The man's head hit the floor with a wet thud.
For a heartbeat, no one moved. Not the nurse. Not the soldier. Not even the air in my lungs. The silence was worse than the blade's crunch through bone.
Then—
"Clear!" The soldier spun his kukri once, a practiced flick of the wrist, before sliding it back into its sheath. His voice had hardened into something mechanical. "Quarantine. Now."
We followed.
Not because we trusted him.
But because the rules had changed. That single swing of the blade had drawn a line in the blood-slicked floor: One wrong move, and you're not human anymore.
The hallway to quarantine was a gullet of fluorescent lights and steel. Bulletproof glass windows revealed empty corridors beyond, their surfaces streaked with old handprints. Too clean. Like they'd scrubbed away the panic but not the ghosts.
Decontamination hit us in stages—UV scanners that burned our retinas, mist showers that stank of chemicals, a robotic arm patting us down with cold, insectile precision.
Aaron clenched his jaw. "This is overkill."
The soldier didn't turn. "You'd rather wake up chewing on your friend's throat?"
Zayn's bandage had seeped through, a blooming Rorschach of red on his shirt. He didn't complain. None of us did.
The door screeched open.
Inside: six bunks. A sink. Two chairs. And a camera in the corner, its red eye unblinking.
A medic materialized behind us. "Six hours. If you're clean, you move to the survivor zone. If not—" She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
Insha folded onto a bunk, knees to chest. Aaron paced like a caged animal. Zayn lay stiffly, his back hovering above the mattress to avoid pressure on his wound.
I stood, replaying the severed head's final twitch.
"What if he wasn't turning yet?" I whispered.
Zayn's gaze cut to me. "What?"
"That guy. He didn't attack. He just… collapsed."
Aaron froze mid-step. "You think they killed him for a maybe?"
"I think they don't care."
Insha's voice was a frayed thread. "He touched me."
We turned. Her fingers trembled where they gripped her sleeves. "When I fell. His hand brushed mine. What if—"
Aaron crouched beside her. "Six hours. That's all."
"Yeah," she said. "But what if they lie?"
Zayn's smile was grim. "Then we don't sleep."
The lights dimmed to a sickly twilight. A speaker crackled:
"Observation Cycle One complete. Vital signs nominal."
Aaron barked a laugh. "Zombie apocalypse brought to you by fucking Siri."
Insha splashed water on her face. The mirror showed a stranger—hollow-eyed, mouth tight with something worse than fear.
"You okay?" I asked.
She didn't answer.
The speaker again: "Cycle Two: Stable."
But the flickering light above Zayn's bunk said otherwise.
Then Insha jerked upright.
"Did you hear that?"
Zayn frowned. "Hear what?"
"Whispers."
We pressed ears to walls. At first, nothing. Then—a hum. Electrical, maybe. But beneath it…
Murmurs.
Not words. Just sound, like voices drowned in static.
Aaron backed away. "Nope. Nope."
Insha wasn't listening. Her pupils swallowed her irises, black and depthless.
"Insha—?"
She screamed.
A raw, animal sound. Her hand latched onto my wrist, nails drawing blood.
Aaron lunged. "She's turning!"
"No!" I wrenched free. "She's scared—"
Above us, the camera's red light pulsed.
Once. Twice. Three times.
A code.
A verdict.
Somewhere, a door hissed open. Boots pounded toward us.
And Insha whispered, "They're not coming to save us."