After Forcing Me to Speak, They Regretted Everything Chapter 08

After Forcing Me to Speak, They Regretted Everything Chapter 08

Through the vision of the second-stage crawler, I “watched” the scene unfold inside the base’s

medical wing.

Even as the world outside had become a living hell, this high-level VIP ward remained completely

undisturbed.

Emma leaned against the pristine white hospital bed, color blooming healthily in her cheeks. Archie sat at the bedside, peeling an apple for her, His voice brimming with relief: “Emma, it’s so good that you’re okay. I told you-forcing that mute to speak once wasn’t going to kill him.”

Emma let out a light laugh, a flash of smug mockery glinting in her eyes. “Even if she’s a little useful, she’s still nothing but a dog raised by the base. Archie, once this horde passes, we-”

BOOM!

She never finished the sentence.

The reinforced blast-proof glass of the VIP ward-supposedly capable of withstanding a direct rocket strike-was instantly shattered into dust by a monstrous, terrifying force.

The crawler, reeking of rot, crashed down before the hospital bed in a storm of glass shards. Its gray-white pupils, flickering with dark-golden light, locked dead onto Emma lying in the bed.

“Emma!”

Archie let out a heart-rending, guttural howl.

The smugness on Emma’s face froze solid. Before she could even begin to shift, the crawler had already lunged forward like a blur of afterimages.

“Shrrrk!”

The sound of tearing flesh echoed crisply through the hospital room. The crawler’s claws pinned Emma’s shoulders down with crushing force. Its gaping, bloodthirsty jaws closed precisely around

her neck-and wrenched with brutal force. Emma’s throat was torn out by the roots. Crimson

blood sprayed like a fountain, splattering Archie’s face and hair.

She convulsed violently on the bed, her eyes bulging wide open, a wet, gurgling “g-g-g” rattling from her severed throat. She stared at Archie with eyes full of utter disbelief-and then, finally,

breathed her last.

I severed the vision link. Listening to Archie’s utterly shattered howls coming through the radio, I

casually switched off the monitoring channel.

The lackeys were all dead. Now, it was the master’s turn.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The heavy iron door on the ground floor of the broadcast station was suddenly pounded with

violent force.

I looked up at the static-filled surveillance monitor before me.

The base’s supreme commander, Freddie.

“Lydia! I know you’re in there!”

Freddie dropped to his knees with a loud thud before the iron door. Without a shred of hesitation,

he slammed his forehead hard against the solid concrete floor.

“I was wrong! I was blind! I shouldn’t have stripped your privileges! I shouldn’t have let them lay a hand on you! Please, show mercy-make the zombies stop! If you stop this, you’ll be the queen of

the base from now on! I’ll give you my position!”

Through the screen, I watched his hideous performance with cold, detached eyes.

Back when he forced me to be a mute battery, he’d said it was all for the world. When he watched

Paul crush my fingers, he’d called it the price of my “disobedience.”

I paid no attention to his begging. I simply leaned forward slowly and pressed the broadcast key

on the microphone once more.

“Even the commander can’t escape.”

Seven words, hoarse and calm, rang out through the loudspeakers and crashed down squarely on

Freddie’s head.

On the monitor, Freddie’s entire body seized up. Despair completely swallowed his eyes. He let out

a blood-curdling shriek, scrambled to his feet, and fled like a madman toward the base’s core

bunker.

I didn’t chase him.

Once Prophetic Words were spoken, they became the most absolute law in this world.

Late that same night, Freddie fled back to his command office-the one with the highest defense

level-and sealed himself inside behind three blast doors. He kept only one person by his side: a trusted guard who had served him for five years.

He thought that hiding behind walls of iron and steel would keep the zombies out.

What he didn’t know was that on the guard’s back, hidden beneath his uniform, was a tiny scratch left three days ago by a mutated rat.

At midnight, the dormant virus erupted without warning.

I sat in the pitch-black broadcast room and felt the law fulfilling itself.

In that sealed office, Freddie didn’t even have time to draw his gun before the mutated guard pounced on him, pinning him down on his expensive leather executive chair and tearing his throat

out alive.

The leadership was annihilated. The abusers had met their end.

Dragging my still-throbbing broken bones, I walked slowly to the window and gazed down at the ruins burning with fire below.

Just then, a gaunt man, drenched in blood, was stumbling unsteadily through the horde of corpses. He tilted his head back and stared fixedly at the window of my broadcast tower.