[WARNING!!!
21:05 pm
Pathogenic Bloom has begun
The ambient pathogens have entered a their hyperactive cycle
Respiratory protection necessary. GEC respirator recommended
Stage one symptom onset in 30 minutes
Time remaining: 25:59]
'Hyperactive cycle? That can't be good.'
HOWL!!!
As if to confirm his thoughts, a loud howl suddenly echoed somewhere outside.
The next moment, Jason's body was already pressed against the wall close to the window, observing the situation outside.
The mutants were still everywhere outside. However unlike before, when they only stood still untill something made a loud noise, they were now wandering around.
The shuffling sounds of their feet and their guttural growls mixed together into an eerie symphony.
Jason moved back to the corner, pulled up the warning screen, and read through it again.
'Pathogenic Bloom... Night Bloom. I can't be certain, but they're most likely the same.'
Recalling one of the discussions he previously saw online, Jason quickly headed for the barricaded door.
'I need to look for this GEC respirator. I don't want to find out what'll happen at the end of this countdown.'
He swiftly and quietly moved the barricades aside and slipped out of the office-like room.
Out of caution, Jason didn't switch on his flashlight. Instead, using the flickering single bulb, he quietly searched through the shelves until he found something.
'This should count as respiratory protection by real-world standards.'
Jason thought as he held a half-face dust respirator in his hand. After examining the filter, he quickly put it on and checked the warning log again. This time, there was a difference.
[WARNING!!!
21:06 pm
Pathogenic Bloom has begun.
The ambient pathogens have entered their hyperactive cycle.
Respiratory protection necessary. GEC respirator recommended.
Estimated symptoms onset in 1 hour.
Time remaining: 54:39]
'The timer extended! Good.' Jason nodded as he read through it.
'But I still have to move fast. I don't know where to find a GEC respirator or what it is, but if it belongs to the GEC, I might find one near anything related to them.'
Jason approached the door and looked outside. The area close to the entrance of the store was clear, however, in the darkness farther away, Jason could feel shadows moving around at incredible speed.
'The sector 9 commander said their supply and reinforcement fleet went down around the city center a few days ago. I might find something there.'
With a clear goal, Jason exited the store and dove into a nearby alley, silently observing his surrounding and that's when he noticed it.
Thin, green, mist-like spores slowly drifted around the store's neon sign while a cacophony of mutant howls echoing constantly through the darkness.
'Stealth movement will be difficult.'
Jason thought as he quietly blended into the darkness and disappeared.
*****
Nighttime covered the city in a thick blanket of darkness, barely dispelled in some part by flickering streetlights or neon signs.
A crowd of mutants shuffled past an alley entrance when the last one suddenly stopped and turned its head.
It approached the alley, passed under the flickering streetlight in front of it and entered the alley.
It had just peered around the corner of a trash can.
Shlick!
Its body started twitching before it fell backward, a knife now sticking out from its eye.
'That's number eight. What a nuisance.'
Emerging from behind the trash can, Jason pulled his knife from the mutant's eye and moved closer to the exit.
'There it is!' Jason's eyes narrowed.
A short distance from his position, under the erratic illumination of the city's failing power, sat a dropship, or what remains of one to be exact.
With no mutant close-by, Jason crouch-ran to the crashed ship and knelt behind it.
The wreck was completely burnt and flipped over, its twisted alloy covered in black smoke stains.
Running his finger along the soot-covered metal, Jason narrowed his eyes in disappointment.
'Totally cooked. Nothing salvageable.'
Turning his head to observe for any mutant, his eyes suddenly caught sight of something beneath the rubble in the distance.
He moved closer and cleared the rubble aside as quietly as he could, revealing what it was.
There, covered by debris and blackened by smoke was a huge crate with the symbol of a half-opened box branded on it.
'A supply crate!' Jason thought in surprise.
However, it only lasted a moment before he hurriedly unlocked the crate with a click and lifted the wide lid.
The segmented interior was a mess but Jason could immediately tell from the items inside that this was a utility crate.
Broken bottles of water, squashed energy bars, crushed flashlights and other survival supplies were jumbled together inside. But nothing like a respirator or mask inside.
'Not what I need at the moment.' Jason quietly closed the lid.
'But there's a possibility that other crates made it as well.'
Glancing at the timer, Jason frown.
'If I follow the trail of destruction, I could possibly find another one. But with less than thirty minutes on the timer, can I make it?'
Jason merely hesitated for a second before following the trail of destruction left by the dropship during its crash.
After ten more minutes of slipping past mutants, Jason found another crate—this time in pieces.
The crate was flipped over, with its lid open and its contents spilled on the ground.
'This one's in worse shape than the other.' Jason thought as he flipped it back, revealing the contents hidden beneath.
With the help of his flashlight, his eyes immediately locked onto a full-face gas mask among the pile of items.
'Should be this.' Jason reached out and picked up the mask.
The mask was a matte-black, compact facepiece with twin side-mounted filter housings, integrated ballistic goggles, and a small mechanical ventilation assembly around the mouth.
