, and to the right was Chemical Storage. That was it? He stood still for a moment, frowning beneath the mask. After the barricaded elevator, after the infestation above, he had expected more. A full wing. Some sprawling complex. At least more signs of infrastructure.
But there was nothing. Just those three directions, and the emptiness between them. The minimap confirmed it, matching exactly what he saw with crisp digital lines. The Survivalist's info had been spot on so far, and the map he'd been given had been, barring the unnatural growth, largely correct as well. But this... it felt underwhelming after everything it took to get down here.
Daniel didn’t like it. The contrast was too stark. The transition from overrun chaos to untouched, almost sterile hallways felt artificial. Designed. Like he’d crossed into a place that shouldn’t be clean, but had been kept that way for a reason. He moved toward the generator room, feeling the tension crawl back in as he approached it.
The door to the room hung slightly ajar, and when he pushed through, he found himself staring at machinery on an industrial scale. The generator dominated the space, a massive gas-powered turbine array framed by tall, segmented control panels, junction boxes, and reinforced pipework. Dust coated everything except the intrusion point—where nature had forced its way in.
A large breach had torn through the concrete and rebar along the far wall, a yawning wound punched inward from the outside. From it, a mass of thick, fibrous roots and vines had spilled into the room like invasive veins, splitting open the concrete with the force of their growth. Jagged edges framed the breach, with remnants of rusted mesh and peeled conduit pulled apart like surgical incisions. The roots had coiled around the base of the generator, working their way up and around the turbine housing. Strands had slithered into the seams of the metal and down into the intake vents, threading through cable bundles and disappearing behind fused panels.
The entire system was choked with them. Some vines were no thicker than fingers, but others were as wide as a man’s wrist, their dark, rubbery surface oily to the touch. Where the roots had pierced deeper, the casings had begun to warp and crack from the pressure. The generator's readouts were dead, choked by sap-stained wires and fibrous buildup that had long since overwhelmed the ignition relays. He knew enough to know that it wasn't terminal, at least not yet, and the gears and assemblies were all in good condition, barring the invasive plants, but the machines would rip themselves apart if he tried to get them running like this.
“Always something.” He grumbled to himself as he examined the machine.
He'd need to disassemble the thing to clear it out, if it were even possible to begin with. He crouched, tracing one of the root lines back to its source, noting where it disappeared through the damaged wall. No chance of freeing it by hand. He could try hacking and sawing at it with his knife or his axe, but that would be largely pointless if he couldn't clear out the innards too, and for that he needed more than just his little multitool. He'd need a full kit.
A dark shape in the corner caught his eye. A boot, half-buried under debris. He followed the line of it and found a body jammed into a locker, limbs twisted from the forced fit. The corpse was dry and mummified, the skin stretched over bone, dressed in hiking clothes like the others he’d found, though this one wore a tactical vest under the jacket. He pulled the body free and laid it out on the floor. The man had been killed with a single, brutal strike, leaving a massive gash that had likely paralyzed the dead man. The axe wound split clean through his spine at the base of the neck. Whoever swung it had done so with monstrous strength, to get a cut that clean and that deep through not just the bone but the backplate of the armor.
The vest held nothing useful- no keys, no maps, and empty ammo pouches, but inside one of the jacket pockets he found a folded note. The writing was faded, but there was enough for his mask to transcribe it, even under the blackness of the room. Much of it was gone, nothing to be done about it, but not all of it, and what was there told him that there was more down here than he'd first thought.
‘LT says the scout team went quiet. Reported elevator down. Found an alternate path through SAC Patient Room ENE from ChemLab. Vent shaft is tight but should work. Access generator, get power back on. Need to reach 3F. Doctor’s orders.’
Worse, though, was a message scrawled in what looked like some kind of ink, black splotches against the red of his visor only hinting at the nature of the fluid. He suspected that it was blood, but there was no real way to know. The words were panicked, hinting of fear and anger, the scrawl messy, but legible.
‘Bastard lied about everything. Fuck Doc Sundaram. If you’re reading this, the gen’s starter turbine is locked up. Found out there’s a weed killer- uses Acetominol and Carcinodram. Designed to kill this stuff fast. Team’s dead. Big guy with an axe took them apart. Won’t go down even after a dozen mags. Good luck, you dumb fuck. Get out if you can.’
Daniel let out a slow breath and folded the note, sliding it into a pouch.
“Doc Sundaram,” he muttered. Not a name from the Survivalist’s files. Another ghost in the corporate machine, maybe one of the researchers behind all this. He looked back at the generator, the coiled roots black on red in the NVG's light, and felt the weight settle in his gut. He'd yet to see anyone with an axe, but knowing what he did, he didn't doubt it. These were trained men, soldiers, maybe, or mercenaries under the employ of this Sundaram guy. They'd come here for something, and whatever it was that they'd been looking for ended up killing them.
But that meant little, in the here and now. He'd only seen the dogs, the zombies, and the giant bugs. Nothing like what the note described, but Daniel would be on guard. And if this Axeman came calling, he would be ready.
He checked his weapon, the motion automatic, and turned toward the corridor. The Chemical Storage room would be his next stop. If the note was right, the herbicide, or whatever the hell they had used, might still be there. He took one last look at the body before moving on, the thought hanging in his mind as he disappeared down the silent hall, the echo of his boots fading into the dark, the sound swallowed by the weight of the underground.
