Chapter 14:
Infection Bloom
The world didn't just split open. It unfolded like a grotesque flower blooming in reverse.
One moment, we were trapped between the abomination wearing Signal's stolen voice and the undulating wall of flesh behind us. The next, reality itself tore apart with a sound like ripping muscle. The air peeled back in jagged strips, revealing a yawning void that wasn't empty at all. It seethed with half-glimpsed shapes moving just beyond comprehension, their forms shifting between solid and smoke, between flesh and something far worse. The stench hit me first, coppery and sweet like rotting fruit left in the sun, with an undercurrent of scorched hair that made my eyes water.
Nia collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.
Her scream, raw and terrified, was abruptly silenced as her body hit the concrete with a sickening thud. Dust plumed around her, catching in the flickering emergency lights like golden pollen. I watched in horror as the network of black veins beneath her skin shifted hue, dark ichor giving way to a sickly crimson glow that pulsed in time with some unseen heartbeat. The light moved beneath her flesh like liquid fire, illuminating the delicate bones of her face from within.
"Nia!" My voice shattered as I dropped to my knees beside her, my hands fluttering uselessly above her body. Every first aid protocol I'd ever learned evaporated from my mind. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven bursts. It was too fast, and too weak. The chitinous plates of her mutated arm had retracted, leaving behind skin that looked almost human. Almost. In the erratic light, I could still see the unnatural sheen to it, like oil on water.
Sarin materialized at my side, his movements sharp with military precision even as blood dripped from the gash on his temple. His fingers found the pulse point beneath Nia's jaw, pressing hard enough to leave bruises.
"Pulse is erratic. Too fast." His voice was all battlefield calm, but I saw the way his throat worked as he swallowed. "Going tachycardic."
The whispers around us surged like a tidal wave, a thousand voices speaking in tongues that slithered against my eardrums. The thing that had stolen Signal's voice stood motionless, its blank face tilted toward the rift in reality as if in prayer. I didn't have the luxury to care.
My fingers tore at the medkit strapped to my thigh, the Velcro parting with a sound like bones breaking. The last stimulant injector rolled into my palm—half-empty, the blue liquid inside murky with age. My thumb found the safety cap, flicking it off with a motion born from countless drills.
"Not enough," Sarin muttered, eyeing the depleted vial.
I jammed the needle into Nia's thigh anyway.
Her body arched off the ground like she'd been electrocuted, tendons standing out in sharp relief along her neck. A choked gasp tore from her lips, her fingers clawing at nothing as the crimson veins beneath her skin flared brighter, pulsing in time with the sudden gallop of her heart. The light spilled from her pores, painting our faces in hellish shades.
"Come on," I whispered, my voice cracking. My free hand found hers, squeezing hard enough to grind bones. "Come on, damn you."
For one eternal second, there's nothing.
Then, a shuddering breath. Her eyelids fluttered like wounded birds.
She didn't wake.
But she was alive.
We dragged her away from the rift like soldiers retreating from a lost battle, her body a dead weight between us. Sarin found a side corridor. Narrow and half-collapsed, but blessedly free of watching eyes and whispering flesh. The moment we crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped twenty degrees, the sudden chill raising goosebumps along my arms.
I slumped against the wall, my legs shaking with adrenaline crash. The concrete bit into my spine through my jacket, a welcome anchor to reality. Nia lay between us, her breathing steadier now but still too shallow. In the dim light, I watched the crimson veins continue their slow spread, creeping up her neck in fractal patterns, branching across her jaw like cracks in antique porcelain.
Sarin crouched beside her, his face all sharp angles in the gloom.
"It's changing her." His voice was low, clinical. The tone he used when assessing a threat.
I swallowed against the bile rising in my throat.
"The infection?"
"Not just that." He reached out, hovering a finger over one of the glowing veins without touching. "Look at the pattern. It's not random." His fingertip traced an invisible path in the air. "See how the branches intersect? The angles?"
I leaned closer, my breath fogging in the cold air. He was right. The veins weren't spreading chaotically. They were connecting, forming intricate loops and intersections that looked almost like...
"Circuitry," I breathed, the word tasting like ash.
Sarin nodded once, sharp.
"Her barcode. The one HelixMed burned into her." His jaw worked. "It was never just an ID. It was a design. A fucking blueprint."