Jason took off the dust respirator and put on the new mask and a notification immediately appeared on his GEC device.
[GEC respirator equipped
Filter duration: 9:00:00]
The previous warning log was automatically cleared, leaving only the current mission objective.
'Close-fitting, low-profile, and unlikely to interfere with a rifle, optics, or a helmet. Nice mask. Temporary objective completed.' Jason, feeling the mask on his face, nodded in satisfaction.
'Now then... '
His eyes went back to the pile of items on the ground.
Bandages, shattered injectors, broken bottles of disinfectants and other broken GEC respirators, were scattered across the floor.
'This should probably be a medic crate.'
Moving with haste because he was exposed, Jason quickly rummage through the supplies for anything salvageable.
He grabbed a couple of bandages and syringes, stuffing them into his pocket. He also found a second intact respirator and strapped it to his belt buckle and turned around to leave when something tiny a few feet away reflected his flashlight at him.
He stopped and moved toward it. Bending over, he picked up a bullet shell.
Moving his flashlight around, he discovered more bullet shells and splatters of mutant blood around the area, and amidst the bullet shells and splatters of green blood, a trail of crimson pulled his attention.
He squatted down, touched the crimson and rubbed his fingers together.
'Blood... Human blood. There was a battle here, probably a few days ago. Judging by the trail whoever it was survived. Injured but alive.'
Jason quickly analyzed the situation and followed the trail.
Along the way, he saw more bullet shells, pain killer injections and more mutant bloods. Unsurprisingly, the bodies were missing.
A little while later, Jason arrived before a high-end residence.
'The trail ends here. Which means they should be inside.' Jason cautiously approached the building.
However, the closer he got to the house, the more bodies of dead mutants he came across. All of their skull were crushed, but the rest of their bodies remained intact.
Jason quietly entered the building, following the trail. He checked every room he passed until he reached the kitchen.
There, illuminated by Jason's flashlight, a soldier sat in a pool of blood with his eyes closed, leaning against a cabinet.
His right arm was missing just above the elbow, the wound wrapped in a messy layer of bandages.
His left hand held a Glock 19X equipped with a suppressor. Its slide was locked to the rear.
Jason knelt closer and placed his index and middle finger on the soldier's neck.
'Dead. No visible bite marks, he most likely bled out. The arm had been cut cleanly and precisely, likely by a knife. Did he cut off his own arm?'
As Jason examined the corpse, he suddenly felt a gaze fall on him from behind.
Jason instantly swung both his pistol and flashlight in that direction and there it was, illuminated by the flashlight.
Two crimson eyes stared him down.
Silence.
'It's the canine from earlier.' Jason's eyes narrowed.
Huge, scarred, vest torn and bloodied. Most of all, the green veins on its body marked it as infected. Yet its eyes were calm, too calm even.
Jason observed it, and the Cane Corso also observed him in return. For a while, neither side moved.
Then it began to approach.
As Jason tightened his grip on his pistol, preparing for a deadly fight, the dog actually walked past him and arrived beside the corpse.
It gently nudged him once.
No response.
Again.
Nothing.
Then it quietly sat beside him.
Jason watched the dog for a while in quiet surprise before speaking.
"He's gone."
Jason's voice made the dog turn to him and Jason saw an emotion in its eyes that he recognized all too well—pain. The pain of losing a dear friend.
He slowly lowered his gun and crouched near the corpse, under the gaze of the dog.
He pulled the soldier's dogtag from his neck.
[Hank
Jeremy P.
GEC-40-062449
A Pos
No Pref]
Jason slipped the dogtag into his pocket.
'Rest in peace, Hank. Your war's over.'
He grabbed the empty pistol and then proceeded to take the helmet, military backpack and tactical bulletproof vest off the corpse.
'I half-expected it to lash out or something.'
Jason, though focused on his task, also kept a close watch on the dog. But it just sat there watching what he was doing.
He carefully laid the corpse flat and straightened the soldier's tattered clothes, then he proceeded to check and inventory what he had recovered.
'A suppressed pistol, a helmet, tactical vest, seven Glock 19X magazines and five M16 magazines inside the vest pocket, an emergency signal flair and survival kit in the bag.
'Items I need, especially the suppressor.'
After counting through the items, Jason nodded and began to prepare.
He put on the vest and helmet, then placed the bandages, syringes and the second respirator inside the backpack before putting the backpack on.
He holstered his original pistol. Picking up the suppressed one, he removed the empty magazine, inserted a fresh one, and released the slide.
Searching through the building, he returned with a piece of cloth, a gasoline canister and a lighter.
He covered the corpse with the cloth, poured gasoline over it and lit it. Then he turned to the dog which was quietly watching the corpse burn.
"His war is over. I'm leaving." Saying that he turned and began to walk away.
However, after several steps, he heard the soft padding of heavy paws behind him. Glancing over his shoulder he saw the huge cane corso following behind him.
"Suit yourself." He said and kept walking.
With the building burning behind them, a man and a massive dog disappeared into the darkness.
*****
I successfully wrote a long chapter this time, please enjoy.