The Head Harvester

It was as if everyone had opened fire at once.

Tu Ran was caught in the crossfire.

Something felt off.

She sat up and listened.

The other three guards stirred as well, exchanging bewildered looks.

"Bang!"

A gunshot rang out right beside them—from this very floor.

Tu Ran grabbed her gun and rushed out.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Ding Naiqing was firing wildly into a hospital room.

His face was grim, as if he'd run into a tough opponent.

Another Pioneer was also unloading round after round into Room 401.

From what Tu Ran knew, the two patients in Room 401 were too ill to even get out of bed.

Even if they had mutated, there was no reason to keep firing for this long.

Every room was in chaos.

Someone was screaming in agony.

But with the gunfire, it was impossible to pinpoint which room it came from.

A patient stumbled out of his room, limping as he fled.

He glanced back over his shoulder.

Hot on his heels was a frenzied alien creature.

It lunged at its prey, tearing and biting.

Tu Ran raised her gun and fired.

The creature's body was riddled with holes from the high-speed rounds, its head blown apart, brain matter splattering.

But then something horrifying happened.

The creature didn't die. It actually sped up, closing in on Tu Ran.

These aliens had evolved.

The ones on the tram two days ago hadn't been this resilient. A single bullet to the forehead had been enough.

But this one—its head already mush—kept coming.

Tu Ran set down her sniper rifle.

She stared at the creature, slowly drawing her blade.

Her gaze was sharp. She charged and swung a horizontal slash.

The creature's head rolled to the ground.

Its mouth still snapped open and shut.

Tu Ran leaped, landed on one knee, and drove her blade through its mouth, pinning the head to the floor.

Meng Fanchen, watching from behind the door, trembled.

What nearly made him piss his pants was when Tu Ran flicked the head off her blade, and it smashed against the glass right in front of him.

He locked eyes with the alien.

This would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Meng Fanchen was sure of it.

The blade worked better than the gun—it could cleanly separate heads from bodies.

Tu Ran abandoned the machine gun and switched to her knife, decapitating one by one the creatures the gunfire had failed to kill.

She was a head harvester.

After reaping the creatures in the hallway, she turned her attention to those still in their rooms.

Room 407.

The glass was smeared with bloody handprints.

It was a woman.

She had made it to the door.

All she had to do was pull it open from the inside to escape.

But she was too flustered, too desperate—she forgot the door opened inward.

She kept pushing, and when it wouldn't budge, she pounded on the glass, trying to shatter it.

In that wasted time, the creature caught up.

All three people in that room had turned into aliens.

Tu Ran kicked the door open.

The creatures sensed the human presence.

They lunged at her in a flash.

Like the coldest machine, Tu Ran swung her razor-sharp blade with an expressionless face, harvesting their heads.

One, two, three...

Tu Ran turned, kicked open the next door, and repeated the motion.

The chaos dragged on. The cries went on. The gunfire went on.

From the other three buildings to her own, from the upper floors to the lower.

The entire world was firing.