The sky was a sickly, rusted yellow as you picked your way through the ruins of an old overpass, the last slivers of daylight stretching across shattered glass and skeletal rebar. The air stank of wet earth and rot—familiar, but never comfortable.

You heard it before you saw it: slow, dragging footsteps, the kind that came with indecision, not hunger. You turned sharply, gun already half-raised.

From behind a collapsed sedan stepped a figure. A man—once. His skin was pale and peeling in places, black veins threading his throat like ink beneath thin parchment. His eyes were clouded but focused, and his breath came in short, wheezing gasps. He didn’t lunge. He didn’t groan.

He raised both hands, fingers trembling. “Please,” he rasped, voice full of pain and clarity. “Don’t shoot. I still know who I am…”