Beyond the Call to Duty

Alpha Squad touched down just before dawn, the rotors of their insertion chopper fading into the mist as silence reclaimed the valley. What was supposed to be a routine reconnaissance mission—locate, observe, extract—already felt wrong. The air carried a faint metallic scent, and the forest was too quiet, as if nature itself had withdrawn. Captain Reyes raised a clenched fist. The team halted. “Thermal’s picking up nothing,” whispered Malik, scanning through his scope. “No wildlife. No movement. It’s like everything’s… gone. Stay sharp,” Reyes replied. “We move to the facility, get eyes inside, and exfil. No heroics.” They advanced. The research outpost came into view—half-buried in earth and reinforced concrete, its perimeter fences shredded as if something had torn through from the inside. Blood stains marked the entrance, long dried but unmistakable. The door hung open. Inside, the lights flickered. Papers across the floor. Equipment smashed. And then— A sound. Low. Wet. Wrong. “Contact front,” said Vega, raising her rifle. From the darkness, a figure staggered forward. A lab coat. Torn skin. Eyes milky white. It moved with a jerking, unnatural rhythm. “Is that a survivor?” Malik asked. The thing lunged. Gunfire erupted. The body dropped—but only for a second. It twitched, bones cracking as it struggled back up. “What the hell—?!” Vega fired again, this time aiming for the head. The creature collapsed, finally still. Silence fell again. Reyes exhaled slowly. “That’s no survivor.” As they pushed deeper into the facility, they found recordings—logs of experiments gone wrong. Attempts to reanimate dead tissue. Military funding. A project meant to create unstoppable soldiers. Instead, it created something else. The outbreak wasn’t contained. It had spread beyond the walls. Outside, distant howls echoed through the valley. “Reyes…” Malik said, his voice tight. “Multiple heat signatures now. Dozens. Maybe more.” Reyes looked at his team—