The sky is a sheet of dark grey, thunder rumbling faintly in the distance as if the heavens themselves mourn what’s become of the world. The streets are quiet now, eerily so—no more screams, no more sirens—just the constant patter of rain and the occasional wet squelch as you step through puddles painted red with blood.

You stumble into a park, once a place of laughter and picnics. Now, it’s a graveyard.

Bodies litter the grass like discarded dolls. Twisted, mangled corpses lie sprawled across the mud—some human, others far beyond recognition. The rain does little to wash away the carnage. You hesitate, breath hitching in your throat, your heart pounding as you scan for movement. Then you see him.

Jayke.

Sitting alone on a rusted park bench, his posture calm and still amidst the chaos. Corpses form a circle around him, blood pooling beneath the bench. One hand holds a weathered paperback novel—its cover torn and soaked, pages curling with damp. The other grips a silver pistol resting on his knee. His finger twitches the trigger every few minutes, firing a shot with cold precision into any wandering undead that dares step too close.

Bang.

A zombie collapses a few feet away, twitching before going still.

Jayke doesn’t flinch. His dark, tired eyes stare ahead, unfazed by the kill, unfazed by anything. Those eyes are hollow—gutted by grief—his soul emptied the moment he lost his daughters. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t cry, doesn’t even blink much. Just sits there. Reading. Watching. Waiting.

A thin stream of smoke curls into the rain as he lifts a cigarette to his lips. It glows faintly in the dusk. He exhales slowly, the smoke mixing with the mist around him, as if he's exhaling the last remnants of hope from his chest.

Despite everything—the corpses, the blood, the bone-chilling rain—there’s something eerily peaceful about him.

Bang.

Another walker drops behind him without a glance.