Chapter One:

David Cypress

Location: SafeHaven (somewhere in former New Mexico)

South wall special housing, fifth floor

Time: 23:37

Date: 7th of October, 2147

David took a wide swing at the undead figure in front of him. His blade seemed to morph in the air as he swung it. Was it an axe? A sword? An improvised weapon? It didn’t matter.

His mind was focused entirely on his zombie assailant. For the moment, there was nothing but David and the monster he fought.

Its hideous face was so pock-covered and torn, its features could barely be described as human. Its eyes were a deep oily black, almost alien in appearance. Strips of necrotic flesh peeled off its face like aged leather. It was completely covered in wounds that did not bleed or ooze. They had hardened long ago into dark leper-like scabs.

David’s arms felt lead-laden, as if his body was moving through water. Gasping voices cackled at him as he managed to split his assailant’s skull in two with desperate effort. His swing was uncharacteristically slow, but still effective. His assailant’s body crumpled into a heap and viscous darkened blood pooled lethargically below.

Countless other undead were upon him now, the horde seemed endless.

David’s body was paralyzed. He couldn’t feel his breath, was he breathing? Panic flooded his body and tainted his blood like a red-hot disease.

His killer instinct, his passion, his rage... Gone. There was nothing left. He was an empty shell, save for that infectious fear.

As the undead closed in, their moans became unified. Slowly... collectively, they reached for him, eager to tear at his flesh. Their moans morphed into bursts that slowly grew higher-and-higher pitched.

Terror clawed at David’s stomach as he recognized he could do nothing. Soon the clawing at his stomach would be literal and visceral. He could no longer use his eyes to look around, or swivel his neck to see. He was left only with the feeling of figures in his close proximity. Hands reaching, mouths salivating.

Filthy fingernails, cracked and long, were inches from his neck. Their calloused palms and gangrenous skin did not offer any further comfort. The bursts of moaning were getting faster and more alert. They started sounding less organic and more like a... sort of beeping sound?

David awoke with a jolt to the blaring of his alarm clock. He glared at the flashing green zeroes before he smacked the clock into silent submission. He was careful to be gentle, he had broken many alarm clocks before. Secretly, David hoped if he broke his clock enough times he could get up whenever he wanted, but he knew that was just another dream. He had decided to curb the habit before the Grandmaster came up with a way to make him. Or rather, told someone else to do so.

David sat up and ran his fingers through the tangled mop of curly dark hair on his head and let out an audible sigh. Waking up at midnight was miserable. His room had no natural light, so it was impossible to tell what time of day it was. The artificial lights looked the same no matter what, but his body knew this was a truly unholy hour to awaken. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this fatigued. He let his hand fall back down to his side on the bed and his hair tumbled back to its natural shape. Actually, he was probably this tired yesterday… and the day before...

The terror of his nightmare had already vanished, as had most of the details, but now David had to contend with the actual feelings of his physical body. He felt stiff, and exhausted.

He always felt the need to stretch out his limbs when he woke up, but he didn’t typically need to fight to keep his eyes open. He had been experiencing that a lot lately, though. David had been on-call round the clock for SafeHaven wall security for many nights in a row.

His eyes fluttered closed. All he could hear was the gentle purring of the air conditioner. It would be so easy to fall back asleep.

SafeHaven had been on high alert for so long, that David lost track of just how long, once it exceeded a few months. He had almost forgotten what a full night’s sleep felt like. He felt fatigued before he went to sleep four hours ago, and if there was any difference in the way he was feeling now, he definitely just felt worse.

David swung his powerful legs off the bed and placed his feet on the floor. He wiggled his toes into the luscious shag white carpeting of his bedroom and stretched again by swinging his arms out in wide motions.

David’s bedroom was minimalistic, but cozy.

There were no windows, and no wall decorations. The simplicity wasn’t an intentional choice on David’s part, but he didn’t mind it. He had one of the best living quarters in SafeHaven, and that was a well-published fact.

His room was a reward for his famous participation in the Blood Games, after all.

While David didn’t particularly relish that fact, he did find comfort in the isolation of his room. The barracks where he used to live were… unpleasant and loud, to put it lightly. He had many bad memories, which he very successfully locked in his mental Chamber of Thoughts David Would Rather Not Think About.

Sadly, David didn’t get to spend much time in his room. He typically only got to sleep there, and sleep was treated as a luxury David often couldn’t be afforded. He sighed as he trudged towards his bedroom door.

David’s bedroom exit into a corridor. The corridor passed a closet and a bathroom that directly faced one another, then opened up to the slightly more expansive living area.

David shuffled into the bathroom to take care of his morning duties.

