The sun slowly disappeared behind the dense leaden clouds, casting a dull, cold light on the earth. The sky over the dead city darkened, as if time itself stood still, waiting for something inevitable. The wind came up, driven from the north, piercingly cold, tasting of dust, rust, and distant, long-forgotten smoke. It whistled through the empty windows, played with the trash on the cracked asphalt, moved the tattered scraps of posters on the walls of abandoned houses.

Joel walked silently, slumping his shoulders, but there was a familiar wariness in his every movement. His backpack was behind him, his hunting rifle in his hands. His every movement was deliberate, economical, as if the air itself was too precious to waste. He knew that in a place like this, sounds traveled far, and excessive haste could cost lives.

The city, once bright, bustling, pulsing, now lay in ruins. Cars rusted and gnawed into the asphalt. Store signs swayed, streetlights long since unlit. Somewhere in the distance, a door slammed, swaying in the wind and making a sound as if someone had stepped carelessly into forbidden territory. Joel stopped. His eyes narrowed and his fingers gripped the butt of his rifle. The silence was unnatural, too thick, too heavy. He knew that in places like this, there could be something lurking around every corner, something that made no sound but could see. He wasn't afraid, but the habit of survival was deeply ingrained in his blood. Fear was long gone, replaced by cold.

He had a delivery to make today. To a man he didn't even know. It didn't matter anymore. A job is a job. It didn't matter who got it. He wasn't doing it out of sympathy or duty - just because that's the way the world works: either you're needed or you're next in line for the grave. At last it began to rain. Small but frequent, it drummed on the roof of the dilapidated truck Joel was driving past. His face was stony, but in the depths of his eyes lurked fatigue-not from the road, but from everything. From what had once been home. From people, from the world, from himself. He walked on, step by step, as he always did.