Horrific Shorts: Zombie Edition

They left the hydroponics lab in silence.

The stench of wilted Bloom tendrils clung to their skin. Every corridor beyond felt colder, narrower, like the entire underground facility had exhaled and was now holding its breath.

H-13 moved like a shadow—quiet, precise. Juno walked ahead, guided by instinct and half-reclaimed memories. Shade trailed behind, watching their backs.

"What's next?" Shade asked, his voice echoing off steel.

Juno paused at a sealed bulkhead.

"The source," she said. "Where the Bloom was originally locked down before it started leaking through VIREX's experimentation zones."

She activated the panel using her genome ID.

The door hissed open—and immediately, the temperature dropped.

Inside, there were cells.

Dozens.

Rows of isolation chambers built from reinforced glass and strange dark metal that pulsed faintly with light.

But what chilled them wasn't the structure—it was what the rooms contained.

Nothing.

Each cell was empty.

But every label read the same:

SUBJECT CLASS: NIGHTMARE

Containment Level: Absolute. Neural Reflection Prohibited.

"What does that mean?" Shade asked.

H-13 stared at the floor. "These cells were designed to hold... projections. Not bodies. Memories. Emotions. VIREX extracted the worst parts of infected survivors—their terror, rage, hallucinations—and trapped them here. Encoded into living simulations."

"Why?" Juno asked, stepping cautiously forward.

"To study what the virus dreamed about," he replied.

One chamber still glowed.

Juno stepped toward it—and froze.

Inside floated a dark shape.

Not human. Not quite formed. A swirling mass of bone-like ridges and twitching eye sockets. Its presence seemed to press into her skull.

Words scrawled across the inner glass in reverse.

WE REMEMBER YOU, JUNO.

Her knees almost buckled.

Shade stepped beside her, weapon raised. "That's not possible."

"It's not a thing," H-13 whispered. "It's a memory of fear. And it's been waiting for her."

Suddenly, the containment pulse flickered.

One of the Nightmare Cells opened.

Not hers.

Another.

From the darkness inside emerged something resembling a person—tall, gaunt, face wrapped in gauze and dried muscle. It walked like a dream you'd forget too quickly.

And then, five more cells deactivated.

"You said these were only memories," Shade said, backing up.

"They are," H-13 answered. "But the Bloom figured out how to wear them. It used the test bloom to download fear. These are no longer simulations."

The room shivered.

Juno's hands burned with energy—her genome syncing with every trembling light.

"We can't fight fear," she muttered.

"No," H-13 said. "But we can reprogram it."

He slammed a control panel.

The lights burst into ultraviolet brilliance.

The nightmare forms staggered, convulsing under the wave of cleansing spectrum light.

Juno stepped into the beam's radius, her presence amplifying its effect.

"Not this time," she said. "I own my fear now."

One by one, the nightmares disintegrated—ashes of memory lost to the white.

The room went still.

Only one cell remained sealed.

Juno walked up to it.

Inside was… herself.

A perfect copy.

Smiling.

Eyes full of static.

PROJECT: DOPPELGANGER – STATUS: PENDING MERGE