Backtracking toward Chemical Storage, Daniel noticed the corridor changing in quiet, unsettling ways. The vines that had once clung lightly to the upper walls now hung in thick, pulsing coils, drooping from broken light fixtures and winding down the tiles like living veins. They stretched across the ceiling, dropped in clusters along the walls, and crept across the floor in a slick web of growth. Sap glistened on their surfaces, catching the light in greasy sheens. He moved carefully, keeping his steps light and precise, trying not to crush the vines beneath his boots. Every step echoed too loudly in the silence. The usual ambient creaks of the building and the buzz of dying lights had fallen away. Only the low hum of his respirator and the faint hiss of the Gridlink in his ear remained, the sound of his own systems standing stark against the suffocating quiet.
According to his map, the hallway should have been straight, but with each step, the alignment bent subtly, an almost imperceptible drift that curved his path. The minimap began to blink a soft warning, flagging the corridor as uncharted. He slowed his pace and swept his weapon light across the corridor’s walls. Where once there had been manmade stone, now there were bulges of gnarled bark and twisted roots, weaving in and out of the concrete like veins rupturing beneath skin. The floor had begun to rise in places, as though the roots beneath were shifting the foundation itself, tilting tiles upward and cracking the grout into jagged lines.
The shadows caught on a tangle of roots ahead, coiled and braided into a barrier that stretched nearly wall to wall. He approached slowly, reading the terrain, watching how the roots glistened faintly beneath their slick skins, some pulsing with unseen flow. Overhead, the ceiling tiles had collapsed inward, choked by descending vines that hung like nooses, brushing his helmet as he passed. He kept his grip firm on the weapon and stepped around the worst of the growth, knowing any mistake could send him tumbling over the root-choked floor.
No movement stirred. No groan or shuffle echoed from nearby halls. Still, the pressure of the place pressed down on him, the silence so complete it felt unnatural, like something waiting to break it. When he reached the door labeled CHEMICAL STORAGE, he paused just shy of it. His shoulder rose slightly as he scanned both ends of the hall. Then, crouching low, he reached for the handle and eased the door open, careful not to let it creak.
The HUD flared the moment he stepped through the threshold, screaming about traces of airborne toxins still present, flagged as remnants of long-expired industrial compounds. The alert blinked yellow, then orange, and stayed there. Whatever had once filled this space had lingered, trapped in stagnant air for God knew how long.
The room looked like it had been torn apart. Every metal rack was twisted or overturned, their joints buckled, shelves bent like they’d been stomped flat. Hundreds of glass vials blanketed the floor in a chaotic mosaic, shards scattered in layers across the tile like broken ice. Some of them had been crushed to dust beneath heavy boots. Others had burst where they’d struck the walls or corners. A few containers, half-embedded in the wall panels, hinted at how violently they’d been hurled.
Daniel moved forward, as the broken glass crackled beneath his boots, the soft crunch far too loud in the sterile stillness. His low-light visor painted the room in a dull spectrum of red and black, just enough to show the devastation without detail. What labels remained were soaked through or melted from the chemical slew. He didn’t know what he was looking for outside of a few fragmented names, and with nothing labeled and no containers intact, the search felt like the blind leading the blind. Even so, he kept moving, jaw set tight, eyes sweeping every shadow for what might have been spared.
It took longer than he wanted before he spotted a small metal cabinet trapped under a collapsed storage unit. One side of the heavy shelving had fallen against it, crushing the frame but leaving the lower drawer intact. The padlock on its latch was pitted with rust, but he'd had the foresight to bring the right tool for the job. He set the bolt cutters, squeezed, and the shank snapped apart. Inside, the shelves were mostly bare except for one container shoved far into the back. He reached in, drew it out, and scanned it with his HUD. The label was faded but legible enough to read the name: Carcinodram. Its hazard symbols were almost excessive. It was marked as a defoliant concentrate, corrosive to biological tissue, lethal on contact. A chemical base strong enough to eat through flesh. Perfect for what he needed, provided he survived using it. He slid it into the padded slot of his pack with care and sealed the flap.
He gave the hallway a second glance before stepping through, eyes scanning for movement, sound, or anything that didn’t belong. Still nothing, but the silence didn’t ease his mind.
The question pressed in: take the opportunity to double back to the Chemical Lab and look for the second compound there, or keep pushing forward and see where the deeper hall led. If the lab turned out empty, it’d mean a wasted trip. If this path yielded nothing, he’d be making the same walk in reverse. He weighed it for only a moment. Efficiency mattered more than convenience. If there was something ahead, he might as well find it first. Without another glance behind him, Daniel moved on.
The corridor beyond grew dense with growth. Roots as thick as his thigh wove together, forcing him to climb rather than walk. Every surface sweated with sap, sticky and hot through his gloves. The HUD blinked with warnings about the toxins in the air spiking, and organic particulates dense enough to clog his filters if left unchecked. His breathing stayed steady, though every drag through the respirator burned cold in his lungs. The source had to be close.
The roots ended with an unnatural precision, parting around an open doorway that framed something so alien it made Daniel pause. The room beyond pulsed with growth. What stood at its center had once been a tree, but now it was something twisted and obscene, its trunk rising thick and warped from the remains of a medical bed that had long since fused into the wall. The roots spread outward in a tangled sprawl, piercing the tile and cracking through the concrete below like bone breaking skin.
Every surface was smothered in vegetation. The walls bulged under veiny bark, the corners choked with hanging creepers. Clusters of wet, pulpy flowers clung to the growth, their petals thick and irregular, too fleshy in texture to be mistaken for anything natural. Some dripped with milky sap that wept in slow, steady drops from their edges, trailing down in rivulets that stained everything they touched. The roots throbbed with sluggish pulses beneath the growth, giving the illusion the entire room was breathing.
