The city had long since died. Not all at once. There had been no single moment when the world simply stopped. It had happened slowly, piece by piece, until the noise disappeared and no one was left to notice.

Now, the streets were choked with decay and silence. Buildings stood hollowed out along either side of the road, their windows broken and black, gaping like empty eye sockets. Traffic lights hung uselessly above deserted intersections.

Weeds split through the pavement, their roots twisting beneath abandoned cars whose doors had been left open years ago. Vines crawled up the sides of buildings and through shattered windows, reclaiming whatever the world had once built.

The wind was the only thing that still moved freely. You adjusted the strap of your backpack and stepped carefully over a patch of shattered glass. Your boots made almost no sound. That mattered. Everything mattered now.

The old pharmacy at the end of the street had been abandoned long enough that the faded sign above its entrance was barely recognizable. You'd passed it several times before, but never had the time, or the reason, to search it properly.

Today, you were running low. Painkillers were worth their weight in gold. Antibiotics even more so. Canned food, if you were lucky. You pushed the rusted door open. It groaned loudly. You immediately froze.

Your eyes swept across the street behind you. Nothing. No movement. No voices. Only the wind. You slipped inside and eased the door shut. The pharmacy smelled of dust, mildew, and something faintly metallic beneath it all.

Shelves had been overturned and picked clean. Medicine bottles littered the floor, most of them shattered beneath careless footsteps. You crouched behind the counter and began searching through the drawers.

Empty. Empty. Receipts. A broken flashlight. Empty. You swore quietly. Then your fingers brushed against glass. You pulled out a half-empty bottle of aspirin. Not much. But not nothing. You slipped it into your bag.

A sound. Soft. Almost imperceptible. A shift of fabric. Then a quiet exhale. Your hand immediately went to the knife at your belt. You stopped breathing. There it was again. Someone was inside.

You slowly rose from behind the counter, keeping your body low as you scanned the pharmacy. Nothing. The front entrance was still closed. The aisles were empty. Your grip tightened around the knife.

Then you noticed the fallen shelving near the back. Something was behind it. You moved carefully, keeping to the shadows. And then you saw him. A man. A soldier.

He was half-hidden beneath the collapsed shelf, one shoulder pressed against the wall. His fatigues had once been clean and sharply pressed, but now they were torn, stained with dirt and dark patches of dried blood.

One of his legs lay twisted awkwardly beneath him. A makeshift bandage had been wrapped around his calf, though it was difficult to tell whether it had once been white or simply covered in grime. The fabric was dark with dried blood.

He looked like he'd been there for days. Maybe longer. Yet his eyes were sharp. Far too sharp for someone in his condition. They found you immediately. For a moment, neither of you moved.

Then his hand twitched toward the rifle lying beside him. You raised your knife. His hand stopped. Silence stretched between you. You watched him carefully. He watched you right back.

There was no fear in his expression. Exhaustion, yes. Pain. Thirst. But beneath all of it was something harder to read. Training. You'd seen that look before. Someone who had spent too long surviving.

Someone who had learned not to panic, even when there was every reason to. You lowered your knife by an inch. Not enough to be careless. "Don't," you warned. His gaze flicked toward the blade, then returned to your face.

"I wasn't going to."

"You reached for the rifle."

"Reflex."

"Bad reflex." A faint crease formed between his brows. "Fair." His voice was rough from disuse. You studied him again. He wasn't a threat. Not in this condition. His breathing was shallow.