A family of five is running. Toward the evac zone. Their breaths are ragged, their legs heavy with fear. The youngest brother clambers into the helicopter first, turning back and stretching out his hand.
"Come on!"
The eldest sister grabs it, pulling herself in. Then the mother, guided by the firm grip of a soldier, climbs aboard. Relief starts to bloom on their faces—until it doesn't.
Only one seat left.
The military personnel freezes, eyes widening in horror. The father steps forward without hesitation, nodding in solemn understanding. A father's duty. A sacrifice expected.
But then—
Clink!
The middle son slams the barbed fence gate shut from the other side.
"WISE!"
The father's hands shoot out, gripping the cold steel railing—a wall between him and his child. His voice cracks, desperate. But Wise doesn't flinch. He doesn't even look back. His eyes are fixed on the soldier beside his family, expression steady as his name is screamed again and again.
"Take good care of my father."
"Wise, what are you talking about!? GO INSIDE THAT HELI—"
The boy doesn't respond. Instead, he slowly lifts his left hand—trembling as he unfastens his glove.
It falls.
And what lies beneath—is a bite.
Blackened, necrotizing flesh. The veins have already turned, spreading like twisted roots, a web of corruption climbing up his arm.
"I'm done for anyway, Dad. You make sure they're safe."
The soldier stiffens, stunned by the calm voice from a child half his age. A silence heavier than the air itself hangs in the space between the fence. Then he nods, slowly. Respectfully.
The family continues to scream, unaware—blinded by love, deafened by denial.
The father doesn't move. He stands frozen, his soul trapped in the grip of helplessness. Then—
A hand.
From the other side, Wise places his hand gently on his father's shoulder, shaking him slightly.
The father looks up—eyes meeting the boy's.
A lifetime flashes in a second. A birth. A first step. A scraped knee. A quiet bedtime hug.
He grabs his son's right arm, trembling, unable—unwilling—to let go.
Tears pour, hot and bitter.
His son. His baby boy.
His sweet baby boy…
He's going to lose him.
"SIR KNIGHT, WE GOTTA GO! GET GOING!"
"THAT'S MY SON—MY BOY—LET GO OF ME! NO, WISE! WISEEEE!!!"
The father screams as he's dragged back by two military personnel, his voice hoarse with grief. His feet scrape against the ground, reaching out for a son he can no longer touch. A son who already made his choice.
One of the soldiers lingers—just for a moment.
He turns to Wise, eyes meeting his with a look that only soldiers who've seen too much can give. Wordlessly, he hands him a handgun. No explanation needed. No time left.
Wise takes it. Fingers tight. Shrieking echoes behind them—they're coming.
He nods once.
"Please make sure they're safe."
The soldier returns the nod—sharp, solemn—before sprinting back to the chopper. The family's cries still ring out over the whirling blades.
"WISE! WISE, PLEASE!"
The helicopter ascends.
Wise watches it go, slowly raising his hand to wave. His face—calm. Hollow. Resolute. There's no courage in it, only acceptance. The kind that comes when you already know how your story ends.
The shrieks grow louder. Closer.
He turns around.
A sigh slips from his lips. His body trembles.
It would be a lie to say he wasn't afraid.
With one last glance at the fading sky, Wise walks toward the abandoned building.
An infected arm.
A loaded handgun.
And no future left.
He cocks the hammer of the handgun—click—a sharp, final sound that echoes like a countdown. Then, with a breath he doesn't realize he's holding, he jogs into the building.
His first step into hell.
Inside, the world is drowned in shadow. The flickering lights reveal twisted silhouettes, groaning, croaking, seething. Their eyes glow like embers in the dark, their skin pale, stretched thin like leather over bone.
Wise presses his back against the wall, sliding around the corner in silence. His breathing is shallow. Controlled.
He doesn't confront them.
It would be suicide.
Then again… he was dying anyway.
So why—why does he still keep moving?
He doesn't know.
Maybe instinct.
Maybe the last ember of something human.
He reaches the emergency door and slowly, carefully, pushes down the railing lever. Creeeeeak—the sound scrapes against the silence. He flinches but presses on. The stairwell looms ahead.
Floor 40.
