District 103 Cleaning Center, Tech Support Division.
A tech sat in front of his monitor, munching on a bag of chips. The screen showed the inside of the A7 sewer. This place had a history—an aquatic contaminant outbreak happened here a while back. The demon hunters had already been down there about an hour ago. It was a simple Class E mission, and they’d wrapped it up in twenty minutes flat.
Now it was just the cleaners’ turn.
Everyone in tech support knew the drill. When demon hunters were on the job, you paid attention. But when it was just the cleaners, it was snack time.
He crunched down on another chip, texting his girlfriend with one hand while occasionally glancing at the screen.
Then, his hand froze mid-bite. His eyes locked on the screen.
The contamination levels spiked out of nowhere, forming a sharp peak on the graph.
Glitch?
But no, the numbers kept climbing. The contamination went from 30 to 40, then 50... oh my god, 70 ?!
Class D contamination.
The screen flashed in bright red letters: Class D. The alert blinked over and over.
Class D? Wasn’t this supposed to be a Class E?
Had the mission been misclassified from the start?
His chips hit the floor as the tech leapt to his feet, fingers flying over the keyboard. He ran the numbers again.
Still Class D.
Shit. He stood up so fast his chair clattered to the floor. We’re screwed.
Quickly, he switched over to the sewer’s live feed. Every cleaner had a camera in their helmet so HQ could track everything.
The screen shook wildly, a flashlight illuminating the dark sewer ahead. A fish-headed contaminant stared back at him.
It’s real. It's definitely real.
The tech immediately contacted the cleaner team. Just as he opened the public channel, a loud bang echoed through the feed.
Someone just fired a gun.
----------------------------------------
Sewer A7, District 103.
“We've got a live one! Requesting —shit!”
Daniel didn’t even have time to finish. The fishman was fast—way faster than a human. He was on them in a split second, closing the gap with terrifying speed.
“Clearance granted! You’re good to shoot!” Emma’s voice crackled through the helmet, her tone tense.
The second the permissions unlocked, I didn’t hesitate. I pulled the trigger. The gun roared, and even Daniel stood there, momentarily stunned.
The bullet shot out, hitting the fish-headed guy square in the face. The force snapped its head back 180 degrees, but...
It didn’t go down.
For two long seconds, the fish-headed guy just stood there, frozen mid-run.
Did I get it?
Ahahahahahaha...
A low, rumbling laugh filled the air.
Shit.
Slowly, it lifted its head. The center of its dead, glassy fish eye was blown out, blood gushing down its shattered face.
But it was still alive.
Unlike zombies, the head isn’t the weak spot.
That was my first takeaway. This thing wasn’t going down with a simple headshot.
Daniel finally snapped out of it, yanking his gun from his belt. He’d been a cleaner for over a year and a half but had never seen a live contaminant. His hands shook as he tried to aim.
“Cover me!” he yelled, unloading his clip into the fish-headed creature.
Bang. Bang. Bang!
The shots weren’t accurate, but they slowed the thing down. The fish head was mangled, and now monster's leg was half blown off, dragging behind it as it crawled forward.
Its body might’ve been wrecked, but the thing wasn’t stopping.
“You...know... where... the last...train... is?” the fish-headed guy rasped, crawling like some messed-up version of Sadako from The Ringu. Its scaly face twisted in agony.
It tilted its grotesque fish head, the scales peeling back. “I... missed... the last...train...”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Daniel looked like he was about to lose it. He fired wildly, emptying his gun without even thinking.
I aimed again, firing one more shot. The fishman twitched, spasming like it was glitching out. “The... last...train...”
“Is it dead?” I asked, gun still trained on the body.
Daniel, looking pale and shaken, muttered, “I...I don’t know.”
We both stared at the thing, unsure. Normally, when cleaners showed up, the contaminants were already dead. We were here to clean up, not deal with live threats.
Daniel was still rattled. No wonder he was acting weird earlier. He’d probably been on edge the whole time, sensing something was off.
I studied the fish-headed guy. It twitched occasionally but wasn’t moving anymore. “How long does it take for spores to appear after death?” I asked.
Daniel’s eyes widened in realization. “Right... they start showing up immediately once it’s dead. There aren’t any spores yet, so it’s still alive!”
Daniel raised his gun again, aiming shakily at the body. No spores, no life signs—just a walking corpse that wouldn’t stay down.
“It’s dead, but not dead dead,” I muttered.
This was my first day. Just half an hour of peaceful spore collection, and now I was in this nightmare.
“I’m supposed to be a slacker, not dealing with actual monsters,” I muttered to myself.
I turned to Daniel. “So... what do we usually do in situations like this?”
He looked defeated. “Wait for backup.”
I blinked. “Seriously?”
Daniel sighed, clearly just as frustrated as me. “Look, this stuff never happens. I’ve been at this for a year and a half, and I’ve never heard of a live contaminant after demon hunters cleared the site. Second, we’re not equipped for this. All the rules say to just sit tight and wait for backup.”
“Did you send a distress signal?” I asked, scanning the sewer.
“Sent it the moment that thing showed up,” Daniel replied.
No response.
He sighed again. “This is on me. If I hadn’t needed air, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Stop with the guilt trip,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Focus.”
