The blood rain kept falling.
Sticky. Heavy. Redder than anything natural.
Inside the Blood Cage, the prisoners had lost it completely. Screaming, smashing the metal walls with their fists, breaking toilet seats, glass, beds—anything they could find. They didn't care about the consequences anymore. They just wanted out.
The lockdown had failed.
Cell doors that hadn't opened in years had slid open on their own like something… no, someone was controlling them.
Even the ones who hadn't touched the rain were affected. They weren't dead, no, but they were possessed. Their eyes were wide and twitchy, mouths foaming, and their screams weren't human. Just deep, echoing howls like beasts locked in cages too long.
From the control room, the warden stared in horror.
Every guard who had gone outside during the first few drops of the red rain had run back in, desperate for safety.
Now they were dying one by one.
Their heads exploded. Not all at once—one would scream, then pop—like their brain boiled inside their skull. Blood everywhere. It was chaos.
A few unlucky ones were quarantined in the lower floor after first contact with the rain, but now… their eyes had turned completely red. Not glowing. Just red. Veins crawling out the edges. Their teeth were no longer human. They looked like animals. Blood around their mouths. They were slamming their bodies into the glass, shouting nonsense. Trying to escape. Trying to bite.
"What's happening to them?" someone whispered.
The warden said nothing. He couldn't even think.
People in lab coats behind him, scientists and system analysts, were shouting over each other. Alarms blared. The monitors on the walls showed camera feeds from the entire Blood Cage… and outside.
On the streets beyond the fences, the world was ending.
Kids were crying and crawling under tables. Mothers were screaming, holding their heads, blood dripping from their noses. People were punching each other on the sidewalks, biting each other's faces. And just like inside, some people's heads were bursting. Cars crashed into buildings, people jumped out of windows, and bodies were lying still on the road.
It was spreading.
The scientists tried to bring back control.
"We need to reset the system!"
"It's not responding!"
"Power grid's crashing! Look, this isn't a virus. The machines aren't being hacked. It's like something's overriding our controls!"
The warden stepped forward to speak, but before he could say a word—
Screams.
Real ones.
Pleading. From just outside the control room.
"Don't kill us!"
"Please—please don't—"
Everyone inside froze. The guards reached for their batons and pistols. Those who had none picked up chairs, metal poles, anything that could be used to defend themselves.
The warden's hand trembled as he grabbed a loose piece of pipe.
The door creaked.
Then it slammed open.
Seven men walked in. Calm. Confident. Blood on their shoes.
They weren't screaming. They weren't panicking.
The one in front had a scar across his left eye and looked older than the rest. Not old like sixty. Old like he'd been here for centuries. His skin was darkened and cracked like old leather, but his posture was strong. Commanding.
The guards in the room aimed their weapons, but the old man didn't blink.
He raised one hand.
The others spread out, surrounding the room slowly. No one said a word. They didn't need to.
Everyone inside knew: These weren't regular prisoners.
One of the followers brought a dusty chair from the corner, wiped the blood off the seat with his hand, and placed it gently behind the old man. He sat down like he was home.
Then he smiled.
"Hi, Warden. We meet again."
His voice was calm. Chilling.
"How have you been?" He tilted his head. "Damn, it took a long time to get out of this place."
The warden couldn't speak. Couldn't move. His mouth opened, but no words came out. He just stared.
One of the elderly women—gray-haired, barely standing—was gripping an iron rod. She positioned it in front of her like a sword.
Her lips quivered.
"What in the world is going on?" she asked, voice quiet but clear.
No one answered her.
Just then, a group of younger prisoners—wild-eyed, sweaty, blood on their sleeves—rushed in from the hallway. They were carrying batons, pistols, tasers, knives. Weapons stolen from the guards they'd killed on the way in.
They didn't greet the old man or his crew.
They went straight to the far side of the control room—where the master panel and CCTV system were.
They started flipping switches, trying to open doors.
Trying to find a way out.
But the warden, still frozen, found the strength to shout, "Don't touch that!"
The sound cracked through the chaos.
The young men paused.
The elderly woman, eyes still darting between the invaders and the screens showing death outside, whispered again—but louder, as if her mind had just caught up with her eyes.
"What in the world is going on?" she asked again. Her hands trembled.
"We're all gonna die if you open that door…"
The room went silent.
Everyone stared at the screen.
One of the prisoners had paused a video feed from the outer gate.
A creature—too big to be a man, but too thin to be an animal—was crouching just outside the last fence.
Its wings twitched.
Its head turned slowly toward the camera.
It was still raining.
But the ground was soaked.
And the creature smiled.
Suddenly, it looked up at the CCTV.
And a deep, guttural voice echoed—not from outside, but from inside the evolved Creature's mind.
"Destroy it all and free them."
