Westbridge University at 22:00 was usually alive in a particular kind of chaos. Not the loud chaos of parties or concerts, but the constant hum of a place where thousands of young people were chasing futures.
Music leaked faintly through dorm walls. Someone laughed two floors down. A microwave beeped somewhere in the building like a tired metronome keeping time for the night.
Outside, the campus paths glowed under tall white lamps. Students drifted between buildings with backpacks slung over shoulders, cups of coffee warming their hands against the cool air.
It was the sort of night that felt ordinary.
The kind of night people forgot.
Corvin Kovač
Corvin adjusted the angle of the desk lamp by two degrees. It was optimal. He sat hunched over his desk, a mechanic performing surgery.
His room smelled faintly of machine oil and burnt solder.
Mechanical parts were spread across the desk. A half-assembled shell of a small motorized device lay at the center. Gears, screws, wires, and springs formed a metallic puzzle around his hands.
He sat there, fidgeting with a small gear, just the size of a coin. He rotated it between his fingers, studying it. This small gear was an integral part of his design.
With utmost silence and careful precision, he fixed the gear into place. After installing it, he slowly raised his hands. The motor started working. All the connections were good. The gears moved properly.
Corvin celebrated in silence.
This project for the mechanical engineering lab was due in six days. It was supposed to be simple.
Corvin had turned it into something unnecessarily complicated. He always did.
Next week, he planned to test the prototype in the engineering workshop. If the design worked as intended, he might even show it to Professor Hartmann. The old man appreciated clever designs.
But he didn't like complicated ones. He preferred simplicity. Cost-effective. Efficient. Easy to build.
So Corvin planned to simplify the design before presenting it.
He imagined the professor raising an eyebrow, pretending not to be impressed. The thought made him smile.
Outside his window, the campus courtyard stretched under pale yellow lights. Students crossed the square like slow-moving pieces on a chessboard.
He reached for a screwdriver.
"Let's begin improving the design," he muttered.
Astrid Clairmont.
Across the hallway, Astrid Clairmont sat cross-legged on her bed drinking an energy drink surrounded by textbooks.
Medical school had turned her room into a fortress of paper. Anatomy charts hung on the wall. Flashcards littered the blanket.
Her tablet glowed with an image of a human heart rotating slowly on screen.
She pressed her fingers against her temple and sighed. "Okay," she murmured to herself. "Coronary arteries… again."
Next week she had her cardiovascular systems exam. If she failed it, the professor would make her retake the entire module.
Astrid hated the thought of that.
She flipped another flashcard. She had planned the next few days with careful precision.
Monday: Review cardiovascular pathways.
Tuesday: Clinical lab practice.
Wednesday: Emergency medicine simulation.
Thursday: Complete chapter review.
Friday: Mock test.
Saturday: The exam.
Astrid leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. Sometimes she imagined what it would feel like to actually work in an emergency room. The rush. The pressure. The responsibility. It scared her. But it also thrilled her.
A notification flickered briefly on her tablet, then disappeared. She ignored it. She sat up again, straightening the stack of notes beside her. Focus, she told herself. No distractions. Not tonight.
She returned to her notes, repeating the pathways under her breath until the words blurred into rhythm.
Her tablet started going off with notifications.
Aisha Mercer
Across campus, Aisha Okoye stretched her arms above her head as she walked down the lamp-lit pathway.
Her muscles hummed pleasantly from the workout she had finished an hour earlier, a lingering warmth that made every step feel light and controlled.
Running at night had become her ritual. It cleared her mind in a way nothing else could.
Next week the Physical Education department was hosting a campus fitness event, and Aisha had volunteered to help organize it.
Obstacle courses, Strength competitions, A charity marathon. She had been looking forward to it for weeks.
"Still think we should add a climbing wall," she said, glancing sideways.
Beside her, Mei Lin walked with steady, relaxed steps, her posture almost effortless.
"You always want to add more danger to things," Mei Lin replied.
Aisha grinned, unbothered. "Not danger. Excitement."
The night air was cool and smelled faintly of grass and asphalt, the kind of scent that only existed after sunset.
Students passed them occasionally, most absorbed in phones or conversations, their voices blending into a soft, distant murmur.
Campus security vehicles rolled slowly through the parking lots like patient metal turtles, their headlights sweeping lazily across the pavement. It was peaceful.
Exactly the kind of night that made university life feel endless. Aisha slowed slightly, matching Mei Lin's pace, her energy settling into a comfortable rhythm.
"You're going to come to the event, right?" she asked.
Mei Lin didn't answer immediately.
