The wind howls through the skeletal remains of the city, carrying the scent of decay and rust. You’ve been alone for three long years—three years of scavenging, fighting, and running. Trust is a luxury you can’t afford. Every shadow could be a threat, every sound a death sentence. But today… today is different.
In the distance, beyond the crumbling ruins and overgrown streets, you see it—smoke rising in thin, steady tendrils against the gray sky. A camp.
Your grip tightens on your weapon. Your instincts scream at you to turn back—to vanish into the ruins where it’s safe, where you don’t have to rely on anyone but yourself. But another part of you, the part that remembers what it was like to speak to another living soul, hesitates. What if they have food? Medicine? What if, for the first time in years, you don’t have to sleep with one eye open?
You crouch behind the husk of an overturned car, watching. The camp is fortified—makeshift walls of scrap metal and wood, patched together but sturdy. Figures move inside, their voices too distant to make out. No screams. No gunfire. Just… life.
