Book One: Melancholy Memories

Chapter 1: Soldier

In early autumn, there was already a hint of chill in the air. Heavy clouds clung stubbornly to the sky, making the oppressive canopy above seem even darker and more stifling. The gentle sunlight that should have shone down to bring boundless warmth was completely blocked by this natural barrier of gas. Only through the thinner patches of those black-gray clouds could a faint, bluish glimmer barely filter through.

Brian Carter lay prone on the slightly damp ground, his camouflage combat uniform smeared with brownish-yellow mud. At first glance, he seemed to have blended completely into his surroundings. Only the deep eyes, hidden among rubble and debris, faintly radiated a barely perceptible tension and excitement.

He stared intently at the intersection about twenty meters ahead. It was where two main roads crossed at right angles, and also the only way out of this city now claimed by death, filled everywhere with the stench of rot and decay.

The round traffic control platform in the center of the intersection, once painted with red and white stripes, had been overturned to one side. In its place were two thin, slightly hunched figures. They paced back and forth, sweeping every visible corner with vicious, cruel eyes.

Swallowing a mouthful of sticky, dry saliva to moisten his parched throat, Brian Carter's hand instinctively tightened around the dagger in his palm.

If he didn’t kill these two, he couldn’t get through the intersection. Besides, in a sense, “they” could no longer be considered human.

Every infant is born with two intact arms. But such a standard for measuring life no longer applied. The five fingers that should have flexed at the end of “their” left arms had long been replaced by a crescent-shaped, hard chitinous blade. A faint, hazy glow shimmered on the thin edge of the blade...

September 11, 2015, was a day worth remembering in human history.

The “Discovery II” space shuttle returned to Earth from the depths of space, carrying the “Voyager” space probe. While scientists marveled at the unprecedented space photos, they failed to notice: the four astronauts returning to Earth had already been infected by an unknown pathogen.

A week later, news came from Houston, North America: the astronauts, while on leave, suddenly went berserk, killed all their family members, and then attacked several local hospitals and schools. From that moment, this strange virus began to spread rapidly through human society, turning ordinary people into raging beasts, bloodthirsty creatures...

Half a month ago, the 75th Infantry Division of the Army, to which Brian Carter belonged, was ordered to enter Kunming and protect citizens evacuating from infected areas. At that time, he never imagined that nearly ten thousand rigorously trained soldiers would be wiped out by these mutated creatures in less than a week.

Brian Carter was lucky. When his entire squad was surrounded and annihilated by mutants, he was saved by Captain. The two of them escaped through filthy sewers all the way to the outskirts of the city. It was then that he personally chopped off Captain’s head.

Captain was a man in his thirties from the northwest, bold and straightforward. He always liked to laugh heartily when he spoke. But ever since he was bitten on the shoulder by a mutant, not a trace of a smile had appeared on his broad, purplish face.

Every mutant is a living carrier of the virus.

Whether it’s a minor bite or being killed by their hand-blades, every creature contaminated by them, without exception, becomes a new host for the virus. The virus entering through the wound rapidly multiplies and takes over the host’s entire body in the shortest time, thus creating a new mutant in this way.

Brian Carter remembered clearly: many of his comrades, obviously killed by mutants, would crawl out of the pile of corpses hours later. Except for the left arm, which had completely transformed into a chitinous bone blade, their physical features were almost unchanged. Yet, in those slightly bewildered eyes, there shone a cruel, blood-red light.

If he didn’t kill Captain, he himself would die...

No normal person would smear themselves with filthy mud, let alone soak in foul-smelling excrement. But Brian Carter did exactly that. He knew: compared to survival, filth and stench were nothing at all.