Mutagen

9:30 AM - Tirona Highway

More than thirty minutes earlier.

A group of high school students are eating at eating at a restaurant by the road. The group consisted of seven people, four girls and three boys. They were merrily chatting as they ate the high class food they ordered though a girl among them wasn't really thrilled by the occasion.

She is Xiao Mei, the one that can be said as the number one beauty at their school these days. Many admired her looks and were very popular among the students. Others might be emboldened with confidence under these circumstances but in contrary, she hated it.

Though she had this good looks, she is a quite a shy person so all these unwanted attention is quite irritating to her. Although she had the ability to deal with people with smiles and such, she would prefer not to, especially dealing with boys both young and old. Every time she saw their eyes, it looked like the eyes of a beast wanting to eat his prey whole. She hated those eyes.

At her school, she knew she had many admirers, in the first days, she would receive confessions, letters and such troublesome things but later on, these kinds of things disappeared in a strange fashion. Though there are still the admirers around, none of them would ever try what the others tried before.

She then looked at the boy sitting across her table with a frown. This boy is the reason of it all. But she wasn't even a little grateful.

He is handsome, carefree looking and smiling at every occasion but she knew that these are all pretenses. He is possessive, scheming and lusty bastard who see every one as tools and always using money to get everything he wanted.

This boy is the son of one of her family's business partners. He had been chasing her for some time now but it's not like she didn't know what is happening. She is a smart girl and of course she knew what they really wanted.

It is that time at a certain gathering that both their families participated that all of it started. It is also the time she realized the true meaning of her existence to her family, except her mother, that is.

It also the same with most of the daughters of business and politically oriented families, they are treated as tools for the expansion of their families' power. And she really hated it.

Although it hasn't been official, this boy in front of her is technically her fiancé that she hated. This person made too many advances towards her and of course, she always declined. It is because she hated him to the core.

Then, she looked at her so called "friends".

Though a part of her wanted to think of them as her true friends but for the most part, she only mingled with them for the sake of appearances. It is because from time to time, these girls, her "friends" would give away praises about the boy in front of her. About his looks, his kindness, his smiles, etc. It's disgusting.

It's not like she did not know that they had been paid to do so.

But she can only smile. She needed to keep up with the pretenses. She can't say or do anything that will degrade the face of their family. It is because she is still a part of that family. Still, she hated it.

Other people envied the rich. They had money, they can do anything they wanted and they had power. But to her, these things are all useless. All she wanted is her freedom.

Finally, they went out of the restaurant. Ignoring everything else, she took out her phone to call her driver. She just wanted to go home at this moment. Though staying at her home is also suffocating to her, it is still way better that this fake atmosphere around her at this moment.

But as she held her phone beside her ear, she became confused, there is no ringing, no beeps and no automated voice reply either. She then looked at the screen just to see the message "Network Busy" at the center.

BEEP! BEEP!

The noise of hundreds of cars beeping entered her ears as she noticed the heavy congestion of vehicles on the main road.

BAM!!! CRASH!!!

That very loud noise startled everyone who heard it. Their group followed the stream of people going after that sound out of curiosity. What they saw is horrifying. A large city bus that almost turned into scrap metal, broken cars, scraped road, an overturned jeep and the worst of all, dead bodies that littered the road spreading pools of blood.

Xiao Mei can't help but turned around. Some of her "friends" ran to a nearby sidewalk planter and vomited the high class food that they just ate. Even the boys in their group are shivering.

This is a total disaster.

They then heard screams from the spectators as they pointed at the almost scrapped bus. Xiao Mei looked and saw silhouettes, rather people emerging from the bus.

Many people exclaimed as they felt it was a miracle that there are still people alive from that mangled vehicle. But Xiao Mei felt weird.

She looked that the people coming out of the bus and felt that it is impossible for these people to be still alive. Some had missing limbs, some had large chunks of flesh missing from their bodies, some had parts of their bodies bent at an impossible angle and everyone is dripping blood from their bodies.

It is not possible for them to be alive.

Xiao Mei started stepping back as she feared that something not right is going on. She saw the "good Samaritans" approached the people from the bus trying to help.

"AAAHHHHHH!"

What she feared happened.

Blood splashed, not from the people from the bus but from a man which is one of the people who approached. He approached a woman covered in blood that came shambling out of the bus. Disregarding the blood, he grabbed her arms in order to help her move.

That became the worst decision he made in his life.

The woman he tried to help grabbed his shoulders and savagely bit into his neck pulling out a mouthful of flesh. The others who tried to help the "injured" people froze in their tracks as they were filled with shock. Then…

"AAHHH!"

"HELP!!"

It's their screams that followed to fill the ears of all the people around.

"What is going on?"

Xiao Mei's classmate beside her asked that question.

"WAAAHHHH!!! RUN!!!"

"HELP!!!!"

More screams entered their ears but it did not come from the place of accident but from further away. Then they saw people running on the northern side of the highway. Their faces filled with horror. Among the people running, there are others covered in blood and others running after others catching them in the process… Then…

"AAAHHHH!"

The people caught screamed in pain as their flesh was torn away from their bodies.

Xiao Mei wanted to run away and is about to but a hand caught her arm and pulled her.

"What are you doing?! Let go!"

She glared at her unofficial fiancé that started pulling her.

"Where are you going? Do you think you can outrun those guys? It is better to find somewhere to hide!"

Xiao Mei looked at him. She didn't want to go but she knew he was right. She didn't think that she'll be able to outrun those people either.

In the end, she could only let him pull her as she can't even resist away from his grasp. And even if she tried to resist, the people covered in blood would be able to get them first before she would be able to break free.

During the commotion, her group is forced to scattered because of the number of people filled with panic already causing a stampede.

She then locked eyes with one of the girls from her group of "friends".

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