Obliterated (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction)

Prologue

Max

T he red rain is coming.

The faint tinge of pink in the clouds rolling in over the ocean to my right isn’t the only sign. No, the twitching in some of the crowd to my left is just as fucking telling.

Shoulders roll. Necks crack. Eyes blown wide as gazes flick toward the sky, trying to see through the patchwork of plastic tarps stretched over the seating tiers of this crumbling, stadium-like structure. A shitty, makeshift shelter, thrown together to shield the spectators from what’s coming.

From the rot in the clouds. The sickness in the rain. The madness it stirs in blood and fucking bone.

But it’s not protecting me. Not at all.

I’m under the open sky, standing dead center in the Pit—the exposed heart of what used to be an amphitheater.

Half natural, half scavenged from scrap, carved straight into the cliffs of Ibitha like a festering wound.

The air is scorching, heavy, pressing down until even my scars feel like they’re burning.

Sweat slides down my spine, stinging where yesterday’s wounds still feel raw.

Out here, the heat sharpens everything—the stone, the blood, the eyes crawling over me from every tier. This place doesn’t hide you. It strips you bare.

But it’s still my home. My cage. My godsdamned altar.

And from the far end of this Pit, this circle, behind the rusted iron gate embedded in the wall—just below the raised platform reserved for The Nine, our so-called governing council—comes the third sign of the impending red storm.

The growling starts low but sharp. Almost rhythmic, like an ominous song. Then the snapping joins in. Wet, frantic, rabid. Flesh slaps against iron. Nails scrape stone. Screeches ricochet off the walls, high and broken.

Too jagged to be human. Because yeah… they’re not. Not anymore.

The inhuman things caged behind the gate have woken up.

A moment ago, they were still. Or still enough. Now they surge, limbs tangled as they try to crawl over one another. Frenzied. Starving. Driven by bloodlust, by instinct, by whatever the red rain stirs in their rotting systems.

Or maybe it’s just the scent of something alive.

Of the thunderous crowd around me.

Of me .

The undead, they’re called. The infected. The Turned. The inhumans. Zombies. Whatever you want to call them, I’ve heard it all before. But here on Ibitha, on this island of fucking so-called sanctuary , this execution stage masquerading as salvation, we call them Walkers .

I don’t know if the Walkers, as dumb as they are, can actually see me. If they’ve locked onto my shape through the bars from where I’m standing on the rocks of the arena floor, or if it’s something deeper that pulls them forward. Smell, sound, heat. The pulse of blood. The stink of violence.

I never stopped long enough to figure it out.

I just kill them.

Just as the gate rattles again and I brace myself by sliding my feet an inch wider, bending my knees to settle into stance, my hand reaching back over my shoulder to grip the worn hilt of my weapon; the last signal for the impending rain comes.

The final fucking sign. The most obvious one. Yet somehow, it’s always the last. Because these dumbasses? They’re just so damn slow .

The sirens.

Once meant to signal incoming airstrikes, back when the world still had governments, borders, and fighter jets.

Back when the sky held anything other than death.

Now, seventy-six years after the outbreak of the virus and everything went fucking sideways, they scream for one thing only: The red rain.

The rain of infection. Of madness. Of death.

And even though the meaning has shifted, the message stays the same, just like it did in the old world, in the before : Get inside. Find shelter. Get off the streets.

But now, there’s an unspoken addition. A rule we live by.

Don’t. Get. Wet.

The crowd. The restless, bloodthirsty, packed crowd senses it. Feels it. And despite the frenzy, despite their obsession with what’s about to unfold down here in the Pit, they obey. Most of them pull back, cramming themselves tighter under the patchy plastic roof.

Because even a single drop on their skin could be enough to infect and end them. Could mean their inevitable demise.

All except for the already half-infected ones. The carriers of the virus. The Touched .

They don’t flinch when the sirens blare. They keep right where they were—front and center—handing over their fear to whatever darkness already lives in them.

They are the ones already marked, touched , by the red rain or by the bite of a Walker.

They are the ones waiting out the clock, living on borrowed time, caught in that slow, quiet descent toward something unrecognizable. Something rotten. Just like the ones behind the bars.

They’re already doomed. Just not entirely done yet. Just like every poor bastard on this island will be, eventually.

All except for me.

I tilt my head back and look up higher, past the noise, past the cage doors, past the bloated clouds now beginning to spill over the cliff edge above the arena.

And just when the first red drop falls down at my feet, the gong strikes.

A deep, ugly sound. Metal on metal, too loud and too long. It tears through the stone like a warning from hell itself, and the Walkers respond in kind—howling louder, slamming harder into the gate. Rotting arms punch through the gaps, clawing at the air like they know I’m here.

