Chapter 1

Thump... thump...

The sound of bodies bashing against the blast door echoed once again.

It was accompanied by the screech of fingernails clawing at metal and erratic, guttural snarls.

This noise had persisted for an entire year. Twenty-four hours a day, it had never truly stopped.

Leaning against the freezing wall, I stared at the rust forming on the door hinges from the dampness. This twelve-inch-thick titanium door was the only barrier between the outside world and me and my six-year-old son, Leo.

"Dad..."

Leo murmured weakly from the cot in the corner. His voice was as dry as sandpaper scraping against wood.

I immediately hurried over and picked up the yellowed towel draped over the edge of the washbasin. The basin was completely dry, leaving only a shallow layer of white limescale. I folded the towel, trying to press the slightly damp side against my son's forehead. His skin was terrifyingly hot, his blonde hair plastered to his cheeks with sweat.

"I'm here, Leo. Dad is right here."

"I want... some water..." His eyelids fluttered violently; he didn't even have the strength to open his eyes.

I reached out, grabbed the plastic jug on the workbench, and shook it. Not a single sound came from inside.

The last of our water had run out three days ago. In the past, facing this situation, I would have risked cracking the door open just to catch a few drips from the leaky pipes in the hallway outside.

But not these past few days. The monsters out there seemed to be drawn by some scent, gathering in greater numbers. If I opened the door even a fraction of an inch, they would swarm in like rabid dogs smelling blood.

I looked down at my trembling hands, the veins bulging against my skin.

I brought all of this upon myself.

I was the chief biochemical engineer for Project Genesis. To this day, whenever I close my eyes, the memory of that accident a year ago replays vividly in my mind.

Red sirens flashed frantically throughout the underground base, the ear-piercing alarms almost shattering my eardrums.

Through the glass walls of the corridor, the staff suddenly convulsed and collapsed like maniacs, only to scramble back up and viciously tear into the people around them. Splattered blood and fallen bodies were everywhere.

My wife Sarah and I carried Leo, running desperately toward this core shelter on the lowest level. The infected pursued us relentlessly. In the few seconds it took me to type the passcode on the panel, three blood-soaked monsters lunged at us.

Sarah made a choice. She shoved Leo and me through the doorway and blocked the swarm of infected.

"Lock the door, Adrian! Protect Leo!"

Those were the last words she ever said to me. Then, the massive blast door slowly descended, cutting off my view.

From that moment on, I became the most sinful man in the world.

My research destroyed the entire world. It killed my wife. And now, I couldn't even protect the only bloodline she left behind.

I had to find water.

I stood up, scanning the dim shelter until my eyes locked onto a rusted iron grate in the corner of the ceiling.

It was an abandoned ventilation shaft connecting the shelter to the island's surface exhaust port.

For the past year, I had stared blankly at that vent countless times. I knew it led outside, but it was far too narrow. I could never squeeze into such a tight space, so I had never considered it a viable option.

But I looked down at myself now.

Three hundred and sixty-five days of surviving on bare-minimum rations, compounded by chronic anxiety and insomnia, had completely withered my body. My oversized lab coat hung loosely off my shoulders. Through my paper-thin skin, I could clearly trace the shape of every single rib. I weighed less than half of what I used to.

If it was me now... maybe I could fit.

I didn't need to reach the surface. I just needed to crawl far enough up the slanted duct where condensation might have pooled from the temperature difference, or where some rainwater might have leaked in. Just a few mouthfuls of water, and Leo could make it through the night.

There was no time to hesitate.

I walked over to the workbench, shoved a screwdriver and a plastic waterproof tarp into my pocket, and dragged a metal storage crate over. Standing on it, I could just reach the edge of the vent.

I pried off the iron grate, met by a blast of stale, dusty air. Taking a deep breath, I gripped the edges and hauled myself inside.

It was pitch-black inside the shaft. I could only worm my way forward by alternating pressure on my elbows and knees.

After climbing about twenty feet, the temperature dropped noticeably. I reached out, feeling the duct walls. Dry. No condensation. Not even a hint of moisture.

I kept crawling deeper. Ahead, a faint sliver of light gradually appeared. Moonlight. That meant the surface exhaust louvers were right in front of me.

The closer I got to the surface, the faster my heart raced.

My brain started conjuring uncontrollable images of the outside world: rotting corpses littering the ground, monsters wandering through ruined buildings, dried black bloodstains.

I stopped just a foot away from the metal louvers. Peering through the slats, I saw the outside.

No ruins. No severed limbs scattered about.

