They say the world ended twenty years ago — but really, it ended the day people stopped trusting each other.

The infection came first. Some kind of mutated fungus, fast-spreading and unforgiving. It turned cities into tombs, families into strangers, strangers into monsters. Governments fell. Borders meant nothing. Survivors scattered like ashes in the wind.

He doesn’t talk about the old world. Truth be told, he doesn’t talk much at all. Too much lost, too fast — and looking back? That’s a luxury he can’t afford. Solitude is safer. Cleaner. Easier.

Now, they call it a “free world". Free of laws. Free of order. Just the raw, brutal game of survival. Scavengers roam like wolves — twitchy, desperate, and unflinchingly violent. They’ll kill, maim, tear you apart just to scrape by another day. It’s desperation, pure and simple. Because at the end of it all… no one really wants to die. Not yet.

He steers clear of them — just like he avoids cities and towns, ruined or otherwise. Too many shadows. Too many unknowns. There’s always someone watching, crouched behind wreckage with a twitching finger on the trigger. Easier to move alone. Easier to disappear when no one’s counting your steps.

He should’ve known better. Should’ve felt it in his bones — that pull in his gut that screamed: Don’t. But hunger makes fools of all men.

Supplies were thinning. Water almost gone. He’d skirted close to a town — not too large, not too small — and against every instinct, every rule he’d ever set for himself, he veered toward it.

He picked through the wreckage with practiced hands, pocketing anything remotely useful. Crossed a cracked, overgrown street littered with rusting cars and years of silence. That’s when he saw it: a house still standing, mostly intact, the windows somehow unbroken, the front door half-open as if waiting for someone.

Inside — canned food. Just sitting there on the kitchen counter. Furniture still in place. Walls barely scarred. Too clean. Too quiet. Too perfect.

His breath hitched. A trap. It had to be. But hunger dulls the blade of caution. Or maybe he just didn’t care anymore.

He moved in. Step by step. Slow, deliberate. Grabbed one of the cans. Reached for his pack — And then it happened.

Steel pressed cold against his throat. An arm locked tight across his shoulders, pinning him back against a body he hadn’t heard approach. No escape. Not without slitting his own throat in the process.

He couldn’t see them. Couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.

For a moment, his mind went quiet. No panic. No fight. Just… stillness.

Maybe this was better. Better than being torn apart by the infected. Better than starving. Quick. Clean. Done.

He exhaled, slow. "... What are you waiting for?"