He studied himself in the mirror as he stood at the sink, brushing his teeth with SafeHaven-brand fluoride nano-scrubbing toothpaste. It probably wouldn’t hurt him to shave soon, as his face was showing signs of patchy stubble across his cheeks and neck. Even though he was twenty-four now, his facial hair didn’t seem to want to grow into a complete beard quite yet. It was a secret source of insecurity for David, and he quickly shook the thought out of his head as he finished his business in the bathroom.

He spit his toothpaste into the sink and bent down to the nozzle to rinse out his mouth.

He considered putting on pants, as he was feeling chilly in just a t-shirt and boxers, but his hunger and thirst were more pressing. He marched across his living room to the kitchen.

David approached the oak cabinet, which was painted white to match nearly everything in his apartment, and opened it. He retrieved a jade green coffee mug and a colorful box of Nanite-infused tea bags.

The tea had all the Ketone Nutrient Organic Nanites™ or KNON™ a healthy human needed to get through the day – according to the slogan printed all over the box.

Outside of SafeHaven, nanotechnology production was largely considered extinct. SafeHaven, however, housed multiple heavily automated manufacturing facilities. Most of those facilities were dedicated solely to the production of nanites, including Ketone Nutrient Organic Nanites™. These KNONs™ were most commonly used to create KNON™-pills, or K-pills™, as they were an easy product to mass produce and transport. However, David’s Platinum citizenship status at SafeHaven - also a Blood Games reward - allowed him access to some of the more exotic merchandise, like the tea he was drinking.

David took out two tea bags and put the box back into the cabinet. He plopped the tea bags into the jade coffee cup and walked over to the kitchen water dispenser with cup in hand.

The water dispenser was a simple chrome nozzle sticking out of the wall with a sink and drain below it. There were a series of colored buttons ornately displayed above the nozzle.

David pressed the red button on the left and held his cup in anticipation. After a few seconds, steaming hot water jettisoned out of the nozzle.

David held the button until his cup was full. The nanites dispersed themselves into the tea efficiently and swiftly once they came into contact with hot water. He didn’t even need to stir it.

He brought the jade cup up to his lips and took a sip.

The tea was the perfect temperature, as it was always was. It was soothingly hot and managed to capture the extremely faint medicinal grape taste advertised on the box that David was so familiar with. The KNON™ in the drink hit him quickly, like a simultaneous surge of caffeine and sugar with a dash of something illegal.

David immediately felt more awake.

He took another sip of his tea, and noticed a slight carbonation to the liquid. That was unusual. The tea wasn’t normally carbonated. Perhaps it came from the nozzle? Or?

David suddenly heard a knock at his door and set his cup of nano-infused tea down on the kitchen table.

He looked up at his metallic front door, and then back down at his bare legs.

“Uh… one second!” David called out, and sprint back towards his bedroom.

He grabbed the top pair of pants available in his dresser. The garment was a hybrid of combat fatigues and sweatpants. They looked bulky and tended to get kind of toasty, but they provided a surprising amount of defense against gunfire and teeth alike. Plus, they allowed a wide range of mobility while staying comfortable. Hopefully none of that mattered too much at this particular moment, but David knew to always be prepared. David quickly slipped the pants over his pale calves and thighs.

He hustled back towards the front door and looked out the peephole.

An older Hispanic man wearing a SafeHaven security officer’s leisure uniform was standing there with an idle grin on his face, casually looking up and down the hallway. He had a neatly trimmed but densely thick salt and pepper beard and dark brown eyes set into a valley of wrinkles. He also had some significant facial scarring that David hardly even registered anymore.

David immediately recognized the older man as Uncle Tío.

But, why was he here? It was normal for Uncle Tío to stop by David’s place, but not this early (or late depending on one’s definition). Not right before he went into work. David frowned. He just wanted to keep the door shut and pretend he wasn’t here.

David often worked with Uncle Tío on south wall security, but that wasn’t David’s actual role at SafeHaven. If David were just some grunt, or if he still lived in the barracks, he would be required to let Uncle Tío in. David wasn’t positive what Uncle Tio’s official job description was, people seldom knew more than what they needed to know, but David knew he was a high enough ranking wall security officer to have direct access to the control tower. Still though, it didn’t matter how high ranking of a security officer he was, David was definitely out of his jurisdiction.

David’s official position was out of every security officer’s jurisdiction.

He answered to a woman named Vanessa, who answered to the Grandmaster himself or… perhaps seemed to operate independently? David was still sort of kept in the dark about that. Vanessa was the leader of a mercenary group called the “Death Angels.” That’s what David’s official (albeit classified) title was, a class five Death Angel.

None of that mattered to aptly named “Uncle Tío” though. Nothing seemed to prevent him from acting like David’s parental figure and superior all the time, even at work. Somehow, it seemed he worked with David more than anyone else despite having nothing to do with the Death Angels. He seemed to always be right around the corner no matter where David went. He was the first person David could ever really recall interacting with too, although David’s memory in general was pretty hazy.

