Viktor measured the blood precisely—100 milliliters. A fraction of what his body seemed to demand, but it was all he could allow himself. The sixteen units wouldn't st long at full consumption. He needed to stretch his resources until he found a sustainable solution.

  Three days had passed since his awakening. Three days of meticulous documentation, cautious exploration of the boratory's lower levels, and increasingly desperate rationing.

  Viktor's hands trembled as he transferred the dark liquid into a beaker. The scent alone was intoxicating, causing his fangs to extend involuntarily. The first time he'd consumed preserved blood, he'd been repulsed by the idea. Now, watching the viscous fluid pour, he could barely maintain his clinical detachment.

  He brought the beaker to his lips and drank. The cold, slightly coaguted liquid was repulsive and magnificent simultaneously. Like giving water to a man dying of thirst—momentarily satisfying yet cruelly inadequate.

  "Subject continues to experience intensified hunger despite regur intake," he dictated into his tablet. "Minimum requirements remain undefined. Reduced ration protocol shows diminishing returns—physical discomfort increasing exponentially between feedings."

  Clinical nguage couldn't capture what he was experiencing. The hollow ache in his stomach. The burning in his throat. The way his mind increasingly fixated on the thudding of his own heart, reminding him of what he truly craved.

  Viktor recorded his physical state in his journal:

  Day 3 (Post-Transformation)

  Blood consumption: 100ml (O-negative, preserved) Effects: Temporary alleviation of symptoms, duration approximately 4 hours before recurrence Physical symptoms of deprivation: - Persistent abdominal pain - Involuntary extension of canines - Muscle tremors - Heightened sensory sensitivity (particurly to sounds resembling heartbeats) - Intrusive thoughts focused on blood acquisition

  The hunger is... difficult to describe in scientific terms. Not simply a physical need, but a psychological compulsion that grows more insistent with time. I find myself unable to focus on research for extended periods. Basic tasks require increasing mental effort to complete.

  Remaining supply: 14.3 units Estimated time to depletion at current consumption rate: 9-10 days

  Viktor set down his pen, the st sentence weighing heavily. Nine days. What then? He had yet to discover any alternative to human blood that would satisfy this terrible hunger. Animal blood from the boratory's test subjects provided minimal relief. Synthetic blood substitutes from the medical bay had no effect whatsoever.

  He had nine days to find an answer, or he would become the monster he feared.

  A distant crash echoed through the facility, jolting Viktor from his thoughts. His enhanced hearing pinpointed its origin—the biochemical storage area, three levels down. He'd avoided the lower floors, instinctively sensing he wasn't alone in the vast complex.

  But his supplies were dwindling. If there were untouched storage areas, perhaps there were additional blood samples.

  Viktor gathered his essential equipment—tablet, journal, a makeshift weapon fashioned from a broken equipment stand. He hesitated, then added one unit of blood to his pack. Emergency rations.

  The journey through the darkened facility would have been impossible for human eyes, but Viktor moved with confidence through the shadows. His vision adapted instantaneously to the varying darkness, revealing details his former self would never have perceived.

  The stairwell to the lower levels was in disarray—emergency doors ajar, smears of dried blood on walls and floors. Viktor paused at each nding, listening intently. The complex wasn't silent. Subtle sounds echoed through the ventition system—movement, the occasional crash of falling equipment, once what might have been a snarl.

  Level B3 housed the biochemical storage units—temperature-controlled rooms containing biological samples from throughout the project's history. If additional blood supplies existed, they would be there.

  Viktor approached cautiously, every sense alert. A new scent reached him—simir to his own altered body chemistry but wilder, ranker. Like his own scent but stripped of humanity, of control.

  He froze, listening. At first, nothing. Then, a soft scraping sound—nails or cws against metal. It came from inside the main storage room, just around the corner.

  Viktor weighed his options. Retreat was safest. But necessity drove him forward—one careful step, then another. He peered around the corner into the storage room.

  What he saw chilled him despite his already cool body temperature.

  Three figures hunched around an opened refrigeration unit, fighting over its contents. In the darkness, Viktor could make out b coats, once white, now stained dark with dried blood and grime. His colleagues. Researchers like himself who had been transformed.

  Unlike him, they had surrendered completely to their new nature.

  Dr. Yusef Chen, brilliant biochemist, now moved on all fours, snarling as he fought for position. Dr. Anastasia Volkov, whose genetic sequencing work had earned a Nobel nomination, cwed at her competitors with ragged nails, her face frozen in a perpetual snarl. The third figure, too disfigured by violence to identify, snapped with elongated jaws at anything that came near.

