The air was thick with smoke from the burning remains of old factories and shattered homes. People walked the streets, heads down, eyes glazed over, no longer looking at the world around them, just shuffling through it as if they knew nothing would ever get better. The new generation had been cast aside, blamed for everything that went wrong. The Boomers held the world in their hands, their wealth, their power, their greed. They had built an empire and watched it rot, blaming others as it collapsed.
They were easy targets for The Z Gunner.
No one really knew what it was, only that it appeared when the greedy Boomer's complaints reached a crescendo. It was an entity born from resentment, from the shifting tides of power that would never stop being hungry. It was said that the Z Gunner did not discriminate between old or young, only who held the greed and the blame. And if that person blamed the youth for everything that had gone wrong, the Z Gunner would show up, swiftly and decisively.
And it never left a survivor.
Joe Anderson had heard the rumors. He'd heard the stories. The Z Gunner was a name whispered behind closed doors, in dark corners of old bars and rundown motels. The ones who still lived in the past. The ones who claimed the younger generation had taken everything from them, their jobs, their homes, their prosperity. They never saw their own mistakes, only the mistakes of others. They never saw their own death coming.
Joe had never been one to believe in stories. He was a skeptic. Practical, grounded. He kept his eyes on the world around him, hands firmly on the wheel of his life. The news told him about the old ones disappearing, one by one, never found, and there were always whispers about The Z Gunner. Joe didn't know what to believe, but he didn't care either. He lived in his own bubble. Until he didn't.
He was standing in line at the market, pushing his cart of cheap essentials, his mind on the next paycheck, on the bills that stacked up faster than he could pay them. He was staring at a shelf of stale cereal boxes when he heard the voice. It wasn't loud. It wasn't demanding. It didn't need to be.
"Young people ruined this country," the voice said, low and filled with the bitterness of years.
Joe's fingers clenched around the cart's handle. He turned slowly, his eyes landing on the man who had spoken. The man had graying hair, his face lined with years of anger. He wore a worn-out jacket that had seen better days, the fabric threadbare, patches of fading color at the elbows. He was holding a jar of pickles, staring at it as if it held all the answers.
"Excuse me?" Joe asked, his voice tight.
The man didn't look up at him. His words spilled out like they'd been rehearsed.
"The damn kids," he spat, "they don't work, they just take, and then they complain. It's their fault this country's gone to hell. I remember when things meant something, when you worked for what you had. But now? Now it's all about 'entitlement' and 'rights'—a bunch of nonsense."
Joe's heart skipped a beat. His stomach twisted. He had heard it all before.
"Sure," Joe said, trying to keep his cool. "But you don't think maybe—"
But the man's voice cut him off, louder now, a growl in his throat.
"You wouldn't understand," the man said, his face twisting with the bitterness that had built up for decades. "You all just take and take, and you never give anything back. That's what's wrong. The youth destroyed this country. And now it's too late. There's nothing left."
Joe felt his breath catch in his chest, a wave of something heavy crashing down on him. He stepped away from the man, his fingers still gripping the cart. The weight of the words pressed against him like a vise. He turned back, trying to ignore it. Trying to ignore the rage that started to bubble up in his gut. He wasn't the cause. He wasn't.
And then the lights in the market flickered. For a moment, everything felt wrong. The hum of the refrigerators, the chatter of the customers, the shuffle of shoes against the floor—it all stopped. Everything froze.
Joe didn't understand what was happening. He could feel his heart pounding, like the drumbeat of something terrible coming closer.
And then there was a click.
A loud, sharp sound that seemed to reverberate through the very core of the building. Something massive had arrived, something unnatural.
The man—the one who had been talking—was frozen, his hand still gripping the jar of pickles, his eyes wide. His face was pale, and then it started to twitch. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
The temperature in the room dropped. A cold, unnatural cold that made the hairs on Joe's neck stand up. Something was coming.
Suddenly, the man's face twisted. His body jerked violently. Joe watched, wide-eyed, as the man's mouth opened, but no scream came. He stumbled forward, jerking with unnatural force, as if something was pulling him, dragging him against his will.
Joe's body froze as he realized—the old man wasn't being attacked by something visible. It was as if the man was fighting something he couldn't see, something invisible, a force that was tearing him apart.
There was a low rumbling sound, like an engine revving up in the distance, but growing louder.
The man's skin started to crack. Slowly, like brittle paper, his flesh split at the seams. He shrieked, but no one heard it. His bones snapped as if a hand from the void itself was twisting his body. He was being pulled apart, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but the hollow, ragged remains of a human being.
Joe couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. His feet felt frozen to the ground.
And then it appeared.
The Z Gunner.
It wasn't anything like he'd imagined. It wasn't some tall, armored figure, or some grotesque monster with fangs and claws. No. It was a presence, a shift in the air, a distortion of reality itself. It wasn't physical, but it was tangible. A distortion in the space around it, like a ripple on the surface of water, but colder, sharper.
It was there, and it wasn't.
It was a thought, a feeling, a presence that pressed into Joe's chest, suffocating him. And it was glaring at him with eyes that were not eyes at all, but the absence of them. It was hunger, pure and undeniable.
And then, Joe knew. He understood.
It had found him.
The cold sank deeper into his bones. His throat went dry, and his chest tightened. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run. But his legs wouldn't move. His body refused to obey. The Z Gunner wasn't physical, but it was stronger than any force Joe had ever known.
It reached out, and with that reach, the air around him crackled. He felt his own skin tear, just like the old man's. He felt his bones snap, his insides ripped apart by invisible claws. There was no pain at first, just the horror of knowing it was happening. Then, the pain came, and it was unbearable.
The Z Gunner didn't want him alive. It didn't want to end his life quickly. No. It wanted him to feel every second of it. To know the weight of every breath he had ever taken, and to know that none of it mattered anymore.
Joe's vision started to blur. The store around him—the shelves, the people—began to twist and distort. It was like the world itself was cracking open. His body felt hollow, an empty shell, his mind a distant observer. He wanted to scream, but his throat was closed.
And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the world went still. The Z Gunner had taken everything from him.
Except for one thing.
Joe's last thought wasn't of the pain. It wasn't of the Z Gunner or the twisted remains of the man who had spoken. It was the knowledge that he had blamed them—the younger generation. He had blamed them for everything.
And now, there was no one left to blame.