Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

The warning came too late.

As the echo of Experiment X faded and Juno regained her breath, alarms erupted from the walls of Vault K-0. But not the usual metallic wail.

This one was organic.

A low hum, like something growing.

Shade helped Juno stand as spores began seeping through cracks in the floor—glowing faintly, pulsing with every heartbeat in the room.

"What the hell is that?" Shade muttered, stepping back.

H-13 crouched near one, scanning. His face went pale.

"It's the Bloom," he said. "Stage Six of VIREX's worst-case mutation sequence. The parasite was supposed to be a control agent—something that made carriers more compliant. But it evolved."

The screens blinked on in rapid succession, showing test subjects thrashing in containment. Flowers—sickly and luminous—blooming from their spines. Not beautiful. Violent.

WARNING: PARASITE BLOOM CONTAINMENT FAILURE

Status: Sporecloud Active / Hosts Unknown

Juno clenched her fists. "They tried to grow control, and it turned into infection."

Shade lifted a scarf to his face. "How do we stop it?"

"We don't," said H-13. "We outrun it."

But then the walls breathed.

The entire vault was laced with spores. They weren't being infected—they were inside the Bloom.

Juno coughed as a flower burst from the wall, releasing a spray of memory-reactive pollen. Around her, the air shimmered—and illusions began to take shape.

The dead walked again. Her brother. Her father. Friends she hadn't seen since the outbreak began. All formed of pollen and memory.

"Juno!" Shade grabbed her arm, but his voice echoed strangely, like through a tunnel underwater.

The Bloom was reaching into their minds.

Not to kill.

To root itself in their past.

H-13 placed both hands on the floor, closing his eyes. "It's searching for unresolved grief—anchoring itself by trauma."

Juno forced her eyes shut. "It's feeding on our memories?"

"Yes," H-13 replied. "The more you remember, the more it grows."

"And if we forget?" Shade asked.

"Then it starves," H-13 said. "But if you reclaim the memories instead of reliving them—it can't use them anymore."

Juno focused, steadying her breath. She faced the vision of her brother.

"I don't need to hold on to the pain," she whispered. "I remember you with love, not fear."

The vision cracked, petals falling like ash.

She turned to another memory—her last day at school, the moment she first saw a feeder. She forced a smile.

"I survived you."

It collapsed too.

Around her, the Bloom withered. Flowers curled. Walls hardened. The air cleared.

Shade coughed, blinking in clarity. "It's dying."

"No," Juno said. "It's changing hosts."

Suddenly, a shriek echoed from the ventilation ducts.

Something—someone—had inhaled the spores.

The Bloom was still alive.

But now it had a body.