The table in the center of the HQ was cluttered with half-empty coffee mugs, data tables, and a quiet tension. Fakhrul sat at the head, arms crossed, and eyes scanning each face like pieces of puzzle still trying to fit together. The team was finally here- six warriors from different walks of life. But strangers, nonetheless.
Siddik leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head, a smug grin on his face.
"So…" he said, tapping the table. "We gonna keep calling each other by our sweet little names? Or do we want something cooler for when we're slicing radioactive zombie heads off?"
The silence cracked with a small chuckle. Then came Kawser, chewing gum, grinning like a kid, "Ohhh I want something flashy. Something with explosions in it."
Siddik smirked, "Explosions aren't names, Jester."
The room paused.
"Wait, what?" Kawser blinked.
"You heard me," Siddik said, pointing at him with a wink. "You're unpredictable, annoying, funny, and dangerous when poked. You're Jester now."
Kawser paused, then slowly grinned. I'll take it."
Rasel tilted his head. "If we're doing this, let's do it properly."
Fakhrul gave him a nod.
"Then I'll go with Vanguard," Rasel said calmly. "I don't need to lead. I just need to be at the front when the time comes."
Zara crossed her arms. "Fine. If we're going that route, I'm Catalyst. I make things change. For better or worse."
Tayeb, leaning against a wall with arms like tree trunks, grunted. "Rampage."
Everyone turned to him.
"No backstory needed," he added.
Fakhrul looked at Hridoy. "And you?"
Hridoy shrugged, sipping his tea. "Been working alone for too long. Lonewolf. Fits."
Everyone's attention turned to Siddik.
"You?" Rasel asked. "You came up with this. What's your name in the field?"
Siddik slowly stood up, adjusted the gloves on his hands, and looked around the table with the faintest smile.
"You can call me Dr. Doom."
Kawser let out a laugh, "Bro, that's a supervillain name!"
Siddik simply grinned. "So is my tech."
Fakhrul gave a half-smile, shaking his head. "Of course it is."
The laughter eased the tension in the room for a moment. But it didn't last long.
After a breath, Rasel looked around. "We've all got names now. But only a name isn't enough. We've all got a past. Where we came from? I want to know who I'm fighting with."
He looked at Tayeb. "Let's start with you."
And one by one, they shared.
Their origins. Their pain. Their reasons.
Project: Tayeb
I was a part of a failed military experiment-Project HADES-meant to weaponize human Biology against the infected. Siddik was the head of the project. Only one subject survived.
But the virus didn't kill me. Not only it spared my life, also it changed me.
The mutations enhanced my body-strength, speed, durability,-beyond normal limits. But they also broke something inside. My anger turned into blackout rages. My pulse triggered seismic spikes. Entire squad went missing trying to contain me.
So they locked me away. Once government decided to destroy me. But Siddik and General Fakhrul stood by me. Siddik took the responsibility, if I ever become a threat.
That's my black story.
Everyone turned to Zara.
The Mind That Sees Everything
I wasn't an ordinary doctor. A triple PhD in biogenetics, synthetic virology, and nanomedicine. Once a rising star in the World Health Engineering Crops-Until I clashed with command over ethical testing. I walked away from fame, turned my back on awards, and went underground.
But I never stopped building.
All around my lab, medicines hummed with artificial blood, viral simulations, and things none can understand in first look.
"What are you working on now?" Hridoy asked. "Something insane," Zara replied. "A virus that eats zombie mutation. I call it Reverie."
"Does it work?" Siddik wants to know.
"No," she said, smilingly. "But when it does, it'll change everything."
Now it's time for Hridoy. Kawser ask him out.
The Bridge at Karran's Edge
Fakhrul and I once held a collapsing bridge against an incoming horde-twelve snipers fell, five squads wiped. But I held my post and landed seventy-eight confirmed kills in fifteen minutes.
The final moment? One bullet left. Fakhrul bleeding. A berserker charging.
I said him," Don't breathe."
One shot. Right between the monster's eyes. The bridge held. That's it.
Now it's Rasel's turn.
Operation Dagger point
I once led the Delta Black Unit-an elite force trusted with the missions too dirty for daylight. Our last mission was to infiltrate a bio-weapons lab in the southern zone. What we found wasn't science-it was slaughter. The lab had been experimenting on infected to breed faster, stronger versions.
