The Chupacabra zombie kept working.
Not attacking.
Not hunting.
Working.
It moved from wall to wall with quiet, awful purpose, sliding one long glowing quill into sockets hidden beneath the sugar-veins of the hive. Each time it connected, the walls responded—flexing, rippling, opening pathways like muscles obeying a nerve impulse. Candy conduits bloomed open. Data pulsed through gummy cables. Pods somewhere deeper inside shifted sequence.
Arcade watched it for a while.
Too long, probably.
Celeste could practically see the terrible idea forming behind his eyes.
“Arcade,” she whispered.
He lifted one finger without looking at her.
The Chupacabra withdrew its quill from the wall and moved to another panel. It passed within a few feet of them.
Nothing happened.
It didn’t turn.
Didn’t hiss.
Didn’t lunge.
Arcade took one cautious step closer.
Still nothing.
Another step.
The creature continued typing into the living wall with quick, precise taps, its gas-mask lenses fogging faintly from within.
Arcade’s expression changed from terrified to fascinated, which Celeste had learned was sometimes worse.
He leaned forward slightly.
Nothing.
He shifted closer again, so close now that the amber light from the creature’s quills flickered across his face.
Still nothing.
Only then did Arcade slowly raise his arcbracer.
Silver hissed under his breath. “Arcade—don’t.”
Arcade held up a finger without looking back.
“Science.”
Silver stared at him. “It experimented on you.”
“And now I’m doing the same thing back,” Arcade said, raising his arcbracer scanner with slow, deliberate care. “Balance restored.”
“What is wrong with you?”
Arcade glanced at him, eyes flat with exhaustion. “I’ve been through some shit today. They owe me a favour.”
Celeste winced. “I’m not sure medical revenge-scanning is a healthy coping strategy.”
“Noted. Ignored.”
He angled his arcbracer toward the Chupacabra zombie as it continued working at the living wall, sliding one long glowing quill into a sugar-veined socket. The scanner hummed softly, lights flickering across the screen.
“C.H.I.P.,” Arcade murmured, “scan it too. Quietly.”
C.H.I.P. hovered beside him, dimming his optics.
“STEALTH SCIENCE MODE ENGAGED. ETHICS OPTIONAL.”
Silver’s ears flicked back. “This is genuinely deranged.”
“When will I get this chance again?” Arcade whispered, eyes fixed on the readings. “A semi-stabilised task-bound candy zombie with tool use, environmental access, and selective hostility? This is a dissertation with teeth.”
“It force-fed me a brownie.”
“And you lived. Peer review pending.”
The scanner pulsed.
Arcade leaned in closer.
“Fascinating,” he muttered. “This one isn’t feral. It’s… stabilised. Task-bound. Like a worker drone, but organic. It’s interfacing with the hive through those quills.”
The Chupacabra withdrew its quill from the wall.
The hive shifted around them, muscles of gum and sugar flexing as fresh pathways opened deeper ahead. Pipes pulsed. Screens blinked. Pods somewhere in the distance changed sequence.
Arcade raised the scanner another inch.
Then his foot slipped slightly on the syrup-slick floor.
His hand bumped the creature’s arm.
Everything stopped.
The Chupacabra zombie froze mid-step.
Slowly, its masked face turned.
Arcade locked up completely.
“Oh,” he whispered. “Hello.”
The creature leaned down, gas-mask lenses glowing faintly—not hostile, not hungry.
Curious.
It studied Arcade’s face for a long, unbearable second.
Then, without a sound, it reached into a compartment hidden beneath its robe.
Arcade’s quills bristled.
“No needles. We have discussed needles.”
The Chupacabra pulled something out.
And gently placed a huge chocolate brownie into Arcade’s hands.
Warm.
Perfectly shaped.
Wrapped in wax paper stamped with a candy sigil.
Arcade stared down at it.
The Chupacabra tilted its head.
Knowingly.
Then, with one long clawed hand, it stroked his face.
Very gently.
Very lovingly.
Arcade did not breathe.
Celeste looked horrified.
Silver looked personally offended on his behalf.
The Chupacabra hummed once through its gas mask—a soft, warbling sound like a lullaby remembered badly through broken filters—then turned and walked away, resuming its work like nothing had happened.
