The sky looked like it was dying—black clouds covered everything, as if God had turned His face away from this place.
Lightning flashed between the ruined buildings, briefly illuminating the true portrait of the hell this city had become.
Flames danced among the rubble, reflecting off the charred, blown-up, overturned carcasses of vehicles.
The city that was once a symbol of power... was now nothing but a giant carcass.
And I was the only one alive in this urban morgue.
I walked through the devastated streets, each step echoing against puddles of dried blood, twisted metal signs, and shattered glass under the soles of my reinforced boots.
There was no sound but the wind and the flames… until the roar came.
They emerged from the thick fog and dense smoke like demons torn straight from hell—twisted silhouettes, rotting flesh hanging from bone, empty eyes and mouths whispering with hunger.
They crawled with broken limbs, tripping over their own dead. Some ran—shaky, desperate.
Some were naked, skin hanging like wet rags; others wore tattered military uniforms, bloodstained suits, or shredded, stained children's clothes—a macabre parade of death, a sea of living rot.
Countless.
Raising my rifle was instinct—finger steady on the trigger, sights locked on what once was a man, now just a face twisted by hunger.
"Come on, you damned bastards."
The first shot echoed like the funeral toll of a war bell.
The zombie's head exploded in a grotesque spray of brain matter, bone, and black blood, painting the air with the metallic scent of death.
The horde roared like a collective beast.
I kept shooting.
Each step backward was calculated, precise.
I aimed between the eyes—the point where hell hides.
The bullets traced flaming lines through the air, ripping through the night, impacts tearing flesh and bone without mercy—skulls burst like watermelons, spraying brains on the walls.
Bodies spun through the air before crashing into cracked asphalt, jaws flew off, legs twisted at unnatural angles, blood gushed in pulsing jets.
I retreated to the side of an overturned bus, its rusted, bullet-riddled carcass serving as makeshift cover.
I ducked behind the metal, my breath growing heavier, sweat pouring in rivers inside my helmet.
I swapped magazines with firm but swift hands—no time for mistakes.
Boom.
A fragmentation grenade spun through the air and landed among a cluster of zombies huddled like hyenas.
The explosion wiped out half of them, launching severed limbs and torn torsos in every direction.
An arm flew and slapped against the bus windshield with a dull thud, and the screams that followed weren't human—they were guttural, feral, like hell screaming in chorus.
No time to celebrate.
I stood and ran, stepping on shredded flesh and broken bones, toward the wreckage of a collapsed building.
I climbed a pile of concrete, shards of glass, and twisted rebar, taking the high ground.
I took a deep breath and began firing from above—each shot an execution.
But they kept coming.
Like ants from a burning anthill.
I tossed another grenade—this time incendiary.
The explosion lit up the night with a bluish flash, flames engulfing dozens.
They burned, but they didn't fall. They ran ablaze, arms stretched out, skin melting in the heat.
One tripped, grabbing another by the neck—both collapsed together, writhing, mouths still chewing at the empty air.
I rolled down the building, debris tearing at my uniform. When I hit the ground, an infected came from the shadows—fast.
I spun my body and fired twice. The bullets entered through the jaw and exited through the nape, spitting blood and teeth onto the concrete.
Another jumped out from a burned-out car, screaming like a beast. I shot before I could think.
His head exploded, but the body landed on me, knocking me to the ground.
His fury still vibrated in my bones.
I pushed with my forearm, stomped my boot into the corpse's chest and threw it to the side, rising to my feet, panting.
I ran.
There was no more retreat, only the fight for survival.
I fired on the move, the rifle on full auto sweeping the street in bursts.
Three zombies dropped at once, their bodies opening like bags of sliced meat — I carved a corridor of corpses through the chaos.
The city was in flames.
And I was the only one dancing among the dead.
Ammo was nearly gone. The dry click echoed like a warning of imminent death.
Without thinking, I let the rifle hang from the sling and pulled my pistol from the side holster.
The cold steel fit into my hand like an extension of instinct itself.
BANG, headshot.
The zombie in front had its face blown apart in an explosion of grey matter and clotted blood.
BANG, headshot.
Another staggered back with a split skull, collapsing with a guttural moan.
Two shots to the head, one to the forehead— a third infected reeled with a caved-in chest and dropped to its knees — the next bullet punched through its skull and glued its brain to the wall behind it.
A sharper growl came from the right — a runner.
They moved differently, eyes glazed, limbs stretched like predators.
I spun precisely, ducked, and fired into its legs. The impact shattered its knees — it fell face-first, crawling with rage.
I stepped forward.
My boot crushed its rotten jaw.
The last sound it heard was the pistol shot pressed to its forehead.
The blast made the skull collapse like shattered glass.
Two more dead came from the flanks, like wolves closing in.
No time.
I bolted toward what looked like a charred car, leapt onto the dented hood, sliding on the dark, slimy blood covering it.
I dove over the other side into a dry roll across the cracked asphalt, spinning on momentum, rising with my finger already on the trigger.
The pistol spat fire in rhythmic bursts.
One infected had its face torn off in chunks, another lost half its skull and still walked two more steps before collapsing like a broken puppet.
The noise was deafening.
Gunfire. Screams. Bones snapping. Metallic echoes.
Explosions in the background, like hell's orchestra playing its final symphony.
My ears rang.
But I kept fighting.
Because stopping… meant dying.