The mutants tore through my team like wildfire. I survived by locking myself in a blast chamber and detonating the corridor to collapse it behind me.
When I emerged, burned and bleeding, my squad was gone. I buried them with military honors in the desert dirt-and vanished like I never existed.
Everyone was silence. But it break with Kawser's voice," I think it's my time."
The Newcomer
I was a former urban warfare tactician turned rogue operator. Never military. Never government. Just a kid who grew up in chaos and thrived in it.
I learned to fight dirty, think fast, and survive by always being underestimated. No one ever trained me-I trained myself. Watching old combat feeds. Tinkering with junk tech. Creating weapons out of scrap.
My younger sibling was also a quiet genius-was recruited into a secret government lab working on bio-weapons to counter the zombie virus. It vanished after a "containment failure." The official story: everyone died. But I never believed it.
I've been tracking remnants of that operation ever since. I failed. But if I got cocky? I earned that right.
Fakhrul Sir once tried to recruit me years ago-but I vanished. Said I was "waiting for the world to get interesting again."
Now I'm back. And this time, I'm staying-for the thrill, the team, and to prove that I'm better than anyone thinks.
Everyone smiles quietly but Siddik is cracking the story in his mind. He doubts Kawser for something but don't publish it in public. Everyone now looks at Siddik. "What's your story, Dr. Doom?" Rasel asked. "Failures." Siddik starts with it.
The Echo of Perfection
To the world, I am a genius-a billionaire inventor, a master of weapons, and the sharpest mind on the battlefield. I built my empire on modern technology that redefined modern warfare, with innovations that made governments kneel and corporations envy me. My HQ is a fortress of hope, and my gadgets are marvels. People say, "If Siddik built it, not even hell can crack it."
But that's the version the world sees.
What they don't know is that my real story, my failures.
Behind the fortified walls of my HQ tower, a truth lives in the shadows-one that I have buried under tech, upgrades, and missions briefing.
That truth… is Rafi.
Rafi was my best friend. Not just a partner in science-but in dreams, in long nights, in impossible theories that turned into reality. A genius innovator, Rafi was more like Zara than anyone else on the team-calm, meticulous, and obsessed with the idea of healing the world instead of fighting it.
While I focused on weapons and defense systems, Rafi believed in a cure. He wanted to end the infection, not just fight it. He worked alone, in secret, day and night-developing a virus to counter the zombie strain.
But science, when rushed by hope and fear, turns on its creator.
One night, in a trial run with no safety net, the cure failed. The virus mutated. It infected him.
He didn't die.
Instead, his body began to change-unpredictable mutations that kept evolving. Not a zombie. Not a human either. Something in-between. Something that whispers to the mind and aches to escape.
I found him collapsed in the lab. Trapped him. Contained him in a secured vault hidden beneath the HQ, a place only I can access.
Rafi still breathes.
He is alive-but not free. Locked behind reinforced glass, monitored by machines, watched by the only man who ever truly understood him.
And every time I look at him, I'm reminded: "You're the genius who can build weapons for the world, but you can't save the one who trusted you most."
The world sees a brilliant man, a man with answers, with confidence and swagger. But in quiet hours, in secret visits to the lower vault, I only see failure.
Before today, no one knows. Not even general, Zara ma'am, Nafisa.
Until the day I find a cure-or is forced to end it-I will carry this guilt like a shadow stitched to my genius.
Rasel hold Siddik's hand, "Brother, you're not responsible for this. Don't punish yourself for this. There must be way to cure him. Back him to life. You're the bravest soldier I have ever met. Maybe you're not an army, not a military. But what you're facing is the most dangerous war."
"Why you didn't let us know?" Fakhrul asked.
"If I let you know, will you help me out? You and your government would've turned him into a human-weapon like him," Siddik told this pointing to Tayeb.
All kept silence until Nafisa entered the room, a tablet in hand.
She placed it down in front of Fakhrul and Siddik.
"We've got something. Reports from eastern sector. High-level activity. These zombies… they're adapting."
Everyone sat up straight.
No more chatter. No more names.
The mission had just begun.