His HUD went wild. Warnings about airborne particulates stacked in red across his visor, indicating levels of toxic pollen so dense that it blurred even his low-light optics. He could see it: clouds of dust drifting like fog, coiling lazily through the air in thick, shimmering curtains. Each breath through the mask felt colder, harsher, as his filters fought to keep up. Even through his armor, the oppressive heat clung to him, a cloying, humid mass that soaked his undersuit and plastered it to his back and arms. He could feel the sweat running down his spine, collecting beneath his gear. His skin prickled and burned with exposure where holes had been cut in his gear, each itch a fresh reminder that this place wanted him dead.
He swept the P90 across the chamber. The entire space churned with subtle, sickening motion, floor to ceiling. The bed at the heart of it, the origin, if anything could be, stood like an obscene monument, nearly swallowed by the growth that had burst from it. Its frame was warped beyond recognition, but the silhouette was unmistakable. This had once been a patient’s bed, reinforced for long-term care, bolted to the floor like a final anchor.
Half-lost in the coils of root and moss, a thin clipboard hung from the rusted side rail. He knelt, carefully tugged it free, and wiped the thick film from the front. The tag, yellowed and stained, read: Dorothy Lester, Patient 0800314. The chart itself began with a standard admission; a woman in late-stage decline, suffering from an aggressive, multi-system cancer. Her prognosis had been fatal, her condition described as catastrophic, her body already collapsing before treatment even began. Daniel turned the pages slowly.
The earlier notes spoke of a last-ditch experimental miracle. A compound, T-JCCC203, administered in experimental dosages, began reversing the progression. Tumors shrank. Vitals stabilized. Cognitive function returned. The patient walked. Spoke. Laughed.
Then came the decline.
He kept reading, a sharp frown creasing his lips. Trancelike states and blank stares. Episodes of intense hunger. Deterioration of speech. Attempts to bite staff. A floral mass detected in the thoracic cavity, described as spreading outward through tissue that wouldn’t heal after surgery. The tone of the notes grew desperate. There were calls for greater restraint. A demand to isolate the patient, but orders from above clear in their refusal. The entries ended with a final notation, hastily scrawled, far rougher than the earlier ones.
"Patient has entered feral state. Has attacked three orderlies, leaving weeping injuries and bite marks."
This had been her room, he knew. Her bed. The root of the infection, the patient zero, but it wasn't the source. And now it was the heart of something grotesque. Whatever Dorothy Lester had become, whatever she'd birthed in her pain and madness, was still growing, consuming, and infecting this place like the cancer that took her.
He folded the pages carefully and slid them into his pouch. When he straightened, his eyes caught on a dull but unmistakably metallic object under the bed. Something metallic. He crouched, used his knife to clear away the roots, the blade scraping through layers of hardened resin. A canister lay buried there, its surface tarnished but intact. The stamped label read Acetominol. More warning icons, more toxicity notes, a chemical bio-reactant of some kind, an accelerator. It was what he had come for. He lifted it, felt the weight. It was full enough, and it joined its counterpart in his pack.
He almost didn’t register the shift in pressure, the whisper of air parting behind him, but his body moved before his mind caught up. Adrenaline hit like a switch. He threw himself sideways in a hard roll, just as the axe cleaved down with the velocity of a guillotine. It slammed into the hospital bed’s frame with a shriek of tortured metal, sparks bursting upward as the blade bit deep into the baseboard where his skull had been a breath ago.
Daniel was on his feet in the same motion, no pause, no hesitation. The P90 came up smooth and fast, muscle memory snapping into place as he squared his stance. His heart thundered in his ears. The shape in the gloom loomed higher, broader, rising like a wall with legs. It had come from nowhere, a sudden explosion of motion and violence, and even now his nerves screamed from the closeness of the call. The figure pulled the axe free with a ripping grind, and Daniel finally saw him clearly. Massive. Silent. Already stepping forward again.
The man, or what was left of one, was a towering abomination. Daniel was tall, built from months of constant movement, training, and practice, but next to this creature, he felt like a child. It stood easily seven and a half feet tall, its proportions grotesquely human, but stretched and exaggerated like some nightmarish sculpture of what a man might be. Its frame was corded with unnatural muscle, veined with bulging masses that throbbed beneath the skin. Not smooth or whole, but puckered and swollen in places, like tumors had bloomed beneath the flesh.
The creature’s skin looked like it had been boiled and cured in tar; thick, leathery, dark, and glistening with an oily sheen. Faint pulses of sap wept from open pores and cracks, the fluid running in slow trails down the cords of muscle like infected sweat. It radiated heat, a sweltering, oppressive warmth that fogged the already humid air around it, and Daniel could see how the airborne pollen seemed to cling to its body, soaking into the meat of it like a sponge. Whatever this thing had become, it fed on the rot in the air and gave back worse.
It wore no shirt, and its exposed chest was a slab of sinew and twisted bulk, marked with ridges that looked more like scar tissue than muscle. Only a pair of torn jeans and heavy boots covered its lower half. The most jarring feature, though, was the black executioner’s hood covering its head, a heavy, coarse cloth that hung low over the face and dripped with the same foul moisture that clung to the rest of its body. It hid whatever lived beneath, but the shape beneath the cloth hinted at something too large, too misshapen, to be human anymore.
