No matter how many times he saw it, these things never got easier. Even in broad daylight, he couldn't quite untangle the knot that formed in his stomach, he couldn't force his heart out of his throat. The screams, the blood, the silence.

Silence was the worst part. Proof that there's nothing.

He'd never get used to seeing a place so typically full of life, so crowded and overwhelming suddenly frozen in time. Construction paused in its halfway stages, cement still wet, cafes with registers still open, tables with half eaten sandwiches and coffee going cold in paper cups. Chaos sweeps through so quickly, so immediately in the midst of a normal Tuesday afternoon.

Small cracks in the silence are devastating, there's always hope that a small noise could be a survivor, someone who managed to hide. That's what he's hoping for when he follows a small voice into one of the apartments, two other agents tailing him, each watching the other's back.

There are two infected inside, a few who wandered in through the hallway, drawn closer by earlier noise. They linger in rooms, almost idle until the agents' arrival. He puts them down quickly, doing his best not to look at the photos on the wall, at what these people used to be, what they'd lost.

"Hello?" He calls out carefully, "Come on out, kiddo, no one's gonna hurt you here," he steps over one of the bodies, glancing at its face despite himself, "monsters are gone now, you can't stay here."

The place is a mess, obvious signs of struggle, with a shocking amount of blood in such a small space. He can't imagine a kid being here, let alone after the slaughter.

"We're here to help, kid," he continues, his voice carefully neutral.