Arcade stood there, still holding the brownie.
“…I,” he said faintly, “have several questions.”
He backed up slowly, rejoining the group, holding the brownie like it might explode.
Silver stared. “Did… did it just tip you?”
Celeste rubbed her temples. “I don’t understand.”
Arcade glanced down at the brownie, then at the corridor where the zombie had vanished.
“…It scanned me too.”
They all stood there in awkward silence.
Finally, Celeste exhaled.
“I am officially stumped. Is it hostile… or not?”
Arcade looked at the brownie again.
“We should eat it.”
Silver’s head snapped toward him. “Absolutely not.”
“She bothered me for ages last time,” Arcade said. “It keeps doing it until you do.”
Celeste leaned closer, fascinated despite herself.
“…Do we eat the peace offering,” she asked carefully, “or does that activate phase two?”
Arcade held the brownie out.
C.H.I.P. scanned it.
“RESULT: FOOD. ALSO MILD SEDATIVE. ALSO NUTRITIONALLY SUPERIOR TO ARCADE’S USUAL DIET.”
Arcade frowned. “Rude.”
Silver stared at the brownie with deep aristocratic suspicion. “I refuse to be manipulated by dessert twice.”
C.H.I.P. chirped. “STATISTICALLY, YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN MANIPULATED BY DESSERT ONCE. A SECOND INCIDENT WOULD ESTABLISH A PATTERN.”
Silver pointed at him. “I dislike you.”
“GOOD. I AM VERY MEMORABLE.”
Arcade broke off a piece and sniffed it.
Celeste gasped. “Arcade.”
“What? If it wanted me dead, it had a very full menu of opportunities.”
“That is not comforting.”
Arcade ate the smallest corner.
Everyone waited.
Nothing happened.
He blinked.
“…That’s annoyingly good.”
Silver looked betrayed by the universe. “Of course it is.”
The Chupacabra had already moved ahead.
So they followed it.
The zombie moved with quiet purpose, and the hive moved with it. Every other zombie shifted aside in subtle ripples—opening paths, lowering heads, stepping back just enough to let it pass.
Still no one attacked.
Still no alarms.
But Celeste felt it.
A sound beneath the sound.
Not words.
Something older.
A guttural rhythm, like a language made of pressure and intent rather than speech. It echoed through the hive walls, vibrating faintly in her bones.
Commands?
Status checks?
A song with rules?
Silver’s shoulders tightened the deeper they went. His ears flicked, uneasy.
Arcade, meanwhile, looked like he had just been handed the universe’s worst-best dissertation topic. His scanner never stopped moving.
“This is incredible,” he whispered. “They’re not mindless. They’re coordinated. Like a distributed system. A hive protocol.”
Celeste didn’t answer.
Her focus snapped tight as the Chupacabra stopped.
A small chamber.
Cleaner than the rest.
Softer lighting.
A single pod rested in the centre.
Inside—
A toddler.
Maybe a year old.
Tiny chest rising and falling. Brown-and-white fur. A Pureblood border collie girl, thumb tucked into her mouth, asleep and utterly unaware of where she was.
Celeste’s heart dropped into her stomach.
The Chupacabra zombie gently opened the pod and lifted the child with unsettling care. No rush. No restraint. It placed her on a nearby table padded with sugar-gel, adjusting her position like a nurse might.
Checking instruments.
Readouts pulsing.
Then it picked up a vial.
Zygurr candy.
Silver moved instantly.
“No—no, no, no.”
His voice broke as he snatched the child up, pulling her tight against his chest.
“I can’t. I won’t let you do this.”
He stared down at her face.
Recognition hit him like a punch.
“…Gods,” he whispered. “I know you.”
Celeste’s breath caught. “Silver?”
“My friend’s niece,” he said hoarsely. “She was at the Council gardens. I held her once.”
The zombie turned.
It stepped closer, head tilting, one hand reaching out.
Slow.
Uncertain.
Not aggressive.
Confused.
Silver backed away, panic and fury colliding in his face.
“No. She’s not a resource. She’s a child.”
The zombie reached again.
Silver shoved it.
Hard.
The impact echoed.
For half a second—
nothing happened.
