The Day After Tomorrow

"Get up now! We have to leave!" Rhoda’s voice boomed, sharp as a command, not a plea. She braced herself against a cracked support beam, adrenaline surging through her body,overriding the fear inside. The injured woman, her uniform torn and soiled in gritty charcoal dust of City B, lay helpless on the ground. "I can't. My leg's caught on the rubble," the lady replied, her voice a strained whimper of pain. Tears carved clean lines through the dirt on her face. "We’ll die if you don’t move!" Rhoda retorted, dropping her medic bag and scrambling to grip the trapped limb. Rhoda, codename 'Ladybug' to her unit, had been deployed along an extraction team, with a small medical crew to tend to the remaining injured and a handful of civilians trapped in this sector. The M-virus—the Mutation Virus—had already consumed the rest of the city, transforming roughly half the population into the monstrous 'Ferals.' They were the abominable foot soldiers of the end of the world: skin pale white, eyes milky, driven by an insatiable hunger for human essence, flesh, and blood. Their only intent was to kill and devour. "Please, just leave me. Take the kids with you and run. Their lives matter more. Don't prioritize me over them, Miss," the woman sobbed. Her pronouncements fell on deaf ears. Rhoda grunted, straining against the weight of the collapsed concrete slab. "No life is more important than the other. You’re one of us, alright? So shut up and let me help you." Just as Rhoda’s fingers found a grip on the slab’s jagged edge, one of the three children she was shielding,the youngest of them all,let out a piercing scream and pointed skyward. The other two joined the scream of terror. Rhoda tried to bark a command to stay calm, but the injured woman’s own shout cut her short. "Oh my goodness, watch out, Miss!" Rhoda spun her head up. A terrifying silhouette was descending rapidly from the smog-choked sky. It was a 'Feral wraith,' an advanced mutation of the virus, its face a horrifying mask of bloody, suppurating sores, its limbs ending in claws like a starved bear. It shrieked—a sound like grinding metal—as it adjusted its trajectory to grab Rhoda, the easiest, largest target. Chaos exploded. The children scattered, desperately seeking cover. Rhoda, paralyzed by the sheer size of the creature, involuntarily held onto the trapped woman. In the millisecond before the wraith could pounce, a devastating blur of movement, a powerful presence, blitzed the Feral from behind. There was a sound like a watermelon being struck by a sledgehammer. The Feral’s head—and a terrifying amount of its neck—was instantly pulverized by an unbelievable, kinetic force. The blur was followed by lightning-fast slashes and cuts. The creature was dissected in mid-air, raining down in a horrifying, gory pile of flying white flesh and black ichor. The blitzing force landed silently, settling into the form of a muscular, battle-armored man with a black spiky hair and clean undercut, standing shield-like between Rhoda and the gruesome remains. "Are you alright, Ladybug?" Jonathan asked, his voice low, edged with affection, but his eyes scanning the surrounding ruins with deadly focus. Rhoda, trembling, managed a tearful nod. He held a length of specialized chain in his hand, attached to a spiked flail on one end and a razor-sharp dagger on the other. A polished, titanium-carbon sword was strapped diagonally across his back. He was a walking arsenal, silent and lethal. "Excuse me, dear. Let me handle this." Jonathan’s facial expression, which had briefly softened for her, snapped back into the cold, surgical look of a warrior. He didn't wait. He swung his chained flail with an incredible, blinding velocity, creating violent, hissing wind torrents around him. In an instant, Jonathan,codename 'Sonic',vanished. He hadn't disappeared; he was just faster than the eye could follow. The Ferals had already detected his overwhelming presence. They surged to their location in massive, feral numbers, racing menacingly over the rubble, baring their needle-like teeth and grotesque claws. In the next three heartbeats, Sonic obliterated them all. His movement was a terrifying dance of precise proficiency. He didn't waste energy on large sweeps; every strike was hyper-efficient, targeting brainstems, spinal cords, and joints. The flail became a thunderous, bone-crushing sledgehammer, while the chain dagger whipped and cut with the accuracy of a neurosurgeon. Bodies were bashed, spun, and torn into pieces, leaving none standing within a fifty-meter radius. He was one of the elites; the Defense Force’s strongest weapon, specifically trained to fight the likes of these hyper-mutated Ferals in close combat, where firearms were often too slow. Just as the last feral collapsed, the rest of his elite crew stormed the perimeter. They moved like a well-oiled, black-clad machine, clearing the remnants and establishing a secure cordon. Rhoda watched as Sonic advanced