Eric awoke to the sound of screams and alarms, and the scent of smoke and blood on the air.

There was a blanket covering his face, he pulled it away, confusion swelling.

He'd been having a nightmare, he thought, but as he rolled over, hearing the sound of someone sawing something metal nearby, he realized that he'd awoken to a nightmare.

"You're up," V grunted. "Took you long enough."

"What the fuck's going on?" Eric slurred, sitting up, his head spinning.

V was crouched in front of their cell door. He had something in his hand, something metal and long, and was working it against one of the bars surrounding the locking mechanism.

"Their little experiment got out," V said, "and I've been cutting at this thing for about three hours now."

"I was out for three hours?" Eric asked, shaking the disorientation off as best he could.

"No, you were out for six. We're trapped in here, so I had to hide us while the slaughter happened. They finally finished up about three hours ago."

"Holy God…" Eric muttered as he stepped closer to the cell door.

He'd seen slaughter a thousand times before. He'd seen it all. Stab wounds, gunshot wounds, burns, bodies blown to bits, and a dozen worse and more unique types of grisly, gruesome nightmares. But this seemed to be a point beyond that. The catwalk beyond their cell was bathed in blood, utterly bathed in it. He saw a hand, shreds of flesh, and what looked to be an eyeball out there. In the distance, someone was screaming.

As he listened to it all, smelled it, took it in, something seemed to activate inside of him. Something shifted, something important, something primal. It was familiar, a thing that came on during battle and bloodshed, death and destruction. The thing that had kept him alive all these years, but also the thing that kept him apart from most of the rest of humanity.

"What's the plan?" he asked.

"I am going to break out of here, find a weapon, and make my way to the nearest hangar however I can," V replied. "You can come with me if you want, but no one slows me down."

Eric paused for long enough that, while he did not stop sawing, V turned to look at him.

"I want to know," Eric replied finally. "I want to know what's going on here. And I'm not going to leave until I do."

"Suit yourself."

The file or saw or whatever he was using broke through with a clang, and then the lock, mechanism, handle, and all, fell out with a louder clang. V yanked the door open and then hefted the tool like a weapon. He stepped out and was gone. Eric found his mind clearing, and then racing. He had things to do, goals to accomplish…

A mission.

He had a mission, another that he had given himself, and it weighed heavily on him. It seemed somehow crucial that he learn the truth behind whatever was happening here. First thing was first, though. V was a resourceful man, he must have stashed something around here. Eric started hunting through the drawers of the desk they shared. He looked briefly at the books, then shifted his attention away from them.

There was surprisingly little in the drawers. Then again, he wondered just how much knowledge they had of the contents of every cell. In the bottom drawer, though, pushed back behind a few more books, he found a set of brass knuckles. Grabbing them, he slipped them into place over his left fingers. It fit perfectly, almost like it had been designed for him.

It was a dull gray in color, and though it looked like it'd seen a fair amount of use, the front was studded with spikes that looked plenty sharp. He'd have to remember not to drive his fist into his open palm. He finished his search and came up with nothing else. Well, it'd do. Eric walked slowly up to the open cell door and listened and looked. He now found himself wishing he'd asked more questions of V. What had actually happened during those missing hours? Obviously it had been apocalyptic in nature. As he stepped out onto the catwalk, certain now that there was nothing immediately nearby that would threaten him, he saw the real extent of the damage.

Lots of cells were open, but some weren't, and some had people trapped in them. He saw uncertain shapes shambling about above and below him, on other catwalks. They looked like sick or drunk people, wandering aimlessly, confused. There were a few on his level, almost out of view. Eric considered the situation for a moment. He had a mission, but what was the best way to go about it? He needed to get into that guard tower in the center. From what he saw, there were no longer any direct connections to it.

Well, that was the broader objective at the moment. What he really needed here and now was a better weapon besides brass knuckles and his fists. He doubted there were any guns around, but there was almost certainly a shiv or even just a sturdy pipe somewhere. He saw movement across the way and two levels down. Someone in a cell, waving and shouting frantically. He raised a hand in acknowledgment. A prisoner or two might be decent backup, but at the very least, they'd probably know some secret or alternate way into the guard tower.

First thing first: a weapon. Eric broke right and began making his way along the catwalk, checking each cell as he passed it. The seconds ticked by, bleeding into minutes, as he worked his way through the area quickly and concisely, hunting through obvious hiding spots, checking corpses, (there were surprisingly few left for how many people must be dead), but he kept coming up empty. Among all the blood and bits of bodies and chaotic mess every cell had become, he found nothing. Obviously people had been through here already.

After checking a dozen cells, he found himself approaching one of the figures on his level. He had originally taken it to be another inmate, someone who was stupefied by what was happening, wandering aimlessly back and forth, muttering to himself. But as he got closer, he hesitated. Even from the back, he could tell something was off. The sounds he was making didn't seem drunk or confused, but inhuman, closer to something an animal would make. And his skin was bizarrely ashen, veins dark and visible.

Eric stood staring at the figure for a moment, trying to remember. He felt sure that whatever was happening right now was somehow connected to his missing memories. Was it some kind of sickness? If it was, he didn't want to get too close. Then again, he doubted he could operate in such an environment for very long and hope to stay clear of any kind of sickness, not without a lot of gear or a lot of luck.