“Back up!” Daniel’s voice came raw and sharp, echoing against the walls. The giant only pivoted, raising the axe again, silent and methodical. “I’m warning you, asshole! Back off!” he barked, but the creature didn’t so much as twitch in acknowledgment. The axe came down again, and Daniel fired.
Three rounds punched into the man’s torso. The sound was dull, wet, wrong. Instead of blood, thick viscous fluid burst from the wounds, oozing down the pale skin like oil. The giant staggered but didn’t stop, swinging again in a wide arc that carved through air with a shrill whistle. Daniel ducked back, boots sliding on the warped floor as the blade split through a medical cabinet behind him, scattering debris.
He fired again, controlled bursts, the P90 roaring as brass casings bounced off the tiles. The rounds tore into the giant’s arms, chest, even the hooded head, but it didn’t matter. The thing kept coming. The penetrators were working- he could see the tissue tearing, the sap thickening and darkening, but whatever regenerative thing was inside this creature made it shrug off pain like it didn’t exist. It was fast too, unnaturally so for something that size, every swing of the axe heavy enough to shear through steel. Daniel ducked and sidestepped, using what cover remained, feeling each blow rattle the walls and floor.
He slammed a new mag into the P90, the motion practiced and clean, and dropped low, aiming for the legs. The next burst hit home, rounds chewing through muscle and joint, sending the monster down hard on one knee. It still didn’t stop. Daniel’s mind screamed at him to move. He turned toward the hall, toward the tangled maze of roots, but the axe caught him mid-turn, the haft clipping his legs and sending him sprawling. He hit the ground, rolled, and looked up just as a massive hand closed around his neck.
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The grip lifted him like he weighed nothing. His boots kicked against the monster’s chest, his fingers clawing at the wrist as the pressure built. The cowl around his throat saved him from having it crushed outright, but only barely. The giant’s other hand came in low, a sledgehammer blow that slammed into Daniel’s ribs. Pain exploded across his chest, air blasted from his lungs. He tried to strike back, fists hammering at the arm holding him, but the next punch cracked against his armor and drove him half-senseless.
Desperation set in. His fingers scrabbled for his belt, finding the handle of his knife. He drew and drove the blade upward, burying it in the side of the hood. The reaction was instant. A sound ripped from the monster, an inhuman, metallic shriek that rattled Daniel’s skull. It dropped him and staggered back, clawing at the knife buried in its head.
Daniel hit the floor, gasping, his chest a firestorm of pain. He forced himself upright, half-stumbling toward the hall. The pounding of heavy boots followed him, closer with each step. He didn’t look back. He tore through the vines, shoving past them, scraping his arms against bark and resin as he went. His hand went to his belt again, found the grenade, yanked the pin with a desperate pull, and turned just enough to hurl it back into the room.
It hit the monster square in the chest.
Daniel was already diving through the roots when the grenade went off. The blast punched the air from his lungs, a heavy concussive thud that rolled down the hall like thunder. The shockwave slammed into his back, throwing him forward onto his hands and knees. For a moment, all he could hear was static in his ears. He pushed himself up, unsteady, the world muffled and spinning.
Then came the sound of splitting wood.
He froze. A wet, heavy chop echoed from behind him. Then another. And another. The thing was still alive.
“For fuck’s sake, what does it take to kill you!?” he shouted, half in disbelief, half in rage, forcing his aching body into motion again. The sounds of the axe grew closer, each strike steady and relentless. He risked a glance back and almost wished he hadn’t.
The creature was limping down the hall, each step dragging, but it refused to fall. Its chest was a crater of shredded flesh leaking that same green fluid. The hood was torn open, revealing glimpses of raw, pallid flesh and what looked like rows of teeth jutting through the skin. Fingers hung half-severed, the axe handle slick with its own ichor. Still, it came on, unbothered by its ruined leg or the chunks of its body missing.
Daniel broke into a sprint. The roots thinned, the air clearing as he burst through the last barrier of growth and stumbled into open ground. He hit the floor running, pushing through the pain, lungs burning. Whatever that thing was... Tyrant, mutation, or something worse, it wasn’t something he could finish here.
He needed space.
He pushed his battered legs into a sprint, boots pounding against the broken tile as he charged down the corridor. Every breath burned, every muscle screamed, but he didn’t slow. He reached the intersection and slid hard to a stop, his shoulder hitting the wall to bleed off momentum. Dust scattered under his heels as he braced against the corner.
He drew the Saiga from its sling and slammed home a fresh magazine of grenade shells. At this range, he could make use of the explosive fragmentation rounds without worrying about turning himself into chunky salsa in the process. Panting, he waited, knowing the juggernaut was only a few steps behind him, but as the seconds passed, he began to wonder where it was.
He waited. One second. Then two. Then five. The hall stayed empty. The silence returned, heavy and complete. He stayed crouched for nearly a minute, eyes sweeping every angle. No movement. No sound. The monster hadn’t followed. It was gone.
Cautious, he rose and started toward the Chemical Lab. He pulled the grenades and swapped for a magazine of slugs, knowing that if he had the misfortune of running into the giant bastard again he wasn't going to have the privilege of range. He certainly wasn't going to go hunting for him, anyway, but maybe, with some luck, he could get the generator going and get out of this concrete cesspit once and for all.
The walk back to the Chemistry Lab was silent, the halls once again clear of vines and creeping growth. The stillness felt wrong after everything he had seen, but Daniel took it anyway. The red-tinted wood and fleshy, pulsating vines had vanished, leaving bare tile and peeling paint, yet it didn’t feel like relief. It felt like the eye of a storm, a pause before the next break of chaos. He kept his steps light, the weight of the silence pressing on him from all sides.
