A text box appeared at the bottom of the screen, styled like a terminal command: PEER-TO-PEER CONNECTION ESTABLISHED. UPLOADING PATHOGEN TO HOST.

Elias tried to Alt-F4. The screen stayed. He tried to unplug his PC. The monitor remained lit, powered by a phantom current.

He moved forward. The sound design was oppressive. Every wet slap of his boots on the floor echoed through his headset. He turned a corner and saw them: the "infected." They weren't the standard zombies from the trailers. They were staff members in lab coats, their skin translucent, showing black, pulsing veins that moved like worms.

Elias clicked download without thinking. He was a data hoarder, a digital scavenger of leaked builds and lost media. The peer-to-peer client hummed to life, connecting to a single, nameless seeder. The progress bar didn't crawl; it lunged, finishing 40 gigabytes in under ten seconds.