My 100th Rebirth a day before the Apocalypse - Chapter 543

Chapter 543: Chapter 543 A Mother’s Grief
“Encircle the building!” Bald Eagle barked angrily, his eyes burning with fury as he stared at the structure.

Inside, some of the families were hiding their infected loved ones, reluctant to kill them.

They had bound the zombies with ropes and gagged their mouths to muffle the growls, hoping to keep them from drawing attention from the neighbors.

No matter how hard they tried to hide it, some neighbors couldn’t ignore the commotion, the muffled growls, and the putrid stench of rotting flesh emanating from inside.

Bald Eagle’s team surrounded the building, their expressions grim and jaws clenched in determination.

“We’re in position, sir! Waiting for your order!” the warriors said in unison, their voices steady but taut with anticipation.

“Don’t come any closer!” a family member of the infected shouted from inside the house.

The door and windows were already tightly shut, the family doing everything they could to keep Bald Eagle and his team out.

But would this flimsy barrier be enough to stop them from forcing their way inside?

Of course not.

The family’s resistance only fueled Bald Eagle’s anger further.

Adopting Duke’s ruthless approach, he no longer had any patience for their explanations.

His sole focus was doing his job and ensuring the safety of the base from this growing threat, especially with Kisha and Duke busy fighting off the zombies at the wall.

But as history has shown, the hardest threats aren’t those from the outside—they come from within.

It’s not the attacking force that’s the greatest danger, but the traitors who manage to infiltrate the walls and undermine the defense from within.

And guarding against such attacks was always the most difficult challenge.

Bald Eagle now approached the situation with more focus and determination.

“Tear the door open!” he barked, his eyes narrowing with intensity. Inside the building, the people grew restless, fear spreading among them as they realized what was coming.

“Don’t come! Stay away!” A woman’s voice shouted from behind the window, trembling with fear.

“Please, don’t come! Just leave this to us—I swear it won’t be a threat to the base. Please, trust me!”

“No!” Bald Eagle’s voice was firm, cutting through the air.

“Even if the one who turned into a zombie is your son, your husband, or any other family member, we can’t allow a zombie to live and walk inside the base. Not only will it kill your remaining loved ones, but it will also put everyone else at risk!”

His words were not aimed at reasoning with the woman inside—he knew she was beyond listening, consumed by grief, disbelief, and sorrow.

She couldn’t hear him anymore.

But Bald Eagle wasn’t speaking to her.

He wanted the other survivors to hear, to understand.

He knew that, no matter how some might try to hide those who had turned, the rest of the community, those with any conscience left, would never allow the secret to remain.

Bald Eagle needed them to understand just how dangerous it was to keep a zombie within the base.

Even if they had contained it for now, accidents always happened—and leaving everything to chance was too risky.

“No!!!!” The woman’s voice shrieked from inside, wild with desperation, her cry both heartbreaking and maddening.

But Bald Eagle had already hardened his heart, knowing that the safety of everyone else was his responsibility.

“Kick the door open!” Bald Eagle commanded again, his voice unwavering.

His warriors snapped back into focus, exchanging determined nods before advancing toward the building.

They ignored the frantic, nonstop shouts of the woman pleading for them to stop, their focus set on the task at hand.

They began kicking at the door, but it didn’t budge.

It was clear the woman had barricaded it with every piece of furniture she could find, making it nearly impossible to open.

With each kick, the door barely moved. Inside, the woman had already positioned herself behind it, using her own body to hold it shut, desperate to stop them from entering.

“Honey… Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone hurt you…” The woman whispered, her voice trembling as she gazed at the figure tied to the floor.

The zombie’s bloodshot eyes seemed to weep tears of blood, its movements frantic and desperate.

It squirmed against the ropes, trying in vain to break free, its body relentless in its efforts.

Though it felt no pain, the constant struggle tore at its flesh, leaving its hands and ankles raw and nearly reduced to bone as it rubbed against the bindings.

As Bald Eagle’s team battered the door, the woman frantically worked to reinforce the barricade, pressing her body against it to keep them out.

