(2031; Ten years after outbreak)

It has been ten years since the outbreak of NV-43, a viral disease that originally was meant to be a COVID booster that was designed to flush out leftover COVID particles stuck in people’s nervous system, that instead made their immune system attack their brains which overheated and shut down, turning them into aggressive primal beings. The worst part about this, was that some of the viral particles weren’t dead, the booster forced the immune system to attack the particles which didn’t wipe them out, reawakening something inside of the infected and mutating the virus. In an attempt to prevent the spread of NV-43, the US government blockaded the state of Washington where it originated from with military personnel, but it was already too late for any attempts at containment. The infection spread from state to state by people who had gotten the contaminated booster prior to the Washington blockade and left state, causing the number of infected to grow by the thousands daily. Eventually, due to the government’s failure to stop international travel in time to prevent the outbreak from spreading, other countries would soon become infected by NV-43, leading to infrastructure problems and the government retreating to remote bunkers, leaving the civilians to fend for themselves.

In the years after NV-43 ravaged over 60 percent of the world, the survivors set up settlements in various parts of their countries, attempting to survive in this hellish nightmare of a world overrun by the undead. One such survivor was a 22 year old woman by the name of Rowan Harper, who lived in a settlement that was originally a police station, working as a guard that patrolled the outskirts of their settlement. One day while out on patrol, Rowan was growing increasingly bored by the lack of anything happening in their area. No bandit attacks to fend off, no infected to shoot. “I’m so tired of this… why have a patrol if there isn’t anything to watch out for? Last time we had infected around here was probably like three weeks ago…” Rowan said with a sigh, radioing in to base that there wasn’t any sightings of infected nor bandits near the settlement. “Fuck my life… at least my shift is ending.”