Uncle Tío claimed he was there when David was born, but David always felt skeptical of that. He didn’t have any particular reason not to trust Tío’s assertion, it was just a gut feeling he got when Tío would tell him stories about being there. Small details would change every time he told the story, and David always trusted his gut.

There was no one else around capable of verifying if that was true or not anyways. David remembered nothing of his parents, or of the strange men in lab-coats and smocks who subjugated him to things so awful he locked the memories away in the Chamber of Thoughts David Would Rather Not Think About.

Uncle Tío had no apparent reason to be at David’s door on this particular night. It wasn’t uncommon for Uncle Tío to drop by unannounced, but he always had a reason. David would have just seen him in a security meeting they were both mandatorily required to attend in less than an hour. The meeting was pertaining to their prolonged “high-alert” status. What could Tío want that couldn’t have waited until the meeting?

David was a bit annoyed, and generally cranky from sleeplessness, but nevertheless he was going to let Uncle Tío in. The man was perhaps, David’s only family. He wasn’t even truly his Uncle. He was David’s mother’s cousin, or something like that. It didn’t particularly matter though. He was all David had, and family was an extremely loose term anyways.

David made a few connections with some soldiers he grew up with, but they were all dead now. All the individuals he had gotten close to had a habit of dying gruesomely, and David had a habit of witnessing it happen. He didn’t really attempt to make friends anymore. Other than Uncle Tío, the closest person David had to a friend was the dispatcher on his radio, Jeremy, and they only ever talked to each other about work through speakers.

David reached for the door panel and pressed a button to allow Tío inside.

David opened the door and immediately felt off. It was as if sleep instantly decided to smack him across the face and ignore the potent KNON™ in David’s system. His vision felt blurry. A wave of mild nausea washed over him as well.

“What was that?” David thought to himself.

Perhaps it had something to do with his dream from before? He felt his mind clouding. Was he sleeping again? Was this a dream somehow?

All of his limbs felt so heavy. He staggered back a step, and barely managed not to trip on the carpet.

The sensation would have been terrifying, but David could barely work up the energy to be frightened. Exhaustion was setting in rapidly, like a pupil dilating due to sudden exposure to light.

Tío greeted David with a toothy grin and an abundance of energy. His face was… blurry somehow.

“Buenos Dias! How are you doing this fine morning David? I hope I am finding you well!”

David tried to muster up the energy to match such a greeting, but his body just couldn’t respond the same way.

With droopy eyes and a look of confusion he managed to say,

“Hey Uh, Uncle Tío, I’m good. Would… You… Would like you… to come in?”

Uncle Tío laughed. “Sure David! That would be great!”

David moved out of the way to allow Uncle Tío passage inside, then turned around to shut the door behind him. He lethargically pressed his hand to the panel, and the door’s lock made a small clunk as it automatically engaged.

David pressed his forehead to the wall as he touched the panel. He could hardly keep his head upright. What was going on?

After shutting the door David looked around for Tío, expecting him to be right behind his back, but Uncle Tío had transitioned across the entire apartment to the kitchen. He must have been moving speedily, or David was moving extra slowly.

David called over to him and began to walk towards the kitchen. His head began to feel a little clearer. He yawned.

“So, Tío what brings you by this morning? I was just about to go into work… You know, I’m sure I would have just seen you at the meeting we have in, like, a half hour.”

Tío picked David’s jade green coffee cup up off the table and brought it over to him. They met in the middle of the living room. David gratefully took the cup from Tío’s hands and took another sip.

“Make sure you drink all of this David, big day today. I came by because I was worried about you amigo!” Tío said as he slumped onto David’s couch.

“But… Um… Why? Why right now?” David asked, then smiled afterwards, trying not to outwardly appear irritated by Tío’s presence. He still felt sluggish.

“You’ve… just been working so much lately, and the kind of work you do – well, we do – it can really take its toll. Mentally. Emotionally… When we have such long stretches of being on-call… Well, I remember times before all of this, David. I have memories that keep me stable. I have a foundation to go back to that gives me something to look forward to. But this is all you’ve ever known… I just worry about you, you know. You’re... like a son to me.”

“Is he getting teary-eyed? What’s going on?” David wondered to himself.

David chuckled half-heartedly, he didn’t understand what made Tío so emotional.

“Tío, like you said, I’ve done this for as long as I can remember. You’ve worked beside me for the majority of that time. I’ve trained with you for years. I don’t need you dropping by my apartment every time you think I might be having an emotional episode. That’s you, not me, dude. If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I’m a way better fighter than you or… basically anyone else, and we both know that. I mean, you remember the mission to Albuquerque. I’m the toughest guy around. You only made it out because of me, and I was, what, seventeen? I’m not depressed or waiting for some chance to off myself. You don’t have to worry about me. If I look like something is wrong, it’s probably because I’m exhausted. It’s so early. I mean, I slept maybe four hours.”