The Axeman’s disappearance gnawed at him the entire walk. That thing wasn’t human, and it sure as hell wasn’t dead. Something that big, that strong, didn’t just disappear without a trace. It meant he was still out there, watching, waiting for the right moment. The thought sent a crawl up his spine. His grip on the shotgun never loosened, his finger resting along the guard, ready to fire at the first wrong sound. Every echo of his boots bounced back in uneven rhythm, setting his nerves on edge, each one sounding a little too heavy, a little too close. He scanned walls, the ceiling, and the shadows between flickering fixtures for any sign of motion, half expecting the hulking figure to crash through the next corner, axe raised and silent as death.
He couldn’t let himself relax. The absence of noise didn’t mean safety, it meant the monster was being quiet too. He’d learned enough in the last few hours to know that the most dangerous moments came right before everything went to hell. The corridor ahead stayed empty, but the unease clung to him like a second skin. Whatever the Axeman was, it had vanished on purpose, and Daniel had no doubt it would return when he was least ready.
The Chemistry Lab at the corridor’s end was larger than he expected, its walls lined with equipment that looked decades ahead of what most public hospitals could afford. Dust and cobwebs dulled their edges, but the design was unmistakably advanced; sleek control panels, precision instruments, sealed containment hoods, and analysis terminals that gleamed faintly beneath layers of grime. Half the consoles still bore Umbrella logos etched into their plating, reminders of money and secrets that had once flowed freely down here. It was like walking through a forgotten vault of technology, a buried fortune left to rot.
The space itself seemed untouched by the corruption that had swallowed the rest of the building. No vines clung to the walls. No fleshy growth reached through the ceiling vents. Even the floor tiles here were clean, as though the infestation hesitated to enter. He stepped through the doorway, weapon raised, sweeping the room out of habit, but nothing stirred. Rows of dormant machines sat silent, their displays lifeless but oddly imposing in the stillness. The smell of dust and disuse lingered in the air, cold and sterile in a way that almost felt defensive.
The more he looked, the more the place felt wrong... like it was too intact, too preserved. If the growth was avoiding this place, there had to be a reason. He filed that thought away and moved toward the back wall, where something more practical caught his attention: a line of weed sprayers and a manual mixing rig bolted to the counter. Beside it, a paper note had been taped to the surface, the edges curled and brittle with age. It fluttered slightly as he passed, a ghost of movement in a room that otherwise refused to breathe.
He peeled it free and read the instructions scrawled in a hurried hand: four parts Acetominol to six parts Carcinodram. Hand-crank to mix. Pour carefully. Avoid skin contact. Don’t inhale. Don’t drink. That last one made him pause for a second. He couldn’t help a short, humorless snort behind the mask. Had someone really been dumb enough to try? The warnings were underlined several times, as if the writer knew exactly how bad it could get. Looking around, Daniel saw the proof of that, the empty containers of both chemicals scattered near the wall, streaked with dried residue and melted plastic. Someone had made a lot of this stuff, and judging from the stains on the floor, had spilled plenty too.
He checked his supplies, measuring what he had left. It was barely enough, if the ratios were right. The crank mixer resisted him at first, old metal grinding against old metal, but the rhythm came back fast. The smell of chemical sting filled the air, burning faintly through the filter of his mask. Ten minutes of steady cranking later, the mixture settled into a thick, off-white sludge. He poured it into the sprayer’s reservoir, the liquid swirling as it filled. When he was done, the tank was nearly full. Plenty for the job ahead.
He kept his shotgun ready as he stepped back into the hallway. Nothing. The quiet had weight to it, like the air before a thunderstorm. The Axeman was nowhere to be seen, and Daniel wasn’t about to waste the reprieve by lingering. He moved back toward the generator room, the halls feeling longer and more foreboding than before now that he knew what was hiding in the shadows, and thought his night vision let him see further and clearer than any flashlight, it didn't change the fact that there was still a long stretch of unforgiving dark ahead of him.
When he reached the generator room, Daniel paused at the threshold. The space opened wide before him, lined with heavy industrial machines locked inside their steel cages. Massive vent pipes ran along the ceiling, dripping condensation that hit the floor with rhythmic taps. The generator units stood in a long row against the far wall, each one the size of a small car, painted in dull green and gray, their surfaces mottled with rust.
Daniel swept his visor across every shadow, waiting for the movement he feared. Nothing. Only the faint echo of dripping water and the quiet sigh of air moving through vents. Even so, his heart stayed tight in his chest. He knew the quiet was just an illusion, the peace a trick meant to lure him into complacency. He took a slow step forward, boots crunching against the grit and scattered debris, until he stood beside the largest of the machines.
He set down the sprayer and examined the controls, his gloved hands brushing away dust to reveal labels and dials. The gauges were intact, the main fuel line still connected. A few levers had seized with age, but the system looked salvageable. It reminded him of his own generator back at the factory, though this one was ten times the size and built to power an entire facility. The familiarity gave him a focus he hadn’t realized he needed.
He primed the system carefully, checking the valves, tapping the gauge glass, ensuring no pressure buildup. Then he lifted the sprayer and began coating the machinery. The reaction was immediate. Wherever the mix hit, the roots shriveled and died, collapsing into brittle husks that snapped apart under their own weight. The fleshy vines turned black, curling inward like burned paper. It was satisfying to watch, seeing the infestation retreat for once instead of spread. It took nearly all of the chemical mix to clear out the machines in their entirety, though, which was a shame. He'd have loved to take it to some of the overgrowth upstairs.