  They fought over empty blood bags, licking the residue from pstic that had been drained days ago. The sight was horrifying yet transfixing—a glimpse of what Viktor might become without his fragile self-control.

  He must have made some small noise, or perhaps they sensed his presence through some new predatory instinct. All three heads snapped in his direction simultaneously, eyes reflecting the minimal light like animals caught in headlights.

  For one terrible moment, recognition flickered in Chen's eyes—a momentary connection between colleagues, between humans.

  Then it vanished, repced by the ft predatory stare of a hunter assessing prey—or a rival predator intruding on territory.

  The snarl that rose from three throats simultaneously sent Viktor stumbling backward. They moved with terrifying speed, unching themselves toward him with none of the hesitation or clumsiness he still experienced with his enhanced body.

  Viktor ran, no longer concerned with stealth. Behind him, the creatures that had once been his colleagues gave chase, their movements uncoordinated but relentless. They communicated with guttural sounds that held no trace of human nguage.

  He burst through emergency doors, using his strength to seal them behind him. Cws immediately began to scrape against the metal. The barrier wouldn't hold them long.

  Viktor navigated the maze-like corridors, trying to put distance between himself and his pursuers. Their howls echoed through the facility, sometimes closer, sometimes farther away, as they searched for him. He found himself in unfamiliar sections of the complex—administrative offices, long-term storage, eventually a loading dock.

  Emergency exit signs pointed toward broad bay doors, secured but not sealed. Beyond them y the outside world—unknown, dangerous, but offering escape from the immediate threat.

  Using his enhanced strength, Viktor forced the bay doors open just enough to slip through. Daylight hit him immediately—not lethal, but deeply uncomfortable, like a sunburn developing in seconds rather than hours. He pulled his b coat over his head and continued forward, driven by the sounds of pursuit still echoing from within the facility.

  For the first time since his transformation, Viktor stood in the outside world.

  The city stretched before him—or what remained of it. From the boratory's hillside vantage point, he could see devastation that confirmed his worst fears.

  Multiple buildings burned unchecked, thick columns of smoke rising into the sky. Military blockades stood abandoned, vehicles empty with doors hanging open. The main thoroughfare leading to the research complex was littered with cars frozen in a final traffic jam—some crashed, others simply stopped where their drivers had abandoned them.

  Bodies y in the streets. Many showed the savage neck wounds Viktor had come to recognize. Some would rise again, transformed. Others—torn apart beyond the virus's ability to reanimate—would not.

  In the distance, he caught glimpses of movement—small groups of humans barricading themselves in buildings, scavengers picking through ruins, and lone figures moving with the unnatural speed he now associated with the transformed.

  The civilization he had known was gone, colpsed in what appeared to be days rather than weeks. Project Lazarus's failure had not been contained to the research facility. It had escaped, spreading with devastating efficiency through a dense urban popution.

  Viktor checked his tablet, marking his location on the facility schematics. He could not return the way he had come—the transformed researchers would be waiting. But there were other entrances, other sections of the complex he might be able to access if necessary.

  For now, though, he needed shelter. The afternoon sun, while not immediately deadly, caused increasing discomfort with each passing minute. By his estimation, he had perhaps 14 hours before his rationed blood supply became critically necessary again. 14 hours to find sanctuary in a world transformed as radically as himself.

  Viktor looked back at the research facility—the birthpce of both his former work and the catastrophe that had consumed the world. Within its walls y answers, supplies, and terrible dangers. Beyond y an unknown ndscape of devastation.

  He had helped create this nightmare. Now he would have to survive it.

  Slipping the tablet back into his pack, Viktor moved toward the shadow of an abandoned parking structure. He would observe, pn, and adapt. The scientist in him—the human in him—still believed in methodical approaches to problems, even as the monster within grew steadily stronger with each passing hour.

  Day 3 (Addendum)

  First contact with other transformed subjects confirms worst hypothesis—complete loss of human consciousness and cognitive function appears to be the standard outcome. Subjects Chen, Volkov, and an unidentified researcher dispyed pack-like behavior, territorial aggression, and no recognition beyond initial moment.

  My retained consciousness appears to be an anomaly.

  The city has fallen. Infection spread beyond containment, resulting in societal colpse. Military intervention appears to have failed. No evidence of organized response remaining.

  I am alone.