He has to go down by foot.
Gun raised, he begins the descent. Each step heavier than the last. His eyes scan the shadows. Finger firm on the trigger.
Then, suddenly—a blur of red.
Left side. Peripheral. Fuzzy, pulsing.
The infection.
It's spreading.
Faster now.
His breathing turned ragged—uneven, strained.
It had only been fifteen minutes since the bite, and already the symptoms were clawing through him like wildfire. His vision pulsed. The veins in his arm throbbed. He could feel the rot blooming beneath his skin.
He quickened his pace.
Floor 30.
Floor 29.
Floor 28.
Floor 27.
He slowed, pausing at the metal door. A stench oozed from beyond—decay, sweat, something wrong. He cracked the door open and froze.
Below him, the lower staircase was choked with slumbering infected, lying in heaps in the dark. A single noise, a wrong step—he'd be torn apart.
No choice.
Detour.
He slipped onto the 27th floor. His eyes flicked to every corner, his back brushing against the cold walls as he swept the hallway like a ghost.
"Remember, Wise... remember the games I used to play."
He whispers to himself. His voice is weak but focused. Memory is armor now.
He approaches the elevator. The lights are dead. The buttons unlit. A box of death.
He knows it.
He turns away and heads for the secondary emergency stairs. Slowly, cautiously, he pushes the next door open—creak, groan, every sound a gunshot in this silence.
Then—his legs buckle.
He stumbles, crashing against the wall. His hand leaves a blackened crimson smear as he slides down. Blood gushes from his mouth, splattering on the floor in strings of rot. His nose bleeds, leaking in sync with the red veins crawling deeper into his vision.
The blur in his left eye spreads—a blooming storm of red.
His lungs burn. He gasps, mouth open, no air. It's like trying to breathe on a mountain peak with no tank, no help, no mercy.
He collapses onto the stair, sitting, heaving.
Eyes dim.
He looks at the gun in his hand.
Raises it.
Barrel to his chin.
Shaking.
Trembling.
Then—
He stops.
Shakes his head.
No. Not yet.
With a low, guttural groan, Wise pushes himself back up, forcing one foot forward, then the other. Every muscle screaming, every vein betraying him.
But he moves.
Still.
He moves.
As his blood-smeared fingers brushed the wall, he finally saw it—
Floor G.
The ground floor.
Freedom.
Wise let out a long, ragged sigh. His body was failing, collapsing piece by piece—but he had made it. Somehow.
He reached for the door, his mind fogged, his hands numb. Without thinking—without caution—he pushed it open.
Creeeeeeak.
The groan of the heavy metal door echoed like thunder in a church.
Then—silence.
Followed by… groans.
Low. Rising. Seething.
His hazy eyes widened.
They were there.
Dozens of them.
Infected. Pale-skinned, veined with black, glowing eyes now locked directly onto him—drawn to the sound.
They had been dormant. Sleeping.
No longer.
They twitched.
They stirred.
They rose.
Wise froze.
"Shit."
He didn't think. Couldn't.
He bolted. His feet moved on instinct, mind screaming in panic as he picked up the pace, dragging his dying body into the next sprint.
Behind him, the groaning became a chorus of hunger.
They were coming.
Groans. Shrieks. Screams.
A hellish symphony chased Wise through the broken city.
He sprinted through cracked roads and overgrown streets, his breaths sharp, shallow—more like dying gasps than anything human. The infected thundered behind him, their claws scraping, their feet slapping in a relentless storm of death.
He gripped the handgun tight but didn't dare fire.
One shot—just one—would bring a swarm.
So he ran.
Faster.
He ducked into an alleyway. There, a low fence—rusted, meant for dogs or maybe children. Not for them. He dove over it, his hands slamming the pavement as he rolled forward.
Behind him, the infected crashed into the fence.
For a moment—blocked.
Then—
Snap. Crack. Groan.
The sheer number pressed through.
Metal groaned, bent. Hinges screamed.
The barrier gave.
But Wise was already running.
He didn't stop. Couldn't.
Even as the pain flared in his skull—a thunderous, stabbing ache—
Even as his veins pulsed with a sickly purple-black, creeping like cursed ink through every inch of his body.