Tío stared intensely at David. Tío’s eyes were hiding something, but David couldn’t read them. Whatever Uncle Tío was feeling or thinking was far too complex for David to intuit. Too many outside variables were obviously involved. However, Tío’s look made it obvious to David that Uncle Tío wasn’t telling him the truth about why he visit at such an odd hour. He might have been “worried” but that definitely wasn’t the whole story.

“I know how much ass you can kick, David. Everyone knows that. No one is questioning how great of a fighter you are. Alright? I mean, there are literally people who keep scores, and they rank you as the best. You’ve been the best. None of that is what I’m talking about. Your body is strong, maybe even the strongest, but... what of your spirit? We all know of your physical form’s resilience, but does your soul soar? Maybe you are not depressed, but do you honestly feel flooded with the strength of your own will? Do you feel happy? Free? Powerful? What will you do when your body and instincts begin to fail you? Your fighting skills and physical prowess are not everything, David. They do not make you invincible, and they can’t last forever. They do not make you impervious to less conventional methods of attack. You cannot practice the ability to resist betrayal or heartbreak. Anyone can just lose it and never come back if they are not strong of heart.”

David looked at Tío for a while, squinted a bit, and then looked at the floor.

The living room had the same shag white carpet as his bedroom.

It was still basically the middle of the night. Did he really come here just to talk about his… soaring spirit?

David thought of many clever and/or biting things to say, but couldn’t bring himself to speak any of them aloud. He was told in his teen years speaking that way was “disrespectful”.

In the end he just shrugged. He was irritated, but his mind felt weirdly sluggish again.

David was not a morning person to begin with, and all of this was too much.

David looked over at Uncle Tío again.

His eyes felt like they kept adjusting right past Tío’s face. David couldn’t seem to ever actually settle on Tío’s features for more than half a moment. His eyes shifted out of focus. Tío stretched his face into a smile that David felt more than he actually saw. Tío put his hand on David’s shoulder.

“First you shrug, and now you stare through me. What’s wrong David? What troubles you? You look like you’re in deep contemplation, but you don’t say anything.”

David sighed. He didn’t feel equipped to explain his emotions. It was not a feeling of pain. David was intimately familiar with pain, and what he felt inside was not the same.

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Although he did not have the words, he felt himself dissociating, as if he were a passenger in his own head with no hands on the controls.

David looked down at the floor below Tío’s feet, and found he was able to focus a bit better on a solid object with a distinct pattern.

“I’m not in pain. I just feel… exhausted… but something… else on top of that? I think I will be okay, I just feel so… off... I guess. I probably just need more sleep, honestly. Probably just really tired.”

Uncle Tío stroked his hairy chin as he analyzed David and thought carefully.

“Hmm… well it is very early, and we are still on high security alert, so we cannot take you to see anyone currently. Plus, we have the meeting of course. But perhaps if you are still feeling this way after things have settled down a bit we could take you to a doctor or therapist? Whichever is more applicable? Your behavior as of late has definitely been odd. I bet you are really tired. Make sure you finish your tea. I’m sure it will help. You need all the energy you can get. Maybe take some extra K-pills while you’re at it.”

David closed his eyes, and felt the thickening weight of his eyelids. He yawned. They had been on high alert at SafeHaven for so long. What should have only been a few days turned into a few weeks, then into how many months? It was hard to keep track of time when all of his days and nights felt the same.

Some of their scouts and spies had reported a group of well-armed and well-organized outsiders rallying together and planning an attack. No more information than that was shared with David, if any more information than that was even known.

“You’re right, I am tired. As you talk about sleep, my whole body tells me to shut my eyes and fade away. I want to lay back down and sleep for a week. I don’t want to go to this dumb meeting or help with guard duty.”

Uncle Tío smiled. “Of course. You are always so busy, and you never seem to sleep. You just keep going and going, like a robot. Bleep bloop.”

Uncle Tío laughed, but David frowned. He wasn’t sure he liked being compared to a robot.

He brought the jade green cup to his mouth and took his last sip of tea, along with a couple of K-pills™ he got from a massive stockpile of them in his cabinet. His tea was now significantly cooler than before. It was no longer the perfect temperature.

It tasted a bit different than normal as well. It was bitter and earthy. The medicinal grape he had tasted for years was barely noticeable. The drink was significantly more carbonated too. What was up with all the carbonation? How was a weirdly earthy taste vaguely familiar? Where did he taste it before?

Suddenly David’s thoughts were interrupted by an intense shaking of the building and a bellowing explosion. A painting of an abstract sea landscape, the only real decoration in David’s entire apartment, leapt off of the wall and broke its frame on impact with the ground despite the cushy carpet.