As he stepped closer, deciding to see what was what, the inmate seemed to become aware of him. He made a disturbing sound and turned around. The instant Eric saw his face, he knew that he was looking at a corpse. A walking corpse. His eyes were vacant and cloudy and glowing faintly. Glowing? What the fuck? Maybe it was a trick of the light...did it matter? He supposed it didn't. As the inmate (former inmate? Former human? What was this thing?) began coming for him, stumbling, arms outstretched like something out of a cheesy B horror movie, Eric felt his instincts rise to the occasion.

This thing meant to kill him, he could read that in its body language.

Well then, he was going to kill it first. Eric flexed his knuckles and felt them pop, then took up a fighting stance as the...thing approached. Before apparently dying and spontaneously resurrecting, this guy had been tall and a little lanky. His skin, which looked waxy now, even kind of leathery, sported several tats.

When in doubt, go for the head.

Eric stepped closer to the creature, baited it to stumble towards him, and then twisted to the left and punched it square in the side of the head. One of the spikes punctured its temple and hit something crucial. It went down like bricks on Jupiter. He backed up a few steps and waited, staring at the body. It didn't so much as twitch. After a moment, he stepped forward and nudged it with his foot. Dark blood wasn't so much leaking as oozing from the wound. He saw some gray matter in there. So, that hadn't been too hard to deal with.

Eric flicked his hand a few times to get the blood off his knuckles and then nudged the corpse over onto its back with his boot. What the fuck was this thing? It definitely looked like a zombie. The glow had passed out of its eyes. There was blood smeared around its mouth and on its hands. This had to be a zombie. A dead man walking. Flesh eating. Moaning, stumbling, reaching for brains with blood-caked, clawed hands.

So they had made zombies? Why? What kind of zombies? Eric was no stranger to horror or sci-fi, but there seemed to be a lot of different kinds. Was it a virus? A disease? Airborne? Bloodborne? Or was it some kind of magic? A paranormal zombie instead of a scientific one? Was it a drug? He believed in ghosts about as much as he believed in God, but this was enough to make him at least consider some kind of supernatural thing. Although in truth, that's just what he was calling it. Show a gun to a caveman and he'd think it was magic.

In the end, he sighed and moved on. There didn't seem to be any further answers here. He kept going, working his way down the catwalk, checking in any of the cells that were open. Several of the closed ones also contained zombies. He still hadn't found anything worthwhile by the time he'd made it over to the stairway that led down to the next catwalk. The gate that was supposed to control it had been forced open, bent inwards, which would have taken absolutely inhuman strength. He wondered if maybe it had been blown open but no, something with hands had grasped it and bent. What the fuck could have done that?

He moved down the stairs. The guy in the cell was shouting at him desperately now.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," Eric muttered as he looked around, saw only more zombies farther off in either direction, and then he went down the next set of stairs to the appropriate level.

Reaching the next level, he saw a few more of the living dead stumbling around. Marching forward to meet them, he got right to work. First punch sank the largest of the spikes dead on into the lead zombie's eye. It came out with a sickening squelch and the zombie kept on coming. He sighed, grabbed the thing's head, and then bashed it three times in rapid success into the bar of the cage that prevented people from just throwing each other over the side of the catwalk and sending them plunging to their doom.

Its head caved in on the third strike and he dropped it, already turning his attention to the next zombie. A repeat of the original kill, stabbing it through the temple, brought it down, though it twitched a few times as it hit the floor. The third zombie came for him and Eric grabbed it and snapped its neck. It went down like a ragdoll. Huh, good to see that still worked apparently. Shaking the gore from his hand again, he walked up to the cell holding the prisoner.

He didn't recognize the guy. He looked haggard and anxious.

"Hey, hey man, you gotta get me out of here," he said quickly as Eric approached.

"How?" he replied.

The man pointed through the bars. "The guard tower. That's where the master control is. You can open all the gates. You can also extend the bridges again. We can all get inside the tower. There's other people still trapped in their cells. We can arm up," he said.

"True. But then what?" Eric replied.

"I...don't know."

"Isn't there hangar nearby?"

"Yeah, but it's almost certainly empty now. I've heard there's another hangar on the other side of the prison, the ones the guards use. But...I have no idea how to get to that," he replied.

"All right. How do I actually get into the guard tower?"

"Up top," he said, pointing again. "Go all the way to the top level. In the mess hall there, I've heard you can get into a vent shaft that'll lead straight to the tower. You can drop right in. We can regroup, figure something out. We can figure out a way to get the fuck off this rock."

"Yeah," Eric muttered, looking up. "All right, stay here."

The guy snorted. "Yeah, right, like I can go anywhere else. I'm Swann."

"Crowe."

"Oh...shit, wait, that new guy? V's cellmate?" he asked.

"Yep. The one and only."

Eric frowned as he looked up again. Through the catwalks and grating. There were several more of the undead roaming around, growling, eating corpses where they found them.

He sighed heavily and started walking back to the stairs.

This was going to be a bit of a slog.