"What... just happened?"
Captain Darius's voice sounded stiff in the dust-filled air, thick with the smell of gunpowder.The entire battlefield around the mall was destroyed. Concrete walls riddled with holes, tanks in flames, and unmoving bodies scattered across pools of blood.
But the figure at the center of it all the creature they had dubbed the Zombie Witch—was gone. Vanished without a trace.
"Target has gone dark," said one of the operators with a trembling voice, staring at the screen of his military tablet. "The last drone lost signal when she moved... we don't know in which direction. That wasn't normal speed. That wasn't Dash like before. It was... something else."
Sofia stood not far from them. Dust clung to her white cloak, and her face was pale. She had seen with her own eyes how the creature endured a brutal, assault. How she tore through dozens of soldiers without hesitation. How her body was drenched in blood—yet her eyes... They weren't the eyes of a monster.
They were the eyes of someone betrayed.
"Someone give me a playback of her last movement—now!" barked Lt. Colonel Adrian from the command post. His voice shook—not from anger, but fear.
The drone footage appeared on a large screen mounted on one of the command trucks. Everyone fell silent, On screen the zombie witch staggered in the middle of the battlefield. Her body was nearly destroyed, but she still stood. Then she ran and vanished ,Not escaped or Not hiding.
As if swallowed by shadows.
"Camouflage tech?" asked one of the military scientists.
"Impossible," replied a tactical analyst.
Sofia wrapped her arms around herself, trembling. Not from the cold but from a creeping dread that spread through her heart like mist.
"She's not dead..." she whispered.
Captain Darius turned to her. "What do you mean?"
"She's not dead. I know it. I can feel it... she's still alive." Sofia pressed her lips tightly. "And she will come back."
"...Are you scared?" Darius asked, his tone gentler than usual.
Sofia looked him straight in the eye. "Aren't you? She never attacked us first. She always avoided conflict. But we... we threw everything we had at her."
Silence fell over the makeshift base. All the soldiers, technicians, and commanders stood still. The victory they had expected to claim today felt hollow even absurd.
"I told you," a young analyst said quietly. "We provoked her. We started this. We acted out of fear. Not reason."
"And now," Sofia added, "we live under the shadow of a wrath we don't understand."
Lt. Colonel Adrian slammed his hand onto the table. "We can't live in uncertainty ! If she comes back and stronger than before it could be the end of us all! We need a plan. Contingencies. Surveillance. Everything!"
"But how?" asked Captain Darius. "We don't even know where she is. Our tracking systems failed. All signals are gone. Even high-end military drones lost contact. She's... truly vanished."
"Unless..." Sofia narrowed her eyes, deep in thought. "Unless she has a new ability."
All eyes turned to her.
"I've seen the look of cornered creatures. They run. But she... didn't just run. She relocated. Not with her feet. More like... she stepped out of this world."
"Teleportation?" asked one of the scientists, unsure.
"Not exactly," Sofia shook her head. "More like... passing through space and shadow. Like she pierced through dimensional boundaries with nothing but her instinct. Like... she opened a tear and slipped into it."
Then, Lt. Colonel Adrian slowly nodded. "In that case, we classify this as a red-level scenario. Maximum threat. This creature is no mere evolved zombie. She has consciousness. And now, she has a reason to hate us."
He looked at Sofia. "We'll assemble a special team. Elite. Researchers and executioners. We'll study every possibility. And when she returns we'll be ready."
Sofia wanted to argue.
Wanted to say that this decision would only make things worse.
But in her heart... she knew it was useless.
Humans fear what they don't understand.
And of all the things they had encountered since the world fell—the Zombie Witch was the one they understood the least.