The radio attached to Uncle Tío’s waist crackled to life.

“We are under attack! Repeat, we are under attack! Horde status has been confirmed on north and east walls, threat classifications of both currently unknown. Numbers immediately seem to exceed the thousands. Be advised this was a weaponized horde. Repeat, this was not a naturally occurring horde. This is not a drill. It’s happeni-”

There was a crackle of static and no further words while another explosion rattled everything around them. The lights flickered. Uncle Tío and David looked at each other briefly before bolting out of the room.

There was no time for anything else to be said.

Uncle Tío immediately started barking orders into his walkie. He was commanding the barracks of the south wall’s middle panel, S-5, to report their status.

David didn’t need to know what Tío had to say, he leapt into his boots and sprint towards the S-5 elevators with all his hastily grabbed gear in tow. He kept a backpack by the door for situations just like this. It contained his own radio, a change of combat fatigues, his ZK-74 rifle, and enough K-pills™ and water to last for a couple of weeks.

He began to slip on his black SafeHaven security jacket, to transform his current outfit into something that resembled fatigues, as he left the room.

Stepping into the hallway was a jarring shift from the serene white décor of David’s living quarters.

Everything was chaos. Soldiers, engineers, janitors, and SafeHaven citizens of every class were running in different directions in no particularly organized fashion. There weren’t many personnel on the fifth floor, but the level still seemed quite crowded amidst all the insanity.

Tío never stopped talking frantically into his walkie as they parted ways. He (surprisingly) didn’t attempt to issue orders to David. David was on his own.

David thought about the best course of action to himself as he slipped through the crowded hall.

“I have to make it to the S-5 elevators. I can’t tell what’s actually happening right now. If I can find where that explosion came from, I’ll figure out what to do from there.”

David arrived at the elevators, which were relatively desolate. No one was waiting for them. Everyone must have already been near their assigned station. High-alert was good for something, it turns out. David pressed the up arrow, and an elevator door instantly slid open.

David took a step inside the elevator and the door slid closed. The radio attached to his backpack crackled into static that turned into words again, joining in unison with the speakers in the elevator. This was being broadcast to everyone. The voice belonged to the Grandmaster himself.

“Attention, eastern squadrons, spare what you can to reinforce the south wall, they’re taking heavy fire. Multiple confirmed projectile explosions have impacted panels S-1, S-2, S-7, and S-8. Be warned, this may be a distraction to stage an attack on another wall that has their guard down. Do not dismiss any essential eastern operatives, only personnel you can spare. North and West wall, stay sharp. All on-call personnel report to your emergency positions immediately. Casualties are already incoming to the central tower medical center. All civilians keep away from any externally facing walls and help any injured personnel reach the med bay if you can. Any squadrons currently in the south wall please call the control room. Good luck everyone. Over and out.”

As the elevator moved David could hear the faint but distinct gunfire of the fifty caliber mounted machine guns perched on the guard towers. He hadn’t heard the noise in weeks, but it was currently nonstop and growing louder as the elevator ascended.

David grabbed the radio off his backpack and mashed down the button. He had a sinking feeling in his gut. The Grandmaster said the explosions were projectiles colliding with the south wall, which he was behind right this very second.

“Hello? This is David Cypress, class 5 Death Angel currently in the S-5 elevators ready for action. Come in. Over.”

“I read you C5 Cypress, what is your status? Over.”

The feminine voice was familiar to David. He was glad it wasn’t the Grandmaster.

“I am riding on the S-5 elevator to get a visual assessment from above and counter projectile explosive fire. I have no eyes or ears on any squadrons, nor do I have eyes on assailants. I saw Tío on his walkie though, over.”

“Full copy C5 Cypress, we have received no word from any other south wall operatives yet. We believe the third floor barracks may have sustained damage that impeded response time, the explosives may have even been targeted directly at them. Due to your priority and the hostility of the situation, it is suggested you engage immediately in whichever way you see as fit. All external defense weapons are hot and your nanites are still blacklisted. Are orders understood? Over.”

“Orders are understood. Over.”

“Copy that C5 Cypress. Still no status on any squadrons in the south wall. If they’re alive, they will not be sent up with you. The S-5 elevators cannot currently descend below the fifth floor due to the damage from the explosives. You will be joined up with squadron S-10 already on top of the south wall. They’re currently engaged with multiple confirmed enemy snipers, assault rifles, and RPGs. The whole place is lit up. S-10 squad will draw fire for you and cover you from the railing. You need to zip line down and end this attack by disrupting and eliminating all hidden enemy soldiers to the south of the wall. You will receive sniper and gunner support. Are your orders understood? Over.”

