The streets were quieter than they should've been.
Zane moved like a shadow beneath the broken streetlights, water sloshing up around his boots. The rain had slowed to a mist, but the city still dripped—gutters, overhangs, shattered windows all bleeding quietly into the night.
He kept his flashlight low. Narrow beam. No noise.
The System overlaid guidance markers through his HUD—barely perceptible flickers of yellow in the fog. "Safer" paths. Nothing was safe.
As he neared the depot, he slipped the gas mask over his face and twisted the seals tight. The familiar pressure around his jaw felt like the start of a countdown. He clicked a fresh filter into place.
[Filter Engaged – Purity Level: 100%]
Estimated Duration: 48 minutes
He moved faster.
By the time he reached the substation, the silence was wrong. It wasn't just the quiet of an abandoned place. It was heavy. Loaded. Watching.
No rats. No insects. Even the rain didn't dare touch this place.
Fungal overgrowth covered the chain-link fence like ivy, thick with orange and black spores. Zane climbed over, careful not to brush the sacs clinging to the mesh.
The air shimmered here. Not from heat—but from density. Like walking through fog made of glass.
[Contaminated Zone: Lvl. 3]
Spore Density: Critical
Survival Duration Without Mask: <30 Seconds]
Zane's pulse picked up. He drew his pistol, holding it loose and low. His breath echoed inside the mask—slow, mechanical.
The substation's main door was jammed. He climbed in through a collapsed duct, crawling on elbows, keeping the flashlight off.
Inside, it was worse.
The interior was completely overtaken—no metal or concrete visible beneath the fungal mats. The spores moved. Breathed. Sacs pulsed along the ceiling, twitching like muscle.
The System pinged.
[Target Located – Bloomling Variant Nest Detected]
[Objective Update: Extract Raw Spore Sample – Live Sac Only]
Zane gritted his teeth. That meant getting close.
He dropped down into the main chamber—quiet as possible. The walls were lined with bodies. Or had been. Some were half-fused into the biomass. Others were little more than outlines—fungal shapes where people used to be.
At the center, slouched in a nest of glowing sacs, was the Bloomling.
It was awful.
Shorter than a clicker, but bulkier. Its body looked like it was rotting from the inside out—distended, trembling, jaw unhinged. Spores vented from its torso with every breath, rising in thin yellow threads. It didn't move.
Not yet.
Zane crept forward, pulling out the sealed canister and the long, flexible extraction needle. One shot at this. The sample had to be alive—pure, unburned, and uncontaminated.
He slid forward slowly—each step sinking into the sponge-like floor. When he was close enough to smell the rot through the mask, he knelt and steadied the needle.
One movement. Quick. Clean.
He plunged it into the largest sac.
The Bloomling jerked.
A wet, gasping sound gurgled from its throat. Its hand twitched—fingers curling into claws.
Zane's hand shook, but he held firm. The canister locked. The sac drained.
[Sample Collected – Purity Level: 91%]
[Crafting Component: Raw Bloom Spores (1)]
Then the screech hit.
Not from the Bloomling—but from the walls.
Zane spun.
Clickers.
Two of them, wrenched half from the hive wall, their bodies coated in fungal armor, eyes long since rotted. One dropped down in a tangle of limbs, screaming. The other staggered forward, sensing the movement.
Zane didn't hesitate.
He fired once—missed.
Second shot—took the first in the neck. It stumbled, flailing blindly.
He dropped the gun and grabbed the flare and gas can from his pack, yanking out the wire trigger. It was rough. Rushed. Barely functional.
He rigged it under the nest, hands slick with sweat inside the gloves.
[Improvised Fire Trap – Lv.1]
Trigger: Manual Detonation
Zane backed up and yanked the flare.
The Bloomling saw him now—those glazed yellow eyes widening with unnatural hate.
It stood.
He threw the flare.
The trap lit up like a sunburst.
WHOOMPH.
Fire roared through the chamber, crawling fast across the fungal mat. The Bloomling howled—an inhuman scream that shook Zane's spine—and collapsed into the burning mass. Spores burst in clouds of light, igniting midair.
The whole nest went up like dry paper.
Zane turned and ran.
The hallway behind him shuddered. Sacs burst. Flames chased him. The ceiling sagged, fungal limbs peeling away in strings of fire. He dove through the broken duct just as the building shook with a thunderous, wet explosion.
Smoke and spore ash rose behind him in a sickly column.
[Hive Destroyed – Variant Eliminated]
[Crafting Available: Spore Suppressant Compound]
[Additional Resource Gained: Bloomling Gland – Catalyst Class]
Zane collapsed in the alley outside, heaving breath through the mask. Filter alarms buzzed in his ears.
[Filter Saturation: 98% – Replace Immediately]
He ripped the mask off and sucked in fresh, clean air. It tasted like metal and fire—but it was his.
The System pinged again.
[Status Update: Hidden Status – Compromised]
Surveillance Detected – Unknown Source Tracked Explosion Radius
[Warning: Rogue Firefly Recon Cell – Estimated Distance: 2.2 Miles]
Zane looked back at the substation—now a burning, melting husk.
Someone knew.
Someone was watching.