"Train incoming. Mind the gap."

The voice echoed cleanly through the station.

Artificial.

Too calm for the world it existed in.

A man in uniform stood near the edge of the platform with his hands behind his back as the train slowly rolled in. Its headlights cut through the dim tunnel first before the rest of it emerged from the dark.

People nearby barely looked at it.

Commuters.

Civilians.

A woman sipping coffee from a paper cup. Two men arguing quietly over something on a tablet. Somebody laughing into an earpiece.

Normal.

Or at least whatever passed for normal underground.

The uniformed man watched the train carefully as it slowed.

Something felt wrong immediately.

Then he saw it.

A smear of blood across one of the windows.

His eyes narrowed.

The train hissed loudly as it came to a stop.

The doors slid open.

And his stomach dropped.

People screamed almost instantly.

One woman turned away and vomited hard onto the platform floor.

Someone else stumbled backward so fast they fell.

Inside the train car looked like an animal had torn through it.

Blood covered the walls.

The windows.

The seats.

Body parts were scattered everywhere in wet, ruined pieces that no longer resembled people. An arm rested halfway beneath one of the benches. Something that might’ve once been a jaw hung from a pole by strands of flesh.

The metallic smell flooded outward the second the doors opened fully.

The man in uniform froze.

Not because of the bodies.

Because of her.

A woman knelt in the middle of the carnage with blood covering her hands and mouth.

Her shoulders moved slightly.

Eating.

No.

Tearing.

She ripped another chunk from the corpse beneath her with shaky violence before suddenly stopping.

Slowly—

She looked behind her.

Bloodshot eyes locked onto the people outside the train.

The station went silent.

Even the screams died.

Her pupils widened slightly.

Something flickered across her face.

Recognition maybe.

Or instinct.

Nobody moved. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Then she ran.

Fast.

Way too fast.

People scattered instantly as she shoved through the crowd. The uniformed man barely had time to react before she slammed into him hard enough to knock him onto his back.

His briefcase skidded loudly across the platform.

He blinked once in shock.

Then looked back toward the train.

Blood slowly seeped from the doorway onto the concrete floor.

The station alarms started screaming seconds later.

—

The pamphlet slammed against the metal table hard enough to echo through the room.

"Jennifer," the man snapped, "explain this shit to me."

Jennifer looked up at him calmly.

Too calmly.

The room around them stayed tense.

Soldiers stood near the doors with rifles strapped tight against their vests. Beside them sat several well-dressed officials who looked deeply uncomfortable being anywhere near this conversation at all.

One of them kept rubbing sweat from his upper lip.

Another refused to stop staring at the bloodied station report sitting on the table.

The man jabbed a finger toward it.

"I trusted you to keep this place safe," he said. "You told us your little Crucible projects would stay outside the city. So why the fuck is there an infected running through my station?"

Jennifer remained silent.

That silence irritated him more.

He slammed both hands onto the table.

"All it takes is one," he said sharply. "One of those fucking things gets loose down here and this entire place collapses."

Still nothing from her.

His pacing started after that.

Fast.

Agitated.

"You know that, right?" he continued. "Or have you spent so much time underground you forgot what’s happening up there?"

"We have it under control," Jennifer said finally.

"YOU CAN’T EVEN FIND YOUR FUCKING EXPERIMENT!" he shouted back.

The room tightened immediately.

Even the soldiers looked uneasy now.

"Let alone that infected thing he was with."

Jennifer’s expression barely shifted.

That almost made it worse.

One of the officials cleared their throat carefully.

"If I may," they started quietly.

Nobody looked at them immediately.

They continued anyway.

"Why don’t we issue a mandatory roundup for everyone present at the station? Isolate potential exposure before it spreads."

The pacing man laughed once.

Not because it was funny.

Because it irritated him.

"And what do you think they tried to do in Englewood?" he asked.

The room went quieter.

That name still carried weight.

Still carried blame.

"It didn’t work there," he continued. "It won’t work here."

Another silence followed.

Heavy this time.

Jennifer finally leaned back slightly in her chair.

"These people are panicking over nothing," she said.

The man stared at her.

Jennifer folded her hands calmly.

"The Veil doesn’t spread through air exposure. Or proximity. Or blood contact." She looked around the room slowly. "Only bites."

The word sat ugly in the room.

The Veil.

Finally spoken aloud instead of danced around.

One of the officials shifted uncomfortably.

Jennifer continued.