David felt light headed. Maybe there was an air pressure difference as he rode the elevator upwards? He wasn’t afraid, he felt invincible, but his body seemed to tremble as if it didn’t know that.

“Yes ma’am. Orders are understood. Over.”

“Affirmative C5 Cypress. Confirm you understand your mission. Over.

“God, I’ve already said yes like three damn times, I understand the mission Vanessa. Over.”

There was a pause.

“Alright then C-5 Cypress. Good luck out there… David. Over and out.”

The elevator lurched to a stop, and the doors in front of David slid open to reveal the thick hazy darkness of the night. He could see no stars and thought to curse smoke pollution that might be invisible in the night. Afterwards, he remembered there was a dense cloud coverage earlier in the night that was likely still present, just unseen.

For a moment, all seemed peaceful, as if the previous events of the last few minutes didn’t happen at all. The 50 caliber turrets were no longer firing. David never noticed them cease, yet… The air was still and silent.

The peace was immediately broken as David heard a large sniper bullet connect with the steel door of the 7th elevator next to him. A faint report could be heard a few moments later. The bullet’s impact was too close. The sniper may have missed simply because of an unexpected gust of wind.

David dropped to the floor, attempting to stay out of the eyesight of his invisible shooter. Smoke was lingering in the air and small particles float carelessly about.

David could smell many scents in the air, and although they were familiar, none of them were particularly pleasant. Amongst the smoke he picked up the scents of decay, metal, and gunpowder. The smell of a fight.

Another bullet pinged off the thick metal railing that prevented soldiers from falling.

David frantically looked around while he flattened out even more against the grated metal walkway.

To his right, the walkway stretched towards the west wall. Smoke was billowing dark and thick that direction. The inky night sky and the billowing smoke blended together as the ashes from the growing blaze a few levels below were carried away by the wind.

It generally seemed like a bad idea to go that way.

To his left, the walkway went towards the east wall. There was generally less smoke that direction, and the smoke that was present was more translucent than to the west. The S-10’s elevator and (hopefully) the S-10 squadron would also be there.

David took a somersault towards that direction and then proceeded in an army crawl. He was careful not to stay in any spot for too long. He also attempted to vary his speed in order to anticipate and counter gunfire.

Bullets exploded around him again, riveting against the elevator doors, chain-link fence, railing, and metal walls. The clatter was too rapid for a sniper. It had to be fired from something fully automatic. David couldn’t tell if it was a mounted machine gun or not, but that didn’t particularly matter at the moment. He just had to move. Now.

David pounced smoothly into a roll before jumping into the air and bursting forward into a sprint. Each step he took grew faster and faster.

Bullet fire continued to clatter and whistle around him, but nothing appeared to connect or come too dangerously close. They must have been shooting from far away, which made sense considering the walkway was over fifty meters above the ground.

David could make out familiar soldiers through the thinning smoke further down the walkway to his east.

It must have been the S-10 squad, actively engaging in a firefight with the invisible gunners out in the distance. They were covering him, as the radio said they would. David smiled and continued to run towards them.

He didn’t hear any more bullets whizzing around him. He only heard the reports of the S-10 squad’s suppressive gunfire.

“Hey! Over here!” He shouted and waved. He slowed his sprint to a jog.

Some of the soldiers turned their heads towards his direction and shout something inaudible towards him. Others were pointing frantically towards the direction the gunfire was coming from and waving their arms at him to get away.

David turned his head just in time to see the later stages of the telltale muzzle flash of a missile tube being fired. An RPG missile started zipping right towards him. The flash revealed the shooter’s location in the back of an orange pickup truck, which was driving in front of yet another approaching horde of zombies.

“Oh fuck!” David choked out.

David screeched to a halt, summoning immense strength to slow down and sequentially dive back the direction he came. His quick thinking and agility likely saved his life, as less than a second later the missile disintegrated the weak chain link fence and uppermost section of the S-9 panel of the south wall. Right above the walkway where David would have continued walking, the missile connected and liquefied all of the weaker metals. The chain link fence had a circle evaporated out of it and the edges that didn’t fizzle away curled outwards, still red hot. The railing was severely burnt, and steamed against the rain.

The heat from the blast was immense, not to mention the explosion compressed the air around David, causing his ears to ring and his vision to distort. He felt his body flop backwards onto the walkway.

The bright burning flash of the report burned into his retinas, but faded into darkness.

He felt nothing.

It was like a lightbulb burning out, but without any flickering. It was on then…suddenly gone.

It was as if all of the senses were connected to experiencing that light, and once it was gone, every sensation felt equally absent.

There just was light and then … there wasn’t.

The explosion rolled on in David’s head like thunder.

It was the only thing that existed in that moment.

There was no light.

There was no touch.

There was no thought.

There was no heat nor cold.

There was no pain.

There was no time.

There was no sense of body nor spirit.

