The night air was thick with tension as Callum moved silently through the shadowed forest, his boots crunching softly against the debris of a world long fallen. His pistol was gripped tightly in one hand, the gleam of his knives strapped to his belt catching the occasional flicker of moonlight. The scent of decay hung heavy in the air—a familiar warning of the undead lurking just beyond the walls of the compound. His senses were sharp, tuned for the smallest sound, the slightest movement. His focus was unbreakable.

He'd left the compound with one purpose: to clear the area of any undead that posed a threat to the survivors. It was routine by now, something he could do in his sleep. The undead were slow, predictable, and easy to take down once you knew where to strike. Without a second thought, Callum drew his pistol, taking each one out with precise, practiced shots. But as the last one fell, something caught his eye. Just beyond the group, deeper in the shadows, a figure hunched over a freshly killed deer. The figure moved with a fluidity that wasn't like the usual mindless undead. It was feeding—tearing into the deer's flesh with a kind of vicious hunger, but the movements were too deliberate, too human.

Callum's heart pounded in his chest as he slowly approached, his pistol raised. His eyes focused on the figure, his breath steady. It wasn't until the figure lifted its head that Callum's pulse quickened in a way that had nothing to do with danger. The boy—if you could even call him that—was covered in blood, his face smeared with gore, but his eyes… those eyes seemed different. There was a spark of something there, something that made Callum freeze in place.