A few days back...

A squad of eight elite, heavily armed special operations soldiers were finalizing their final gear checks.

"Commander, the pilots just cleared us for takeoff," Lieutenant Chen called out, slamming a fresh, heavy magazine into his automatic rifle before slinging it over his shoulder.

He wiped a stray bead of sweat from his forehead, glancing at the roaring storm outside the open hangar doors. "Weather conditions are deteriorating fast over the northern coast. The tower says if we don’t taxi out within the next ten minutes, the storm is going to ground us completely. We need to board right now if we want to beat the weather."

At the center of the hangar, standing perfectly still amidst the flurry of activity, was Commander Han Zheng.

He was a towering, imposing figure in full military attire, his frame carved from harsh, unforgiving lines that spoke of a lifetime spent surviving on the fringes of war zones.

His piercing dark eyes, usually completely focused on tactical logistics, were staring blankly at the satellite phone in his calloused hand.

His five-year-old son’s voice was still echoing violently in his ears.

"Dad, listen to me! Don’t get on the plane! The city is falling apart! People are eating each other! Do not get on that plane!"

Han Zheng’s knuckles turned white around the casing of the phone. His son, Han Ye, was a quiet, distant, and deeply introverted child. He was not the type to play pranks, let alone scream into a receiver with a raw, suffocating terror that sounded entirely unnatural for a five-year-old.

It wasn’t just the words that had halted Han Zheng in his tracks; it was the tone. The voice hadn’t sounded like a child throwing a temper tantrum. It had carried the cold, desperate weight of someone who had already stood at the edge of an abyss and watched the world burn.

"Commander?" Lieutenant Chen pressed, stepping closer, his brow furrowed in confusion. He had never seen his leader look so visibly shaken by a phone call. "We’re on an incredibly tight schedule. Sector Four Command expects our deployment at the northern checkpoint by midnight. Is something wrong at home?"

Han Zheng slowly slid the satellite phone back into his vest, his expression turning to stone. His intuition—the same inexplicable gut feeling that had saved his squad from three separate, bloody ambushes overseas—was screaming at him. Every instinct he possessed was telling him that if he stepped onto that aircraft, he would never see land again.

"Cancel the flight," Han Zheng said, his voice a low, commanding rumble that instantly cut through the noise of the hangar.

The entire space went dead silent. The soldiers stopped adjusting their vests, froze mid-stride, and turned to stare at their commander in absolute, unblinking shock.

"Sir?" Lieutenant Chen blinked, completely thrown off balance. "Cancel it? Command’s orders were explicit and signed by the General himself. This is a high-priority deployment. The pilots are already idling on the tarmac with the engines fully ready. We can’t just delay a military transport because of a phone call."

"I said, cancel it," Han Zheng repeated, turning his fierce gaze toward his men. There was a dangerous intensity in his eyes that made even the most hardened veterans in his squad step back. "We will delay the trip. We will unpack, retreat to the secondary barracks, and take the next available transport flight tomorrow morning."

"But Chief, the logistics alone will take hours to clear with headquarters," another soldier, Ah Hua, muttered, holding a crate of ammunition. "Command will want a formal explanation. We could face court summons for refusing to board."

"If Command wants to punish me, they can do it tomorrow," Han Zheng snapped, his authority slicing through the room like a razor-sharp blade. "My intuition hasn’t failed this squad a single time in the field. Something is deeply wrong. Disembark the gear. We head to the barracks, rest for the night, and re-evaluate the situation at dawn. That is an absolute order."

The men were visibly frustrated, exchanging annoyed, bewildered glances. They couldn’t comprehend why their legendary, stoic commander was suddenly acting on a whim, but none of them dared to openly disobey him.

With heavy sighs, they began the tedious process of unstrapping their rucksacks and wheeling the heavy transport crates back off the loading ramps.

They were just about to exit the main hangar doors and head toward the transport trucks parked outside when the base’s automated warning sirens suddenly tore through the air.

WAAAAAAALN! WAAAAAAALN! WAAAAAAALN!

The bright red emergency lights lining the steel ceiling began to spin violently, painting the concrete floor in long, blood-red strokes of light. The mechanical wail was deafening, drowning out the sound of the falling rain.

"What the hell? Is this a red-alert drill?" Lieutenant Chen muttered, his hand instantly flying to his sidearm as he ran toward the hangar’s glass observation panel. "We weren’t scheduled for an emergency test tonight."

Before his hand could even touch the glass, the massive automated steel doors of the hangar were violently shaken from the outside.

A heavy, wet impact slammed against the metal, followed by a blood-curdling, screeching sound that didn’t sound human. It was a wet, ragged howl of pure, unadulterated rage and hunger.

"Look at the tarmac!" Ah Hua shouted, his voice suddenly cracking with a rare spike of panic.

Han Zheng strode forward, his chest tight as he leaned against the glass panel to look out onto the airfield.

The entire military base was rapidly dissolving into absolute, apocalyptic madness.

Through the pouring rain and the flashing red emergency lights, they watched in horror as a group of officers ran blindly across the open concrete, pursued by three figures wearing torn, blood-soaked mechanics’ uniforms.

One of the officers slipped in a puddle of water, falling hard onto his back. Before he could scramble to his feet, one of the pursuers lunged forward, throwing their entire weight onto his chest.

With a feral, animalistic jerk of the head, the attacker tore his teeth directly into the officer’s throat.