When the last of the growth fell away, he gave the controls a cautious tug. The starter cranked, the rotors spun, and the old generator came to life with a deep, steady hum. The gauge read a third of a tank left- enough power to get the hospital running for the next few days, though Daniel had no plans to stay that long.
He adjusted the load controls, balancing fuel draw against output until the meters hit the safe zone. It was old hand to him, while the ratios were much larger and more in depth, the system itself was familiar enough. When everything was in the green, he pressed the main switch. The generator roared. Lights flickered overhead, sputtering to life one by one until the hallway glowed under the harsh white of aged fluorescents. His visor’s low-light mode disengaged automatically. For a brief second, the sight of working lights made the world seem almost normal again.
Then he heard the scrape.
At first, it was just a faint rasp, like stone dragged across steel. Then it grew sharper, closer, the pitch rising until it grated in his teeth. Daniel turned, ready, his reflexes crisp, the shotgun snapping up in a single practiced motion. Down the hallway, framed by the flickering light, the Axeman emerged from the haze. The hulking form moved with terrifying calm, each step heavy enough to rattle the tiles. The axe’s blade scraped along the wall as he walked, throwing sparks in short, angry bursts that flashed against the ruined paint. There was no rushing, no hiding, only deliberate menace with each massive step. The bastard wasn’t stalking anymore. He was making a statement, declaring that he was coming, and nothing Daniel could do would stop it.
Daniel squared his shoulders. “Not this time,” he muttered, finger tightening on the trigger.
The first slug hit like a hammer, punching into the monster’s shoulder with a thunderous crack. For the first time, Daniel saw it stumble. The second shot took it in the chest, the third low in the gut. The recoil slammed through his arms, deafening against the hum of the generator. He aimed for the head next, but the Axeman raised an arm in defense. The shot blew a ragged hole through the forearm, sap spraying in a fan across the floor. The last slug tore through the creature’s palm, sending two fingers spinning into the dark, but it didn't seem to care or notice.
Daniel slammed a new magazine into the Saiga, chambered a round, and lifted the barrel again, but the Axeman was already there, having closed the distance with deceptive speed. The world shrank to a blur of motion and sound. Daniel dove sideways as the axe swept through the space where he had stood, the blade smashing through a metal locker and burying itself deep. He scrambled up, firing blind to force distance, the slug punching into the wall and sending a spray of concrete into the air.
The next swing came low. He jumped back, nearly losing his footing as the blade carved a crescent through the tiles. The Axeman pressed the advantage, driving him toward the generator. Daniel realized the danger instantly. One bad hit there, and the explosion would tear them both apart.
He charged instead, shoulder-checking the monster with everything his armor could give. The exoframe whined under the strain, servos straining as he drove into the mountain of muscle and bone. The impact was like hitting a wall, but it worked! The Axeman staggered, sap spraying from ruptured wounds across Daniel’s arm. The axe caught him on the backswing, scraping along his gauntlet hard enough to make the steel shriek, but he stayed upright.
Daniel turned and emptied the last of the magazine into the thing’s torso. The slugs tore open the chest cavity, sap and tissue spilling out, but the Axeman only raised his axe and kept coming. It was too much. He let the shotgun drop and drew the P90, switching to full auto. The weapon’s report filled the hall, a stream of armor-piercing fire chewing through the monster’s hardened hide. Chunks of resin armor shattered off, revealing pulsing veins beneath.
He backpedaled fast, eyes flicking to the elevator at the end of the hall. The power light was on, it worked, but the small display showed it was being called from the third floor. He wasn’t getting out of here yet. The realization hit like ice. He’d have to slow the bastard down, buy himself the time it would take for the car to reach this level.
He fired in controlled bursts, pacing backward as he laid suppressive fire across the Axeman’s chest and shoulders. Each step he took sent sharp pain through his bruised ribs, but he kept his footing, refusing to fall. The monster advanced with methodical certainty, every step faster than it should have been. Daniel could already hear the faint groan of the elevator cables, but it was too slow. He needed more time.
He shifted his aim, targeting joints and weak spots, trying to cripple the monster’s leg and force it to stumble. The recoil rocked through his arms as he fired, the hallway shaking with gunfire. When the elevator indicator finally flicked from two to one, he risked a glance back, seeing the doors just beginning to part. He slammed his hand against the call button again, as if it would speed up the elevator, and he turned and loosed the last of his rounds to keep the creature at bay.
When the P90 clicked empty, he let it fall and drew the Jericho, racking the slide with a snap. Each shot echoed like thunder, the rounds hammering into the Axeman’s chest and side. The monster slowed, steps faltering under the onslaught. Another shot. Another. The beast finally dropped to one knee, then both. Its axe hit the floor with a heavy clang, and the creature collapsed.
Daniel stood there, breathing hard, muzzle still aimed at the body as the elevator chimed behind him. The doors slid open, revealing an emaciated corpse slumped in the corner, another dead mercenary, skull exposed to the air.
He stepped toward it, keeping his aim steady, eyes flicking between the corpse and the downed Axeman. The body pulled his attention for only a moment; a flicker of hesitation, to identify the corpse as a non-threat, but that single second of distraction was all it took.
A sound broke the silence.
Concrete scraped behind him.
