After Forcing Me to Speak, They Regretted Everything Chapter 01

After Forcing Me to Speak, They Regretted Everything Chapter 01

“Stop.”

I uttered the word hoarsely as the mutated zombie lunged at me.

No sooner had the word left my mouth than the creature was flung backward over thirty feet, slamming into the wall and exploding into a pulp of mangled flesh.

The next second, I coughed up a mouthful of blood and collapsed to my knees.

My throat burned. Every breath tore through my nerves like broken glass.

On the first day of the apocalypse, I’d awakened a witch’s talent called Prophetic Words. Whatever I said became reality.

But the price was my own life force.

In those early days, I used that power to save over a hundred werewolves bitten by zombies.

It started with a light cough. Then came the blood—thick mouthfuls of it. Now my body was at its breaking point.

“Lydia, your vocal cords are severely torn. Your internal organs are failing rapidly. If you use your ability one more time, you’ll die on the spot.”

Blake, the pack healer, stared at the freshly printed medical report in his hand, his brow furrowed with worry.

Freddie, the base commander and Alpha King, stood beside him.

“Blake, is the rune project viable?” Freddie’s voice was low and grim.

“Yes.”

Blake pushed up his glasses, his cold gaze settling on me. “We engrave the Seal of Silence into Lydia’s spinal nerves. As long as she stays completely silent, the rune suppresses the backlash and forcibly extracts and compresses her unused Prophetic Words power, storing it for three years. One release after that accumulation will be enough to wipe out every zombie in the city in an instant.”

Freddie turned sharply to me, his eyes burning with fanatical intensity. “Lydia, can you do this? Three years without a single word—to end the apocalypse. You must understand—if you utter so much as a single syllable before the time is up, the rune will shatter, and all that accumulated power will vanish in an instant.”

I swallowed the blood rising in my throat, picked up the pen and paper on the table, and without a moment’s hesitation, wrote a single word:

“Yes.”

Ancient incantations rang in my ears. A searing, violent heat blazed across the back of my neck.

When the rune finally branded itself into my skin, I was mute.

To ensure the “Silence Project”—a mission upon which the fate of the world depended—succeeded, Freddie overruled every objection and made me the base’s sole special agent.

I didn’t have to fight beyond the walls. I didn’t have to choke down the gritty, sand-mixed nutrient paste the other survivors ate.

Every day, the purest, highest-grade zombie cores were delivered to my temperature-controlled suite, nourishing my failing body.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone waiting for me to save the world, I became a silent icon, lifted high on a pedestal.

The first year, they were filled with gratitude and awe. They treated me like their sole savior.

The second year, survivors kept dying on the front lines while I stayed safe in my room. Suspicion and jealousy started creeping in.

By the third year, I heard the patrols outside my door every day. They called me a fraud. A parasite. A waste of resources who’d coasted on old glory.

Then, just days before the three-year mark—

BAM!

The door was kicked open with tremendous force.

My boyfriend, Alpha Archie, burst in, covered in mud and blood. He was carrying a woman whose face was deathly pale, whose neck bore the unmistakable mark of a zombie bite—two ragged rows of punctured flesh.

He grabbed my collar, his eyes bloodshot, and roared: “Lydia! Stop playing mute! Say something—save her!”