The rain persisted relentlessly. The moon remained hidden, and the stars had vanished behind thick clouds. Darkness seemed to consume the mountain entirely; without artificial light, visibility was minimal.
A man moved steadily up the mountain toward the tents housing his colleagues and allies. Blood dripped from the empty socket where his right eye should have been. Remarkably, despite the grievous injury, he walked with calm deliberation, unhurried and unperturbed.
Reaching the central tent, he could hear the soldiers inside, fifteen in total, laughing and speaking in jovial tones. He entered silently and closed the flap behind him. Then, the screaming began—a sound so piercing it roused every bird in the surrounding trees. The wails continued for five minutes, after which the tent flaps opened and all the soldiers within emerged, one by one.
Each soldier bore the same grotesque injury: the right eye gouged, blood dripping freely. Without exchanging words, they ascended the mountain in unison, moving with the mechanical precision of the undead.
At the summit, the scientists continued their discussions, focused on the anomalous energy emanating from the mountain. Milo, an introverted researcher, had few acquaintances among the team and had never married. His world consisted almost entirely of study and observation.
Near the summit, several other tents housed soldiers engaged in ordinary conversation. Inside one, a group was playing a strategy game when the tent's zipper began to unzip. The soldiers, assuming a colleague's entry, did not react immediately.
A soldier stepped inside—a man apparently uninjured—and asked for extra water. "Our pack has been drained by those hippopotamuses," he joked.
Laughter followed, and the jovial exchange continued for a moment.
Then, abruptly, a hand emerged from behind him, piercing his right eye. Time seemed to freeze. The tent's occupants stared in disbelief at the now half-blind man, unable to comprehend the sudden violence. Even the victim remained frozen, shock rendering him immobile.
The realization came too late. Screams erupted once more, this time alerting everyone on the mountain. Scientists and soldiers emerged from their tents to witness a nightmare made flesh: multiple soldiers, all with bloodied, empty right sockets, advancing toward the camp.
A single soldier fired at the attacker, striking the man who had gouged the victim's eye. The pierced soldier collapsed immediately, lifeless. Yet the attacker barely faltered. Bullets slowed him but did not stop him. The infection—if it could be called that—spread quickly: those killed in this manner transformed within moments, joining the ranks of the eye-gouged, blood-dripping horde.
Chaos ensued. A commanding voice rang out: "Get the guns! Now!" Soldiers scrambled for their firearms while scientists fled down the slope, protected by a few remaining combat-ready men. But the transformed soldiers pursued relentlessly, converting every fallen soldier into another monster. Resistance slowed them, but death was inevitable for anyone caught.
The ground became a macabre mosaic of blood and detached eyes. Slowly, the moon broke through the clouds, and stars began to return, indifferent to the carnage below. Within minutes, only the eye-gouged soldiers and a handful of scattered scientists remained.
High in the trees, a boy observed the carnage. "Certainly the most beautiful sight since my awakening," he murmured. He leapt from the branch and descended toward the transformed group.
The boy—Zigeyr—had come not for the soldiers or the scientists but for the energy radiating from the mountain. It was not a weapon but a godly presence that had emitted this power.
"It is surprising you awaken so soon," Zigeyr said, bypassing the soldiers and scientists alike, moving toward the epicenter of the energy. "I had imagined you would stir in five months' time."
"Since you are going to wake up in 2-3 weeks anyway, then just wake up right now."
He lifted his leg and pressed it slowly against the ground.
The mountain shuddered violently. A massive fissure formed, splitting the peak into two jagged halves, precariously leaning against one another like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Between them floated a figure, curled in midair, eyes closed.
The being appeared to be a girl, roughly the size of a ten-year-old human. Her aura—imperceptible to ordinary humans—was vast and potent, capable of demolishing metropolitan structures.
Her eyes opened slowly. The left eye glimmered a piercing blue; the right, an inky black.