Danny pressed the needle into his own arm and drew out a vial of black blood. The infection moved in it like oil. He held the vial to the light and made himself a promise. He would break this sickness down, find its weak point, and become a man again. But he had no microscope, no burner, no way to test a single drop. His research died in his hand before it began. He lived in an old listening hall. Rain streaked the tall stained windows. Once people had filled these seats for music. Now dust covered the stage, and Danny hunted in the shadows to feed the thing inside him. He hated what he ate. He hated the hunger more. Every day the man in him grew quieter, and the monster grew louder. He needed equipment, and he knew where the dead kept useful things. There was a stash box near the stage, painted like a grinning green face. Someone had left it long before Danny came. He had never dared open it. Tonight he had no choice. He pried the lid. Inside sat glass tubes, a cracked lens, and a small burner. His clawed hands shook. This was enough to begin. He almost laughed. Then he heard breathing that was not his own. A shape crouched on the balcony rail above him. It wore a torn cape and a broken mask. White eyes glowed in the dark. Blood crusted its jaw. It had been a hero once. Now it was only appetite in a costume, a zombie thing that tore skin and ate the living. Danny knew it by reputation. Every survivor did. It killed without thought and never stopped. The creature dropped. Danny rolled aside, and glass burst across the floor. The burner spun away into the dark. He grabbed the lens and shielded it with his body. The thing swiped, and claws raked his shoulder. He felt no pain, only the loss of his tools scattering. Danny fought back. His own strength surprised him, quick and sticky, a gift from the powers the infection had twisted. He shoved the creature into a row of seats. Wood cracked. The thing snarled and gathered itself to leap again. Danny did not wait. He snatched what he could reach, the lens and three unbroken tubes, and ran. Behind him the creature howled and gave chase, then stopped at the hall's flooded doorway. It did not follow into the open rain. It only watched him go. Danny stumbled into an empty stairwell and slumped against the wall. He opened his fist. The lens was whole. Two tubes had survived. It was not a lab. It was a start. But the burner was gone, lost on that floor. And now the creature knew his face, his scent, his den. He could not go back while it stayed. His research had a beginning at last, and a monster guarding the rest of it.