There was only the rolling of thunder.

Until…

The world crackled alive.

David took a gasping breath as the sky burst open into another torrent of rain and a great flash of lightning struck something so close by, David felt the electricity prick up the hairs on the back of his neck. David’s senses all burst online at once, and he became aware of far too many completely new sensations. He was extremely disoriented, sore, and very winded.

Thunder boomed overhead. Its voice carried on in a familiar, magnificently powerful cadence. It was the punishing kind of thunder that struck fear into even the strong-willed. Carrying on and on in an intimidating tone.

The most glaring of his new sensations was the physical pain he felt. His time without awareness was a blessing in terms of relief. Being conscious meant feeling pain again, and he was hurting all over.

The air reeked of metallic blood and petrichor. His grey T-shirt and SafeHaven security jacket were soaked by the rain and clung heavily to his skin.

His hands and forearms… They were coated with blood. His sleeves were torn, as if cut with a blade multiple times. His neck felt as if someone had recently attempted to choke him as well.

What happened? Where was he? It wasn’t raining nearly this much before, and it seemed brighter now. David was not lying on the walkway where he remembered the explosion knocking him down. He was instead standing over a strange man in old American military fatigues, watching his freshly spilled blood mix with the water falling from above into the bed of a pickup truck.

David’s knife was buried in the man’s throat. His hand was still wrapped around the knife’s handle. His knuckles even kind of hurt from clenching it so tightly, they were white from exertion.

Whoever this was, this was a living person before David got to him. He knew this feeling all too well. David had killed countless enemies. This was no different, he just couldn’t remember doing it. He had been trained not to feel anything when defending SafeHaven his entire life, but he still couldn’t help feeling the smallest pang of guilt.

His radio crackled to life. David sensed multiple undead nearby become alerted by the sound. There were hisses and moans, and teeth could be heard clacking together, but there were none directly in sight. He did hear a lot of moist squishing and squelching noises he tried not to think about. It sounded like feeding.

That was familiar as well.

David pulled his knife from the man’s throat and crouched down in the back of the truck to listen to the radio on the lowest volume possible.

“Hey David, this is Jeremy! It’s a crisis, so sorry I haven’t said much to you yet, but you get it, I’m sure. Anyways, like, I’ve got a message from command!”

David smiled when he heard Jeremy’s voice.

“Hey Jeremy, could you maybe keep this one quick?”

“Yeah buddy. So sensors read no more living entities to the south of SafeHaven other than you. I seriously don’t know how you do it. I mean, you nearly single-handedly cleared every living combatant out of the whole southern sector! They wanted me to tell you, good work. So like, great work man! They all seem quite pleased with themselves, but I know it was all you Davey.”

David wiped the blade of the knife on his pants and holstered it. Was Jeremy saying he killed the whole squad of men by himself? What about his fire support?

“Also, be careful, they’ve confirmed around 120,000 undead signatures against the north and south walls, and as such, reentry may take a few days until they figure out a safe extraction plan for you or we clear them all.”

David groaned quietly to himself. He would protest, but he knew it would do nothing. Jeremy was just a messenger anyways.

“Davey. It’s late dude. I think you should find a less target-rich area to rest for the night, or get to higher ground. There are a lot of zombies still around you, but most are at the walls. SafeHaven’s gunfire is estimated to draw at least a few thousand more and hundreds of those are supposed to pass by your location. They’ve already started to pile up on the walls and the Grandmaster is in discussions right now as to which protocol would work best here. Things were getting hairy, but it looks like you forced the bad guys to retreat. I imagine losing a whole battalion to one guy must feel pretty disheartening.”

Jeremy laughed, but David was tuning out his rambling. Jeremy wasn’t great at keeping it short. He checked his body as he listened to the radio, and it appeared he may have been stabbed in the leg at some point. The wound was shallow. It was no longer bleeding. David estimated it must have happened a couple of hours ago, but he truly had no way of knowing. Was he out for hours?

He had a few other tears in his clothing with accompanying abrasions, but he dismissed them mentally. He didn’t remember them, they weren’t going to slow him down, so they didn’t matter. Jeremy continued to drone on.

David spoke again, interrupting Jeremy.

“Hey, J, get to the point man.”

“Right, okay. Look, you have the supplies and skills to survive on your own in the surrounding ruins, obviously. Just be careful of SafeHaven’s traps… and any stragglers from the baddies who just attacked. Perhaps there are more hostiles still lurking about outside the range of our scanners. Some nearby buildings were recently used as pit stops for the exploration teams and, as you likely already know, they should be fairly fortified. Barring you, there are no active troops to the south, so treat any foreign individuals you may run into as extremely hostile. And again. Be aware of the traps in many of the buildings. I know you’re probably spacing out, David.”

David laughed and responded.