Daniel spun just in time to see the impossible. The Axeman, rising again, one ruined leg braced against the floor, the rest of him dragging upward, eyes burning behind the shredded hood, slowly rose as if the horrific damage Daniel had put into him were just a minor inconvenience.
Daniel didn’t think. He lunged backward into the elevator, hand slamming the close button. The doors began to slide shut just as the monster rose to full height, its ruined face framed in the gap. Two yellow eyes locked on him through the narrowing space.
The last thing Daniel saw before the doors sealed was the silent, implacable killer, stepping forward, hand wrapped around the haft of his axe.
000
It had been more than an hour since Alyssa had lost the Axeman, and though the absence of that lumbering monster should have been a relief, it offered her no real comfort. If anything, its sudden vanishing unsettled her more than its presence ever had. Something that big, that violent, didn’t just disappear. Her nerves were fraying thread by thread, her thoughts pulled taut by the silence that had settled in its wake. The quiet made everything worse. Without the looming thunder of the Axeman's steps, the other horrors became sharper, clearer. The plant-men had multiplied, their diseased silhouettes now haunting every hallway, moving with eerie patience as if drawn by scent or sound. Their footsteps whispered wetly over the ground like burlap soaked in filth, their rattling breaths leaking into every inch of space.
Alyssa’s pistol, once her last semblance of power, had gone dry two hallways ago. She hadn’t even been a good shot, never had been, honestly, but it had helped her believe she might get through this. Now, it was a dead weight in her holster, a useless relic of optimism. Every step she took felt heavier, and every turn she made led her deeper into this maze of infection and rot. Her hope, once a flicker in the dark, was sputtering. She was beginning to wonder how she’d ever thought this was survivable. That she could make it through. The truth was clawing at the edges of her thoughts, whispering: this was a mistake. Coming here was a mistake. Thinking she could fix things was a mistake. Now, she was just meat, running on fumes, waiting to be caught.
They had pushed her back room by room, sealing off every escape route like a growing, hungry tide. On their own, the monsters were little more than shambling corpses. But in numbers, they moved with an unsettling unity; fanning out, cornering, and corralling her like livestock. Each encounter chipped away at her energy, her resolve. Their movements felt planned, like they could anticipate her next step. Doors she’d used earlier were blocked now, passageways clogged with clusters of the shambling dead, their bloated bodies pressed tight against the walls, cutting off routes she’d once used to slip away unseen.
Her body was a ruin. Filth streaked her face, sweat and grime soaked her hair, and her limbs throbbed with fatigue. Her jeans were torn across the knees and thighs, blood drying in tacky rivulets against her skin. The cuts along her arms stung with every motion, layered with dust and whatever spores drifted through the air. Her lungs burned with every breath, the cloying, rotting stink of the building settling into her chest like cement. Every muscle screamed, her legs shuddering each time she forced them to move. Her mouth was dry, her stomach a hollow knot of nausea and hunger. She had nothing left but sheer terror driving her. No time to rest, no place safe enough to just stop for a moment and catch her breath.
Her lungs screamed as she stumbled onto the second floor, gasping for the sickly-sweet air that stung her throat and made her head swim. Behind her, the slow shuffle of the plant-men grew louder. The first floor had become a deathtrap, with every stairwell, every hallway swarming with them. She had barely escaped their last surge, but only for a moment. She pressed her back to the wall, panting, knowing that it was only a matter of time before they started filing up the stairwell.
Then something changed. A faint hum stirred through the air, subtle but growing, followed by a soft vibration underfoot that trembled through the tiles and up her legs. Her breath caught. Overhead, a bank of fluorescent lights sputtered to life, dim at first, but steadying with a faint buzz. For the first time in what felt like forever, the dark didn’t press against her from all sides. The building, long frozen in shadow, was alive again. The power was back. Somewhere, somehow, someone had managed to get the generator running.
The light came as both salvation and curse. The flicker revealed what she had been stepping over in the dark, the things she had tried not to think about. Rows of pods lined the hallway ahead, a dozen of them, half fused into the walls and floor. In the darkness, they had been little more than shapes. Now, under the pale fluorescent glow, they became nightmares made visible. Each pod was translucent, filled with cloudy liquid and shuddering from what was trapped inside. Human shapes. Bodies, suspended in twisted fetal poses, their flesh half-concealed by the root systems crawling across them.
Alyssa froze, staring in disbelief as the first one twitched, then another. A dawning horror wrapped around her heart as she realized the nature of what was about to happen. The light had woken them, stirring them in a way her simple stumbling hadn't been able to before.
The pods began to shift, their membranes splitting with slick, tearing sounds. Vines slithered out from within, glistening in the light. Fingers, thin, colorless, and veined with green, pressed outward against the skin of the pods, pushing until the surface split apart. The smell that rolled out made her gag, a sweet rot that clung to her tongue. The sound became overwhelming, the chorus of wet tearing and the first hoarse breaths of the things inside blending into one unbearable crescendo. Her pulse hammered against her temples, and she could feel the panic rising in her chest, heavy and choking.
She turned to flee, glancing back toward the stairwell. A mass of crawling bodies blocked the way down. There was no going back. Her heart slammed against her ribs. The only way forward was through the gauntlet of pods. Her legs trembled, muscles screaming as she forced them to move.
“Move, move, move,” she whispered to herself, and ran.