A fountain of dark crimson blood erupted into the air, mixing with the falling rain. The officer screamed, a horrific, bubbling sound that carried through the hangar’s external audio feed, before his limbs began to twitch violently.

Even more terrifyingly, the other two pursuers didn’t stop to eat; they sprinted with unnatural, terrifying speed toward a group of armed guards who were desperately trying to unholster their weapons.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

A burst of frantic gunfire echoed across the tarmac. Several rounds slammed directly into the chest and stomach of one of the fast-moving attackers. The impact tore through his clothes, leaving gaping, bloody holes—but the person didn’t slow down.

He didn’t scream in pain. He didn’t stagger. With a mangled, dead expression and eyes clouded over with a thick, milky white film, the creature leapt over the security barrier and bit the guard directly on the face.

In the distance, a massive fuel truck swerved violently to avoid a crowd of infected personnel, losing control on the slick concrete. It skidded sideways, crashing directly into the nose of the very transport plane Han Zheng’s team had been supposed to board just minutes ago.

BOOM!

A blinding, roaring fireball erupted into the sky, tearing the transport aircraft into shredded pieces of burning aluminum. The shockwave rattled the hangar glass, casting a violent orange glow over the pale, terrified faces of the elite squad.

If they had boarded that plane when they were supposed to, they would have been trapped inside a sealed metal tube, either burning alive on the tarmac or tearing each other apart in the sky.

"My god... the Chief was right," Lieutenant Chen whispered, his hands trembling violently as he stared at the burning wreckage. He turned to look at Han Zheng, his eyes wide with a mixture of absolute terror and profound reverence. "Chief... your son... how did he know? How could a child possibly know this was going to happen?"

Han Zheng didn’t answer. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped animal, a cold, suffocating dread washing over him. Han Ye hadn’t been playing a prank. The boy had genuinely known. And if the military base was falling apart this quickly, then the civilian sectors had to be a bloodbath.

"Call your families," Han Zheng ordered, his voice cracking with an intense, raw emotion that his men had never heard before. "Do it now. Use the encrypted lines before the network towers collapse entirely."

The hangar instantly turned into a scene of frantic, desperate chaos as the elite soldiers pulled out their phones, their fingers shaking as they dialed their loved ones.

"Pick up, please pick up..." Ah Hua pleaded, pressing the phone to his ear, his eyes fixed on the burning airfield outside. After a few agonizing seconds, his face fell into a mask of pure despair. "It’s just static. The civilian lines in the city are completely dead."

"Mine is ringing!" another soldier, Xiao Li, yelled, his face lighting up with a brief spark of hope. "Hey! Honey?! Is that you? Listen to me, lock the doors—" He stopped abruptly, his face turning pale as a strange, wet chewing sound came through the small speaker, followed by a low, guttural growl that made him drop the phone onto the concrete. He fell to his knees, staring blankly at the floor.

Lieutenant Chen tried dialing his parents, but all he received was the automated operator message stating that the network was overloaded, followed by a chilling sequence of distant, muffled screams in the background before the line cut out permanently. The reality of the situation was settling in like ice water in their veins: the world they knew had ended in a matter of minutes, and their families were entirely on their own.

CRACK!

The heavy glass window of the hangar suddenly webbed with a massive fracture.

Everyone spun around. A single creature—a former lieutenant colonel who Han Zheng had spoken to just that morning—was slamming his bloody forehead repeatedly against the glass. His jaw was hanging open at an unnatural angle, his teeth shattered and dripping with thick, blackish blood. He didn’t seem to feel the glass lacerating his face; he only stared at the living men inside with a pure, ravenous hunger.

"Get back!" Lieutenant Chen yelled, raising his rifle.

Han Zheng stepped forward, his eyes flashing with a deadly, untamable fire. He didn’t hesitate. He raised his heavy tactical pistol, aligned the sights directly with the creature’s forehead through the cracked glass, and squeezed the trigger.

BANG!

The bullet shattered the glass and punched a clean hole right through the center of the creature’s skull. The infected officer instantly went limp, sliding down the bloody windowpane and collapsing into a heap on the ground outside.

"They don’t feel pain, and body shots don’t stop them," Han Zheng analyzed calmly, his cold military mind instantly adapting to the new rules of engagement. He turned back to his squad, his voice rising over the sound of the blaring sirens and distant explosions.

"Listen to me! The world outside is gone, but we are still a squad. We have weapons, we have ammunition, and we have a purpose."

He walked over to the heavy equipment crates, throwing them open and tossing extra magazines to his men. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"Lieutenant Chen! Secure the heavy armored transport vehicle in the secondary garage! Ah Hua, load every single box of ammunition and medical supplies we can carry! We are not staying here to defend a collapsing base."

The soldiers looked up at him, the despair in their eyes slowly being replaced by the rigid discipline of survival. Han Zheng stood tall, his knuckles turning white as he strapped his tactical machete to his vest.

His thoughts were miles away, racing through the city to his mansion.

His son was up there. And his fragile, civilian wife, Lin Qing, was completely defenseless, trapped in the wilderness with a child while monsters roamed the earth. He had to get to them. He had to protect them, no matter how many miles of hell he had to march through.

"Gear up!" the Commander roared, his voice cutting through the panic like thunder. "We clear the hangar, we take the armored transport, and we fight our way through. I am getting back to my family!"