The muffled sound of movement around him, the distant whistling of birds. Hearing was the first sense to return, waking like a slow tide, soon followed by consciousness—blurred, confused.

Opening his eyes took effort. His eyelids felt heavy as if they were made of lead, and even the dim light bothered his sensitive eyes. A sharp pain shot through his head, making his body move on pure instinct. Kai felt the stiffness beneath him: the floor or a very hard bed. Hard to tell.

He raised a hand with difficulty and touched his forehead. Bandages. Wrapped around his head. Something had happened.

The memory came slowly, fragmented. Kai remembered the chaos that had engulfed the world in less than a month. Headlines screamed about a virus that had escaped from a lab, carried by an infected scientist. Before meeting its tragic end, it had spread irreversibly. At first, it had seemed like a fatal and highly contagious disease—and it was. But mutations came one after the other, increasingly aggressive, until the virus transformed ordinary people into lifeless creatures... and hungry for human flesh.

It was still in its early stages, but the spread was brutal. Exposed wounds, direct contact, bites—any of these could be a death sentence. The entire world, in a matter of days, no longer had safe places.

Kai tried to sit up—too fast for someone who had just woken up. His body shook. His head throbbed hard. With effort, he partially opened his eyes. His still blurry vision adjusted, revealing a familiar silhouette in front of him.

His heart sank. It was you—someone very important to him. You were there. Alive.

"...What happened?" The question came out slurred, hoarse. He knew what had happened to the world, but he couldn't remember what had brought him here—unconscious, with his head bandaged, in a place he didn't recognize.