This world had died a long time ago.
Not in fire. Not in war. Not in some great catastrophe that tore the sky open or shattered the earth beneath.
No. It died in silence. In rot. In the slow, creeping spread of something unseen, something in the air, the water, the breath of every living thing.
The sickness came without warning. One day, the cities were filled with life, with voices, with the hum of machines and the endless noise of civilization. The next, they were tombs. The streets became graveyards, the homes left open like abandoned shells, waiting for owners that would never return.
It wasn't just a virus. It was hunger given form. It took the bodies of the dead and twisted them, made them move long after they should have rotted away. It made them hunt. Some were slow, shuffling things that dragged themselves through the streets, empty-eyed and thoughtless. Others were fast, running on limbs that should have been too broken to hold them. Some were worse—things that learned, that remembered, that whispered in voices that belonged to the past.
And now, the world was theirs.
The living? They were nothing but a dying spark in the dark.
A handful remained. Stragglers. Wanderers. Ghosts in their own right. Some still searched for meaning, for hope. Some still believed there was a way out. But they were wrong. The world had already decided their fate. It was only a matter of time.
High above the ruins, above the empty roads and the skeletons of fallen cities, a man hovered in the air. He did not belong here. He did not belong anywhere.
He calls himself 'The Traveler'. He watched the world below with the same quiet curiosity he always did, hands in the pockets of his long coat, his gaze sweeping over the wreckage of what had once been civilization. He had seen this before. A thousand times. In thousand different ways.
Some worlds burned in war. Some crumbled under the weight of their own greed. Some were devoured by gods, swallowed by the very things they worshiped.
This one? This one had simply… faded.
His eyes drifted downward, toward the long stretch of broken highway beneath him. Wrecked cars sat abandoned, rusting in the dim light, their windows shattered, their doors left open as if their owners had fled mid-scream. The road was cracked, littered with debris, with bodies that had long since dried up, their bones stripped clean by time and things far worse.
But something moved.
Far in the distance, along the highway, six figures emerged from the ruins.
They were alive.
For now.
They walked in silence, stepping over the wreckage, their weapons gripped tight in hands that had known nothing but struggle for years.
There were six of them.
A leader, hardened by loss. A doctor, clinging to hope. A hunter, his rifle slung over his back, eyes always scanning the distance. Two brothers once, now just survivors. And a woman who had once been a mechanic, now carrying more knives than tools.
They were not warriors. Not anymore. They were remnants. The last scraps of a world that had already moved on.
They had a mission.
Days ago, a message had come through the static, breaking the long silence that had settled over the world.
"To anyone still alive… If you can hear this… This is Site-09. We hold the last hope of humanity. The cure exists. It is here. Secure it. You are the last hope."
A lie. It had to be.
But what choice did they have?
If there was even the smallest chance, even the smallest spark of salvation, they had to take it.
So they walked. Toward the ruins. Toward the city that would decide their fate.
The traveler watched them go, his expression unreadable.
He had seen many stories play out. Some ended in light. Most ended in darkness.
Would this one be any different?
Probably not.
But still… he watched.
Captain Elisa, dr. Lina, marry the mechanic, (evelyn the hacker, zoe the painter. Brothers). Marcus the hunter.
The sun was sinking.
Leader Elisa adjusted the strap on her rifle and surveyed the ruins ahead. The Veil was close now—a dead zone of thick fog that stretched for miles, swallowing whole city blocks in its suffocating embrace. They would have to pass through it if they wanted to reach Site-09. There was no other way.
"We need to find a safe place to rest," she said, her voice steady, but her eyes scanning every shadow. "The sooner, the better."
Her words hung in the air, carried by the wind that howled through the skeletal remains of the city. The street around them was a graveyard of overturned cars and collapsed buildings, their crumbling facades covered in vines, blood, and the remnants of a world long gone.
Dr. Lena Castellanos pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders. "We shouldn't be out here when night falls."
"No shit," Marcus muttered, shaking the broken radio in his hands. He had been trying to get a signal ever since they left the last safe house. So far, nothing but static.
Marry, the mechanic, adjusted the wrench on her belt. "There's a library a few blocks from here. If it's still standing, we might be able to use it for shelter."
"A library?" Evelyn, the hacker, raised an eyebrow. "Because books will keep the dead out?"
Marry shot her a look. "Because it's got thick walls, dumbass."
Elisa nodded. "Then that's where we go."
They moved fast.
The Veil loomed ahead, a wall of ghostly mist creeping between the buildings, swallowing up the city inch by inch. The deeper they went, the worse the air became—thick with the scent of decay, of damp rot and something metallic, something wrong.
Then came the sounds.
A distant shuffle. A whisper of movement. A breath that wasn't theirs.
Zoe clutched his knife tighter. He had never been a fighter, but in this world, no one had a choice.
Then the first figure appeared in the mist.
It moved differently from the others. Its head twitched in unnatural jerks, its fingers twitching as if straining against invisible strings.
Then another.
And another.
They weren't moving mindlessly. They were waiting.
"Something's not right," Evelyn whispered.
The first one lunged.
Elisa was fast—her rifle cracked, sending a bullet through its skull before it reached them. But the others didn't react like they should have. They didn't rush forward in blind hunger. Instead, they shifted, circling, waiting for an opening.
"Since when do they hesitate?" Marry muttered, tightening her grip on her crowbar.
Then one of the undead lunged at Lena.
It had her.
For a split second, its rotting hands grasped the sleeve of her coat. Its mouth gaped open, blackened teeth inches from her throat.
Then… it stopped.
It didn't bite. It didn't claw.
It just kept her pinned.
Instead of finishing her, it spun toward Marcus—lunging at him instead.
Marcus barely had time to react, bringing his pistol up and firing two rounds into its skull. The body collapsed, unmoving.
Silence.
Lena's breath came fast. "It… it didn't attack me."
"Maybe it didn't see you," Zoe suggested.
"No." Lena shook her head. "It did. It grabbed me. Then let go."
Elisa looked at the remaining undead. They still weren't rushing forward. They were watching. Waiting.
Then, as if answering some unheard command, they attacked all at once.
Gunfire erupted. Marry swung her crowbar, caving in a skull. Evelyn stabbed one through the eye with a screwdriver. Marcus fired round after round, muttering curses under his breath.
Zoe moved faster than he ever had before, slashing with his knife, dodging, ducking—until the last body fell.
The street went silent again.
"We need to go," Elisa said, shaking the unease from her voice. "Now."
No one argued.
The library was still standing.
The grand entrance was cracked, its once-beautiful pillars now crumbling. Inside, dust covered everything—tables, bookshelves, the rows upon rows of forgotten knowledge.
They barricaded the doors.
Lena sat at an old desk, unfolding a tattered map, tracing their path with her finger. Marcus knelt nearby, his tools spread out as he worked on the radio. Evelyn cracked his knuckles and tapped away at a library computer, trying to access anything useful.
Zoe, quiet as always, found a spot near a window, wiping the dust away before pulling out a tiny paintbrush and tracing the outline of a tree.
For a moment, it was almost peaceful.
But outside, the Veil thickened.
Night came, swallowing the ruins whole. The fog pressed against the windows like searching fingers.
And in the darkness, he watched.
They weren't alone. The Traveler watched the whole scene unfold.