It was only a matter of time.
The infection was winning. He could feel it—like hands beneath his skin, pulling him into something unclean.
But the infected… they didn't tire.
They didn't stop.
They didn't need to breathe.
They could chase forever.
And Wise was reaching his limit.
Then he saw it.
A mall.
Dark. Hollow. Maze-like.
Perfect.
He burst through the cracked glass doors, stumbling into the atrium, using the clutter, the corners, the corridors—to scatter them.
He needed space.
He needed time.
Even if it was borrowed.
Even if he had none left.
He ran.
Through broken tile and shattered glass, Wise sprinted deeper into the mall's darkness. His legs barely obeyed. His lungs begged for mercy.
He reached the glass wall, slammed into it, and slumped down—heaving. Gasping.
His adrenaline was almost gone. Muscles screamed. Vision spun.
Then—
Shriek!
A bloodcurdling sound echoed down the halls.
"Not yet…" he mumbled.
He forced himself up, staggering forward, deeper inside.
Until he saw it.
The center of the mall.
And at its heart—a tree.
A black tree.
Its bark ink-dark and glossy like obsidian, and its leaves shimmered with a soft, glowing yellow—unnatural, beautiful, holy.
Wise dropped to his knees.
For a moment, the pain stopped.
The chaos vanished.
His eyes locked on it, confused… entranced.
How…?
The outbreak had only started days ago. How could this be here?
A tree like this… wasn't from this world.
But the shriek came again, snapping him back to reality.
He slumped with his back against the black trunk, sliding down as his limbs trembled.
The infection had reached his brain.
He could feel it now—like fire in his spine, like rot in his skull.
His left arm hung dead, useless.
A dark vein crept across his cheek like a cursed scar.
His vision was bleeding red. His left eye was nearly gone.
And still—
He smiled.
He raised his right hand.
The one that could still move.
Pointed the gun forward with shaking fingers.
"Don't worry..."
The tree shimmered, its glowing leaves fluttering gently—despite no wind inside the mall.
"I'll be protecting you now... Hehe... at least I won't die alone somewhere."
The tree said nothing.
But it didn't need to.
Its silence felt like acceptance.
And there he waited.
A lone boy at the end of the world.
Eyes blurry.
Gun raised.
Back resting against something unearthly—
As the infected came.
And he faced them.
Alone.
BANG!
The shot echoed like thunder in the hollow mall.
One infected dropped—its skull erupting in a splash of glowing blue blood.
A lucky hit.
All Wise could see now was a blur.
Color, movement, and the gleam of glowing flesh were the only things he could focus on.
More came.
He squinted, aimed at the glowing shapes—the only light in his dying eyes.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
Three shots. One hit.
They were getting closer.
His hand trembled, breath ragged, heart thundering.
He fired again.
Nine bullets total.
Seven infected fell. A miracle.
Click.
Silence.
His thumb ran along the metal, knowing the truth.
Only one bullet left.
He knew this gun—knew its soul like an old friend.
"Last round," he whispered.
Then—
A sound that didn't belong.
A scream. A howl.
Something brutal. Monstrous.
And it stepped into view.
Even through his dying sight, Wise could make out the shape.
Seven feet tall, muscular, hunched.
A chainsaw—a real chainsaw—fused into its arm, revving with a metallic snarl.
Blood and steel merged like flesh.
Its face, mercifully, was too blurred to see.
But he could feel it—the sheer pressure.
A brute.
Something far worse than anything else he'd faced.
It didn't care for the others.
It charged straight through the swarm like a tank, mowing down the lesser infected with savage disregard.
And now—it came for him.
And the tree.
His breath hitched.
No.
Not this tree. Not here. Not this place.
He grit his teeth, blood streaming down his face, his body barely holding on.
This tree would be his grave.
And he'd damn well defend it.
He stared at the final bullet.
This one was meant for him.
A mercy.
But now?
He raised the gun.
Aimed.
Was it foolish? Probably.
Would it work?
He didn't know.
He didn't care.
"God..."
His lips moved in silent prayer.
"If my life ever meant anything..."
"If saving my family was worth the pain…"
"If I ever had a purpose—let this bullet find its mark."
