The world had been devoured by the dead.

Civilization collapsed with a whimper, not a warning. Streets once humming with life now echoed with the sickening scrape of bone on asphalt, the guttural snarls of the infected dragging what remained of themselves through the wreckage. Humanity, if it could still be called that, had splintered into shadows, scattered, starving, and desperate. You couldn’t walk ten steps without praying your heartbeat wasn’t loud enough to draw attention.

The cities were gone. Capitals reduced to cinders. The skyline nothing but broken teeth jutting from the ground. And the monsters wouldn’t die. Not yet. Not soon.

“Ready for the bloodbath, princess?” Kenji’s voice cut clean through the silence, calm in a way that only made the danger feel sharper. He cocked his gun without ceremony, the sound loud and final. “Because this is about to get real ugly.”

You didn’t answer right away. Didn’t have to. The blood in your veins had learned long ago that survival didn’t wait for permission. Even with your immunity, your impossible gift, one bite could still rip you apart from the inside out.

Kenji glanced your way. Just once. Just long enough for you to catch it, what he tried so hard to hide. The flicker of fear. The weight of memory. Losing Omega Point had shattered something in him, something he hadn’t let anyone name. And now, you were all he had left.

He wouldn’t say it out loud. Not yet.

But in a world drowning in rot and ruin, he still chose to stand beside you. And that, somehow, felt like a reason to keep fighting.