Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 258: Hollow Mind

June 10, 2025 — MOA Complex, Neural Analysis Bay

The hum of machines never stopped in the Neural Analysis Bay. It was a low, ever-present buzz that echoed off the reinforced walls and pulsed in sync with the diagnostic lights embedded in the ceiling. Rows of black consoles glowed faintly in the darkness, casting blue light over racks of bio-interface helmets, neural link scaffolds, and deep-scan cognitive processors.

Thomas Estaris stood at the observation glass, arms crossed tightly, watching the subject in Chamber A.

The host recovered from the geothermal facility sat unmoving in a containment chair, cables extending from its skull and spine into a half-dozen diagnostic nodes. Its eyes were dull now—lifeless—but the neural impulses flickering across the monitors told another story. Its brain was still active. Not in a natural way. But in rhythms.

Repeating patterns. Bursts. Pulses. Like a heartbeat.

Sato stepped in beside him, clutching a tablet. "You need to see this," he said quietly.

Thomas didn't look away. "Is it active again?"

"It's not just active," Sato replied. "It's communicating."

Thomas turned slowly.

"What do you mean?"

Sato handed over the tablet. A graph spiked across the screen—intermittent neural spikes rendered into auditory pulses. A spectrogram followed, revealing strange harmonics.

"At first, we thought it was seizure activity. Then Cruz ran it through linguistic filtration. There's structure. Pauses. Syntax. Patterns that repeat every six seconds. Like... a sentence being spoken."

Thomas scrolled through the waveform data. The intervals were consistent—modulated. Artificial.

"You're saying it's speaking Bloom code?"

Sato hesitated, then nodded. "Or something close to it. We ran it through Overwatch's encrypted command archives and tried a brute-force correlation. Three words lined up."

Thomas's eyes narrowed. "What words?"

Sato tapped the screen. "'Open. Mouth. Soon.'"

For a moment, there was silence between them.

Then Thomas asked the question that had been sitting at the back of everyone's mind since Iriga.

"Is it trying to communicate with us? Or something else?"

Sato shook his head. "We don't know."

Thomas looked back into Chamber A.

The host's head slumped slightly.

And then, without warning, its eyes opened—black veins snaking through bloodshot sclera. The lights in the bay dimmed as a localized EMP ripple tripped non-essential systems.

Emergency klaxons stayed quiet.

But every monitor on the eastern wall displayed the same thing.

A circle. A wide mouth. Lined with teeth.

Same Time — Fort Calinog, Watch Post Echo-5

It was the silence that first made Sergeant Ramos nervous.

Echo-5 was the newest outpost built into the northern tree line just a kilometer from the edge of the exclusion ring. It was manned by three Overwatch guards and five Calinog volunteers, all tired, damp, and undertrained.

But now, none of that mattered.

Because there was no wind. No birds. No static on the radio.

"Comms are dead," Vega said, adjusting the dial for the fifth time. "Even the emergency beacon's not pinging the uplink."

"Manual relay," Ramos ordered. "Send someone to Echo-4. Now."

Vega opened the hatch—and froze.

The forest beyond the wire had changed.

Where there had once been dense thicket and mist, now stood a wall.

No—roots. Interwoven trunks and fungal towers, black and glistening with oily sheen. They hadn't been there minutes ago.

"Ma'am?" Vega whispered.

The ground beneath the outpost rumbled.

And then, from the forest, came the howl.

Low, guttural. Then splitting into three. Then five.

Then many.

Ramos raised her rifle. "Brace for contact!"

But it was too late.

The wall of trees bent forward—and moved.

Same Time — MOA Complex, Tactical Floor

Phillip burst into the war room, still in his field gear, boots caked in volcanic mud. "We lost Echo-5."

Thomas turned to him sharply. "How?"

"No transmission. Just gone. Sensor feeds flatlined. Sentries silent."

Keplar brought up the map. The red perimeter around Iriga blinked twice—then showed a gap at the north.

"It's breaching," Sato whispered. "Not just tunneling. It's growing above ground."

Phillip looked at Thomas. "It's done waiting."

Thomas gave the order without hesitation. "Elevate Luzon to Tier One Alert. All enclaves are to be placed under immediate lockdown."

Sato raised an eyebrow. "Even the coastal cities?"

"Yes," Thomas said. "All of them. The Bloom just opened its second front."

Later — Emergency Broadcast, Luzon-Wide Frequency

A man's voice cut through static and emergency tones. Thomas's voice.

"This is Commander Thomas Estaris of Overwatch.

Effective immediately, a full biological alert is in place across southern Luzon. All movement within 50 kilometers of the Iriga containment zone is restricted. Do not engage unidentified vegetation. Do not investigate unknown structures. If you hear singing—run.

This is not a test.

This is war."

Later That Night — Northern Ridge, Fort Calinog

Ferrer ran to the upper perimeter with a flare in hand. "Lira! North ridge!"

She was already there, binoculars pressed to her face.

A wall of black-green growth had consumed the forest floor. In seconds, trees had been replaced with stalks of fungal bloom, rising like towers into the fog. Eyes—glowing blue and red—flickered inside the stalks like embers.

From the underbrush, humanoid shapes moved—limping, moaning, their skin twisted and pale. Not zombies.

Not anymore.

They were something else.

"Signal Thomas," Lira said, voice flat. "Tell him the Hollow Mind has sprouted."

Same Time — MOA Complex, Lower Labs

The host in Chamber A convulsed once—then fell silent. Its vitals flatlined.

But before the machines could declare it dead, the neural display pulsed once more.

A new sequence of words formed on-screen.

"You. See. Mouth. We. See. Mind."

Thomas stared at the message.

The Bloom wasn't trying to speak.

It was watching them back.

The monitors flickered again, one by one. Some screens shut off entirely, while others rebooted with scrambled static and alien symbols nobody recognized. Not even Sato's encrypted archive reader could parse it. It was beyond language now. Beyond code.

Cruz, watching from the upper balcony, whispered, "It's learning how we think."

"Worse," Thomas muttered, stepping back from the glass. "It's learning how we listen."

An emergency technician scrambled into the lab. "Sir! All long-range communications have entered feedback loops. The neural bandwidth is being jammed—but not by a signal. By an echo."

"An echo?" Sato asked.

The tech nodded. "Our own transmissions—bounced back at us. Delayed. Distorted. Reflected through… something. Like it's inside our network."

"What the hell."