'I need some head' Mason thought, bored beyond reason. 'A leg shaking head would do wonders right about now.'
The hall smelled like a toxic cocktail of anxiety, cheap deodorant, and the collective despair of final-year students praying their projects wouldn't expose how little sleep they'd gotten in the past month. Mason Brooks slumped in his seat near the very back, hoodie up, backpack tucked between his legs, doing his best impression of a corpse pretending to be alive.
He was failing spectacularly at it, which made sense, considering he'd spent the entire night replaying God of War Ragnarök just to pass time while waiting for the teased sequel. God of War: Dominion, where Kratos was finally going to throw hands with the Egyptian pantheon.
'Which, let's be honest,'Mason thought, rubbing his eyes, 'is going to be sick as hell.'
"…and that concludes my solar conversion demonstration," Victor announced from the stage.
'Solar converter number fifty-two.' Mason wanted to applaud out of spite not for the project, but for the endurance required to sit through this academic torture.
'Did I kick a baby in a past life? Is this karmic punishment?'
Mason leaned back, staring through the roof and out the skylight overhead. The strange blue streaks in the sky shimmered faintly behind the clouds, pulsing like veins under thin skin.
'Huh. That's weird. Pretty. Probably deadly.'
'Man, I need to fucking sleep.'
Victor continued droning on about efficiency ratios and photon capture metrics and Mason's brain officially checked out, drifted into a fog of half-dreams and muscle memory from countless boss fights.
Then he heard his name.
"Mason Brooks, you're up!"
His soul immediately tried to evacuate his body.
"Oh great, perfect timing it's my turn now. Sure, why not."
He stood with the enthusiasm of someone walking toward an execution chamber.
"I needed a panic attack today anyway."
He grabbed his backpack and trudged toward the stage. From inside, he pulled out a sleek foldable drone that looked compact, metallic and lunchbox-sized. He set it down, pressed a button on the controller.
Click-whirrrr.
The drone unfurled like metal origami, splitting into one main unit and two smaller minis that detached with smooth, synchronized maneuver, hovering like obedient robotic ducklings.
The entire hall leaned forward.
Finally, something cool.
"Begin whenever you're ready, Mr. Brooks," the instructor said, rubbing his nose like he hadn't expected to be impressed today.
Mason shrugged.
The drones lifted into the air in a triangular formation, moving with sharp, fluid sweeps. The minis rotated around the main body, forming shifting patterns as Mason began speaking. His voice growing steadier and more confident.
"Okay, so these three work as a coordinated unit. Main body handles processing and long-range scanning. The minis are for close-range reconnaissance and terrain mapping. They can cover a one-mile radius without losing sync, and each one is built with a self-stabilizing gyroscope system I engineered myself."
People murmured, impressed.
"The alloy is a titanium-carbon composite. Light. Durable as hell. They're wind-resistant, EMP-shielded which is great, because they can run independently if one gets destroyed."
He smirked at the last part.
Even Mason felt a flicker of pride. He glanced across the crowd at John. A tall, well-dressed, obviously rich, holding what looked like a miniature cube-shaped security camera. Mason had no idea why John carried that thing everywhere, but it blinked periodically like it was staring back at him.
Before Mason could continue with his presentation however, the lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
The hum of conversation dipped into a confused hush.
"What the hell…?"
"Is the generator acting up?"
Murmurs swelled through the hall. Then they heard a low thud.
A heavy and muffled sound from outside.
One of the lecturers frowned, turning toward the glass wall that overlooked the courtyard.
"What are those students doing out there—"
He never finished.
A pale, rolling mist slid across the courtyard tiles almost as if someone had thrown in tear gas. It was Thick, heavy and cold. It clung to the ground like a creature with purpose.
Mason blinked.
"…the fuck is that?"
Students turned toward the glass.
"What's that—"
"Is the sky… vibrating?"
The blue streaks overhead pulsed rapidly, flickering like failing neon.
Then a wet, gurgling and inhuman sound drifted from the fog.
The two security guards at the entrance stiffened, hands instinctively going to their batons.
A silhouette shifted in the mist.
It looked like a large, four-legged creature.
At first Mason thought it was a dog.
Then it stepped into the hall.
And no dog had muscles bulging like ruptured cables beneath patchy, pulsating skin. No dog had eyes glowing with feverish, hungry blue.
It moved closer to the stage like it belonged there.
The hall became a vacuum with every breath sucked out at once.
The nearest guard pointed his baton, voice shaking.
"H-Hey! Hey! Back up! Stay back!"
The creature tilted its head slowly…
…then launched.
CRACK.
It slammed into the guard with impossible speed, jaws sinking into his shoulder—tearing flesh and bone like wet paper. Blood sprayed across the polished floor, splattering the legs of desks and staining the air with the metallic tang of terror.
For one frozen moment, the students didn't react.
Their brains refused to process reality.
Mason whispered, "Huh."
It was all he could manage.
Then hell opened.
More creatures crawled from the fog.
And behind them came the Humans.
—or what used to be humans.
They had pale skins, veined with glowing blue cracks. Twitching. Stumbling. Pupils blown wide like predators in the dark.
Someone screamed, "RUN!"
And that was all Mason needed.
He whipped toward the audience and locked eyes with John.
"JOHN! MOVE!"
But he didn't stop to see if John listened to him or not.
The drones zipped back to him automatically, folding mid-air and diving into his backpack.
"NOPE. NOPE. WE ARE NOT DOING THIS—OH HELL NO—"
The hall erupted into chaos.
Students trampled over chairs. Screams tore through the air.
A mutated creature tackled a girl near the front row she cried. Her voice was cut short by the crunch of tearing tissue.
Another infected human leapt across the seating rows, claws raking the wooden desks like cardboard.
Mason sprinted toward the side exit as something slammed into the wall behind, enough to make concrete crack.
He didn't look back.
"HOLYYYYYYYYYYY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"
His lungs burned. His legs shook.
But he ran like the Devil was gnawing on his spine.
Because today…
…he absolutely was.
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