The next few hours passed in a blur of panic and confusion. Jeremy, still displaying the strange, almost mechanical movements, had disappeared from the facility. Despite every effort by the staff to locate him, he seemed to vanish into thin air. The security cameras flickered in and out, distorting or going completely dark whenever they focused on him.
Evelyn paced the control room, her mind racing as she tried to piece together what had gone wrong. "It doesn't make sense," she muttered to herself. "This isn't just sleep deprivation. Something else is happening."
Dr. Marcos, frantically clicking through camera feeds, wasn't helping matters. "What if it's some kind of psychosis? Maybe prolonged sleep deprivation has triggered something neurological—"
Evelyn cut him off. "No, this isn't psychosis. You saw the way he moved. Something changed in him."
Suddenly, alarms blared throughout the facility again. This time, it wasn't just isolated to the participants' rooms. A red light flashed on the control panel, indicating a breach in the building's external security.
"What the...?" Marcos rushed to the nearest console. "We've got a perimeter breach."
Evelyn felt a chill crawl down her spine. "He's outside."
***
Outside the facility, the night air was thick with tension. The nearby mountain ranges, usually peaceful and remote, now seemed foreboding. The security team was already mobilizing, their radios crackling with static as they attempted to coordinate the search for Jeremy.
"Any sign of him?" Evelyn's voice came through the radio, but all they heard in response was garbled static.
The team split into groups, searching the surrounding area, but it was as if Jeremy had disappeared into the shadows of the mountains. The team leader, a grizzled man named **Harris**, squinted through his night-vision goggles, scanning the dense trees. His gut told him that something was wrong. Very wrong.
"Harris, do you copy?" Evelyn's voice came again, more insistent this time.
"Negative on the target. No sign of—"
A scream cut through the radio feed, high-pitched and full of terror. Harris's heart raced as he spun in the direction of the sound. One of his team members, **Collins**, had fallen, his flashlight rolling away as his body lay twisted in an unnatural position.
"Man down! We've got a man down!" Harris shouted into the radio, adrenaline surging through his veins. But before he could react, something moved in the darkness—a blur of motion too fast to track. It slammed into another team member, sending them crashing into a nearby tree with a sickening crack.
Harris aimed his weapon, his hands trembling as he scanned the area. "Whoever you are, stop!" His voice wavered, fear creeping into his tone.
But then he saw it. Jeremy. Or what had been Jeremy.
He stood at the edge of the clearing, his body rigid, his face expressionless. But it wasn't just his movements that terrified Harris—it was his eyes. They were completely black, like voids, reflecting no light.
Jeremy took a step forward, then another, his head tilting at an unnatural angle as he surveyed the fallen security team.
Harris fired his weapon, the gunshots echoing through the mountains. But Jeremy didn't flinch. The bullets didn't seem to hit him, or worse—they passed right through, as if he wasn't entirely solid.
Before Harris could react, Jeremy moved—faster than humanly possible—and in a blur of motion, he was on top of him. Harris's vision went black.
***
Back inside the facility, Evelyn and Dr. Marcos watched the security feeds in horror. The remaining cameras flickered on and off, displaying fleeting images of the carnage unfolding outside. Jeremy was no longer human. He was something else now—something that defied explanation.
"We need to shut this down," Evelyn whispered, her voice barely audible over the sound of her racing heart. "We have to call the authorities."
Dr. Marcos was already reaching for the phone when a sharp knock echoed through the control room door. Both of them froze.
Slowly, the door creaked open, and **Maya** stepped inside, her face pale but determined.
"You need to see this," she said, holding up her smartwatch. "I've been tracking the facility's internal systems. There's something wrong with the power grid—something bigger than just Jeremy."
Evelyn frowned, moving closer to inspect Maya's device. On the screen, strange, erratic spikes in energy readings displayed over a map of the facility. The spikes seemed to move—like they were following something. Or someone.
"What the hell is this?" Marcos asked, eyes wide.
Maya took a breath. "I don't think Jeremy's the only one. There's more going on here. Something's happening to the rest of the participants. The spikes are getting worse."
As if on cue, the lights in the facility flickered once more. This time, they didn't come back on.
Darkness swallowed them.
And in the distance, deep in the bowels of the facility, they heard the unmistakable sound of doors unlocking.
***
The outbreak had begun.
YOU ARE READING
Infected Realms
Science Fiction**Infected Realms** *The end of the world isn't always what it seems.* A routine sleep study turns into something far more sinister when a group of participants begin experiencing unexplainable phenomena. What starts as an ordinary experiment soon...
