Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 160: Something That Came Out
It started as a groan beneath the earth—long, low, and unnatural. Ruben was halfway through a rusted tin of sardines when the entire building beneath him shuddered. The tremor knocked his can to the floor, where it rolled, clinking, into a pile of broken glass. For a moment, he thought it was another Bloom Nest surge. The kind that sent spores shooting into the air like fireworks made of blood.
But then the sky darkened.
Not from clouds. From something else.
From the earth across the ruins of EDSA-Aurora Boulevard junction—something rose.
Ruben staggered out of the shattered 7-Eleven he had holed up in, squinting into the dusk. The ground across the street was splitting open, like the skin of the city was being peeled back by invisible claws. The old Araneta Coliseum loomed behind it, broken and hollow, its dome caved in like a crushed soda can. But what erupted from the earth in front of it dwarfed even that.
At first, he thought it was a building collapsing in reverse.
Then he realized it wasn't a building at all.
The creature rose slowly, groaning as it emerged—its body layered in curved red-black plating that pulsed faintly, as though alive. The shape was vertical, towering, stretching higher and higher until it loomed above the entire Cubao district. Ruben could see no legs. No wings. No face at first.
Just height.
Then, near the top, something opened.
It was a mouth.
A jagged spiral of interlocking fangs curled back like petals on a rotting flower. From within, a deep, violet glow radiated outward—hot, electric, violent. The glow brightened, and with it came a noise.
Not a roar. Not a scream.
It was a hum.
Mechanical, dense, and layered like something ancient had just booted up.
Ruben stumbled backward, eyes wide. He wasn't military. He wasn't a fighter. He used to repair cell phones for a living. Since the outbreak, he had stayed alive through sheer dumb luck and the ability to hide well. But now?
Now there was nowhere to hide.
The massive creature rooted itself in place. It didn't walk. It didn't slither. It stood like a grotesque monument of flesh and steel. A tower of horror that had no reason to move—because the damage it would cause wasn't by movement.
It pulsed again.
And this time, the light from its core flared out into the sky in a violent beam of energy that split the clouds. Lightning crackled around the pulse, scorching the air. The blast didn't hit the ground. It didn't need to. It went straight up, illuminating the smoke-choked heavens like a signal flare to hell itself.
Then came the fallout.
Every Bloom Nest in the surrounding kilometers answered.
Ruben heard them.
He felt them.
A chorus of shrieks, of pods cracking open, of infected howling as they dropped from walls, ceilings, rooftops—all writhing toward the monument in Cubao. A pilgrimage of meat and madness.
He ducked under a fallen steel beam and scrambled toward the alley behind the old bus terminal. His boots slipped on moss-covered pavement, and he only just missed being seen by a wandering infected with one twisted leg and eyes glowing red.
He held his breath.
The creature didn't chase. It didn't even react.
It was rooted.
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And that, somehow, was worse.
Because Ruben realized what it really was.
It wasn't a monster.
It was like a broadcasting spire.
A new kind of Bloom Nest—no longer content to grow low and spread like mold. This… thing… was a broadcast tower. A beacon. Maybe a queen. Maybe a signal. He didn't know. But every infected was being drawn to it, lured like moths to an apocalyptic flame.
And then, to make it worse—it began to sing.
That was the only word he had for it.
The creature's core unleashed a sound, rhythmic and layered, deep enough to rattle his ribs. It was music without melody. Static with structure. A language he couldn't understand but instinctively feared.
A warning?
A command?
He couldn't tell.
He didn't want to.
Ruben crouched in a mangled jeepney, heart racing, ears ringing from the sound. He grabbed the radio he'd stolen from a dead scavenger days ago, but the static pouring from it was too loud—matching the pulse of the creature's frequency. He yanked out the battery and tossed it aside, gripping his head.
The city was being changed.
Not just corrupted now.
Transformed.
Around the base of the spire, vines began to harden, twisting into black spires and skeletal branches that reached outward like a forest of bone and rot. Buildings around it cracked and bent, drawn toward it. Cars levitated briefly off the ground before crashing down again in synchronized collapse.
And still—it did not move.
It didn't have to.
This was its nest now. Its throne.
Ruben bit his lip until it bled.
He didn't know how long he stared.
But eventually, the light pulsed one final time—massive, blinding—and the creature went silent. Still glowing. Still alive. But quiet.
Dormant, perhaps.
Watching.
Waiting.
Ruben sat in the silence that followed, the hum of the creature's energy still vibrating through the concrete. His hands shook. His mind reeled.
And for the first time in days, he began to cry.
Not because he was hurt.
But because he understood.
The world wasn't going back.
Not after this.
This was something new.
Something worse.
And whatever Overwatch was doing on the other side of the city… they didn't know it yet.
But they would.
Oh, they would.
Ruben crawled deeper into the shadows of the jeepney, curling into himself as the light from the monster's core dimmed to a low, steady throb. The heat in the air lingered, but the sound had faded. All that remained was the silence—the oppressive, suffocating kind that filled your ears when even the insects were too afraid to make a sound.
He wrapped his arms around his knees and pressed his forehead against the metal wall. His breathing slowed, shallow and unsteady, like every exhale might draw attention from the thing that now loomed like a god just blocks away.
He didn't speak.
He didn't move.
He just prayed—not to be saved.
But to be unseen.
