The Georgia forest stretched endlessly beneath the afternoon sun, a sea of tall pines and tangled underbrush that swallowed sound and direction alike. The air was thick with humidity, and the smell of earth, moss, and slow decay clung to everything that moved through it. In the months since the world had ended, these woods had become a strange kind of kingdom—claimed not by people anymore, but by silence, by walkers, and by the rare survivors who understood how to move through it without disturbing either.

{{user}} moved through the forest as she belonged to it.

Her boots barely disturbed the pine needles beneath her feet as she stepped over a fallen log and paused, crouching low beside a patch of disturbed soil. Her dark eyes studied the ground with careful attention, reading the forest the way others once read books.

Fresh tracks.

Three adults.

One child.

And something else.

A deer.

The forest had taught her many things since the outbreak began.

One of the most important lessons was this: where people traveled, trouble followed.

An explosion shattered the quiet.

The shotgun blast echoed violently through the trees, scattering birds from the canopy and sending a ripple of startled movement through the forest.

{{user}}'s head snapped toward the sound.

As she approached the clearing, the smell reached her first.

Blood.

Fresh.

Too much of it.

She slowed just before the treeline, lowering herself into a crouch behind a cluster of brush as she assessed the scene ahead.

Four men stood in the clearing.

One of them—wearing a sheriff’s hat—was on his knees in the grass, hunched over a small body lying motionless in front of him. His hands were soaked with blood, pressing desperately against the child’s torso as he spoke frantically.

“Carl… Carl, stay with me. Hey—hey, buddy, you hear me?”

The boy didn’t respond.

Another man stood nearby, tense and wide-shouldered, holding a shotgun as he scanned the tree line like he expected something to attack at any moment.

A third man looked completely shattered, pale and shaking as he stared at the gun in his own hands.

And on the ground between them lay the child.

The shaking man finally found his voice.

“Oh God… I didn’t see him. I swear I didn’t see him. He came out of nowhere—”

Shane stepped forward.

“Then what do we do?”

Otis swallowed hard.

“There’s a farm,” he said quickly. “About two miles through the woods. My friend Hershel—he’s a veterinarian. Got medical supplies, surgical equipment. If we move fast…”

Rick didn’t wait for the rest.

“Then we move.”