When The Sun Died

Chapter 5

Serena Blackwood’s POV

The command center reeked of sweat, ozone, and something far worse: the faint, metallic tang of that cursed red light seeping through the reinforced windows.

It painted everything in a sick, pulsing glow, like we were standing inside the open mouth of Hell.

Seven hours.

Seven hours since the sun vanished.

Seven hours since the blackout swallowed the world.

I pressed my spine against a barricade of filing cabinets. My G36C was steady in my grip, finger resting lightly on the trigger. My heartbeat was controlled, regulated battle rhythm. Emotion would get you killed quicker than claws or teeth.

“Status on the west flank, Morales?” I asked, voice clipped and hard.

Lieutenant Morales, our medic gentle eyes, steady hands looked painfully out of place clutching a shotgun. He swallowed thickly.

“Pressure’s holding, Staff Sergeant. But the noise…” His voice cracked. “God, the noise.”

He didn’t have to describe it.

It was the sound of the planet dying, the distant sirens dissolving into static,and underneath all of it the shrieks. The chittering, bone-scraping shrieks of the infected outside.

Private Diaz was hunched over the radio console. He tapped useless knobs, face pale.

“Still nothing, Sergeant. Military channels dead. Emergency channels dead. We’re cut off.”

“Good,” I muttered. Dependence made soldiers soft. I worked better alone.

A rattling cough tore through the room.

All eyes snapped toward Jenkins, the youngest in our squad slumped in the corner, clutching his stitched up arm. His sweat-soaked shirt clung to him, chest heaving.

“Jenkins?” Morales stepped forward. “Hey, stay with me, soldier.”

Jenkins tried to push himself upright, but his body spasmed violently. He collapsed back, legs kicking, fingers clawing at the floor as if he was trying to dig his way out of his own skin.

Diaz’s voice trembled. “Sergeant… his fever’s too fast. This is not normal.”

Damn right it wasn’t.

Jenkins was deteriorating in minutes.

“Get back from him,” I warned, raising my rifle.

Morales hesitated. “Sarge, it could be shock it could be sepsis”

“Look at his skin.”

Morales turned and went still.

Jenkins’ skin was graying, mottled like bruised fruit. Black veins crawled across his face, thick and pulsing, spreading like spilled ink.

The stitched wound on his arm was leaking dark, tar like fluid.

“No…” Morales whispered. “No, no, no he wasn’t even sick he was just bitten”

Jenkins’ head snapped upward with a sickening wet c***k.

His eyes were bottomless, pit black voids. His jaw unhinged sideways, not broken, just wrong.

Diaz stumbled backward.

“Oh God oh God Sergeant ”

Jenkins launched forward with animalistic speed five feet in a blink and slammed Morales into the wall.

Morales screamed.

The tearing sound was wet and sharp. Blood sprayed across the floor in an arc. Jenkins’ teeth now looked jagged ripped into Morales’ throat.

Diaz shrieked and fired wildly, bullets smashing into ceiling lights.

“DIAZ! Head !” I barked over the chaos.

But it didn’t matter.

Because Morales gentle, kind Morales was already changing.

His thrashing slowed.

His body arched unnaturally.

The veins on his neck surged black.

His eyes snapped open.

Void. Hollow. Gone.

“Morales…” Diaz whispered, voice breaking.

Both Jenkins and Morales turned toward us, their movements sickeningly synchronized, as if sharing a single predatory brain.

I fired two precise shots to Jenkins’ skull. His head snapped back, black brain matter splattering across the wall. He dropped instantly.

Then Morales lunged at Diaz biting deep into the soft flesh of his shoulder.

Diaz screamed, high and broken.

I didn’t hesitate.

One shot head.

Morales dropped like dead weight.

Diaz writhed on the ground, clawing at his infected shoulder as black veins crawled up his neck.

“S..Sergeant…” he sobbed. “Please don’t …don’t let me turn”

His eyes rolled back.

I fired.

Silence swallowed the room.

