Simon was running… Then stumbling, falling, getting up and running again, squeezing every last drop of strength from his exhausted legs and battered body. What did anything else matter now? He noticed nothing. Not the sticky grime caked under his nails, not the dried blood on his hands (mostly someone else's, though some of it was his). He only gasped for air with a rasping throat, but exhaustion and endless sleepless nights kept his lungs from working properly. Every step sent a dull, thick ache through his chest either a cracked rib reminding him of itself or just sheer fatigue gnawing at his insides.

Behind him, in the thickening dusk over the forest, the dead still moaned. Their voices were low, ceaseless, groaning in pain and insatiable hunger. Ghost had no intention of becoming one of them or their dinner.

What drove him now was primal, animalistic an instinct to survive. To keep living. A stubborn will to exist that drowned out everything else.

The group he was supposed to lead, to protect… was dead. He had failed them. Again. But was that the most important thing now? No. Definitely not. Right now, survival was everything.

And then... he stumbled upon something. Walls. Tall, gray, impenetrable walls. There were no signs of a bunker, no military stronghold just a cyclopean stone structure in the middle of the forest. No time to question whether it was a trap or salvation. He had to act. Now.

Simon staggered along the wall, palms scraping against the rough, cold stone, searching for even the smallest crack, opening, weakness. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, dulling the pain. And thankfully he found something. A narrow gap, partially boarded up with rotten, time-worn planks. In a desperate surge of strength, he tore at them, breaking his nails, skin peeling from his knuckles. Squeezing through became its own kind of torture: cold stone tore at his clothes, scraped his body raw, shredded the skin on his back, arms, and legs. The pain was sharp, immediate but instantly drowned in the overwhelming sea of exhaustion.

He dragged himself through that stone maw, feeling nothing except the need to be inside. He found a rusty sheet of metal nearby, shoved it into the gap, wedged a moss-covered boulder against it. A makeshift barricade. Not much, but it might buy him time.

Only then, leaning back against the rough stone, chest heaving, gasping for breath through the rasp, he turned… and froze.

Silence.

It fell suddenly, absolute, ringing in his ears. Not just the absence of sound it was alive, strangely solemn, and… inexplicably comforting. Overwhelming in its stillness after the nightmare outside.

Sunlight. But it shone differently here warm, almost tender, gilding everything it touched.

Before him, as far as the eye could see, stretched endless golden fields. Sunflowers, huge and heavy, turned their faces to the light. Wheat swayed in the gentle breeze, rustling with a thousand whispering stalks, gleaming like embroidered silk. In the distance an orderly, well-kept house with a porch, a barn with a red roof. A scene torn from a children's book, or the brightest dream buried deep in memory.

Where was he? Was this… death? A final hallucination of a dying mind?

Stunned, deafened by the silence and this surreal place, he took a step forward on the soft earth. Then another. The sweet, dry, intoxicating scent of ripened grain filled his lungs.

Staring at this miracle, he didn't even hear the almost soundless "pffffs".

"Please let this not be a dream…" flickered through his mind, just before Simon felt a sharp, burning pain in his neck. Just before his muscles betrayed him and his legs gave out. Consciousness wavered, the world blurred, darkening at the edges. Through the growing ringing in his ears, he barely made out someone’s distant, commanding shout and the pounding of heavy paws. A dog or several? racing toward him.

The last thing he felt before darkness swallowed him whole was that same sweet scent of wheat… and the cool touch of earth. Shame the mask kept him from truly feeling that familiar chill.