Dominik looked at the center of the explosion and couldn't help but murmur, "Oh my God..."
Most of the zombies were burning with fierce, white-hot phosphorescent flames. In just tens of seconds, the intense chemical fire was reducing them to charred skeletons.
White phosphorus, once ignited, would continue to burn relentlessly until it consumed all its fuel or was completely deprived of oxygen. The air in the banquet hall was rapidly filling with the nauseating, heavy "fragrance" of roasted meat and burnt hair.
Suppressing a wave of nausea, Dominik helped Simon to his feet and asked, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Simon grunted as he stood up. He gripped his SCAR-L and looked at the gruesome state of the horde, sighing. "Good thing The Syndicate militia didn't have access to these, or you and I would be ashes in the jungle right now."
"Aww..."
Just then, a zombie—its lower half completely blown away and the rest of its body severely burned—was using its charred hands to drag itself across the ruined carpet, trying to reach them.
Seeing this, Simon unhurriedly unscrewed the suppressor from his SCAR-L and shot the crawling infected in the head.
Bang! The unsuppressed crack of the 5.56mm round echoed deafeningly throughout the tenth floor of the hotel.
"There's no need for a suppressor now. The WP blast just rang the dinner bell for the whole block," Simon stated, his voice ringing slightly in the enclosed space. "Quickly take care of the remaining stragglers. And remember—do not touch the white flames!"
Simon finished speaking and raised his rifle, systematically eliminating the staggering zombies on the outer edges of the explosion radius.
Dominik also unscrewed the heavy, crude oil filter from his Type-56, tucked the makeshift suppressor into his chest rig, and joined the sweep. Without the filter blocking his sights, his aim was significantly better.
Click! Simon, after slapping in a fresh magazine, scanned left and right, shouting, "Clear!"
Dominik pivoted, holding his Type-56 tight against his shoulder, sweeping his sector. "I'm all clear here too! Clear!"
Immediately after, Simon extended his right index and middle fingers, gesturing toward the main conference room doors at the back of the hall, signaling for them to breach together.
Dominik nodded sharply. The two of them stacked up—one on the left, one on the right—and quickly rushed through the shattered double doors.
Upon entering, they found a massive pile of heavy banquet tables and chairs shoved against the entryway. It was a desperate barricade that had ultimately failed to withstand the crushing weight of a hundred infected bodies.
Looking further inside the ruined conference room, several zombies were kneeling on the floor, gnawing on the fresh corpses of survivors. They were completely ignoring the surrounding commotion, entirely focused on their grisly "delicacy."
A few other zombies were wandering aimlessly among the overturned chairs. Hearing the explosion and the unsuppressed gunshots, they began to turn toward the doorway.
Upon seeing Dominik and Simon, their shuffling pace quickened into an aggressive shamble.
Bang! Bang! The sharp, deafening cracks of the Type-56 and the SCAR-L filled the room. Dominik and Simon certainly weren't going to give them a free pass. They raised their sights, aimed for the heads, and sent the infected permanently into the dark.
In less than half a minute, the two had dealt with the remaining threats in the room.
However, Simon frowned, his eyes scanning the carnage. "Where are the others? There were pistol shots coming from here just minutes ago. Did we arrive too late?"
Dominik, however, didn't panic. He forced himself to look at the bodies on the ground.
"Look at their clothes," Dominik analyzed, pointing a trembling finger at the torn uniforms. "These people are hotel security guards and local patrol officers. They must have held the line here to protect the civilians, but they were overrun."
After speaking, Dominik aimed at the head of a security guard's corpse that had just begun to twitch. Bang. "First rule right now: make sure they are all truly dead," Dominik said, his voice hardening. "Not letting them turn into those monsters is the greatest respect we can show them."
"Mm." Simon didn't object. He moved through the room, delivering mercy shots to the fallen defenders.
Once they confirmed the room was entirely neutralized, Dominik pointed to a reinforced steel door next to the speaker's podium. "If they were protecting anyone, the VIPs or civilians must be hiding in the AV control room."
"Let's go." Simon quickly walked to the steel door and rapped his knuckles against it. "Is anyone there?"
Silence. No one in the sound room replied.
However, Dominik, who had stepped up beside Simon, could hear faint, ragged breathing on the other side of the metal. The people inside were terrified, likely thinking the zombies or hostile survivors were trying to trick them.
Dominik cleared his throat, forcing his voice to be as gentle and steady as possible.
"Laura? Are you in there? It's Dominik. Big brother is here."
A sharp gasp came from the other side of the door, followed by a girl's voice, trembling with disbelief. "Dom... Dominik?"
"Yes. It's me, and Simon. We're here to get you out!"
For a moment, Dominik felt a strange disconnect, like he was playing a role. He still had very little active memory of Laura from his previous life on Earth. He only knew she was his sister in this new reality—and he remembered the shameful, fleeting thought he'd had earlier about abandoning her to save himself.
Clang! The heavy deadbolt was thrown back, and the door was yanked open.
Dominik saw a young woman who bore a striking resemblance to the punk-pop singers of the early 2000s, with ash-blonde hair and light freckles dusting her pale, terrified face. She was wearing a simple, now dirt-stained sundress.
Behind her in the cramped, dark AV room were three other terrified survivors—one man and two women—who had tried and failed to stop her from opening the door.
But Laura ignored them. She threw herself directly into Dominik's arms, hugging him with a desperate, crushing grip.
"Dom... you're finally here!" she sobbed into his tactical vest. "I'm... so scared... I was so scared!"
[Received emotional feedback from Laura Corvinus. Degree: Relief/Affection. Points awarded: 5]
[Received emotional feedback from Laura Corvinus. Degree: Absolute Trust. Points awarded: 10]
"I..."
Before Dominik could utter empty words of comfort, a searing spike of pain hit his temples. The System was implanting the rest of the puzzle.
In a fraction of a second, he remembered everything about Laura.
They were orphans in Europe. When he was ten and she was six, they were taken in by a foster family that turned out to be a nightmare—an abusive, horrific environment. Dominik had orchestrated their escape. Living on the streets, they had crossed paths with a young Simon Riley. It was Simon's mother who had ultimately helped the siblings find a safe, real adoptive family.
When Dominik was eighteen, he earned a scholarship to study anthropology. He worked grueling part-time jobs to support himself and send money back to Laura, making sure she never had to experience the poverty they once knew.
This year, Dominik was finishing his thesis in Mandalay. Laura, having just graduated from high school, had flown out to Southeast Asia to surprise him and celebrate. Instead, she had walked right into the end of the world.
The dam broke. The implanted memories didn't feel artificial anymore; they felt like his own soul. The love, the fierce protectiveness, the shared trauma—it all surged into his chest.
Dominik's eyes burned red. He wrapped both arms around his sister, holding her tight, his voice thick with genuine emotion.
"Don't be afraid. I'm here... I'm here. Simon and I are here. I will never leave you behind again. I promise."
Dominik felt a cold dread wash over him. He realized that if his initial, cowardly self-preservation instincts had won out, he would have left her to die. If he had done that, he would have lost the only real family he had in this nightmare of a world.
Bang! Bang! The sharp, rhythmic gunshots of the SCAR-L violently interrupted the reunion.
Dominik wiped his eyes and snapped his head toward the door. Simon was kneeling by the shattered conference room entrance, firing down the hallway. The unsuppressed noise had done its job—a massive secondary wave of infected was surging up the stairs.
"Ahem," Simon coughed, not taking his eyes off his sights or his finger off the trigger. "I really hate to interrupt the family moment, mate... but save the tears until we're off this bloody floor!"