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. I remembered the way Nia had screamed when they branded her, the smell of burning flesh that had lingered in the barracks for days. They'd told us it was for inventory purposes. Another lie in an ocean of lies.
"They didn't just expose her to the infection," I said, my voice hollow. "They merged her with it."
As if in response, Nia twitched in her unconscious state, a low whine escaping her clenched teeth. The crimson glow pulsed faster and brighter, reacting to our words like a living thing. A drop of blood welled at the corner of her eye, tracing a slow path down her temple.
Sarin exhaled sharply through his nose, the sound loud in the confined space.
"She's not infected." His fingers flexed around the grip of his makeshift weapon. "She's hybridized."
***
Nia woke screaming.
One moment she was still—the next, her back arched off the ground, her mouth stretched wide in a soundless cry. The crimson veins burned to life, lighting up the corridor like a neon sign. The sudden illumination revealed every crack in the walls, every stain on the floor, and the way Nia's bones seemed to shift beneath her skin.
I lunged forward, grabbing her shoulders. Her skin was furnace-hot, the heat radiating through my gloves. Her muscles locked in agony, tendons standing out like cables.
"Nia! Nia!"
Her eyes flew open.
No whites. No irises. Just solid, glowing crimson.
When she spoke, it wasn't her voice.
It was theirs. A chorus of whispers layered over each other, some human, some anything but.
"She is waking."
Sarin recoiled, his boots scraping against concrete. I held firm, my fingers digging into Nia's shoulders hard enough to bruise.
"Nia, fight it."
Her head snapped toward me with unnatural speed. The glow in her veins pulsed, flickered—then dimmed. Just a fraction. Just enough.
When she spoke again, her voice was hers, but fractured, strained, like someone speaking through a broken radio.
"C-Catara..." Blood trickled from her nose, her ears. "It's in me. It's talking."
I didn't need to ask what it was. The truth was written in the veins beneath her skin, in the way the air itself seemed to vibrate around her.
The Mother of the Plague.
And She was using Nia to listen.
***
We couldn't stay.
The rift still yawned behind us, the whispers growing louder with every passing second. But Nia couldn't walk. Not like this. Not with whatever was happening inside her.
Sarin crouched beside me, his voice barely above a whisper.
"We have two options." His eyes were hard in the crimson light. "We leave her, or we carry her."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I stared at him, my mouth suddenly dry. "We're not leaving her."
"If she's turning into one of them—" His jaw tightened.
"She's not." My hands curled into fists, nails biting into my palms. "She's fighting it. And we're helping her."
A beat of silence stretched between us, filled only by Nia's labored breathing and the distant, wet sounds from the rift.
Then Sarin nodded once, sharp. "Then we move. Now."
He slung Nia's arm over his shoulders, hauling her upright with a grunt. She groaned, her legs buckling beneath her, but managed a stumbling step. Then another.
The corridor ahead was a mouth of darkness. The corridor behind was worse.
We moved.
And in Nia's veins, the crimson glow pulsed like a second heartbeat.
Growing stronger.
Growing hungry.
It happened between one step and the next.
Nia had been limping between us, her breath labored but steady.
Convulsion.
She tore free from our grip with unnatural strength, collapsing onto her hands and knees. A sound escaped her. Not a scream, not a groan, but something between, something that raised the hair on my arms.
Then the crimson veins erupted.
Light spiderwebbed out from her barcode in a single, terrifying second, branching across her skin like lightning across a stormy sky. Her back arched, her mouth stretching wider than humanly possible in a silent scream.
And then the sound came.
A frequency. A signal.
It tore through the corridor like a physical force, shattering the remaining light fixtures in bursts of sparks. Dust rained from the ceiling as the very walls shook. The whispers screeched in response. A cacophony of voices recoiling in what might have been pain, or recognition, or something far worse.
Nia collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
The crimson glow faded to embers.
Silence fell, heavy and suffocating.
Then, from the darkness ahead, we heard some footsteps.
Sarin raised his makeshift club, the rebar gleaming in the dim light. I gripped my knife until my knuckles ached.
Nia, barely conscious, whispered one word:
"Run."
But it was too late.
The figures emerged from the shadows.
Not husks. Not monsters.
People.
And their eyes glowed the same terrible crimson as Nia's veins.