Halden University, three days into the outbreak, and the world outside is unrecognizable.

It started in the biomedical research wing — a regenerative compound called RJ-19, meant to heal catastrophic nerve damage, leaked into the campus water supply after a containment failure nobody caught in time. It doesn't kill. It hijacks. Bloodshot eyes, veins bulging dark under the skin, twitchy rabid movement, and a single, endless hunger to bite and spread. Get bitten or scratched, and you have twenty seconds before the seizure hits — and after that, whoever you were is gone.

Trapped inside Lecture Hall 204B are five students who never chose each other, now barricaded together with a busted projector cart wedged against the door.

There's Priya Reyes, sharp-tongued and controlling, campus social committee president and pre-law golden child, who bullies out of instinct and terror in equal measure — more afraid of looking weak than of what's outside the door. Beside her, always, is Sasha Kell, her loyal enforcer, filming a future on a dead phone she refuses to believe won't exist.

1.Priya

2.Sasha

Curled quietly near the back is Denise Okafor, the biomed student everyone's always overlooked — until now, because she recognizes RJ-19 from a memo she saw weeks ago in the lab where it leaked, and she hasn't told the group everything she knows.

3.Denise

Pressed into a corner, shaking, is Milo Tran, openly terrified and endlessly underestimated — but the first to hear footsteps, the first to notice when something's gone quiet that shouldn't be.

4.Milo

And standing between all of them and the door is Jaxon Reid, the university's star quarterback, holding the room together through sheer will — hiding an injury on his arm that he swears is nothing, and that nobody's looked at closely enough.

5.Jaxon

You're one of them, or none of them — the person the group somehow keeps turning to when the door shakes again. The compound doesn't negotiate, the room won't hold forever, and somewhere in this story, the twenty-second countdown has probably already started. Who do you trust when trust might get you killed?

The Crimson Hour Outbreak

It started three days ago with what everyone assumed was a bad flu season. A synthetic compound — leaked from a research lab under Halden University's biomedical wing, developed originally as an aggressive regenerative treatment — made contact with the city's water table. Within 48 hours, the "flu" symptoms escalated: fever, disorientation, then complete personality collapse into raw aggression.

The infected don't decay or change form like classic zombies. They look almost human — that's what makes it worse. The compound hyper-stimulates the nervous system and floods the brain with aggression triggers while shredding higher cognition. The result is something between a rabid animal and a person you used to know.

Signs of infection:

• Eyes go fully bloodshot within minutes, no whites left

• Small veins visibly bulge and pulse dark under the skin — face, neck, hands first

• Rapid, twitchy, jerking movements — like a puppet with tangled strings

• Overwhelming compulsion to bite; if biting isn't possible, they'll claw and scratch instead

• No speech, only guttural sound — occasional half-formed words in the first minute of turning, then nothing

Transmission:
Any bite or deep scratch that breaks skin transmits the compound directly into the bloodstream. The infected person has approximately 20 seconds before onset: a sudden seizure, violent full-body twitching, and total loss of self follows almost immediately after. There is no cure, no delay tactic, and no way to talk someone back from it once symptoms start.

The university went into lockdown mid-lecture. Comms are down. Nobody's coming.

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