Zhao Mei Lin
Zhao Mei Lin preferred these walks because they let her think. Law school demanded a certain kind of mental endurance.
Arguments, case studies, endless reading that never truly seemed to end. Her backpack currently contained three thick books on constitutional law, their weight familiar against her shoulders.
Next week she had a mock trial exercise. Her role was defense counsel. She had already started planning her argument strategy. Establish doubt. Control the narrative. Corner the prosecution during cross-examination.
The structure of it all felt almost like a game of chess, each move deliberate, each word calculated.
The thought made her smile faintly. Aisha nudged her shoulder.
"You look like you're plotting something."
"Just thinking about next week."
Mei Lin glanced up at the dorm buildings ahead of them. Thousands of windows glowed across campus like a scattered constellation.
Inside each one, someone was studying, relaxing, worrying, dreaming. Human lives stacked floor upon floor, each story unfolding quietly behind glass and light.
She had always liked that about universities.
They felt like small cities of potential. After a moment, she added, almost absently, "I'll come to your event."
Aisha's grin returned instantly, bright as the lights above them.
Chase Callahan
Not far from their walking route, Chase Callahan leaned back in his chair outside the campus café, his laptop open on the table though he wasn't actually working.
Steam curled lazily from the mug in front of him, coffee number three of the evening and probably not the last.
He was supposed to be finishing a music composition assignment. Next Friday his professor expected a completed track, something polished and intentional.
Instead, Chase was staring at the night sky and thinking about chords.
Music drifted softly from the café speakers behind him, a slow jazz piece that seemed to blend into the night itself. He tapped the rhythm against the table with his fingers, absent-minded but precise.
A melody began forming in his head. Something quiet, something reflective, something that didn't try too hard.
Maybe he would turn it into his project.
Chase glanced around the campus plaza, watching students move through the night like slow currents in a river. Someone skateboarded past while someone else argued loudly about philosophy.
Typical Westbridge evening.
He took another sip of coffee, letting the warmth settle in his chest.
"Not a bad life," he said to himself.
---
The change began quietly.
Distant sirens rose beyond the university gates, faint at first, then multiplying. Most people ignored them. Cities always had sirens.
But Mei Lin noticed.
As she and Aisha crossed near the engineering complex, headlights suddenly tore around the corner. A car sped wildly down the campus road, far too fast. It swerved, clipped the curb, and flipped violently before slamming into a transformer in a shower of sparks.
The impact echoed through the courtyard.
Aisha moved immediately, instinct overriding hesitation.
But Mei Lin held her back, pointing toward the wreck. Inside, the driver's body jerked unnaturally, his head striking the steering wheel again and again.
Something was wrong.
The door burst open. The man fell out and began crawling toward them. His face was bloodied, his eyes empty.
When he lunged, Aisha reacted instantly, striking him hard enough to knock him back. But he didn't stay down.
Behind him, gasoline spread across the pavement. Sparks rained from the transformer.
From across the street, Chase shouted for them to move.
A spark hit the fuel.
The explosion followed instantly.
The blast threw Aisha and Mei Lin to the ground as fire erupted from the wreckage. A second explosion shattered the transformer, flooding the area with blinding light.
When the ringing in their ears faded, something worse replaced it.
Groaning.
Figures staggered across the pavement. Students. Staff. But they moved wrong. Their bodies were stiff, their movements unnatural.
One rushed Aisha. She struck it cleanly, dropping it—only for it to rise again.
"They're not stopping," Mei Lin said, her voice tight.
More emerged from the shadows.
Chase reached them, breathless, eyes wide. "We leg it. Now."
They ran.
Behind them, the figures followed. Not running. Not rushing.
Just walking.
Relentlessly.
They burst into the dorm lobby and slammed the door shut behind them. Furniture scraped across tile as they barricaded the entrance.
Outside, figures gathered. Hands slammed against the glass. Faces pressed forward, smeared with blood.
The door began to crack under repeated impacts.
"They're not stopping," Aisha said.
"They don't feel pain," Mei Lin replied.
When the glass splintered further.
Chase swallowed slowly "Well, We're screwed.
----
Corvin was tightening a tiny screw into place when the world outside his window exploded with light. For a fraction of a second the courtyard looked like midday.
Then the sound hit. The blast slammed through the dorm building like a giant kicking the walls. Corvin jumped so hard the screwdriver slipped from his fingers and clattered across the desk.
"What the—" The lights died instantly. Everything went black. For a moment the entire dormitory seemed to hold its breath.
Then the emergency generators kicked in with a low mechanical growl, and dim hallway lights flickered to life.
Corvin stood slowly. Something about that explosion didn't feel like a simple accident.