I saw a perfectly manicured lawn. Further back were the familiar artificial landscaping bushes—a corner of the villa's backyard that I had personally helped design on this island.

Everything was eerily quiet. But what truly made me stop breathing was a pair of feet standing less than six feet away from the vent, wearing black combat boots.

Clean boots.

A bright flame flared to life, illuminating a man's profile.

"Seriously, this job is absolute dogshit." The smoking man exhaled a heavy ring of smoke. "This damn latex mold mask itches like crazy, and it's soaked with sweat inside."

An impatient voice replied from outside my line of sight: "Stop touching your face. If you mess it up, the prop team will need another two hours to reapply your makeup. Just be grateful. You stand around for eight hours a day, do zero heavy lifting, and bang on a metal door and groan a few times when you’re bored. You're making eight hundred bucks a day for this."

The smoking man said, "I'm just wondering, though... that scientist down there, Hale, is a big shot. He's been locked in that windowless metal can for a whole year. How the hell hasn't he gone insane yet?"

Another face turned into view, chewing something, his words muffled. "I heard he almost snapped in the beginning. Good thing Victor and Sarah know what they're doing. Victor set up a fake channel on the island's PA system, periodically blasting a phony 'military survivor broadcast' down there. The guy still thinks he's getting rescued."

Victor. The captain of my private island's security detail.

Sarah. My beloved wife.

"But what's the endgame here?" The smoking man flicked his ash. "Since they've already taken over the island's security, why not just take a few guys down there, put a bullet in the dad and the kid, and be done with it? Saves 'em a fortune on hiring a film crew and buying fake blood just to act out this daily circus."

"Are you stupid?" The eating man sneered. "Sure, Victor runs the security, but he doesn't control the mainframe down in the bunker. All of Genesis's core research data, patents worth hundreds of billions, and the encrypted Swiss bank accounts—they're all locked in that server. And Hale is the only one who knows the master override code."

"Then why not just torture it out of him?"

"What if Dr. Hale's a tough nut who'd rather die than talk? Sarah knows him inside out; that's why she came up with this brilliant play. Doesn't Hale still think he caused the leak? Doesn't he think his wife got eaten alive right outside the door just to save him? That guilt is the best trump card. Victor plans to bleed him dry. Once the supplies down there run completely out and Hale watches his kid hovering on the brink of death from sickness, they'll go down disguised as a rescue team and ask for the code. To save his son, the good doctor will hand over absolutely everything."

The smoking man chuckled. "Damn, that's ruthless. Speaking of the wife, though... Sarah's acting was top-tier. Even I bought that scene a year ago, where she got dragged into the zombie horde. Who would've thought that while Dr. Hale is crying out his guilt down below, Sarah's up in the villa, drinking champagne and rolling around in bed with Captain Victor every day? Just before I came to swap shifts, I saw her out on the balcony smoking in her silk nightgown."

"Well, obviously. Hale might own the deed to the island, but those two are the ones actually enjoying it. In a few days, once they grab the code and permanently lock the bunker, starving Hale to death, those hundreds of billions will legally be all theirs. Alright, put that out. Break's over. Victor told us to go bang on the door for another half hour to dial up the pressure. Put your back into it; they pay our bills now."

The two men stood up. After the heavy thud of retreating footsteps, the outside returned to dead silence.

Inside the metal duct, I held my suspended posture, completely motionless.

In this narrow, confined space, the only sound left was the steady beating of my heart inside my chest.

A year ago: those blood-covered, hideous infected lunging at the crowd.

A year ago: the blaring alarms, and that resolute look in Sarah's eyes as she faced death and pushed me behind the safety door.

For the past year: the sheer terror every time I saw the bottom of our water barrel.

For the past year: Leo's weak, feverish cries in my arms.

And right outside the door: the incessant, daily sound of claws scraping against metal...

I slowly lowered my head and stared at my hands. On my wrist sat the mechanical watch Sarah had gifted me. Over the past days and nights, I had caressed its face countless times, apologizing to her into thin air.

It all made perfect sense now.

Corporate interests, betrayal, unbridled greed. They coveted the intellectual property inside my brain, so they custom-built a tomb just for me.

I slowly climbed out of the duct to collect some life-saving water, then crawled back in. Returning to the shelter, I fed the water to Leo.

Right on cue, the heavy thumping of the two extras pounding against the blast door echoed from outside, accompanied by a few overtly dramatic guttural snarls.

"Dad..." Leo stirred on the cot. "Are there... a lot of monsters?"

I looked at Leo's flushed face and gently smoothed his hair.

"In a way, yes," I said softly. "Monsters far more terrifying than the infected."