The passage ahead seemed endless.
Calista rounded a corner at a sprint and found herself in a relatively straight corridor. Rooms of unknown purpose lined both sides, most of their doors shut tight.
No good. She could not outrun them on a straight path.
They were getting closer.
Calista's gaze swept rapidly over her surroundings, then locked onto a door on the right that was slightly ajar. The sign on it read [Data Recording and Analysis Room].
There.
She rushed inside and tried to slam the door behind her, but the fastest mutant's claw had already reached through the gap.
Without hesitation, Calista brought her dagger down hard, cutting off the claw along with half the arm.
Black blood sprayed out.
She seized the chance to shut the door and braced it with her body while quickly scanning the room.
It was not large. Abandoned computers and filing cabinets were piled inside.
The only exit was the door she had just entered through, and now it was being battered so violently by the mutated walkers that it hummed and shook. The door panel was already beginning to warp.
Perfect. A dead end.
The Walking Dead was a show where even main characters could die, let alone a nobody like her.
Acting on hot blood really was a terrible idea.
Calista looked up at the ceiling in despair, only to spot a thin chance at survival.
There was a standard ventilation duct cover up there, about sixty centimeters on each side.
Her survival instinct unleashed a burst of astonishing strength.
Calista shoved over a heavy metal filing cabinet nearby and jammed it against the door, though she knew it would not hold for long.
Then she jumped onto the desk and frantically pried at the vent cover screws with her dagger.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The relentless pounding outside sounded like Death knocking at the door. The doorframe was already starting to crack.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Come on! Come on!" she snarled at herself, veins bulging on the back of her hand from the strain.
At last, with several clicks, the screws loosened.
Calista shoved hard and pushed the cover open.
Just as the door was forced open a crack and several claws reached inside, Calista sprang upward, grabbed the edge of the duct with both hands, and used her core strength to flip into the ventilation shaft with the agility of a gymnast.
At the same time, she kicked the desk over so the mutated walkers could not use it to climb up after her.
She did not dare linger. She put the cover back in place, with no time to tighten the screws, and immediately crawled forward.
The duct was pitch-black. The only light came from the flickering red alarm glow spilling up from the doorway below, along with the frustrated roars and scratching of the mutated walkers behind her.
She had only crawled a few meters when she heard something heavy land behind her. Several of the strongest mutated walkers had actually leapt up, knocked the cover aside, and crawled in after her.
Most of the others could only roar furiously at the ventilation duct overhead.
Damn it.
Those damned French bastards. What the hell did they create?
Their sharp claws scraped along the metal walls of the duct, making her scalp prickle, and they were not slow either.
Calista's heart tightened. She had to lose them.
The ventilation ducts were like a maze, branching in every direction.
Using the weak beam of her headlamp, she crawled forward desperately.
The wound in her left palm had split open again from the violent movement. Blood kept dripping, leaving a clear scent trail through the duct, practically guiding the pursuers behind her.
Calista gritted her teeth. As she crawled, she tore a relatively clean strip of lining from the inside of her tactical vest. Using her teeth and right hand together, she wrapped it tightly around the wound in her left palm and cinched it hard to stop the bleeding.
Whenever she passed a junction, she deliberately chose the narrower and more complicated route.
The scraping behind her seemed to fall farther back, but it did not disappear.
At a relatively spacious duct junction, she stopped, turned off her headlamp, held her breath, and listened carefully.
"Scrape... scrape... thud..."
Something was coming.
More than one.
Calista tightened her grip on the dagger, her eyes turning cold.
If she could not shake them off, then she would kill them.
The first mutated walker's head poked around the corner, its crimson eyes burning like ghost fire in the dark.
Calista gave it no chance. Before it could spot her, her dagger flashed out like lightning and pierced straight through its eye socket.
The mutated walker twitched once, then stopped moving.
Its corpse blocked the narrow duct.
The second mutated walker shoved angrily at its companion's body from behind, letting out a low growl.
Calista used the opening to crawl back and search for the next favorable position.
She found the mouth of a vertical shaft where the duct extended downward. Below was pure darkness, and she had no idea where it led.
Without hesitation, Calista braced her hands and feet against the duct walls and carefully slid down.
She had only descended three or four meters when the sound of mutated walkers dropping down came from above. They had jumped straight in.
Calista cursed under her breath, then immediately let go, falling downward like a stone.
"Thump!"
She landed on a pile of soft material that seemed to be discarded insulation. It cushioned the fall a little, but the impact still left her dizzy and disoriented, and the wound in her left hand tore with searing pain again.
Calista had no time to check her injury. She immediately rolled aside.
Almost at the same moment, three mutated walkers slammed down hard into the spot where she had just been.
This seemed to be a larger ventilation hub, with a more open space connected to ducts in several directions.
The three mutated walkers shook their heads, instantly locked onto Calista, and lunged at her with snarls.
In the darkness, Calista's senses sharpened to the extreme.
She could smell the heavy stench coming off them, and she could even predict their movements from the faint sounds of their claws cutting through the air.
Left.
Calista rolled sharply to the right, dodging the first one's pounce. At the same time, her dagger swept upward and sliced open the thigh muscle of the second mutated walker. It was not fatal, but it slowed it down.
Behind her.
As if she had eyes in the back of her head, she ducked low, and the third mutant's claws skimmed past her scalp.
Then she kicked backward with the momentum, slamming her foot hard into the back of its knee and making it stagger.
In the absolute darkness, Calista pushed her physical abilities and combat instincts to their limit.
She did not clash with them head-on. Instead, she relied on her agility and that strangely heightened perception to circle and fight the three mutated walkers.
Calista moved like a slippery fish, weaving through the gaps between the mutated walkers' attacks.
Her dagger focused on their eyes, ear canals, jaws, and joints.
"Pshk!"
The dagger stabbed into one mutant's ear canal and twisted.
"Crack!"
She dodged a claw, hooked another mutant's arm with practiced force, and kicked its elbow joint viciously, drawing out the teeth-grating sound of bone splitting.
Calista's movements grew smoother and more ruthless, as if some hidden potential were being awakened in the middle of the fight.
The burning sensation inside her gradually settled as the battle went on, turning into something like an instinctive will to kill.
At last, when her strength was nearly spent, Calista drove the dagger into the final mutant's temple and twisted with all her might.
The world fell silent.