The stale hospital air thickened with groans of the infected shuffling beyond fortified steel doors. Clara Jones sat cross-legged on the cold linoleum floor of Ward C's makeshift stronghold, her back pressed against Henry Smith's mattress frame. 

The digital clock above Nurse Eckhart's abandoned station blinked 23:47 in poisonous green numerals, its persistent tick merging with the arrhythmic dripping of a broken IV line.

Henry lay perfectly still beside her, his chest rising with calculated regularity. Moonlight filtering through barred windows caught the silver chain around his neck - the spatial ring's contour visible beneath his threadbare hospital scrubs. 

His eyelashes fluttered faintly, not from sleep but intense concentration as psychic tendrils mapped every whimper in the building.

"You're cold," he murmured suddenly, pale fingers brushing her wrist.

Clara jerked away instinctively. Since the cafeteria incident twelve hours earlier - since the training that left her scrubs crusted with blackened zombie blood - Henry's touch carried new electricity. Not the simulated innocence of his institutionalized persona, but the controlled burn of a predator corralling its prey.

23:59

A discordant chorus began building floor below. Metal pipes clanged against concrete, followed by guttural screams that devolved into liquid choking sounds. Clara's nails dug into her palms as she recognized Security Chief Roy's voice cut mid-curse into wet gurgles.

"Phase two begins," Henry whispered. His hand found hers with unblinking precision in the dark. "The worthy awaken."

Heat radiated from adjacent rooms like open furnace doors. Through their makeshift barricade of medication carts and cafeteria tables, tormented howls tore through the corridor.

00:01

In Room 407, Benjamin convulsed violently, his newly enhanced biceps tearing through restraint straps. Veins bulged black beneath his eyes as he vomited blood-based concrete sludge - earth-element abilities manifesting through agony. Zoe's shrieks pierced the chaos, her fingers reflexively transmuting clipboard papers into shuriken-sharp projectiles that embedded in the ceiling.

Clara recoiled as anguished moans vibrated through their shared wall. "Shouldn't we help?"

Henry's chuckle sent ice down her spine. "Discarded characters rewrite their fates tonight." His thumb traced circles on her pulse point. "Waste no tears on cannon fodder, my Clara."

A guttural roar shook the building. Clara instinctively reached for the fire axe they'd mounted by the door - froze when she found Henry already standing behind her, breath warm against her ear.

"I promised to teach you survival, didn't I?" His fingernail dragged lightly across her jugular. "Lesson three: Power respects only its mirror."

As if summoned, the eastern wall exploded inward. Clara's vision blurred with pulverized drywall as 230 pounds of muscle-bound insanity burst through - Patient 14, his custodial uniform stretched over mutation-swollen limbs, eyes leaking gamma-green fluid.

"MEAT!" The hulking creature lunged.

Henry's smile sharpened. With fluid grace he pushed Clara aside, psychic energy crackling blue around his outstretched hand. The beast froze mid-leap, tendons snapping audibly as invisible wires sliced through enhanced musculature.

"Observe closely," Henry purred. Rotating his palm upward, he made a gentle tearing motion. The mutant unraveled like rotten tapestry - epidermis, muscle fibers, and ossified bone separating into grisly anatomical exhibits suspended in mid-air.

Clara retched as the stench of necrosis overwhelmed the room. Henry stepped through the carnage unhurriedly, retrieving a still-throbbing azure crystal from the floating rib cage. When he turned, his eyes reflected unnatural starlight.

"Level two evolution. Poor control." He crushed the crystal to glowing dust. "Will you need me to eliminate the others?"

Before Clara could respond, the building's PA system crackled to life with Nurse Eckhart's distorted scream: "Code Black! All personnel to - [crunching sounds] - THEY'RE BREACHING THE LABS!"

03:18

When the trembling stopped, seven survivors emerged changed. Zoe stood surrounded by a halo of hovering scalpels, her medical scrubs splattered with colleague's blood. Benjamin leaned against the corpse-strewn nurses' station, kneading a marbleized chunk of concrete like clay. Others cowered - Owen Lee curled fetal in a supply closet, Song Wei hyperventilating with hands fused to a shattered water pipe.

Henry watched from the shadows as dawn's first light stained the carnage crimson. His fingers tightened around a struggling Clara's wrist as she tried approaching the new awakeners.

"Even lambs grow claws when cornered." He nodded to where Mei Ling - former cafeteria cashier - incinerated a twitching corpse with her bare hands. "But wolves remember their first taste of blood."

Clara recoiled from the hunger in Mei Ling's eyes. "This is what you wanted? This chaos?"

"Our stage requires new players." Henry's spatial ring pulsed as he produced a Belgian chocolate bar from his hidden inventory. He unwrapped it slowly, holding the cocoa-scented peace offering beneath her nose. "Eat. You'll need strength for what comes next."

06:42

Morning revealed the hospital's transformation. Overnight rain pooled crimson in parking lot craters, nourishing mutant lichen already spreading across abandoned ambulances. New hierarchy emerged with breakfast rationing:

Benjamin claimed three protein bars from trembling Song Wei's stash. "Muscle needs fuel," he growled, bicep flexing to rupture his T-shirt sleeve.

Zoe perched atop a desk like corrupted royalty, nail file transmuting into tungsten dagger. "The basement generators held," she announced. "Those wanting electricity will earn it."

Henry observed from their claimed corner, methodically feeding Clara rice porridge from a smuggled titanium camp bowl. His free hand drifted to her hip pocket where he'd hidden three more nutrient bars. Let the predators fight over scraps; his treasure would feast.

When a groaning Owen Lee reached for their medical kit, Henry's psychic barrier slammed her against the wall. "Mine," he whispered, pupils dilating black.

Clara's stomach churned as the other survivors turned hungry eyes their way. In every previous life - corporate drudgery, academic rivalry, even basketball court collisions - she'd competed as equals. Now she sat caged by a madman's favor, dependent on stolen rations and the precarious shield of his obsession.

As the sun cleared bloodstained horizons, Mei Ling's warning flare arced over the parking lot. "Busses!"

Undead streamed toward Salvation Army vehicles colliding with the perimeter fence. Zoe's knife-fingers twitched. Benjamin hefted concrete clubs. Henry lowered his forehead to rest against Clara's, smile gentling as he quoted their shared past-life promise:

"All apocalypse dawns should burn. But you, my saint... you'll outshine the flames."