After skillfully managing the meteor shower and minimizing potential damage and loss of life, the team demonstrated exceptional precision and ingenuity. Using Eve's innovative net, they captured most of the debris, while massive hands of fire hurled the remaining fragments back into the void of space. Their heroic efforts were nothing short of extraordinary.
Unbeknownst to them, however, an ominous threat had already infiltrated the city. Lurking in the shadows, these creatures awaited the cover of complete darkness to move undetected.
As night inevitably fell, cloaking the city in deep shadows, the first of the fleshy sequids emerged from its hidden lair. Slithering through what seemed to be an alleyway, it moved with a calculated, sinister intent.
It stopped when it spotted a drunken man relieving himself against a wall near a dumpster, its eerie presence unnoticed in the dim light.
The man remained oblivious as pink tendrils began to coil around his leg, creeping upward along his body through his many layers of clothing. In his intoxicated state, he neither saw nor felt the creeping menace that had begun to envelop him.
Only when the biomass began attempting to reach his face did he notice, but by then it was too late. In his drunken state, he was unable to resist as the creature violently invaded his body until it disappeared entirely.
The man convulsed violently, gagging and retching in a futile attempt to expel the invasive mass. Within seconds, his limbs began to spasm uncontrollably, as if hijacked by a foreign will.
CRACK!
With the last of his will, the man punched the wall so hard that his hand broke, and the sound was heard on the other side.
After punching the wall, the man immediately spasmed so hard that he lost the ability to stand and fell to the piss-stained ground.
A few seconds passed, and the alleyway door to the building the man had previously punched opened up, and a young woman who was some kind of restaurant worker walked out, only to gasp in fright as she saw the man collapsed before her.
She turned around and dialed the emergency number with trembling fingers. Her unsteady hands caused her to fumble, requiring five attempts before she finally managed to enter the correct digits and was connected.
"911, what's your emergency?"
The woman let out a sigh of relief as the call went through, and she was greeted by a friendly, albeit slightly weary, voice on the other end.
She quickly began explaining the situation.
"Please send an ambulance! A man has collapsed in the alleyway near the Green Door Tavern on West Huron Street!"
Her voice, filled with concern and fear, wavered as she spoke.
"Help is on the way! Are you with him now?" the dispatcher responded, following up with a question of her own.
"Yes! I heard some banging against the wall, so I came out to check and found him like this. I don't know what happened!"
While the woman anxiously relayed the details to the emergency dispatcher, she remained oblivious to the fact that the man's breathing had completely stopped. She also failed to notice that his sclera had turned pitch black, while his irises glowed faintly with a sinister pink hue.
CRACK!
The man's bones cracked as he stood to his full height with unearthly dexterity without even using his arms; the man's pale skin had visible wriggling masses under its surface that snaked their way throughout his whole body.
He approached the woman with staggering steps, causing her to jump in a start when she heard the clattering.
"Oh... Sir, please stay still, I have already called an ambulance for you!"
She approached the man who was struggling to stand to his feet and attempted to help him up, but that was her last mistake.
The man suddenly lunged at her neck and bit into her soft flesh, causing a spray of fresh steaming blood to paint the walls of the alley.
She was unable to even scream in pain as her throat was currently being chewed by the man, no, the zombie in front of her.
"Ma'am, are you there? MA'AM?"
A muffled voice echoed through the phone as the man dragged his victim deeper into the shadowy alley, leaving behind a gruesome trail of blood. Shortly after, the chilling sounds of flesh tearing and chewing filled the air, though only the scurrying rats bore witness to the horror.
Before long, an ambulance arrived at the scene. The paramedics, upon seeing the bloodied walls and the crimson path leading into the darkness, immediately radioed for backup. One of them even drew an emergency sidearm, bracing for the unknown threat that lurked ahead.
As they stood on edge, a woman suddenly emerged from the shadows. A gaping wound in her neck revealed a massive chunk of flesh missing, with rivulets of blood pouring out with every unsteady movement she made.
The EMTs approached with concern etched on their faces as they observed the woman's dire condition. The unarmed EMT cautiously moved toward her, gesturing for her to step forward. Meanwhile, his armed partner went to the back of the ambulance to retrieve a gurney. As he was about to unfold its legs, a sudden scream pierced the air.
"What are you doing? Stop... STOP... AGGHHHH!"
Startled, the armed EMT dropped the gurney and rushed to the front of the ambulance. What he saw was horrifying. The young woman, whom his partner had been trying to assist, had sunk her teeth into his face, tearing away a large chunk of flesh extending to his right eye. As blood poured from the grievous wound, she viciously bit into it again. Stunned by the excruciating pain, his partner was rendered helpless and unable to defend himself as he was savagely devoured.
His partner raised his sidearm towards the woman, but had noticed the shambling silhouette of the previously infected man slowly staggering out of the shadows of the alley and looking towards him with an all-consuming hunger in his eyes.
BANG!
The man opened fire, hitting the young woman in her chest and causing her to slow down temporarily, but after a moment continued to move towards the remaining EMT.
BANG!
BANG!
Two more shots echoed in the night, but no matter how many times he fired at the woman, she no longer registered the damage.
She and the man continued to move closer, and the man aimed at her head and was about to fire.
CLICK!
The gun jammed, causing the man to tremble in fear as the woman lunged at him, forcing him to fall onto his back to evade her attack. Desperately trying to retreat, he backed up, only to collide with a solid wall that blocked any further escape.