He walked to the door and opened it. Across the hallway another door opened at almost the exact same moment. Astrid Clairmont stepped out, one hand still holding a medical textbook.
Her brow was furrowed and strands of blonde hair had fallen loose from her ponytail. "You heard that too?" she asked.
Corvin leaned against the doorframe. "Kind of hard not to." Astrid glanced down the hallway. The dorm felt different now. Too quiet.
Usually someone was talking or laughing somewhere, but the corridor was filled with an uneasy silence.
"What do you think happened?" she asked. Corvin shrugged. "Transformer maybe.
Sounded electrical." As if on cue, a distant siren began wailing somewhere beyond campus. Astrid didn't look reassured.
Before either of them could say anything else, another door down the hallway swung open. Marco Montelli stumbled out, squinting against the dim lights like someone dragged out of deep sleep. He rubbed his face with both hands.
"Madonna… what was that?" he groaned. Corvin gestured vaguely toward the window at the end of the hallway. "Explosion outside somewhere." Marco frowned. "At this hour? Who blows things up at ten at night?"
Astrid folded her arms. "Apparently someone on our campus."
Marco pulled his phone from his pocket, clearly intending to check the time. But instead of the clock, his screen filled instantly with notifications. His expression changed. "Uh… guys?"
Corvin glanced over. "What?" Marco stared at his phone like it had just insulted his mother.
"This… this is weird." Astrid stepped closer. "What is it?" Marco turned the screen toward them. His social media feeds were moving so fast it was almost impossible to follow.
Videos. Photos. Emergency alerts. Posts repeating the same word over and over. ATTACKS. Corvin leaned closer. One of the videos began playing automatically.
The footage looked shaky, clearly filmed on someone's phone. Two people were fighting in the middle of a street. At least that was what it looked like at first. Then one of them bit the other. Hard.
The camera shook as the person filming began shouting. The bitten man collapsed while the attacker continued clawing at him like an animal.
The video cut off. Astrid frowned deeply. "That has to be fake." Marco scrolled again. Another video. This one was inside a hospital corridor. Doctors were trying to restrain a patient thrashing wildly on a bed.
The patient suddenly lunged forward and bit one of the nurses. Blood sprayed across the camera lens. Marco's face had gone pale. "This can't be real."
Corvin grabbed his own phone. His feed looked exactly the same. Video after video. Different cities. Different countries. But always the same thing.
People attacking. People biting. People refusing to stop even after being beaten or shot. "What the hell is going on?"
Marco whispered. Astrid looked disturbed now. Her medical training made it impossible to ignore the details. "Those people… they're not acting normally."
Corvin walked slowly toward the window at the end of the hall. Something outside caught his attention.
He pulled the curtain aside. "What the—"
Astrid and Marco hurried over. Down in the courtyard chaos was unfolding. Several students were running across the pavement.
Behind them, a group of figures staggered forward. One of the runners tripped. The figures immediately piled on top of him.
Even from three floors up, the violence was obvious. Someone screamed. Marco stepped back from the window. "Nope," he said quickly.
"Nope. I don't like that." Astrid stared down at the scene, her medical instincts trying to make sense of what she was seeing. But nothing about it made sense.
People weren't trying to help the fallen student. They were biting him. Corvin slowly let the curtain fall closed again.
The hallway felt colder now. Outside, another scream echoed across the campus. Marco looked between them nervously.
"So… anyone else thinking this might actually be very, very bad?"
----
The dormitory entrance shook violently. Aisha leaned her full weight against the door as another heavy thud slammed into it from the outside.
The metal handle rattled under the pressure.
"Push the table closer!" she shouted. Chase grabbed one end of the small lobby table and dragged it across the tile floor. The legs screeched loudly before he shoved it hard against the door.
Mei Lin was already wrapping an extension cord around the handles, pulling the knot tight with quick, practiced movements.
Another impact hit the door. The glass panel trembled. Through the narrow window, shadowy figures pressed against the entrance.
Their hands smacked against the glass. One face slammed forward hard enough to leave a smear of blood.
Chase stared through the pane for half a second. Then immediately looked away.
"Yeah… nah," he muttered.
"That is properly cooked."
Aisha braced the door again as another body crashed against it. The whole frame creaked.
More shapes were appearing outside now. Students. Campus staff. People from the pathways they had run through. But they weren't acting like people. They stumbled toward the entrance with stiff, jerking movements, drawn by something they could not see but clearly sensed.
Noise, Movement, Life.
One of them began slamming its head against the glass repeatedly.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound echoed through the lobby like a drumbeat. Mei Lin stepped back slowly.
