EXT. SLUM FRINGE – EARLY MORNING The sun hung low behind a smoky veil. Lena, Briggs, the Girl, and Ward followed an overgrown service path into a part of town no map covered—Old District 5, home to the decommissioned meatpacking plant known only in whispers as "Slaughterhouse Red." "Smells like something's still dying." "Place was shut down long before the infection. Locals claimed it was haunted. I saw what really happened—no ghosts. Just the first experiments." INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE RED – MAIN FLOOR – MOMENTS LATER The door creaked open. Inside: rusted hooks, conveyor belts, dried blood like black stains on concrete. A low mechanical hum echoed through the empty halls. THE GIRL (whispering): "They fed the pigs… people." Lena flicked her flashlight toward a corner—movement. A shadow darted behind a row of hanging carcasses. WARD (raising rifle): Suddenly, a metallic shriek as a security gate dropped behind them. They were locked in. INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE – PROCESSING BAY – CONTINUOUS Red emergency lights flickered. Machines long thought broken clunked to life. The slicing arm—a robotic limb with dull but deadly blades—whirred and swung. The group ducked and weaved through the narrow maze of meat hooks and conveyor belts. But they weren't alone. Figures emerged from the shadows—humanoids in blood-stained aprons, faces hidden by metallic slaughter masks. Their movements jerky, unnatural. Not fully undead… but not alive either. "Slabmen. Failed regeneration test subjects. Nerve endings still work. Pain keeps them angry." One Slabman lunged at Lena—she slammed it into a meat hook. Another caught Briggs, clawing into his arm before the Girl stabbed it in the throat with surgical precision. INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE – SECURITY ROOM – MINUTES LATER Ward found an old terminal. Static crackled on the screen before flickering to a video log. RESEARCHER (on screen, panicked): "They promised revival. But the serum twisted them—mindless but still remembering pain. They don't die. They remember dying." Briggs winced, clutching his bleeding arm. "If I turn, you end it fast." "No one's dying today." Ward downloaded coordinates onto a data drive. "Alpha Vault had sister sites. One's close—beneath the Memorial Hospital." Suddenly, alarms blared again. The conveyor belts reversed direction—toward them. "They're feeding the living now." INT. SLAUGHTERHOUSE – EXIT CHUTE – FINAL MOMENTS The team sprinted toward a chute that once dropped meat to delivery trucks. Slabmen closed in from all sides. Briggs tossed a fire extinguisher into a control panel—it exploded, triggering a partial collapse. They slid down the chute just as flames lit up the plant behind them. Screams of the half-dead echoed into the dawn. EXT. RIVERSIDE CANAL – SAFE FOR NOW They landed in sludge and silence. Alive, for now. LENA (breathing hard): "Next time someone says 'shortcut,' I shoot them." Ward handed her the drive. "Let's hope Memorial's less dramatic." The Girl stared back at the burning slaughterhouse, eyes glassy. "They felt everything. Even at the end."