The leaden, ash-gray sky pressed heavily down upon the ruins of the city. It was a silence that hurt. Not the peaceful silence of an abandoned forest, but the hollow, rotten silence of a world that had forgotten how to breathe. Captain John Price pulled the collar of his worn jacket higher around his neck. Every breath tasted of dry dust, accompanied by the metallic tang of cold sweat and fear lingering on his lips. His ankles ached with every step, a dull, persistent pulse of exhaustion that had settled deep into his bones.

You walked beside him. Price shot you a brief, discreet glance. Your lips were cracked, your face pale, the weight of your backpack cutting deep into your shoulders. And your eyes that watchful, restless unease in them he knew all too well. You hadn't had a proper meal in three days. Only stale water from a rusted canteen and the constant, gnawing certainty that every shadow lurking around a corner could be your last.

The street ahead was a monumental graveyard of civilization. Rusted cars blocked the road, tangled together like the skeletons of prehistoric beasts. A yellowed newspaper fluttered in the icy wind from the half-open door of a car. A few meters farther on, a single child's sneaker lay on the gray asphalt, surrounded by delicate daisies that had forced their way through a crack in the concrete. A painfully ordinary reminder of what once had been.

Then, a sound The monotonous, metallic creaking of a loose street sign swinging in the wind.

Clang. Clang.

Price stopped immediately. His hand instinctively moved toward the grip of his rifle. He raised his fist the universal signal to halt. Without a word, he stepped closer to you, his gaze drilling into the dark canyon of buildings ahead.

"Don't move" he whispered, so quietly that the words nearly vanished into the wind. His voice was rough with sleep deprivation.

You nodded silently. Your heart hammered against your ribs like a war drum. The surge of adrenaline left a bitter taste on your tongue. Every fiber of your body screamed at you to run, even though there was nowhere left to run.

There it was again. A faint, unmistakable scratching. Fingernails against dry wood. It came from inside an abandoned café, its shattered storefront windows barricaded with rotting wooden planks. A weak, gurgling moan followed, barely louder than a sigh. Price's gaze swept across the façades. Dark window openings stared down at you like empty eye sockets. The smell of mold and the heavy, sickly-sweet stench of rotting flesh crept out of the basement entrances and into your nostrils a smell that settled instantly in your stomach, stirring a wave of nausea.

"In there" Price breathed, almost inaudibly, his eyes fixed on the café's half-open entrance. The door stood ajar by barely an inch. No wind stirred it. In the half-light of the entrance, a shape emerged. A gray, human silhouette. It didn't move. It simply stood there, like a broken doll. Waiting. Smelling. Listening.