Hearing the voice in its mind command, "Destroy it," the creature let out a piercing, bloodcurdling screech—one that didn't belong in any known animal kingdom. It vibrated through the rain, slicing into the night like a siren from hell. It turned sharply and launched itself forward, ready to fulfill the command echoing in its head.
Inside the prison control room, every eye that had once been filled with arrogant smirks and idle boredom was now locked onto the monitor in horror.
"The fuck is that?" one of the prisoners muttered, voice tight with fear.
The scarred-eye man—the self-appointed leader of the inmates—had been pacing earlier with swagger. But now, he stopped dead in his tracks and walked slowly toward the central monitor. Rain distorted the lens, but the creature's silhouette was clear. Tall. Twisted. Unnatural.
The elderly woman, who had been trembling ever since the first screams outside, couldn't hold back anymore. Her voice cracked as she pleaded and asked again, "What the hell is going on—"
A loud bang cut her sentence short.
One of the prisoners, irritated, or perhaps just losing grip, had shot her right between the eyes. She dropped instantly. Her lifeless eyes stared up at the blinking fluorescent lights. Blood pooled beneath her head, but no one moved. None of the guards or even the warden reacted. Maybe they'd all been too fed up with her constant questions. Or maybe they knew. Maybe it was obvious now.
Something had gone wrong.
Horribly wrong.
A few prisoners began trembling openly. These were killers, yes, but not fools. They knew when something worse than a bullet was coming.
Suddenly, the screen showing the creature outside went black.
One by one, the monitors started shutting off. First the west wing. Then the holding cells. Then the electric fences. Each screen blinked into darkness like dying stars, and the room grew dimmer with every passing second.
They just stood there—paralyzed—as if the monitors were counting down to their deaths.
One of the smarter inmates tossed his makeshift weapon and picked up a rusted iron rod instead. A few others followed suit. There was no plan, just raw fear and primal instinct.
The scarred-eye leader barked orders: "Form up! Protect your leader! Stay alert—DO YOU HEAR ME?!"
But no one listened.
They were too distracted by the creeping shadows, by the screens that blinked off one after the other. The room was falling into darkness, and all they could hear were the nervous gulps and the pounding of their own hearts.
The scarred-eye man's nostrils flared. He grabbed a weapon himself—a long, jagged blade—and prepared for whatever came next.
The warden, watching the chaos unfold, let out a quiet breath of relief. If they were going to die tonight, at least they'd die fighting the monsters, not each other.
Then came the knock.
A soft, deliberate knock at the heavy metal door behind them.
Everyone froze. The noise wasn't loud, but in the silence, it echoed like a bomb.
Slowly, with terrified caution, they turned.
A figure stood in the doorway. It looked like a guard. Same uniform. Same posture.
But something was off.
"Guard," the warden called, his voice trembling. "What unit are you from?"
The guard said nothing.
"Identify yourself! That's an order!"
Still, no response.
He stepped forward, one slow, dragging foot at a time. Like a puppet being pulled by invisible strings.
The scarred-eye man, twitching with anger and fear, snarled, "Enough of this shit."
He rushed forward with the sword raised.
As he swung down, the guard's head jerked up.
Glowing red eyes locked onto the inmate.
Smoke—or something darker—hissed out from the sides of his head, as though his skull was leaking steam.
The scarred-eye man faltered mid-strike.
But it was too late.
The guard reached up and caught his neck midair.
With a horrific crunch, he squeezed.
The scarred-eye man's neck compressed and collapsed under the pressure, bones grinding like gravel. His head tilted at an impossible angle before his body hit the ground like a sack of meat.
Lifeless.
One inmate screamed and bolted.
A few others tried to follow, panic driving them like wild animals.
The possessed guard tilted his head and smiled—a dead smile, wrong in every way.
Then he disappeared.
Not ran.
Not blinked.
Vanished—like lightning, like he had never been there at all.
In a flash, he reappeared in front of another prisoner and touched their chest.
They dropped, mouth open, dead before they hit the floor.
One by one, he moved like a phantom through the room.
And one by one, bodies hit the ground.
The remaining survivors screamed, begged, and swung wildly with their makeshift weapons—but none of it mattered.
He wasn't fighting them.
He was executing them.
In the midst of the bloodshed, the warden slowly backed away, unnoticed. Inch by inch, he reached the emergency exit behind the equipment racks. His hand slid along the panel until it found the hidden latch. The door opened silently.
He slipped through and ran—fast and hard—into a narrow, hidden corridor, deeper into the facility. Toward a base he'd been secretly building. A safe room. A panic bunker.
He didn't look back.
He didn't have to.
The screams told him everything he needed to know.
The creature outside had been terrifying.
But whatever this was?
It had already gotten inside.