"She’s sloppy. Emotional. In pain." Her tone stayed measured. "We’ll find her."

"And your experiment?"

Her eyes flicked toward him.

"When we recover her," Jennifer said, "we recover him."

The pacing man stopped moving finally.

Jennifer tilted her head slightly.

"And then," she continued, "we’ll be out of your hair."

Nobody liked that answer.

You could feel it immediately.

Because none of them trusted her anymore.

Not fully.

Not after the train.

Not after the bodies.

The man stared at her for several long seconds before finally speaking again.

"You better fix this," he said quietly.

That tone felt more dangerous than the shouting had.

"Before it gets worse."

Jennifer said nothing.

But for the first time since entering the room—

Her fingers tapped once against the table.

A tell.

Small.

Almost invisible.

Still there.

—

Outside the room, Bill spun the pistol lazily around his finger.

The nearby soldiers looked annoyed just hearing him whistle.

He leaned near one of the large windows overlooking the underground district and pretended to fire the gun through the glass.

"Bang," he muttered.

Nobody reacted.

Bill frowned.

"Tough crowd."

The soldiers stayed quiet.

That only entertained him more.

He wandered closer to the glass slowly, looking down at the underground city stretching beneath them.

Artificial lights.

Artificial skies painted across ceilings.

Clean streets.

Restaurants.

Stores.

People dressed like the apocalypse was some distant rumor instead of reality.

Bill almost laughed.

"So what’s it like?" he asked one of the guards.

The soldier ignored him.

Bill tilted his head.

"You really don’t miss the sun?"

Still ignored.

Bill clicked his tongue.

"Damn. I’d miss it."

One of the guards shifted slightly at that.

Bill noticed immediately.

"The air too," he continued casually. "Even with all the rot topside, there’s still real air up there."

Nothing.

Bill smiled faintly.

"Never seen one infected walking around down here though," he added.

That got a reaction.

Tiny.

But there.

A tightened jaw.

A glance exchanged between guards.

Bill caught it all.

"This whole situation’s probably scary as shit for you people," he said softly.

Nobody answered him.

At the far end of the corridor, two other soldiers spoke quietly between themselves.

They thought he couldn’t hear them.

"Why’s a topsider even working with us?"

"Jennifer’s orders."

"...seriously?"

The second guard shrugged.

"She wanted someone with hands-on experience dealing with the escaped patient."

"Patient," the other repeated under his breath.

"Apparently helping reduces his sentence upstairs."

The younger soldier blinked.

"Wait. They still got laws up there?"

The other laughed quietly.

"I thought the surface was just people killing each other over scraps."

Bill stopped whistling.

The laughter died immediately once he turned around.

Both soldiers stiffened.

The pistol still dangled loosely from Bill’s fingers.

Not aimed.

Not yet.

But something about his eyes had shifted.

He started walking toward them slowly.

The soldiers exchanged glances.

Bill stopped directly in front of them.

Then smiled.

"How much was it?"

The guards frowned.

"To live down here," Bill clarified.

Silence.

And then it hit them.

He understood.

Quickly.

Too quickly.

Bill looked past them toward the city below again.

"All this clean shit," he muttered. "The lights. The fake sky. The coffee shops." His smile widened slightly. "This wasn’t built for everybody, was it?"

Nobody answered.

Didn’t need to.

Bill could already see it clearly.

The apocalypse hit.

The rich disappeared underground.

Everybody else got left topside to rot.

His jaw flexed once.

"Damn," he murmured.

One of the soldiers finally straightened.

"You should watch what you say."

Bill looked back at him.

"And you should watch your fucking tone."

The corridor went still.

Bill stepped closer.

The soldier instinctively tightened his grip on his rifle.

Bill noticed that too.

"Lemme guess," he said quietly. "You people heard stories about the surface this whole time you were down here, right?"

No answer.

"How we turned into animals. Savages. Alll in just a few months."He smiled faintly. "Funny thing is? You folks might actually be worse."

The younger soldier swallowed.

Bill’s gaze drifted toward the office Jennifer sat in.

Toward the muffled arguing still happening behind those walls.

Then toward the underground city again.

Safe.

Hidden.

Protected.

Built on everybody else’s grave.

And suddenly—

Bill understood exactly why Adrian snapped the way he did.

Why Jennifer obsessed over him.

Why this entire place suddenly felt nervous over one escaped kid.

Because Adrian wasn’t just dangerous.

He was probably proof their underground paradise could bleed too.