Hunger was the very first thing she felt when the pitch-black darkness inside her mind finally shattered.
It was not the mild, dull ache of a missed meal or a skipped breakfast. It was a terrifying, hollow emptiness that scraped against the inside of her stomach like sharp glass.
Her entire body screamed for food with a desperate, animalistic urgency. She did not know who she was.
She did not know where she was, what her name was, or what had happened to the world around her.
She had no memories of a past life, no recollection of any emotions, and no understanding of words or concepts.
Her mind was a completely blank slate, empty and raw, functioning entirely on primitive instinct like a newborn creature thrust into a cold world.
She pushed herself up from the cold concrete, her limbs moving with stiff, awkward jerks.
Her sight was strange, filtered through a pale, washed-out hue where colors were dull, but movement stood out with sharp clarity.
Her sense of smell, however, was overwhelming.
Every scent in the air hit her nose with intense force, but one particular smell drowned out everything else: the rich, warm, intoxicating aroma of food.
Driven by the gnawing pain in her stomach, she stumbled forward down the wrecked street.
Broken glass crunched under her shoes, and metal twisted beneath her awkward weight, but she paid no attention to the chaos around her.
Her head twitched from side to side, sniffing the air like a hound hunting a trail.
The hunger inside her burned hotter with every passing second, urging her to find whatever was producing that sweet, life-giving scent.
She turned a corner into a narrow alleyway choked with shadows and overturned trash bins.
There, crouching behind a massive blue dumpster, was a tiny creature. It was a young human girl, clutching a small backpack against her chest, trembling violently while trying to stifle her quiet sobs.
To her blank mind, this creature was not a person with a name, a family, or a life. It was simply the source of that unbearable, delicious scent. It was meat.
It was survival.
A low, involuntary growl rumbled from deep within her throat. Her body moved on instinct alone.
She crept forward, her pale fingers curving into claw-like shapes as her instincts commanded her to leap, bite, and tear.
The smell was so close now, practically begging her to sink her teeth in and satisfy the black hole consuming her stomach.
She took another heavy step forward, her shadow falling over the trembling girl.
The small girl looked up, her tear-streaked face pale with absolute terror. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second.
The girl let out a tiny, choked gasp, pulling her knees tightly against her chest and curling into a ball, waiting for the end.
She raised her hand, her long, darkened nails aiming straight for the girl’s neck. But right as her body prepared to strike, a sudden, inexplicable resistance surged through her mind.
Her arm locked up in mid-air, trembling violently as her body tried to force the attack while her mind instinctively recoiled from it.
A strange sensation, akin to a sharp, invisible shock, hit her chest.
She stared down at her own hand, then at the trembling girl.
The hunger was screaming at her to bite, to tear, to swallow, but the invisible barrier inside her refused to break.
The conflict inside her mind caused a wave of overwhelming frustration and confusion.
She hissed in pain, clutching her head as the hunger fought against that stubborn, nameless wall.
Unable to force herself to strike, she scrambled backward in a panic.
Her stiff legs tripped over a metal pipe, but she caught herself and turned around, running away from the alley as fast as her awkward body could carry her.
She fled back into the main street, her heart nonexistent, but her mind racing with a chaotic mixture of desperation and fear.
She was still starving. The pain in her stomach was worse now, burning like liquid fire, but she knew, without understanding why, that she could not eat those soft, warm creatures.
She stumbled through the ruined streets, keeping to the shadows of broken storefronts. Her dark eyes darted around, searching for anything else that might stop the agony in her belly.
That was when she spotted another figure standing near an overturned bus.
It was one of her own kind.
The creature was tall, thin, and gaunt, its skin a sickly ash-grey, moving with the same jerky, unnatural motions that she possessed.
It had no warm scent, no sweet aroma of life. It was just another wandering corpse, staring blankly at a burning car in the distance.
Her body recognized the creature as similar to herself, but her mind felt no connection to it whatsoever.
To her perspective, it was just another moving thing in her environment.
And as she stared at the thin creature, her heightened instincts picked up something subtle.
Deep inside the back of that creature’s head, there was a faint, concentrated pulse of energy.
It was small, hidden beneath bone and dead flesh, but to her starving senses, it flickered like a tiny light in the dark.
Her body did not call it food, but her survival instincts whispered a quiet command: Take it.
Keeping her body low to the ground, she began to stalk the thin creature.
She moved with quiet, clumsy care, stepping over scattered metal and shattered glass without making a sound.
Her blank eyes remained locked on the back of the creature’s neck.
Step by step, she closed the distance, her breath coming in silent, nonexistent gasps as the hunger pushed her forward.
When she was directly behind the thin zombie, she did not hesitate.
Driven by a sudden burst of desperate strength, she lunged forward. She slammed her hands against the creature’s thin shoulders, forcing it down onto the pavement.
The thin zombie let out a dull, rasping groan and tried to twist around to bite her, but she was faster.
Acting purely on reflex, she brought her fists down hard onto the back of its skull.
The first blow cracked the brittle bone. The second blow shattered it completely.
The thin zombie stopped moving, its limbs going limp against the hard asphalt. Summer knelt over the motionless body, her hands moving entirely on their own.
Without any conscious thought or hesitation, her pale fingers tore into the broken base of the skull, searching through the cold, dead tissue.
Her fingers brushed against something hard, smooth, and cold.
She pulled her hand back out. Resting in her palm was a small, dark red crystal, no larger than a small pebble.
It caught the dim light of the fires burning around the street, glowing with a subtle, inner light.
The moment her skin touched the crystal, the unbearable burning in her stomach flared up with intense demand.
Every instinct she possessed screamed at her to consume it immediately.
She simply lifted her hand and gulped the dark red crystal down her throat in one smooth motion.
The moment the crystal slid down into her stomach, a wave of soothing, cool energy exploded outward from her core, rushing through her dead veins and instantly quenching the agonizing fire of her hunger.
A deep sense of relief washed over her blank mind, as if a missing piece of her body had just been restored.
Before she could process the strange, pleasant feeling, a sharp, clear chime echoed inside her head, accompanied by glowing blue text that floated directly across her field of vision.
[You have consumed a Red-Grade Infection Core.]
[You have gained +10 Evolution Points!]