“Then maybe quit throwing so much info at me and get to the point, Jeremy, I’m in the field surrounded by zombies.”

Jeremy chuckled, perhaps a bit nervously, then cleared his throat.

“Alright, alright. I’m saying you think you’re invincible and you’re not really. You step into a flamethrower trap, you’re dead just like any other schmuck. Don’t get sloppy. Now… Keep your walkie off until SafeHaven updates you at exactly 07:00 on October 10, two days from now. That is, unless you need to contact us for an emergency. Your channel will stay open, but we won’t remain in contact. It’s possible those attackers were just testing us. They might be eavesdropping on our communications or testing how we react to an attack. These are your orders. Can you confirm your mission is understood? Over.”

David was crouched down in the back of the orange pickup truck he had seen earlier. He remained hidden as he listened to the radio, but surveyed what he could from his stationary position. A couple of zombies were attracted to the noise of the radio. They were curious, but not particularly aggressive yet. They didn’t seem to sense David, they were merely attracted to the noise.

David pressed the button on his walkie talkie with his left hand and held it inches from his face. This silenced it, in case Jeremy decided to ramble more. As he did so, he moved towards an approaching zombie, clutching his knife in his right hand. He whispered quietly.

“My mission is indeed understood. Commencing mandatory radio silence. Over.”

He lift his finger off the button and slid his knife in and out of the first zombie’s skull. He then quickly sliced through the second’s softened scalp. His movements were clean and efficient. He clipped the radio to his belt for safekeeping.

Noticing he had a couple of seconds to loot, he picked the RPG ammunition off of the corpse of the body below him and preemptively loaded the missile tube.

“Just in case.” He mused to himself.

David silently weighted the now loaded RPG in his hands before he strapped it over his back. It felt particularly light, to David’s surprise.

It took a bit of jostling to fit it snugly onto his back with his backpack and ZK-74 rifle.

The pick-up truck David nestled in was crashed into a streetlamp and was no longer drivable. There were two bullet holes in the front window, and the driver’s head was obviously fatally punctured.

The back of the driver’s skull was splattered against the backseat window. The bullet bore a hole through not only the man’s head, but also the headrest of the vehicle and the back windshield. Very high caliber, possibly from David’s own ZK-74.

Fresh blood and rain filled the bed of the truck that David hid in.

Two zombies started clambering against the truck, sloppily trying to reach David over the tailgate they could easily climb more effectively. David mused that they were obviously particularly stupid even before they were zombies. They weren’t even attempting to climb.

David made quick work of them, similarly to the first two. He tucked his knife back into his belt.

Now four corpses were crumpled against the side of the truck. Just a pile of filthy clothing and rotting meat now. Flies would already be buzzing around if the rain weren’t so oppressive.

David realized he was still quite disoriented.

Where was he?

He looked around for familiar landmarks, but the lack of much natural light and the unnaturally torrential downpour made everything around him blur into a writhing mass of obscured shapes. Ominous voices could be heard gasping and chattering.

Another zombie appeared out of the darkness and collided with the side of the truck. This one started to slowly climb up, but doing so made it easily vulnerable.

“Rookie mistake” David muttered to himself as he easily shoved his knife through the undead’s nostril, gutting its brain and obliterating its olfactory system.

Lightning raced between clouds overhead and illuminated David’s surroundings for a split second. David looked up and saw the cable of a zip-line shaking in the wind and rain above him. He didn’t notice before, but it made faint whipping ptoo noises as the storm jostled it around.

The lightning disappeared. It was dark once again.

Was that his cable? Did he zip-line down?

Probably, that was his order wasn’t it?

Lightning illuminated the sky once again and David caught a glimpse of the area surrounding him. Dozens of corpses littered the ground, and vibrant bright red blood covered every inch of the cracked asphalt. Undead figures were scattered around, hunched over and feasting on the remains of what was certainly an impressive battle.

Just as suddenly as the lightning came, it disappeared again and everything returned to pitch black.

Thunder cracked and boomed, obscuring any other noises for a few moments. A reminder of Mother Nature’s power.

David had seen many dead bodies, and he could quickly tell those were fresh corpses. They weren’t slain zombies, they were slain soldiers. Soldiers with similar military uniforms to the man in the truck. They weren’t SafeHaven personnel, they were former US army.

Undead were hunched over the fallen soldiers like vultures, tearing mutilated flesh through fabric and stuffing it into their mouths. Some fed directly with their teeth. They paid little to no mind to David. They cared only for their current meal.

Well, that explained why they weren’t all storming David at once, but it seemed unlikely they were the original killers of the slain soldiers that littered the surrounding area. They seemed to be scavenging.

Did David kill all of those soldiers?

Jeremy sure made it seem that way.

David couldn’t remember, but that was his order, wasn’t it?