back toward them, now caked in so much Feral gore he looked like a demonic statue. "That's a face only a mother could love," Rhoda joked weakly, forcing a smile through her tears. "Can you help a lady pull a leg?" "Of course. Is she alright?" Jonathan replied, his gaze immediately shifting to the injured woman. He knelt, assessing the situation not with strength, but with meticulous mechanical precision. He positioned himself, took a deep breath, and with effortless ease, lifted the ton-heavy slab just enough for the woman’s leg to be retracted. The metal scraped agonizingly as the woman let out a small, sharp scream, now free of the crushing weight. "It’s okay, it’s just fractured, nothing too serious," Rhoda quickly assured the woman, applying a compression bandage and a makeshift splint using a piece of canvas from her medkit. "Head south, Ladybug. There’s a Cavalry transport awaiting your crew and the injured. Get to safety. My unit will take over the sweep from here." Jonathan’s eyes, intense and pale green, gave her a wink—a flash of the man beneath the blood-splattered armor. Rhoda nodded, helping the injured woman into a secure carry and gathering the children. As she moved away, she passed a tall woman with a lean build and a rifle that looked too big for her frame. "Sonic! Quit staring, soldier!" The voice was sharp, cutting through the adrenaline. It was Phoenix, the sharpshooter and their tactical team leader, who had just cleared a rooftop with her unit. Jonathan jolted slightly, turning to face her. "Thanks for coming, Phoenix. I really need an extra powerful hand here." "What a liar," Phoenix scoffed, tucking her rifle under her arm. "Don't try to compliment me, Sonic. We all know you had this covered, you walking devastation." They shared a moment of dark laughter, the sound brittle against the ruins, before dispatching their units to deal with the inevitable remnants. Jonathan smiled, a genuine, tired twitch of the lips, and zoomed off to finish the job. AstraCity, once designated as City B and believed to be a secure zone shielded from the initial spread of the M-virus, had been struck. In less than forty-eight hours, the city was overrun. The 'abominables',the Ferals,now dominated the entire globe, having breached every supposedly secure boundary. Governments, caught completely flat-footed by the scale and speed of the viral mutation, had collapsed. The remaining governing bodies, reduced to militaristic strongholds, sealed their borders and erected immense concrete bastions to keep themselves safe, effectively abandoning the masses to imminent death. Smaller, independent units like Jonathan's were the only things holding the line. They were highly trained military and civilian volunteers, acting outside the governmental chain of command, receiving little or no aid from them,which meant they were perpetually underhanded and short of critical supplies and ammunition. The elites had long since resorted to non-firepower weaponry—blades, chains, and specialized kinetic tools—as ammunition was reserved strictly for mass suppression and fixed defenses. They trained ceaselessly to tackle this new, terrifying uprising, becoming specialists in surgical, close-quarters combat. The operation was successful in terms of evacuation, but the cost was absolute. AstraCity was now a ruin, smoke clouds rising miles into the atmosphere. The units had reclaimed the shell of the city, but it was too late to save the infrastructure. The remaining citizens were evacuated, and City B was designated an isolated, contaminated zone. A line was drawn, multiple red flares were fired to the sky,a warning to stay out of City B. "We should head back to base, Sonic. Let’s report, resupply, and plan our next course of action," Phoenix said, inspecting the scarred landscape. She frowned, kicking at a Feral skull. "AstraCity's a lost cause. It feels like a wasted effort, honestly. Why did we commit so many resources to a city we knew was compromised?" "Y'all go on ahead, Phoenix. I'm heading home." Jonathan's voice was flat, devoid of the usual battle-focus. Phoenix stiffened, her face growing pale beneath the grime. "What's the change of mind, soldier? We're all headed to base. It’s crucial we do, and don't forget I'm team leader." "I'll bail this time, boss. I'm tired. I think I’ve slashed more than a hundred of those elite-level Flyers and Breakers today. I’m worn to the bone," Jonathan sighed, turning away. "Let me head home to my sweetheart. She must be worried sick by now." "Why you…" Phoenix frowned, using a hand signal to stop her approaching team. Jonathan smirked faintly. "Be sure to report first thing at sunrise. That girl is getting into your head, man. Are you sure you’re not under duress?" "A little duress is good for the soul, Phoenix. See you at dawn." Jonathan was gone before the word 'dawn' left his lips, leaving Phoenix shaking her head, half-annoyed and half-envious of the speed and autonomy he wielded.