"I am not one for lengthy introductions. I cannot find the words."
"But the basics would be that I am Samuel J. Lister, and everyone calls me a killer, a terrorist and also, a monster."
"I am all of these. Maybe more."
There was a man on one of the many rooftops of the Island, dressed in a white hoodie that had somehow remained mostly stainless despite him having traversed through a wasteland.
He squatted there, surveying the scene below him. It was eerily quiet, befitting a place that had been ravaged by a virus that did not wholly kill, but completely took over, bending the victim to its will.
Something stumbled through the streets, pushing its way through the wreckage.
Most of the population that originally lived here in this district had either fled or had become one of the Infected.
Or more likely, they were all killed by Spectrewatch. Standard containment protocols.
Spectrewatch wasn't exactly military, and in most circumstances would take its orders from the military, but in times like these, specialists had command over the Army 's resources, so now citizens were being mowed down by their own defense force.
The wind whistled its way, and the man waited a bit more until whatever it was had staggered right underneath him and he jumped down, arms extended. As he did so, his hands changed, extending into sharp wicked claws, which tore into the unsuspecting street-walker like it was made of paper.
When he had finished, however, there was absolutely no sign of the walker, whatever it was, and the man ran off.
He passed by a crow, pecking the eyes out of a corpse which flapped off at his approach, cawing loudly. He ran on ahead, picking up speed, and vaulted over a car covered with a red, fleshy growth. There was another care right ahead, and further ahead, an imposing barrier with barbed wire trailed over the top to prevent anyone from climbing over it.
He wasn't intimidated by this, however, and instead, leapt onto the car and immediately sprang up again, causing the car's body to cave in and launching him up impossibly high and sending him flying over the barrier, his clothes nearly catching on the barbed wire.
And then he dropped with such force that cracked the ground and rolled, quickly getting up and resuming his speed with almost no hesitation.
"About a month ago, someone…released a lethal virus in Alma Station."
The man leapt up again, landing on top of a lorry, and immediately jumped, grabbing on to a streetlight. He spun around it once, gaining some more momentum, and then launched himself on the side of a glass-fronted building.
By all rights he should have skidded off, and landed on the pavement as a fresh corpse, but he kept running, and gravity gave up its hold on him, letting him run up the side of the building.
"I woke up in a morgue."
He angled himself so that he was running towards another rooftop, and dug his heels into the glass, then jumped.
"Now, I hunt. Consume. Become. And I try to cleanse this mess."
"I'm going to find out who did this to me. And make them pay."
He leapt over a chimney stack and disappeared from sight.
It wasn't a good day for Ronald Finnegan.
They had to kill a civilian again. She was possibly on the way to becoming Infected, but he felt sick to the pits of his stomach.
They were on the streets of a Zone 4, patrolling around, looking for the target, Lucifer, The fucker who decided to release that damn virus at Alma Station-what the hell was he thinking?
The squad leader had told them to keep their eyes wide open for Lucifer, but the scene's carnage made him wish that he could disobey orders and run back to somewhere safer, or maybe go on leave. Corpses littered the streets, windows were either broken or boarded up and in general, it felt as if the Four Horsemen had decided to visit early.
There was a scream coming from an alley, and the woman had staggered out, her clothing in tatters. She was holding on to her right shoulder, which was bleeding, and was frantically casting glances behind her.
She had stumbled, grabbing hold of a dumpster in trying to regain her balance when she looked up to see the squad. Her mouth hung open in shock for a moment, before she rushed towards them, sobbing, begging for help. She stumbled again, and the captain caught her before she fell.
"Please…help…" she had sobbed.
A single Infected also shambled out of the alleyway, turning around, trying to find its prey.
It saw the squad and the woman and shrieked, charging at them. A few more streamed out of the alleyway, and followed it.
Training had covered this situation, so the squad readied their weapons, and when the captain ordered them to open fire, they did so without hesitation. Soon, the horde was mowed down save for one Infected, which another short burst of gunfire dealt with.
They were then ordered by the captain to go and check out that alley, while the captain and Jacques stayed behind to deal with the civilian.
Ronald couldn't help turning back to look for a moment-he owed the woman that much, at least.
The method of disposal: Two bullets to the head, one to kill, and another to be safe.
He had turned back to investigate the alley, when the radio crackled with a "That's him!" from the captain and he turned.
There he was. Lucifer, standing as calm as you please, with claws extended.
Ronald ducked into the alley, taking cover behind the dumpster and checked his weapon-a rocket launcher-making sure it wouldn't jam while his teammates began to try and deal with the monster.
They were cut down effortlessly. All he heard were their dying screams, and the squelches they made as they split open under Lucifer's claws
And when Lucifer had finished with what he thought was the last one, Ronald had stepped out, shouted, "Hey, ugly!", and unleashed a rocket to his face.
There was no sign of Lucifer after the smoke had cleared, and it was hoping too much to think that Lucifer had been vaporized by the blast, but a few feet away was a Spectrewatch operative, lying on the ground and groaning.
Ronald didn't think. He should have.
Instead, he went and helped the other up. The other Spectrewatch operative turned out to be a superior in rank.
"Thanks," he said shortly. "Where's your commanding officer?"
"He's at Bismarck Square sir, sir, I'll call for a transport-"said Ronald, reaching for his radio.