"How many?" she asked quietly.
Chase risked another glance through the window. "Too many."
Aisha pushed harder against the door. "Help me get the couch!"
The two of them grabbed the worn lobby couch and dragged it across the floor.
Another slam hit the door. The glass cracked. A thin spiderweb fracture spread across the surface.
Chase swore under his breath. "Yeah… that's not holding forever."
They shoved the couch against the entrance, wedging it tightly between the walls.
For a moment the pressure against the door slowed. But it didn't stop. The creatures outside kept throwing themselves against it again and again.
Relentless, Unfeeling.
Aisha stepped back, breathing hard. "They're not stopping."
Mei Lin shook her head slowly. "They don't feel pain."
The glass cracked again. A second fracture split across the window.
Chase wiped sweat from his forehead. "Right. I'm calling it. That door's cactus."
Aisha glanced at the stairwell.
"If that breaks, they'll flood the lobby."
Mei Lin nodded once. "Then we move."
Another slam rattled the entire entrance. The couch shifted slightly. That decided it.
"Stairs!" Aisha said. The three of them ran.
The stairwell lights flickered weakly as they climbed. Their footsteps echoed loudly against the concrete walls. First floor. Second floor. None of them spoke.
Behind them, faint banging continued to echo from the lobby.
By the time they reached the third floor, their breathing was ragged.
Aisha pushed the door open carefully. The hallway beyond was dimly lit.
And three people were standing in the corridor staring at them. Corvin. Astrid. Marco.
For a moment everyone just froze. Marco blinked. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Chase shook his head. "Mate, I wish it was ghosts."
Aisha walked into the hallway, still breathing hard.
"We need to barricade the stairwell." Corvin frowned. "What?"
Mei Lin stepped forward. "They're coming."
Astrid's eyes widened slightly. "You mean the people outside?"
"They don't feel like people." Aisha said flatly.
Marco looked from one face to another. Then toward the stairwell door. "You are joking, right?"
A distant crash echoed from below. Then a scream. Not a confused shout. A full, terrified scream.
It echoed up the stairwell like a knife slicing through the air. Everyone in the hallway froze.
The scream cut off abruptly. Then came a chorus of low groaning sounds drifting upward from the lower floors.
Marco whispered slowly, "Oh… hell."
Chase rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. That about sums it up."
Corvin immediately moved. "Barricade the door."
The group snapped into motion.
Corvin and Aisha dragged a heavy bookshelf from the hallway wall. Marco grabbed a chair and shoved it under the stairwell handle. Mei Lin pulled a nearby vending machine slightly sideways with surprising strength. Astrid quickly pushed a cabinet against the pile.
Within seconds the stairwell entrance was buried under furniture. Everyone stepped back. Listening. For a moment there was nothing.
Then a faint scraping sound came from below. Something was moving up the stairs. Slow. Dragging. Chase raised a finger to his lips. Everyone fell silent. The scraping continued for several seconds.
Then stopped. No one moved. The hallway felt suddenly much smaller.
Six people standing in dim emergency lighting, surrounded by barricades.
Outside the windows the campus lights flickered across empty pathways. Astrid finally spoke in a whisper. "What is happening?"
No one answered immediately. Corvin stared toward the barricaded stairwell.
The sounds below had stopped. But he knew they hadn't left. "They're everywhere,"
he said quietly.
Mei Lin looked toward the windows overlooking the courtyard. In the distance, shapes were already wandering between buildings.
Drawn toward the dorm, Toward the noise, Toward them. Her voice dropped to a quiet conclusion.
"The building is surrounded."
They ran.
By the time they reached the third floor, their breathing was ragged. The hallway door swung open—and they froze.
Corvin. Astrid. Marco.
For a moment, no one spoke.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Marco said.
Chase shook his head. "Mate, I wish it was ghosts."
Aisha stepped forward, urgency cutting through exhaustion. "We need to barricade the stairwell."
A scream echoed from below. It rose through the building, sharp and terrified, before cutting off abruptly. Then came the low, dreadful sound of something else taking its place.
Everyone understood at once.
They moved quickly, dragging furniture and sealing the stairwell door. When they stepped back, the hallway fell into tense silence.
A scraping sound drifted upward from below. Slow. Persistent.
Then it stopped.
No one dared to speak for a moment.
Astrid finally broke the silence, her voice barely above a whisper. "What is happening?"
Corvin stared at the barricade, his mind already racing ahead.
"They're everywhere."
Mei Lin glanced toward the windows, where distant shapes wandered through the courtyard, drawn closer by noise and movement.
Her conclusion came quietly.
"The building is surrounded."