The night soon resonated with the agonizing screams of someone being consumed alive, their fate sealed as they became another member of the relentless swarm.
The screams didn't stay isolated for long.
Across the city, similar horrors began unfolding in the forgotten corners and darkened crevices, unnoticed by most, at first.
In a dimly lit laundromat on the south side, a college student studying late into the night tossed a basket of clean clothes into a dryer. She didn't notice the squelching sound behind her over the rhythmic thrum of tumbling machines. Not until the scent hit her, a coppery, unnatural stench. She turned just as a woman she'd seen folding towels minutes earlier lunged, face grotesquely elongated, jaw unhinged.
The girl screamed and bolted, but the creature was fast. It caught her by the ankle, slamming her into a wall. Her cries were silenced as tendrils poured down her throat, her body spasming violently until her hands began to twitch unnaturally, then stilled. Minutes later, she stood, calm, eyes glowing pink.
In a small apartment complex, on the edge of the city's industrial district, a single mother named Trisha lay asleep on a worn couch, her arms wrapped around her two children. The storm of meteors had terrified them, and she'd promised to stay close. Her youngest, Marley, just five, snored softly against her chest.
None of them heard the sound of the living room window cracking inward. A slimy shape slithered in through the narrow gap, writhing across the floor with deliberate quiet. It rose like a cobra, looming over the family as they slept.
Trisha stirred as something cold touched her cheek.
She blinked.
Saw nothing.
Then her chest seized as something forced its way through her nostrils and mouth in a suffocating rush. She jerked upright, convulsing silently so as not to wake her children, then snapped backward violently, her spine arching. Her eyes rolled back as her limbs contorted. Her scream was cut off by a wet gurgle.
Marley sat up.
"Mommy?"
The last thing she saw was her mother's face twisted with hunger and agony before the thing that used to be Trisha lunged at her, teeth gnashing. Blood splashed across the couch. Her older brother tried to run but was grabbed by a flailing, spasming hand and dragged back into the carnage.
By the time neighbors heard the commotion and called for help, it was already far too late.
In a high-rise downtown, a night janitor hummed as he mopped the lobby floor. A flickering light above him buzzed, casting inconsistent shadows along the polished tiles. He turned to grab more cleaning fluid when he slipped on something thick and dark.
Blood.
He didn't have time to stand before something collided with him, knocking him into the wall. A former security guard, still dressed in uniform, sank teeth into his neck. The janitor screamed, flailing, but the creature's strength was inhuman.
By the time help arrived, both men were gone, leaving only smears on the walls and a streak of blood leading to the elevator shaft.
In a hospital ER, one of the first infected victims had been wheeled in hours earlier, barely breathing. Staff had rushed him into quarantine. He convulsed once, twice, and then flatlined.
Or so they thought.
The nurses turned their attention to prepare for another incoming patient, only to freeze in horror as the corpse sat up, tendrils writhing through the IV tubes in its arms like worms burrowing through rotting flesh. Screams erupted when it lunged, sinking its teeth into an orderly's face and hurling a nurse into the glass door with such force that it shattered on impact.
Panic engulfed the hospital. Patients scrambled to escape, but the infection spread with terrifying speed; those bitten succumbed in less than ten minutes, their humanity sloughing off like dead skin.
In the suburbs, a teenage girl named Amanda was sneaking back into her house through the basement window, her shoes muddy from the woods. Her parents had grounded her for missing curfew, again, but they would never know she was late tonight.
She slid into the laundry room with practiced silence and closed the window behind her. But as she turned to tiptoe toward the stairs, she froze.
Something was breathing.
Not the soft, steady breaths of her family asleep upstairs, but something erratic. Wet. Gurgling.
She crept forward, phone flashlight on, and caught a glimpse of the family dog cowering beneath a table, its eyes wide with terror.
Then she heard it, slow footsteps from behind the furnace.
Her father stepped out. Only it wasn't him anymore.
His face was half-torn, a gaping pink cavity writhing with tendrils. His eyes glowed with unnatural hunger, and black sludge dripped from his mouth.
Amanda's scream never made it out of the basement.
In a quiet nursing home, an elderly man named Mr. DeLaney had been alone for hours. Most of the staff had left early due to power outages, and only one young nurse remained on the night shift.
He sat in a wheelchair by the window, humming a lullaby he once sang to his daughter, his frail fingers resting on a photo frame.
He didn't notice the infected staff member silently approach from the hallway behind him.
The nurse returned minutes later to find the wheelchair overturned and blood smeared across the floor in long, dragging streaks. The photo frame was cracked, its glass flecked with red.
In a daycare center, a young woman on overnight cleanup duty swept up glitter and crayon wrappers, unaware that the building's back door had been pried open.
As she sang to herself, a child's giggle echoed from the hallway.
She blinked.
No children had been there in hours.
She turned to look, and standing at the end of the hallway was a boy, no older than six. His pajamas were soaked in blood. His mouth was smeared crimson.
"Are you lost?" she asked, voice trembling.
The boy opened his mouth, wider than humanly possible, and screeched.
She ran.
He followed.
In the labyrinth of the city's sewer system, monstrous creatures began to gather. Their hosts, the vagrants, the forgotten, and the invisible, had been the first to fall. Now they converged in eerie silence beneath the streets, twitching and murmuring as they constructed something vile.
In the shadows, a grotesque mass of pulsating biomass and Sequid flesh grew, merging with stone and corroded pipes to form a hive.
Meanwhile, above ground, life carried on, blissfully unaware of the impending plague festering below.