Then the Chupacabra zombie screeched.
A sound like metal tearing through sugar glass.
It surged forward, seized Silver with one arm, and with terrifying strength forced his head back. Silver snarled, fighting, but the creature ignored him.
With its other hand, it dropped the gumball into the toddler’s mouth.
Celeste cried out.
Arcade lunged—
Too late.
The toddler swallowed.
Everyone froze.
Waiting for the change.
The child stirred, tiny face scrunching.
Her fur began to shift colour.
Soft brown and white faded into gentle pastel pink, spreading slowly across her cheeks, ears, paws, and tail like dye in warm water.
But her eyes did not turn hollow.
Her jaw did not split.
No candy growths erupted from her skin.
No hunger took her.
She slept on.
Alive.
Still herself.
The Chupacabra released Silver.
He staggered back, clutching the child against his chest, breathing hard.
“What the fuck was that?” he snarled.
Arcade, pale-faced, stared at the toddler.
“She still might,” he said quietly. “Her fur is changing colour.”
Silver looked down, horror twisting through his expression all over again.
The Chupacabra screeched a second time.
Louder.
Angrier.
The hive answered.
Every single zombie in the gumball stopped.
Turned.
Looked at them.
Hundreds of glowing eyes snapped into focus at once.
Arcade slowly lifted his head, scanning the sudden spike in signals.
“…Yep,” he said faintly. “We have officially crossed the invisible line.”
Celeste’s instincts screamed.
“RUN!”
They ran.
The hive erupted behind them—hundreds of feet pounding in wet, uneven rhythm, sugar-glass claws scraping walls, bodies slamming into corners too tight to contain that many things at once.
“WHY,” Arcade yelled as he sprinted, quills bristling, “did you have to personally offend the entire ecosystem?”
Silver shot back between breaths, clutching the toddler tight to his chest, “I didn’t fancy watching a baby get turned into a zombie science project!”
Arcade snapped, “She still might be one!”
“She is breathing!”
“So are several things trying to eat us!”
Celeste vaulted over a fallen conduit, blades flashing as she cut through a lunging gum-creature.
“PLEASE—less talking, more running!”
They skidded into a side passage—narrow, industrial, half-grown from candy vines. The door at the end began to seal automatically, warning lights flashing.
“GO GO GO!” Arcade shouted.
His foot caught.
He went down hard.
The door slammed shut.
Celeste spun around just in time to see Arcade on the other side of the thick candy-steel barrier.
“ARCADE!” she screamed, slamming her hands against the door.
Silver shifted the child into one arm and grabbed the doorframe with the other, straining.
“It’s sealed—reinforced!”
C.H.I.P. hovered between them, optics flashing red.
“STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY: VERY RUDE.”
On the other side—
Arcade scrambled backward, panic breaking through his bravado.
Zombies poured into the corridor, closing in.
“Hey—hey—wait!” he shouted, backing up until he hit the wall. “Guys—GUYS—this isn’t funny!”
The screams started.
Celeste’s breath hitched.
Her hands shook.
Then—
Silence.
The corridor went still.
Celeste’s heart stopped.
A low hiss sounded as the door slid open.
Arcade was kneeling on the floor.
Alive.
Frozen.
The Chupacabra zombie loomed over him—one massive hand cupping Arcade’s face, tilting his head gently from side to side. Its glowing lenses searched his, studying him with unnerving focus.
A soft hum escaped its throat.
Not a threat.
Not a growl.
Arcade didn’t breathe.
Didn’t blink.
Behind it, the other zombies stood perfectly still.
C.H.I.P. reacted instantly.
A hard-light barrier snapped into existence between Arcade and the hive with a sharp whumm.
Arcade jolted back like he had been electrocuted.
C.H.I.P.’s voice rang out, chipper and smug despite the chaos.
“YOU’RE WELCOME. TRAUMA COUNSELLING NOT INCLUDED.”
Arcade sucked in a ragged breath—
and ran.
“NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE—!”
Celeste grabbed him as he burst through, Silver pivoting to cover their retreat.
Behind them—
The Chupacabra zombie let out a sharp, furious screech.
The barrier shattered.
And the screaming started again as the hive surged forward.