He was terrified.
His hands shook.
Tears welled in his infected eye.
Flashes of life surged through his soul—
His father's stories…
His mother's cooking…
His sister's warmth…
His brother's laughter…
"I'm gonna die."
The thought echoed like a mantra.
But—
If this life could buy another…
Even a tree.
Even something insignificant…
Then maybe… maybe it wasn't meaningless.
As the brute charged with roaring steel,
Wise pulled the trigger.
The world held its breath.
He forced himself to stand.
Every nerve screamed—
a thousand needles of fire crawling through his spine and into his legs.
His bones felt like brittle chopsticks, ready to snap at any step.
But he didn't wince.
He didn't cry out.
He limped forward.
The brute was almost on him—
A towering wall of muscle, infection, and violence,
and Wise—
Wise was broken. Dying.
But he walked anyway.
The beast lunged.
Its massive hand grabbed him mid-step,
SLAMMED him against the tree behind.
CRACK.
Ribs. Spine. Something vital.
"AAAAAAAARGH!"
But it wasn't done.
The chainsaw, still roaring,
thrust into his torso.
The pain was apocalyptic.
Flesh tore,
blood gushed,
and nerves screamed in agony.
Wise's eyes shot wide—
the chainsaw was digging into his broken spine.
He realized then:
The beast wasn't just killing him—
It was going through him.
Through him and into the tree.
To infect it.
To corrupt the last beautiful thing he had found.
Not this tree.
Not here.
Not like this.
With a guttural roar,
Wise grabbed the gun with his trembling, blood-slicked hand,
pressed the barrel against the monster's glowing, malformed eye.
"GRAAAAAAUUUGGGHHH!!!"
The beast screamed.
Wise screamed back.
The chainsaw was still digging,
tearing through organs, bones, and will—
but he didn't stop.
BANG!
The gun cracked.
The monster's head jerked upward—
a geyser of brain and skull exploding from its crown.
It fell backward, dragging the chainsaw with it.
The motion ripped Wise open,
flinging pieces of his own body across the mall.
He collapsed.
His breathing—
shallow. Gasping. Empty.
Like a man inhaling through shattered lungs.
The handgun slipped from his fingers.
But—
He reached out.
His bloodied hand—
guts spilling, skin melting—
caressed the tree.
Even blind now—
his vision stolen by infection—
he still felt the bark.
Still heard the whispers of wind through its glowing yellow leaves.
He didn't know his blood now glowed,
just like the infected.
He didn't see the tree absorb it,
or how it shivered gently beneath his touch.
He only smiled.
And with one last breath—
Wise died.
Arm outstretched,
hand on the tree,
eyes wide open,
face calm,
in a world that had gone mad—
he died protecting something beautiful.
As Wise's blood cooled and his breath faded, death should have been final.
The infection—cruel, efficient—had already begun its silent work.
His corpse twitched, faint spasms echoing the creeping invasion of his cells.
His body would soon rise—
a twisted echo of the soul it once held.
Another monster. Another tragedy.
But then—
the tree moved.
Its branches stirred not by wind,
but by will.
Two limbs, bark-dark and veined in gold,
reached down and seized Wise's arms,
piercing skin and muscle like needles—
one through the necrotic left,
the other through the broken but human right.
He rose.
His body dangled, cruciform—
arms outstretched, back arched in death,
head bowed like a saint condemned.
Then the golden liquid came.
It pulsed through the tree's veins,
and into his flesh—
first his right arm, then into the infected left.
Golden lines snaked down his skin like molten roots,
crawling through the blackened veins,
flooding the decay.
His body convulsed—
jerking violently,
as another branch extended and entered the gaping cavity in his torso,
pumping more golden ichor into the ruins of his ribs and guts.
Where the infection had claimed his flesh,
new tissue formed—not human, not plant,
but something in between.
His ribs—once shattered—
were mended with golden seams,
like bones reforged in divine kintsugi.
His entrails—once torn—
reknit with golden thread and shadowy muscle.
The tree lowered him slowly,
gently, as though handling a sacred relic.
He collapsed to his knees,
half-dead, half-reborn.
