SPECTRAL REFORMATION

CHAPTER FIVE: THE HALFBORN REVELATION

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The Knocker never saw it coming.

He was tall and lean, a young man wrapped in a threadbare uniform from an old world, now long devoured by decay. His boots made no sound on the stone floor of Oppey Gulf’s subterranean chamber as he crept forward, torchlight flickering in his trembling grip. His breath hitched, caught between fear and determination. The scent of dampness and blood coiled through the underground air, growing stronger with each step he took.

And then—Minos moved.

A shadow split from the wall, low and fast. The Knocker cried out, stumbling back, but Minos was already on him. Teeth sunk deep. The boy's scream fractured into silence as his throat was torn out. The torch clattered to the ground, flickering once before being crushed beneath Minos’s foot. Then came the gurgling. Then nothing.

The silence afterward was absolute.

Ron watched from the edge of the chamber, eyes wide, heart hammering. His younger brother Jerry clutched his arm tightly, and Mami’s trembling hand pressed to her lips. None of them spoke. None dared to.

Minos crouched over the Knocker’s body, blood gleaming along his chin, his breath heavy. Then, slowly, he rose. His movements were not like the wild, frenzied undead that plagued the outside world—no, there was control in his limbs. Intelligence behind his eyes. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, gazing at them with a strange mixture of regret and necessity.

"I didn’t want you to see that," Minos said quietly, voice hoarse but firm. “But he was already lost. The Knocker was one of them.”

Ron took a cautious step forward. “One of who?”

Minos’s eyes shimmered in the half-dark. “A scavenger. A trespasser. They sneak into places like this hoping to loot or kill or—worse. He was tainted. I could smell it.”

Mami took a step back, shielding Jerry behind her. “You just devoured a man. A living man.”

Minos turned to her, slowly. “He was not fully living. Not anymore. The taint in him had already started to rot his soul. I spared him the full horror of transformation.” His voice softened. “It’s mercy, in its own twisted form.”

“But you're like them…” Jerry mumbled, barely audible. “You look like them.”

“I am not like them,” Minos said firmly. “I am something… between. A halfborn. Half-human, half-zombie—if you insist on using your people’s term for it. My mother was human. My father was infected. I was born of their last night together, before the sickness took him completely.”

Ron had heard rumors—myths whispered in the refugee camps. Beings not wholly dead, yet not truly alive. Creatures that moved through both worlds: feeding, surviving, remembering.

Minos raised a hand, as if anticipating their thoughts. “Yes, I consume flesh. I must, to survive. But I also eat normal food—meat, roots, fruits, grains. I remember the taste of human meals. I still crave them. The hunger… it is a curse that never fully goes away.”

He stepped closer to the flickering light, and now they could see the details of his form more clearly. His skin was pale and blotched, veined with gray, but not rotted. His eyes still held pupils, and though his lips were stained with blood, they moved with clarity and will. He wasn’t a beast. Not entirely.

“I know you don’t understand,” Minos continued. “But I asked Ron to bring you here because you must know the truth—about me, about what’s coming.”

Ron nodded slowly, his voice finally steady. “I told them about you. I told them you were different.”

“You said you used to help your mother grow food,” Jerry whispered.

Minos looked at him, and something flickered behind his eyes—grief. “She died when I was ten. Torn apart by the same kind I now keep at bay. They swarmed our house. I survived, somehow. But she… she made me promise never to forget who I was. Half or not.”

Mami’s expression softened slightly, though she still held Jerry close. “But you kill. You eat.”

“I do,” Minos replied. “Only those who are already beyond saving. The ones who will become the mindless. You think the world above is swarming with zombies? You haven’t seen what’s gathering just beneath your feet. Whole colonies. Queens. New mutations. You think this is the end? This is only the beginning.”

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the dripping of water in the far tunnels.

Ron stepped forward fully now, standing by Minos’s side. “He saved us before, Mom. You didn’t see it, but I did. One of those things got too close to Jerry at the boundary wall. Minos tore it apart before it could even scream.”

Minos nodded slowly. “I did. And I’d do it again.”

Mami looked between the two of them, uncertainty painted across her features. “Why bring us here?”

“Because I need you to understand what I am,” Minos said. “And because the time is coming when I will need you. All of you. The world above cannot stand on its own much longer. The infected evolve. And soon, they’ll overrun the last cities. People like me… the halfborn… we may be the only bridge that can stop the extinction of both races.”

“Why us?” Ron asked.

“Because you still believe,” Minos said simply. “You believed in me enough to come. That matters.”

He turned and walked over to what appeared to be a wooden crate against the stone wall. From it, he drew out a cloth bundle and unwrapped it. Inside was a loaf of bread, slightly stale, and a handful of dried meats. He offered it to them.

“I still eat like you,” he said. “Partly. I still want to.”

Jerry took a hesitant step forward. “Does it hurt?” he asked. “Being both?”

Minos looked down at him. “Every day. I hear the voices of the dead. Smell the rot. Feel the hunger clawing at me like a second soul. But I also remember birthdays. I remember laughing. The color blue. My mother’s perfume. That’s why I fight. That’s why I remain… me.”

Ron placed a hand on Jerry’s shoulder, then looked back at his mother. “We can’t go back now, Mom. Not to the way things were. We’ve seen the truth.”

Mami hesitated… then nodded.

Minos smiled faintly, a rare sight. “Then there’s hope.”

From the corridor behind them, another low groan echoed through the dark.

Minos turned, eyes narrowing. “They’re near again. We should move. I have a place deeper in the tunnels—safer. We’ll rest there.”

He looked once more at the body of the Knocker. “He was young. Probably thought he was doing good.”

Ron stepped up beside him. “Maybe. But he didn’t listen. You gave him a chance.”

“I give everyone a chance,” Minos said. “Even myself.”

Then he moved, and they followed him into the darkness—Ron, Mami, and Jerry—beneath the bones of the old world, into the refuge of the halfborn.