The links slithered their way in, attaching themselves to Blaze’s brain. With each link that connected, it felt like someone had shoved a bar of molten steel right through his mind.
Forget about zombies, even humans didn’t feel any pain in their heads. That’s why most brain surgeries happened when the patient was active.
However, that wasn’t true in Blaze’s case.
His hands slumped to his sides as he fell face-first against the tunnel’s surface. Fester jumped in, sensing something was wrong.
It tried to tear through the links, but they didn’t budge. With no way to help him, Fester ran back to the others, specifically, Marrow. It knew she was the most intelligent among them and could help Blaze.
Through his blurry eyes, Blaze saw Fester disappear into the darkness. He wanted to call out to it, but every muscle in his body had gone numb. He couldn’t even blink, let alone call out to someone.
Why... does it hurt so much?
Blaze thought, realizing later that the Headless didn’t have a head like him. It controlled the zombies through its spine.
In his case, the links latched onto his head instead of his nape, like he had planned. That slight issue had come to bite him in the ass. Well, in his brain would be the more appropriate term.
Then... everything went dark.
When Blaze opened his eyes, the world around him was gone. He wasn’t in the crater, nor inside the tunnels. All he saw was an endless void where everything was covered in white.
"What the hell is this place—wait, I can speak?"
Blaze hurriedly looked down, and his eyes widened in disbelief.
His skin wasn’t ashen or rotting. There was no sign of decay, as if he were protected from the weird rays of the bleeding sun.
Blaze flexed his fingers slowly, staring at them like they belonged to someone else.
It was as if he wasn’t a zombie anymore.
However, instead of feeling happy, the realization annoyed him. After having gone through all that trouble to fool the collective to evolve thrice, he didn’t want to lose it all.
"Aren’t you a peculiar one?"
A voice echoed behind him. Blaze turned around, and the empty void stared back at him.
"Sorry, I’m not interested in talking with ghosts," Blaze said, more to himself than anyone else.
He still thought the links had messed with his mind. Or that it was his brain’s way of protecting him from further pain.
"It is not your imagination, mortal." The voice answered.
"See, by using that M-word, I know you know nothing about me. Though I must admit, it feels good to be able to speak."
Blaze continued, "I didn’t realize how quickly I got bored with all the groaning—"
He wanted to say more, but his lips wouldn’t move. Just then, a massive eye appeared above him. It hovered in the endless sky like one of those biblically accurate angels.
Just staring at it made Blaze feel powerless and scared like never before.
"I represent the Collective," a voice came from the eye. "I took this form since we found it to be representing the powers you call as... divine."
Just like that, all the fear in Blaze disappeared. It wasn’t an angel after all. Just the Collective, playing mind games as always.
As an atheist, Blaze preferred seeing nothing rather than such a strange creature. However, he doubted the Collective cared about all that.
It was most likely that they chose that form since Christianity was the leading religion on the planet. At least before the apocalypse.
Besides, if it was really a representative of the Collective, then the two had a lot to discuss.
Just change your form. I don’t care about the divine or a higher power. So if this is your idea of intimidating me, it isn’t working... anymore.
The eye stared at Blaze before disappearing altogether.
"I do not care about your desires," the hoarse voice continued. "Neither am I here to indulge you in a conversation. This... meeting is to inform you regarding your punishment."
Punishment? For what—?
"Punishment for constant meddling. And you, the insufferable accused, are not beating the allegations."
Blaze wanted to retort, but much like his lips, the collective representative had sealed his ability to speak via his thoughts as well.
"I will now recite your crimes."
The voice continued, "Restrictions were placed on you so you couldn’t evolve to grade-4 Morsanimus, yet you bypassed those and evolved. We chose to ignore it, citing it off as immaturity of a lower species."
Blaze rolled his eyes.
It was a typical case of the strong bullying the weak. It was their system, their rules. If he bypassed those restrictions, then it showed the Collective’s inability more than anything.
Obviously, they wouldn’t admit that, so they turned it into a crime and charged Blaze for it. What kind of a lazy civilization was it?
"However, now you want to ruin a crucial stage of progression for this lower civilization, and steal something from its rightful owners?"
Blaze raised an eyebrow. What the hell did he do to prevent the world’s growth? Other than killing its inhabitants, that is.
Then again, he was a zombie. It was his nature to kill people, not coddle them.
"The Neurocladis belongs to the sapiens, not the Morsanimus."
Neuro-what now? Why can I talk—?
Blaze’s thoughts were promptly cut off again. However, it made him notice something about the Collective and the strange space he was taken hostage within.
"Neurocladis is the creature the sapiens refer to as the Headless. I digress. The Headless belongs to the humans, not your kind. Cease your operations at once or suffer—"
"Yeah, I don’t think so."
Blaze’s voice silenced the Collective’s. It was his turn to outsmart them.
"Higher civilization this, lower creature that. You talk too much," Blaze said, smirking. "The Collective, eh? My ass. Was it nice trying to mess with my head?"
In the blink of an eye, the carefully crafted illusion crumbled. Blaze opened his eyes, and he was back inside the tunnel. Only this time, he felt a strange sensation under his foot.
The Collective doesn’t bother with threats, not without following it with a punishment to set an example.
Blaze looked at his feet, realizing that the Headless’s nerves had attached to his leg, causing him to hallucinate.
As for the voice and the weird eyes, those were all the Headless’s way of fooling him into retreating. It was a cunning move, and it worked, almost.
But how did he realize it?
The clues were all over the place.
The voice the Headless used was a twisted version of his own. Then there was the biblical angel. Why would the Collective bother with such dramatic scenes when they had already established themselves as gods?
However, what gave it away was the Headless’s use of Neurocladis and Morsanimus. Those weren’t words, but names, names that Blaze used for his clans in multiple MMORPGs he played as a teen.
Everything the Headless used was from his own knowledge and memories. Things that Blaze had forgotten.
Perhaps the Headless thought Blaze wouldn’t notice it, but it underestimated him.
Fucking Headless bitch, stop messing with others’ minds.
Blaze thought as he yanked the links off his feet. Only to hear a painful scream from above. The Headless finally experienced the pain Blaze wanted it to, but it was just the beginning.
Because he was pissed.