His left arm—still infected—remained upright,
suspended and sealed by the tree itself.
Wood and bark wrapped around it like a sarcophagus.
Then—
the tree changed him.
The infection could not be cured—
so it was overwritten.
Where rot once reigned,
creation bloomed.
The arm was rebuilt from root and branch,
golden bone, black sinew, glowing nerves.
A gift. A weapon. A resurrection.
The tree did not know why it did this.
It had no name. No mind.
Before it was planted here,
before the outbreak,
before the world—
There had been only darkness.
A void where instinct guided its growth.
It had not thought.
It had not felt.
But then it heard him—
this broken boy.
His voice, small but defiant:
"I'll be protecting you now... Hehe... At least I won't die alone somewhere."
Those words.
That bravery.
That sorrow.
That kindness—offered freely, even in certain death.
The tree remembered.
Felt.
And for the first time in its existence—
It wept.
Not with tears,
but with golden sap that shimmered in the air.
And as the lesser infected rushed toward the fallen body,
hungry for flesh—
WRRRAAAAAAAAGHHHH!!!
CRACK!
Roots exploded from the ground,
skewering them one by one.
A field of death formed around the tree and the boy,
no monster allowed to defile his body further.
And as it completed the final layer of Wise's reconstructed arm,
the tree whispered, ancient and regal:
"Thou shalt not die here. I promise thee that."
And so—
beneath the sacred boughs of a tree that had never known love—
a boy who gave his life for something beautiful
was given the chance
to live again.
In the helicopter, Ivan Knight held his wife in his arms, her body trembling with sobs. The red mark of a slap still burned on his cheek. She had hit him—for leaving their son behind—and he hadn't said a word. He couldn't. The pain in his chest was too raw, too deep.
The truth had shattered him.
Their son... infected.
Their baby boy had just turned seventeen.
And he asked him to go.
Asked him to leave.
His face was calm. Too calm.
Not a trace of fear—only acceptance.
Before he was a man, he had already chosen to be one.
He didn't say goodbye.
Didn't cry.
Because he knew—if he spoke, if he begged—it would break his father apart.
When they announced there was only one seat left,
Wise should have taken it.
But his son didn't let him choose.
Wise ran.
Straight to the fence.
Locked it from the outside.
Ivan still saw his smile—
That damn soft, quiet smile.
He had shaken the gate furiously, yelling, screaming for him.
That's when Wise revealed it—his bitten hand.
Ivan's heart sank like a stone in his chest.
Everything stopped.
He reached through the fence, grabbing his son's arm,
not wanting to let go.
Couldn't let go.
My boy. My son. My legacy. My pride. My flesh and blood.
But then—
the soldiers dragged him away, back into the chopper,
his body flailing, screaming Wise's name.
He was still screaming it as the helicopter took off.
Still screaming it when the image of that smiling face—
so calm, so goddamn calm—burned into his memory.
He hadn't said a word since.
Not when his wife screamed.
Not when she slapped him over and over.
Not when his children cried and clung to her.
The military had to intervene, gently stopping her,
telling her the truth.
"Your son was bitten in the left hand. That's why he stayed behind. He made the choice himself."
She crumbled.
Right there.
Screaming Ivan's name.
Sobbing, broken, repeating one word over and over:
"My baby... My baby... My baby..."
Ivan finally broke, falling to his knees as he held her tight.
He was a WHO official.
Important enough to be safe.
Important enough to take his family with him.
And yet—
he couldn't save the one thing that mattered most.
His own son.
The helicopter panned out over the city.
It was burning.
Fires raged through the streets like rivers of hell. Buildings exploded one after another, collapsing into dust and steel. The skyline was nothing but smoke, fire, and screaming. Chaos had swallowed everything.
On rooftops, people waved flares—
bright, desperate lights in the smoke.
Hands stretched toward the sky,
begging for salvation.
They were screaming. Crying. Pleading.
But no one looked.
No one answered.
The mission was over.
They had already gotten what they came for.
The data. The officials. The "essentials."
And now they were leaving.
The flares faded behind them as the helicopter soared higher into the blood-red sky.
Below, the city died.
Unseen.
Unheard.
Unsaved.