Like they can smell me.

Like they remember me.

Like they know I’m the one who butchered their brethren—their pack, their hive, or whatever brain-dead bond ties them together in that rotting mass of hunger and hate.

An amplified female voice cuts through the air. Formal. Clear. And too fucking smug.

My head snaps toward the platform above the Walkers—toward the Nine.

Nine misfortunate bastards who are the heads of their own departments.

Health, military, schooling, you name it.

They’re cloaked in those ugly-as-fuck red robes and puffed-up pride, seated in judgment like kings above the chaos.

Perched just out of reach of the screaming Walkers mashed against the bars beneath them.

“Sergeant Maximos Skarlatos.” Her voice booms from the rusted speakers bolted to the dais, every word dripping from the cheap crackle of wasted electricity.

“You stand accused of violating Decree Six. The unlawful execution of a Touched citizen. A citizen suspected of being turned but not confirmed.”

I cock a brow, fold my arms across my chest, and hold my chin high. Still standing dead center in the Pit. The wench knows I hate it when she uses my full name.

Noura El-Amin. Magistrate. Head of Justice. Once upon a time, she was also something else—pressed up against crumbling walls with my hands on her hips, gasping for more, more, more .

Now she won’t even look me in the eye without venom in hers.

“Do you deny the charge?” she asks, her voice ringing out crisp and cold.

I stay silent. Just raise my brow higher. Arms still folded.

A ripple goes through the crowd. Half of it are jeers, the other half laughter. They eat it up, the arrogance, the defiance. Mad Max refusing to fucking kneel.

“Answer,” she demands, her knuckles whitening on the arms of her chair.

I grin slowly, all teeth. Still don’t say a word. The rain has started its steady hiss, coating me in a crimson sheen that runs down my arms, painting me in death’s colors.

The crowd roars. Some boo. Most scream approval. They don’t want remorse. They don’t want truth. They want blood.

“Silence!” Noura yells, her voice slicing through the noise, and the turmoil settles.

“As outlined in our laws, silence is guilt. Every violation proven, every crime confessed or unanswered, is answered here in the Pit.” Her eyes flicker with cruel satisfaction. “What is this now, your seventh time?”

“I think it is the eighth,” another member of the Nine supplies helpfully, his tone mocking. Laughter ripples across the dais.

And that mouth that once gasped my name curves into an evil little smirk.

“Right. Eight.” Noura tilts her head, savoring the words. “That means eight Walkers this time. One for every violation. One for every time you’ve been cast into this Pit. I have to say, Maximos… it’s quite impressive.”

“It’s the record, actually,” Commander Roe cuts in, his gravelly voice carrying easily over the crowd.

My chain of command. Another of the Nine.

I catch the twinkle in his eyes, and it isn’t disdain.

It’s pride. He knows I’ll fight my way out.

He knows the woman I killed two nights ago was fully turned, no matter how loud her family screamed otherwise.

Noura’s lips purse, her voice sliding back over the dais like a blade. “Record or not, justice doesn’t bend. Every crime must be answered. Every Decree enforced.”

I almost laugh. Justice. That’s what she calls it. This is nothing more than another dance in the dirt, and I welcome it. Eight Walkers. Ten. Twenty. They can gnash their teeth all they want—hell, they can tear into me if they get close enough—but they can’t fucking kill me.

After all, I’m the only Immune bastard on this island.

The Pit hums beneath my boots, vibrating with anticipation. Every pair of eyes is hungry for carnage, desperate for something to believe in. Let them have their spectacle. Let them watch. Let them cower. Let them cheer like the fucking animals they are.

They fear me. Hate me. Say I’m an abomination. The reincarnation of every evil that ever crawled out of the dark.

But I’m not their monster. I’m their motherfucking deity, and I decide their fate.

And for now, the fate of these inhuman fuckers is my wrath.

The red rain begins to fall in earnest, fat drops splattering against the stone, streaking down my arms, slicking the rocks beneath my boots in a bloody sheen. The air reeks of iron, of rust, of death.

On the dais, safely tucked under the tarp, Noura rises slowly to her feet, her red cloak still dry. She lifts one pale hand high into the air, her voice carrying across the Pit, sharp as a blade: “Let judgment be carried out.”

The crowd erupts.

The rusted gate rattles, groans, and then rises with the screech of metal. The Walkers thrash against it, shrieking as the gap widens, hunger driving them forward.

In one swift move, I unsheathe my sword, Whisper, and my cleaver from my back. Steel sings in the storm as I hunch into my stance, every muscle coiled tight, every nerve alight.

The roar of approval rolls over me, a tidal wave of bloodlust and madness.

I am going to win my freedom back.

I am going to slay all eight of them.

Let them fucking come.