“You can’t come in! I won’t let you hurt my son!” she hissed, her voice raw with madness.

Her eyes burned red with a mix of fury and pain, the weight of her grief consuming her.

Her only son—her only remaining family—had turned into a zombie, and she had no understanding of how it happened.

They were supposed to build a life together, support each other in this broken world. Now, all that hope had shattered in an instant.

They had only each other now.

Most of their family and friends had either turned into zombies or perished trying to escape to City B.

Her son was all she had left, and together, they had built a small, fragile sense of normalcy.

They had work, they earned enough to buy meat from the Supply Center, and for the first time in a long while, they had hope for tomorrow.

They talked about the future—about awakening their abilities, about the life they still hoped to live.

She dreamed of seeing her son fall in love, get married, and have children.

She imagined holding her grandchildren in her arms, watching them grow.

So many milestones, so many moments they had looked forward to, now seemed so far out of reach.

The future they had planned—her son’s future—had just been ripped away in an instant.

She couldn’t accept it. She refused to.

In her heart, she still believed there was a cure somewhere—a way to bring her son back.

She told herself that if she just waited long enough, someone would find it, and everything would be okay again.

But the harsh reality was closing in, and she couldn’t deny it anymore.

Her son had turned on the first day of the Geostorm, and since then, she had kept him tied up, desperately clinging to the hope that it wasn’t too late.

But now, after days of neglect, the wound on his body had begun to fester and rot, emitting a sickening odor.

He wasn’t her son anymore. He was just a shell, a walking corpse, driven only by the remnants of a broken mind.

Thud!

Thud!

The warriors outside kicked the door with relentless force, each blow growing more urgent than the last.

They weren’t devoid of compassion—each of them could feel the woman’s anguish, her heartache—and yet, they couldn’t ignore the truth she refused to see.

What she called love was really a dangerous kind of selfishness, and they were the ones who had to make the hard call.

Her refusal to accept reality, to let go of what was gone, could lead to catastrophe for everyone in the base.

If the zombie broke free, if it spread the infection or killed someone else, the consequences would ripple outward, devastating more lives.

More families would be torn apart, just as hers had been, and others would be left to suffer the same agonizing loss.

Was that what she truly wanted for her son?

To have his memory be the cause of even more grief and more victims, caught in the same destructive cycle?

The onlookers gathered around the building, their hearts heavy with sympathy.

They could all feel the woman’s pain, as they had each experienced the same gut-wrenching grief more than once since the apocalypse began.

No one could blame her for the overwhelming sorrow that clouded her judgment—it was a natural, human response.

But as they watched the scene unfold, a sense of unease settled over them.

Their feelings were torn. While they understood her pain, they also knew the reality of the situation all too well.

Keeping a zombie inside the base was an incredibly dangerous gamble, one that could spiral into disaster if not dealt with swiftly.

They couldn’t shake the fear of what might happen if it broke free—if it spread the infection or caused more lives to be lost.

At that moment, they were caught between empathy for a mother in agony and the cold, harsh knowledge that the safety of everyone in the base was at stake.

The air was thick with tension as a heavy silence settled over everyone.

Each person was lost in their own thoughts, the weight of the situation pressing down on them.

The woman’s frantic shouting from inside the building echoed through the quiet, her desperate pleas growing more frantic with each passing second as she tried to barricade the door.

Meanwhile, the doorframe groaned under the relentless force of the kicks, its wood splintering and creaking as dust fell with each impact.

The frame was visibly buckling, on the verge of giving way, as if it could barely withstand the mounting pressure.

Every violent strike made the walls shudder, amplifying the sense of impending collapse.

The longer it took to bring down the door, the harder the warriors kicked, their strikes growing more forceful with each passing moment.

They understood the urgency of the situation—the longer they delayed, the more unpredictable and dangerous things could become. They couldn’t afford hesitation.

From inside, the woman’s desperate cries pierced the air, her voice raw with anguish.

“Ah!!! Ah!!! No!!!” She screamed, her words laced with a mixture of denial and fear, as though hoping against hope that somehow, they would listen.