Three soldiers. Gone in five minutes

My squad. My responsibility. My failure.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t shake. I didn’t allow myself the luxury.

Instead, I stalked forward, stripping ammo, med kits, a knife. Tools. That’s all that was left of them now.

I kicked open the emergency exit and stepped into the blood red dusk. The world outside writhed with movement shadows limping, sprinting, climbing, hunting.

But my mind was clear.

Mission update

Survive. Secure intel. Reach safe ground.

I moved fast, silent, hugging destroyed walls. Flames roared from a crashed vehicle ahead. Two figures stumbled from it panicked civilians. One tall, clutching files. The other dragging a wounded man.

Idiots. I spotted the files immediately government research folders. Pre-eclipse data.

Critical intel.

Creatures were converging on them.

I raised my rifle not to kill the monsters, but to buy the civilians two seconds of life.

Suppressive fire ripped through the air, sending the creatures scattering like roaches.

I sprinted toward them.

“You three!” I roared. “Drop the wounded and move out!”

The scientist stared at me, trembling. “W-who are you?”

I didn’t slow. I didn’t blink.

“Staff Sergeant Serena Blackwood,” I growled, grabbing his arm and yanking him forward.

“You’re alive because I need you. Now run.”

The red sky pulsed above us like a heartbeat.

And the world kept dying.

The civilians stumbled beside me as we ran if you could even call it running. The tall scientist tripped every three steps, clutching his files like they were oxygen.

The smaller one kept looking back over his shoulder, panic choking him.

“Don’t look back,” I snapped, shoving them forward. “Fear slows you down. Slowing down gets you killed.”

“I can’t help it!” the smaller man cried. “Are those things still..”

A shriek cut him off.

Too close.

Too hungry.

They were gaining.

“MOVE!” I barked.

We cut across the smoldering remains of a bus stop, glass crunching under our boots. The red sky pulsed like it was breathing

every flash of its light revealed more shapes in the shadows. Crawling. Sprinting. Scaling walls like insects.

We were surrounded. But not trapped.

Not yet.

“Up there,” I pointed toward a service ladder leading to a half collapsed maintenance bridge. “Climb.”

The scientist blinked. “Cl…climb? I can’t..”

“You can,” I growled, grabbing him by the collar and shoving him toward it. “Or you can die on the ground. Pick one.”

That lit a fire under him.

He scrambled up, hands shaking so violently the metal rattled beneath him.

I followed so I could help the smaller man carry the injured civilian

even though every part of me wanted to leave him behind.

His blood slicked my gloves. His breathing was shallow, wet, and ragged. Dead weight. Slowing us down. But his fingers clutched my jacket like some desperate piece of him refused to let go of life, and I gritted my teeth and hauled him higher.

The ladder groaned under all three of us.

“Keep moving!” I snapped at the smaller man.

“I.. I am!” he whimpered, scrambling faster, the metal creaking with each desperate grab.

Then the injured man’s body convulsed violently in my arms. Veins blackened, skin blistered and grayish in patches. His jaw cracked and stretched in ways no human jaw should. His fingers clawed at me, his eyes flaring red with pure feral hunger.

I froze for a fraction of a second then adrenaline kicked in. I had no choice.

I yanked him hard, swung him off the ladder, and let him fall.

A sickening thud echoed below. My stomach twisted. But there was no time to dwell on it.

I barely had a moment to catch my breath before a horrifying sound came from below. The transformed figure I’d just thrown wasn’t alone. It scrambled back up the ladder with terrifying speed, its movements sharp and jerky, fueled by some unnatural strength.

The smaller man screamed as the Feral reached him.yanking him downward. The kid’s arms flailed, but he didn’t stand a chance.

“No! No! Get off him!” I shouted, trying to grab him, but the Feral’s grip was unbreakable.

The smaller man’s scream was swallowed by the roar of the red-tinted chaos outside. I could only cling to the ladder, my chest heaving, watching helplessly as the creature dragged him down.