Athena jolted awake to the sound of panicked screams cutting through the morning stillness.
The distant echoes of gunfire and clanging metal rang in her ears as she leaped from her bed. For a moment, disoriented and still groggy from sleep, she thought she was dreaming.
But the acrid scent of gunpowder and something foul, something rotten, seeped through the air vents and made her stomach turn.
She grabbed the dagger she kept under her pillow and rushed toward the window. What she saw made her blood run cold.
The base, usually a fortress of order and discipline, was in complete disarray. Soldiers ran through the streets, weapons drawn, as massive swarms of insects blackened the sky.
Huge rats, their eyes glowing with unnatural hunger, poured out from sewer grates and the cracks in the ground, their bodies grotesquely swollen and twisted beyond recognition.
Some were the size of large dogs, their fangs dripping with saliva as they lunged at fleeing soldiers.