Wasting time was pointless. We needed to come up with a plan, fast.
“Something’s not right,” I said, looking around.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, gripping his gun tighter, clearly expecting another threat.
“Where’s Emma?” I asked, frowning.
Emma had authorized the weapons earlier, but now she was silent. As the team leader, she should’ve been all over the comms, monitoring us.
Something was off.
“Did something happen to her?”
Daniel paled under his helmet. “It’s worse than that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Worse?”
“If Emma’s not answering, it means the contamination zone has expanded. We’re in the core of it now, and mental contamination has probably cut off the comms. Emma can’t reach us.”
He looked around, his voice speeding up. “We are now two garbage cleaners with no real gear. We are trapped herer. No one can hear us.”
His voice trembled as he took a deep breath, locking eyes with me. “Nina... we’re screwed.”
----------------------------------------
“Daniel? Nina? Respond!” Emma’s voice crackled through her helmet, but there was no reply.
The sound of gunfire had caught her attention while she was still collecting spores.
At first, she thought one of them had been mentally contaminated. When Nina had pulled her gun, Emma hadn’t thought much of it.
Emma knew the drill: contain the spores first. If they spread, the entire District 103 could be infected. Everything else came second.
But things quickly escalated. The comms began to flicker with static. Emma’s gut told her something was seriously wrong.
When Daniel reported a live contaminant, it clicked. This wasn’t just a cleanup mission.
Her worst fears were confirmed when she got the message from tech support. Somehow, in a rare, once-in-a-decade mistake, the mission had been misclassified. It wasn’t a Class E zone.
It was a Class D!
For demon hunters, that wasn’t a huge deal. They could handle it. But for the two rookies in there? They were screwed.
The demon hunters thought they’d cleared the area and left.
But in reality? They’d only cleaned up the trash at the front door. The real danger was lurking deep inside.
It would take the hunters at least half an hour to return. Every second in that zone was dangerous. Especially for Nina, the newbie.
Emma tried to reach out again, but nothing.
Silence.
She knew the Class D zone had expanded. Mental contamination was cutting off the comms.
She was cut off from them.
----------------------------------------
I took a deep breath, trying to keep my head straight. Can someone explain why my luck is absolute trash?
This didn’t feel real.
When Emily handed me my contract, she’d said I probably wouldn’t encounter any live contaminants. “No danger,” she had said.
Apparently, that was a “low probability event.”
During training, they didn’t teach us how to kill contaminants, only how to “pick cotton.”
Again, “low probability event.”
Even Daniel had said I wouldn’t need to fire my gun. You guessed it— another“low probability event.”
Now, all those low probability events were crashing down on me at once. Not only had I encountered a living contaminant, I had no idea how to kill it.
I used to fight zombies. Now, I had to figure out how to kill a fish.
Good news? I’ve got a gun, and the air bullets should last for a thousand shots, so ammo’s not an issue.
Bad news? The gun wasn’t enough to actually kill the thing.
I looked at Daniel. “How do you kill a contaminant?”
Back in the zombie world, the rule was simple: shoot them in the head, and they’re done. There had to be some rule here too. No way humans survived this long without figuring it out.
Daniel stared at me, clearly panicking. “I don’t know!”
The fish-headed guy's body twitched in front of us, and I sighed, frustrated. “Come on, think!”
Daniel ran a hand over his face, his nose bleeding from the mental strain. “You have to find the source. The contamination source.”
I tilted my head. “The source?”
“Yeah,” he said, trying to focus. “Every contamination zone has a core, a source that keeps it alive. It hides, tries to throw you off. You have to find it.”
Like a messed-up game of hide and seek.
I glanced at the twitching monster. There weren’t any spores yet. This thing wasn’t the source.
Great. So now I’ve gotta track down the real one.
“How do contaminants form, anyway?” I asked, trying to piece it all together. There had to be a pattern.
Just as Daniel opened his mouth to answer, a loud rumble echoed from the distance.
Boom.
The noise was so loud even Daniel snapped to attention.
Two bright floodlights switched on out of nowhere, and I squinted as my pupils adjusted to the sudden brightness.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Rolling slowly out of the darkness was an old train.
Wait... what?
We were in a sewer. No way a train could fit down here.
Everything looked... off. Gray mist swirled in the air, and suddenly, my vision blurred.
I blinked hard, and when I opened my eyes again, I wasn’t in the sewer anymore.
Above me, a flickering light hung from the ceiling. Beneath my feet, I stood on dirty, old tiles covered in dust.
A station platform.
What the hell just happened?
One second I was standing in a sewer, the next I was here, standing on some abandoned train platform. The fish-headed guy’s body hadn’t moved—it was still glitching out, repeating its “last train” speech on loop.
But everything around me had changed.
Rusty train tracks stretched out in front of me. And on the front of the train was a number: Metro Line One.
The last train for Metro Line One, and the sign on the front read 23:35.
So this is the train the fish-headed guy was waiting for?
The train slowly screeched to a halt in front of us, its metal doors sliding open like it was inviting us in.
Ding.
As it stopped, I heard a voice in my head.
System alert: You have triggered a side mission: The Missing Last Train of MetroLine One. Purification progress: 10%. Keep going.
What the hell did I just trigger?