Prologue: The Beginning of The End

The sky over the city was a dull gray, the kind that made the day feel like it was stuck between dusk and dawn. Owen adjusted the strap of his bag over his shoulder, shifting the weight of his laptop as he stepped off the city bus. He had spent the last few hours at the local café, finishing up some last-minute work for his job. Nothing exciting, nothing worth remembering, just another ordinary day in a life full of them.

The streets were alive with the usual rush of people moving from place to place. Office workers in stiff suits, teenagers loitering near convenience stores, street vendors shouting out deals for the day. It was a city like any other, full of people who thought the world would always be the same. Owen was one of them.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, glancing at the time—6:48 PM. He needed to get home before his sister, Emily, started calling him a dozen times in a row. She was always worried about him walking the streets too late, especially since the city wasn’t as safe as it used to be.

As he made his way through the crowd, something felt... off. The buzz of the streets seemed quieter, as if a strange hush had settled over the people. Owen furrowed his brows, glancing around. At first, he thought he was imagining it, but then he heard it.

Screams.

Not the kind that came from an argument or a petty crime gone wrong. These were blood-curdling, raw, filled with the kind of terror that sent a chill straight down his spine. His head snapped to the left, and he saw a woman running, her arms flailing as she shoved past people. Behind her—someone, something, was chasing her.

Owen’s blood ran cold. The thing moved with an unnatural speed, arms jerking, mouth stretched open unnaturally wide. The woman tripped, falling to the pavement with a cry, and the thing was on her in seconds. Its teeth sunk into her neck, ripping flesh away as blood spurted out in a gruesome arc.

The crowd erupted into chaos. People screamed, shoving past each other in blind panic. Others stood frozen, unable to process what they were seeing. The thing didn’t stop—it tore into the woman’s body with relentless hunger, its fingers digging into her flesh, pulling apart muscle and organs as if it was starving.

Owen couldn’t breathe. His mind refused to process the horror unfolding in front of him. His body, however, acted on instinct. He turned and ran.

More screams. More chaos. He barely made it a block before a car sped through an intersection, crashing into a fire hydrant. Water exploded into the air. People pushed and shoved, trampling over each other in their desperate attempt to flee.

Owen’s heart pounded as he ducked into an alleyway, trying to find a way around the madness. He had barely caught his breath when he froze.

A man was on the ground, his legs twitching, his body jerking in spasms. Above him, another one of those things—undead, the word scraped across Owen’s mind—was hunched over, its teeth sinking into the man’s stomach. The sickening squelch of flesh being torn apart made Owen’s stomach churn.

The creature’s head snapped up. Blood dripped from its mouth, its milky-white eyes locking onto Owen.

Panic took hold of him as he stumbled back. His foot caught on something, and before he could react, he was falling. His back hit the pavement hard, the impact knocking the wind out of him. Pain shot up his spine, but he didn’t have time to recover.

The thing lunged.

Owen barely got his arms up before it was on him. He struggled, pushing against its face, trying to keep its snapping jaws away. Its breath was rancid, filled with the stench of rotting flesh and fresh blood. He twisted, shoving his knee up into its stomach, trying to get it off him.

But then he felt it.

A sharp, burning pain exploded in his shoulder. His scream echoed down the alley as teeth tore into his flesh. His vision blurred as agony shot through every nerve in his body. Adrenaline surged, and with one last desperate push, he managed to shove the creature off of him. It hit the ground hard, giving him just enough time to scramble to his feet and run.

He didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

The world around him blurred as he moved, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. The pain in his shoulder was unbearable, every step sending fresh waves of agony through him. He didn’t know where he was running—only that he had to find somewhere, anywhere to hide.

By the time he reached an abandoned grocery store, his legs were barely holding him up. He shoved through the doors, the once bright and clean aisles now filled with scattered goods, broken glass, and overturned shelves. The place had already been raided.

He stumbled to the far corner, his breath ragged. His entire body burned. His skin was clammy, his vision swimming. The fever hit fast, like a fire spreading through his veins. His stomach churned, his limbs felt heavy.

He barely managed to sit down before darkness swallowed him whole.

---

Owen didn’t know how long he was out.

When he woke, the world was different.

The hunger was the first thing he noticed. It wasn’t the normal kind of hunger—it was deep, primal, gnawing at his insides as if something inside him was tearing him apart from the inside out. His throat felt dry, his stomach twisted painfully.

Then the smell hit him.

It was intoxicating. Warm, rich, thick with the scent of blood and decay. His body moved before his mind could catch up, his feet dragging him forward.

The streets were empty, the distant sound of sirens long since faded. He turned a corner, and his eyes locked onto a corpse.

The body was barely recognizable, torn apart, the flesh peeling away from the bone. The sight of it made him sick. He wanted to turn away, to run. But his body wouldn’t let him.

His knees hit the pavement. His hands reached out.

And then he ate.

The taste of blood filled his mouth, the texture of raw flesh sending shudders down his spine. He wanted to stop, to scream, but his body refused. It wasn’t hunger—it was survival.

