It was dimly aware of something. It wasn't sure what that was, but it had been a while since it had felt anything other than that all-consuming hunger. It flailed its arms, trying to get out. If it could feel, then there was something nearby that it could eat.
It still didn't think. It couldn't. The hunger was too strong. There was something beyond hunger. It was driving it to feed. It continued to flail until something happened. Something that made it freeze.
It's core jolted. It wasn't fear, not quite. But it was close enough for a reaction. It stopped moving. The hunger vanished from it, replaced by a stronger emotion. Survival. It needed... It needed to survive. It needed to live.
Why? It didn't know. Knowing wasn't its strong suit. Its strong suit was acting according to its feeling. So it turned around and ran. There was no sight, no smell, no sound, no sensation at all to guide it aside from its core jolting. The core moved back towards its place as it grew farther from... something.
Then it stopped. It couldn't move any farther, or at least it didn't feel that it could. The shaking of its core was no longer getting weaker, so it didn't move any more. There was no point. Survival was not an option for it. Its only options were... Its only option was to accept what was happening.
Its core trembled harder, and it began to move again. Even if it could do nothing, it had to try. It sprinted as quickly as its half-dead legs would take it, but it wasn't enough. The sensation violently increased, then its core cracked.
Sensation flooded back to him. Mike gasped in his first breath of real air since the hallway. When he had been bitten, he hadn't seen it coming. The pain had burned in him, then his mind had shriveled and vanished. But now it was back.
Back... But not for long.
Mike looked down. His senses were still dulled, but something was throbbing.
He gaped.
There was a large spike jutting forward from his chest. It was black and shiny, with some few streaks of red in it, cloudy, like the moment after dropping dye or paint into a clear liquid. Dye or paint... or blood.
Mike struggled to lift his head. He was losing blood, fast.
"I didn't hit your heart."
The chilling voice came from behind him. It traveled through the air, slippery smooth, like an eel in the chasms beneath the ocean, a demon-spawn that somehow crawled its way up from oblivion into the world. It wormed into his ear, sweet as honey on his tongue even as he shivered, stealing into his brain like a thief and rewiring it.
Mike found himself grateful. He was luckier than most, it seemed.
"I did it on purpose," the voice continued. "Because even a worker of divine intervention has an ego, I suppose."
It chuckled, then the spine was ripped from Mike's body. He slumped to the ground, falling backwards from the momentum of the object being pulled from him, though it was barely anything, as it came out quite smoothly.
All around him were more zombies, but they didn't attack him, or whatever figure was talking to him. In fact, they seemed to shy away from it.
Steps echoed in the cavern he was in, coming from all around. He couldn't tell which set belonged to the black-robed figure as it approached him. Maybe none. It did seem to almost be gliding.
Behind it there were more figures, these ones bathed in red. They wore obscuring cloaks, draped down to the ground, and they watched with fanatical eyes from under their crimson hoods.
The black-robed figure knelt. As the cloak parted, Mike coughed up a mouthful of blood, surprise shocking him, but as he keeled forward an arm darted out, slamming his shoulder back against some solid surface. No, he wasn't mistaken the first time.
The arm was grey, like ash, and smooth, nearly glimmering in the firelight, just like the leg that had emerged before. He raised his eyes, but he couldn't see under the hood. He couldn't see anything other than a silver smile.
"My name is Nemesis. And I'm here to end the blasphemy your families have stalwartly continued in."
Mike had one last thing to say, as he died. One final breath. An oath fulfilled.
"Zoe."