I should've died with the rest of them.
I remember the tremors deep, bone snapping vibrations that rattled through the bunker walls. The air was thick with burnt plastic and blood, and the lights flickered like the place itself couldn't decide whether to hold on or let go. We thought we were safe down here. Idiots. There's no "safe" when the whole world decides to tear itself apart.
I was the last one breathing. The rest of my unit? Gone. Some burned when the blast waves hit. The lucky ones. The others… they bled out, choking on their own lungs when the radiation crept in through the cracks. I didn't even have time to bury them. What's the point when the world's already a grave?
I wasn't supposed to be alive either not with the levels of exposure I'd taken. My skin itched like it wanted to peel itself off, and every breath tasted like copper. Death was coming, slow and patient. I just didn't feel like lying down yet.
That's when I found Lab Sector Nine.
The door hung open, warped from the shockwaves. Every survival instinct I had screamed at me to walk away to lie down and let the end come clean. But I'm not the kind of man who listens to warnings. So, I dragged myself inside.
The place was a disaster. Shattered glass everywhere, broken machines humming their last breaths. Whatever they were doing in here before the bombs fell it wasn't legal. Or safe.
Then I saw it.
A cracked vial, glowing faintly beneath the rubble. I had no idea what it was half the label had burned off but the words "RADIORESISTANCE TRIAL" stood out clear enough. Maybe it was a cure. Or poison. Hell, maybe both.
I drank it anyway.
It burned going down like swallowing liquid fire but I didn't stop. If it killed me, fine. If it didn't, maybe I'd figure out how to crawl my way through one more day.
I woke up screaming.
At first, I thought I was dying for real this time. My whole body was on fire my blood boiling under the surface, my bones stretching like something inside me wanted out. Every nerve in me lit up, and for hours, I couldn't tell if I was breathing or drowning.
But I never stopped breathing.
The burns on my skin? Gone. The nausea? Gone. The pain? That was the weird part I still felt it, but it didn't break me down like before. It was like my body had adjusted like the pain was part of me now, something to carry instead of fight.
I was supposed to be dead. I knew that.
But I wasn't.
I made it to the surface three days later.
The world outside wasn't a world anymore it was a corpse. Blackened sky, no wind, no sound except the crack of cooling metal underfoot. The air should've killed me the second I stepped outside, but it didn't. I wasn't wearing a rad suit. Didn't need it.
I knelt down and ran my fingers through the ash. My hands steady. Too steady. I felt stronger. My heart pounded in my chest, but not from fear. Something inside me whatever was in that vial was still working. Still changing me.
And that's when I realized the truth.
The world was dying.
But I wasn't.
Not anymore.