When it was over, he stumbled back, wiping his mouth with a trembling hand.

His mind reeled. The horror of what he had done threatened to consume him. He turned, running back into the grocery store, his breaths coming in sharp, ragged gasps.

That’s when he saw it.

A figure shambled between the shelves, its vacant eyes scanning the empty aisles. It was one of them.

An undead.

Owen froze, expecting it to attack, to lunge at him like the others had. But it didn’t.

It ignored him.

His breath hitched as realization dawned.

He wasn’t human anymore.

He was one of them.

Owen’s breathing was ragged, his pulse hammering against his ribs like a caged animal. His mind screamed for him to wake up, to tell him this was just some fevered nightmare, but he knew better. The hunger still gnawed at him, the sickening taste of flesh still clung to his tongue. He needed to see—he needed proof that he hadn’t just imagined all of this.

His feet moved on their own, dragging him through the aisles of the abandoned grocery store toward the dimly lit restroom in the back. His legs trembled as he pushed the door open, his hands gripping the sink as he stared at the cracked mirror above it.

The reflection staring back at him wasn’t his own.

His chest rose and fell rapidly as his eyes darted across his features, searching for something—anything—that still looked like him. His once dark brown hair was now fading into a dull white at the tips, as if the life had been drained from it. His skin, though not yet rotting like the monsters he had seen, had grown pale, almost deathly.

Then he saw his eyes.

What were once warm brown irises had transformed into a piercing shade of gold. Not a natural, hazel gold, but something unnatural, something inhuman. They glowed faintly under the dim light, sharp and predatory, like those of a beast.

Owen staggered back, his breath catching in his throat. His hands clutched his face, fingers digging into his skin as if he could claw away whatever had happened to him. He felt sick. His body was trembling, rejecting reality itself.

“No… no, no, no!” he screamed, his voice raw with panic.

He backed into the wall, slumping to the floor as he tried to regulate his breathing. His hands trembled as he stared down at them—his fingernails had darkened, sharpened ever so slightly. His body still felt human, but deep inside, something else was stirring.

He wasn’t human anymore.

He was a monster.

Tears burned at his eyes, but he forced them back. He couldn’t lose himself. He had to stay sane. He had seen what those things were capable of—mindless creatures, driven only by their hunger. Was that his fate? Would he lose control, lose himself, become nothing more than a monster that existed to feast on the flesh of the living?

Owen swallowed hard, gripping the fabric of his jacket.

“No,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “I won’t become like them.”

He had to find a way to live. To survive. But not like them.

He wouldn't let himself become a mindless beast.

---

One month later.

Owen sat on the cold tile floor of the grocery store, his back against the shelves as he stared at the half-eaten loaf of bread in front of him.

It had been his fifth attempt at eating something normal. His stomach clenched in protest, the mere scent of the food now foreign and unappealing. He forced himself to swallow a small bite, chewing it as if it were sawdust.

And then it came back up.

Violently.

He coughed and gagged, his body rejecting it almost immediately. His stomach twisted in pain, and he barely managed to stumble to his feet before emptying the contents of his gut into a nearby trash can.

Every single attempt had been the same. Vegetables, fruits, even cooked meat—it all tasted like ash in his mouth, and his body refused to accept it.

Only two things didn't make him sick.

Water. And—he hated even thinking about it—blood.

At first, he refused to believe it. He starved himself, trying to fight the urges, but the hunger only grew worse. It clawed at him, burned him from the inside out. He grew weaker by the day, his mind clouding with an unbearable, agonizing hunger.

It wasn’t until desperation took over that he found out the truth.

The first time he had tasted blood, it had been purely by accident. A dead body—another creature, long since fallen—had been left in a nearby alleyway. He hadn’t meant to touch it, hadn’t meant to smell it.

But the scent was intoxicating.

His body moved on its own, and before he could stop himself, his fingers had brushed against the coagulated red liquid. He lifted it to his lips—just a taste, just to see.

The moment it touched his tongue, it was like fire in his veins. Energy flooded through him, the unbearable pain in his stomach fading instantly.

He had devoured the corpse.

He didn’t even remember doing it.

When he came back to his senses, his hands were slick with black blood from the creatures, his mouth stained black. His stomach no longer ached. His body no longer felt weak.

The hunger had disappeared.

Owen had spent the next few weeks testing himself, trying to find a way around it. But no matter how many times he tried normal food, the results were the same. The only things that sustained him were the flesh of another monster… or the flesh of a human.

It sickened him.

Every time he ate, he hated himself. But the alternative was starvation. He had no choice.

He had taken to hunting only the dead creatures he could find, avoiding humans as much as possible. He refused to cross that line. He refused to become the kind of monster that lurked in the shadows of the city.

But the thought gnawed at him.

What would happen if there were no dead monsters left?

Would he be forced to hunt something alive?

Owen clenched his fists, his golden eyes narrowing.

He didn’t know how long he had left before that choice became unavoidable. But he wasn’t ready to lose himself.

Not yet.

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