Her boots slapped against the tiles, each step echoing like gunshots in the narrow hall. The pods burst open around her as she passed. One of the creatures spilled out in front of her, its body stretched and dripping with green resin, its face half-dissolved and crowned with blooming petals where eyes should have been. She barely managed to vault over it, landing hard and nearly slipping on the slime that coated the floor. The air filled with the wet smack of limbs dragging themselves free, the shrill creak of vines scraping tile. The din surrounded her, drowning out even the sound of her own breath.
Seeing them was almost worse than the mystery of the darkness, those emaciated, wet, oily bodies in ragged clothing that squished wetly with every move, the bodies of what had once been people twisted into sickening mockeries of people. Tendrils lashed out from behind her, clawing at the air, shrieking as they scraped against the walls. She veered away from one, ducked under another that whipped down from the ceiling, and ran harder, lungs on fire. A corner loomed ahead, and with it a desperate hope to shake them. She threw herself into the turn, praying for a clear path. But what she saw sent a spike of cold terror straight into her chest.
Ten feet ahead was a wall. A security door, made of solid steel, no handle, no window. A red light blinked above the panel. It was locked. Panic surged. She slammed her hands against the wall, searching for a button, a lever, anything. Nothing. Only a card reader whose card was probably either consumed by the growth or hanging off of one of those walking nightmares that chased her. Behind her, the plant-men were closing in, their shuffling steps gaining speed. She could hear their collective rasp, like leaves dragged across the asphalt but a thousand times worse. Her legs burned, her lungs on fire, her heart screaming for air.
“Come on, come on, there’s gotta be something!” she hissed, pounding her fists against the unyielding door. There was nowhere left to go. No closets. No open rooms. No vents wide enough to crawl through. This was it.
Her strength broke. She sagged against the door, chest heaving, the edges of her vision pulsing. She could hear them now, close enough to smell the wet, green rot clinging to their bodies. A sob slipped out before she could stop it. She didn’t want to die like this. Her mind flickered with flashes of home- her apartment, her desk, her mother’s voice on the phone... and then the sound of footsteps dragged her back into the present.
Then, a sound, soft but definite, grabbed her ear from the other side of the door. The sound of heavy boots, the ring of some kind of machine, and... fuck! She could barely hear it.
Alyssa held her breath, pressing her ear to the cold metal. There. A muffled clank. A thud. Someone, or something, was there. She slammed her fist against the door, voice breaking as she screamed, “Help! Please! If there’s anyone there, help me!” Her cry dissolved into a sob. No answer came. No reply. The noises beyond could have been anything. The shuffling behind her grew louder, the nearest corpse stretching a vine-covered hand toward her.
And then, the door hissed.
The hydraulic lock disengaged with a mechanical groan. The panel slid open behind her, and she stumbled through the threshold. A hand, heavy and gloved in black metal, clamped around her shoulder and yanked her back. She hit the ground hard and stared up in shock.
A figure filled the doorway, armored from head to toe in matte plating that caught the new fluorescent light in dull streaks. A full-face helmet with a red monolense turned toward the hall. The voice that came from within was distorted, cold, but unmistakably human. “Get back.”
The sound of the weapon firing was deafening. The armored figure’s rifle barked with the roar of thunder, the muzzle flashes strobing across the hallway as three of the plant-men fell before they could reach the door. The smell of burnt powder filled the air, the cordite a welcome change from the vomit-rot that pervaded her senses. The figure fired again, two more shots, each sending a plant-man stumbling back. He moved back, slipping past the closing door at the last second, before putting his weight against the heavy door, pushing it all the way shut.
The door locks snapped closed with a heavy clang, cutting off the hissing, wheezing cries of the zombies and the scraping outside. For a moment, there was only silence as the soldier, because that was what he had to be, pulled the magazine from his gun and slipped it into a pouch, drawing another from his rig and loudly slapping it in. He watched the door, making sure it wasn't going to give way, before turning to look at her.
Alyssa sat where she had fallen, gasping, trembling, her ears still ringing from the thunder of the gunfire. She stared up at the figure looming above her, stunned into stillness. He looked like something dragged out of an action movie fever dream, a monolithic silhouette of black and gray steel. His body was wrapped in segmented matte armor, thick overlapping plates shielding his chest and shoulders like an exoskeletal shell. The heavy vest bulked out his frame, layered with pouches, magazines, and strange, unfamiliar tools. His arms were encased in articulated gauntlets, cables running from them like something straight out of sci-fi.
A massive tactical helmet sat atop his shoulders, its rounded top made of the same dark metal as the rest of his armor, a deep red monolens glaring from the faceplate like the eye of some unfeeling machine. His breath wheezed and hissed with artificial air, and a low hum emanated from somewhere within the helmet’s guts. A compact, sleek submachine gun hung from his shoulders, pulled tight to his chest, the strange top-mounted magazine showing rows of bullets, and in his hands he still held the shotgun, something brutal and box-fed, the barrel still smoking from the ear-splitting discharge.
His waist bristled with gear: a full-sized pistol, extra magazines, a sheathed axe, what looked like grenades, and a tangle of cords and unfamiliar devices. Even standing still, he looked dangerous. The bulk of him seemed to fill the hallway, the armor giving him a massiveness that made her feel like a child by comparison. All of it, from the bottom of his boots to the strange camera on his helmet told her only one thing though. Whoever this was, whatever they were here for, they had come far, far better prepared than she had.
It was then that he addressed her, and his voice was as coldly modulated as the rest of him, as he stared down at her with unreadable eyes. The question was as incredulous as she'd ever heard, though, and it almost made her laugh as he asked her with no small amount of gobsmacked shock in his voice.
“Where the hell did you come from?"