I emptied the last mag.
Click.
That dry sound of helplessness — a slicing silence fell for a second… just long enough for terror to breathe.
They came.
Like a wave of putrid flesh and hungry eyes.
I drew the katana from my back.
The black blade slid out with a metallic hiss, like it too thirsted for blood. The steel caught the lightning in the sky — like a scalpel torn from the pits of hell.
I let out a primal scream and charged.
The first strike came from below, a wild arc that sliced the air and took three heads in a single motion.
Blood sprayed like a crimson storm, painting my face and uniform.
I spun on my heel, the blade drove into the head of a grotesquely bloated zombie still reaching its rotten arms toward me.
With force, I yanked it free and slashed again — this time diagonally, splitting the body in half.
Guts slipped from the open torso like a torn bag of meat, spilling onto the floor with a wet, sickening sound.
There was no pause, no time to think.
I dodged another strike — a zombie with its eyes torn out and jaw hanging by threads.
I spun low with the katana near the ground, slicing the legs off five of them in one sweep, accompanied by guttural cries. One fell on me, panting through a mouth sewn shut with necrotic flesh.
I drove the blade up through its chin — it slid through the skull like hot butter. I shoved the body aside with a grunt and got up.
No time.
The sheath became a blunt weapon — I slammed it into two skulls, bones cracking under the brutal impact.
I returned to the blade, swinging in a rising arc that tore an infected's face like soaked paper.
The ground was a red, viscous, slippery pool. Every step was a risk.
But I kept going.
I gathered momentum, ran over a toppled car, and leapt into the middle of the crowd.
I cut through two bodies mid-air — their halves landed separately, bouncing on the mud.
I landed with my katana piercing the chest of a third, who choked on his own blood as he sank to the ground.
My arms ached, muscles screamed, fingers barely felt the grip of the sword anymore.
But I couldn't stop.
A vertical slash, from forehead to pelvis — the infected opened up like an old coat.
Another strike, horizontal — five dead lost their heads in succession.
One of them even took two more steps before the body collapsed, like a puppet with its strings cut.
I rolled to the side, breath failing, heart thundering in my chest.
I cut more legs, then heads — the world spun.
But the body still moved, driven by pure instinct, pure hatred, pure survival.
Rain fell heavy, washing away the blood, but not the death. My uniform was soaked, weighed down by the weight of battle.
I drew two kunai, aimed quickly.
Threw them.
Two foreheads pierced, two bodies down.
But the horde kept coming.
It didn't stop.
I spun the katana like a whirlwind.
Dodged a zombie far too thin, bones nearly exposed.
I kicked its chest violently — it flew backward, crashing into the hood of a truck.
The next didn't even have a chance — my blade sliced through its belly, and the intestines spilled at my feet like red, steaming snakes.
I kept going.
Slashes, blood, roars, ragged breathing.
The sound of bones being severed — every second was a brutal dance between life and the abyss.
Hours? Minutes? I no longer knew.
The mind had stopped thinking. It only reacted.
I had become a meat-cutting machine, a specter with a blade.
I slashed, killed, spun, bled, breathed.
Until...
The body gave out.
My legs failed like corroded beams.
I fell to my knees.
The world spun in a blur of red and gray.
Short, broken, gasping breaths — with each inhale, it felt like shards of glass scraping inside my chest. The air burned, my chest ached, my arms trembled.
The katana slipped from my hand, falling to the ground with a metallic clang louder than thunder.
Blood ran down my forehead, mixing with rain and filth.
I was a body on the verge of collapse, a specter dissolving into flesh.
I lifted my eyes.
More of the dead came, stumbling over the corpses of those I had slain.
A sea of empty eyes and ragged mouths.
I tried to stand.
The legs... no longer responded.
"Fuck... come on," I muttered, voice cracking.
"Get up..."
The mutter became desperation.
"GET UP!!!"
My throat burned like it was spitting fire.
I clenched my fists, felt the cold, blood-soaked ground beneath my fingers.
"I can't die here…"
The dead approached — their faces became clear.
Mutilated, unrecognizable faces, whatever humanity had once existed drained away.
I laughed.
A bitter, mad laugh — a laugh that was also a sob, a laugh of defeat.
"This it...?" I whispered. "It ends like this…?"
And then—
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The roar of salvation.
A machine gun roaring with divine fury.
The dead exploded in flesh and bone, heads vaporized.
Torsos tore open like bags of viscera — bodies fell in rows, like corn cut by a scythe.
Smoke parted with flashes of light.
And then I heard the voice.
"Left side, brother."
I turned my face, with effort — every muscle protested, every bone felt cracked.
José.
My right hand.
My brother in war.
Emerging from the mist like an angel of death.
M249 blazing with fury.
His face covered in soot, enemy blood still fresh on his armor.
His eyes focused — a gaze of steel, full of contained wrath, his steps firm, each one like a war drum.
The soundtrack of the apocalypse.
"You... took your time," I whispered, barely audible.
José stopped beside me, didn't even look, just extended his hand.
Smoke swirled around him, zombies dropped behind, gunned down by his weapon.
"What are you waiting for?" — he said. The voice was deep, solid, firm like concrete. — "A red carpet?"
I smiled with blood between my teeth.
Grabbed his hand.
He pulled me up.
I stood.
My legs wavered — but didn't fall.
Hell still burned around us.
But now...
I wasn't alone anymore.