In the heart of the city, beneath the hum of neon lights and the constant hiss of steam vents, there was a place the public didn't know existed. Level B17 of the Echelon Medical Complex, cloaked under the guise of routine research, had become a battlefield of desperation. Humanity was dying—not from bombs or war—but from a virus no one could trace or tame. It started in the water, they said. Then the blood. Then the bones.
People were rotting from the inside out, alive but hollow, with skin that peeled like wet paper. They called it Virex-23. No one knew where it came from, only that it spread like wildfire and killed slower than it should. Suffering was part of its cruelty.
Echelon became the world's last hope.
Inside, white lab coats moved like ghosts between machines that blinked and beeped with quiet desperation. Dr. Naila Merin, the project head, hadn't slept in four days. Her eyes were red-rimmed, lips cracked, and her hands trembled as she held a vial of Serum X. This was their final prototype—a blend of gene therapy, nanocells, and modified stem cultures taken from subjects who'd survived longer than most.
She glanced at her colleague, Dr. Malcolm Rez, who stood at the glass barrier, watching the patient inside.
"Are you sure it's ready?" he asked, voice low, uncertain.
"It has to be," she murmured. "We don't have time for another trial."
Patient 32 was already strapped to the gurney, pupils dilated, body twitching from the fever. They inserted the serum slowly, a luminous blue vein running up the IV line and into the subject's arm.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then he screamed.
The sound wasn't human.
It shook the walls. Lights flickered. Every cell on Naila's body stood on edge as the patient convulsed, then arched—spine bending far past the point of natural movement. Bones cracked. His body bulged, muscles warping like clay stretched in the wrong hands.
"Oh god…" Malcolm whispered.
Alarms didn't go off yet. But the cameras recorded everything—the blood pouring from the man's eyes, his jaw breaking open wider than it should, and the way he looked at them, after. Not with pain.
With hunger.
---Security hit the emergency button.
CODE BLACK: GENETIC BREACH DETECTED.
The voice echoed through every hallway, cutting through the sterile silence like a scream. Red lights washed the walls. Lockdown protocols engaged. Steel doors slammed shut on Levels A through D. But it was too late.
Patient 32 tore free of the restraints with a strength that wasn't just inhuman—it was impossible. A guard opened the door to tranq him. He didn't walk out. He leapt, mouth unhinged, and bit clean through the guard's helmet. Blood hit the floor in a wave.
Malcolm ran. Naila didn't. She froze, staring through the glass as the creature turned toward the observation window and smiled. No. It wasn't a smile.
It was recognition.
Like it knew what she'd done.
The sirens outside started next. The city's early warning system blared through the streets. "Evacuate central sectors. Biohazard breach in Echelon Complex."
People didn't believe it at first. They filmed it. Posted it. Hashtagged it.
Until the first creature dragged a scientist through a lab window and dropped his body onto the sidewalk twenty stories below. Then came the second. Then the third.
And then the streets began to scream.
Inside the control room, Naila shouted, "Shut down the elevators! Lock stair access—" but the intercom crackled. A voice came through: twisted, fragmented, and wrong.
"We are born. We are ash."
It was Patient 32. But it came from every speaker in the building.
Here's a 700-word continuation of Ashes of the Living with a cliffhanger ending, picking up from where the last scene left off.
---
Part 3: The Spread
The words crawled through the intercom like static-soaked rot.
"We are born. We are ash."
The voice didn't match the man they had strapped down just minutes ago. This one was layered—metallic, fractured, as if it echoed from the throat of something that had never spoken before.
Then it laughed.
Not a man's laugh. A chorus of them. Male, female, young, old—blended together in a sound that didn't belong in this world.
"Shut it down!" Naila screamed, slamming her hand against the comms console. Sparks burst from the panel, and the screen glitched, flashing a single word:
SPREADING.
She backed away.
Malcolm barreled into the room, face drenched in sweat. "It's in the air system. He's using the vents."
She stared at him. "That's not possible. The serum wasn't designed for airborne transmission."
"It's mutating."
He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the emergency stairwell. Behind them, the monitors flickered again, but this time, instead of system diagnostics, they showed faces. People in other parts of the complex, frozen mid-scream. Then static.
"Where are we going?" Naila gasped as they descended.
"There's a sublevel—B19. An incineration chamber. We might be able to trap it—whatever it is—down there."
The walls vibrated. Not from explosions, but movement. Something massive, crawling through the ductwork above their heads. It wasn't alone.
One level down, a door burst open. A nurse stumbled out. "Help! Help, please! They're—!"
Something yanked her back by her throat. Her scream cut short with a wet, sharp crack.
Malcolm shut the stairwell door. "We don't stop this now, it's going to hit the streets in under an hour."
"What about the outside lockdown?" Naila asked.
"Already breached."
They reached B19. Steel walls lined with black scorch marks. This chamber was meant for failed samples—biological waste that couldn't be allowed to survive. The override key hung from a magnetic panel.
Malcolm turned to Naila. "I need you to go. You're the only one who understands how to shut the system down from above."
"No. No, we stay together," she said, her voice cracking.
"If we do, we both die."
Suddenly, the door behind them groaned open—by itself.
The lights above flickered.
And then he walked in.
Or what used to be him.
Patient 32—or whatever was left of him—stood taller than he had before. His skin was stretched, patched in places like it had been stitched from multiple bodies. His eyes were burning. Not metaphorically. They glowed. And when he opened his mouth, dozens of smaller voices whispered with him.
"We were human once. You made us monsters."
Malcolm shoved Naila behind him. "Go!"
She hesitated.
"GO!"
She ran. Up the stairs. Not looking back. Not until she heard the heavy blast doors slam shut behind her, sealing B19 from the rest of the complex.
Then silence.
Until the world beneath her feet rumbled.
And she heard screaming. Not his.
Hers.
Not from her throat.
From inside her mind.
A whisper, soft and dreadful, curling through the air like smoke.
"You ran. But we're already inside."