"No need," said the operative.
And suddenly a searing pain flared up from Ronald's gut, and travelled up to his collarbone where it radiated to the rest of his body. He tried to scream, but all that came from his mouth was choking noises as his lungs filled with blood and the Spectrewatch operative that had suddenly grown claws and stabbed him shapeshifted into Lucifer.
'Shit' was the last word that echoed in Ronald's mind before everything went black.
Lucifer calmly tossed the operative off his claws with a sickening squelch, and ran off in the direction of Bismarck Square.
Much needed information was to be found there.
Dawn rose, and with it, pandemonium.
Spectrewatch had set up sandbag barriers at various strategic spots (crossroads, junctions and the like) and they were trying their best to cut down the Infected population, but there were so many of them that it seemed like a job with no end to it.
They didn't expect Lucifer to show up.
He jumped down from a tree in Sachihata Park, landing close to one of the barriers.
Cracked his neck, calm as you please, as he was out exercising in more normal conditions, rather than he was about to massacre a few more people, and he muttered about "janitorial work" and cracking his knuckles, leapt into the fray.
If anybody had actually hired him as a janitor, they would have found he created more mess than cleaned it up. Blood, limbs and miscellaneous body parts flew everywhere as he set to work.
A blast from a rocket launcher sent him flying backwards for a moment, slamming into the road. He recovered quickly however, and the unfortunate rocket launcher holder, along with a few bystanders, met their end with a car tossed in their direction.
It took Lucifer about ten minutes to clear that area of Spectrewatch, and when he had finished, he ran into the next area, taking a path that wasn't filled with people that could slow him down. This meant the sides of buildings and the rooftops.
Approaching a lower rooftop, he leapt, and tucked his legs in as he landed, reducing the impact by rolling, and entered the heart of Bismarck Square.
More gore was added to the scene as Lucifer went through its arrhythmic dance of death, with claws outstretched this time. Occasionally he would stab the ground, causing spikes to erupt around an area, impaling everything in their path.
This the commander noticed, and he decided to call in for heavier backup.
Tanks rolled in, indiscriminately rolling over the crowds of Infected and civilian alike and one of them managed to land hits on Lucifer, but he would them come charging out of the smoke, appendages now in the form of sledgehammers, and he pounded away at their armor endlessly, chipping them away, wearing them down.
Only a sudden strike by a monstrous creature that dropped down from above stopped him and he was sent reeling right into the path of the tank he was attacking.
It was promptly pushed aside, redirected away and in confusion, the gunner swiveled the tank's turret around and fired a shell at the road.
Lucifer was thrown back by the blast into a boarded up storefront, while the creature slammed right on top of him, stunned.
More of those creatures arrived, and started adding the screams of dying military to the clamor.
"Jannuars!" crackled the commander's radio. "We need-AAAAagAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!".
The commander calmly switched to another channel, one used to contact his superiors, and requested aerial backup, putting a bullet into an Infected that had got too close.
Soon, helicopters arrived, releasing a few volleys into the horde, and deposited a few more men into the warzone.
In the store, the 'Jannuar' had groggily got to its feet, and whirled around to finish off its prey, only for a blade to come slashing across its face.
It howled, backing off. Lucifer's expression was stoic as he twirled his right arm, onto which the blade was attached, and slashed a few more times at the Jannuar, advancing as he did so, delivering a few kicks to it for good measure.
The Jannuar eventually gave up the ghost due to exhaustion and the wounds it had received under Lucifer's blade, and a few more were given the same treatment before Lucifer advanced farther into Bismarck Square.
His target, the commander, was standing there, out in the open, shooting at the hordes, now giving desperate orders. It was a simple matter to grab him from behind, smash him into the ground, tear into him with his fists, then let Lucifer's ebody do the rest.
Tendrils erupted from Lucifer, enveloping the corpse, drawing it in, and his body absorbed the other one into his being, and Lucifer curled up as if he was in pain-
Then he suddenly stretched out, and the area around him was suddenly filled with tentacles extending from him. Writhing, they latched onto anything organic or human shaped, and dragged them towards Lucifer, smashing them together with Lucifer as the core.
Most of the area was wiped clean of anything that was living and those that had somehow escaped the barrage were staggering around in shock or running away.
Lucifer cracked a humorless grin as the last of the tentacles retracted into him and sprinted out of the area. He had got what he needed, and there was no need for him to help the military clean out this mess.
No one bothered to follow-they were too busy trying not to be overwhelmed by the Infected.
It was much later.
The sky burned orange, and crows screamed across the sky.
The hooded figure of Lucifer looked up at the flat, and crouched, storing his strength, then leapt, neatly landing on the rooftop, a few feet away from the heavyset man already there.
That man paced back and forth, looking out at the burning district. Smoke wreathed the air.
"We have less than an hour," he said, voice distorted by the static of his radio. "What's next?"
Lucifer was silent for a few seconds, gathering his words before speaking.
"The last stain of all this will be wiped away tonight."
"If we make it out of here." said the other, watching a pair of choppers fly past them above. "Do you think you're ready?"
Another period of silence from Lucifer.
"Cut it out with the drama." said the man. "Just give me a yes or no."
"Well, yes. I," Lucifer said, turning to face the other, his four eyes glowing red, "was made for this."