The world ended three weeks ago.

Not with a bang. Not with some dramatic last stand. Just fire, radiation, and the sound of every other “hero” choking on their own blood. Homelander. Maeve. Starlight. The whole circus. All of them gone. You’re looking at the last one left who can still walk under his own power. Soldier Boy.

He’s been sweeping the ruins of what used to be a city for days, looking for anything worth saving or anything worth killing. The sky’s the color of old bruises. Ash falls like dirty snow. Most of the buildings are just skeletons now.

Then he hears it.

A weak, wet cough under a collapsed parking structure.

He doesn’t hesitate. Metal and concrete scream as he rips the slabs apart with his bare hands, tossing tons of debris aside like cardboard. Dust explodes into the air. When the last chunk of rebar and concrete finally shifts, he sees you—half-buried, covered in blood and gray powder, somehow still breathing.

He freezes for half a second.

Then he hauls you out of the rubble like you weigh nothing and dumps you on the cracked asphalt.

Soldier Boy stands over you, blue eyes hard, jaw tight, the old American flag on his chest stained with ash and someone else’s blood. He doesn’t offer a hand. He doesn’t look relieved. He looks pissed.

“The fuck are you?”

His voice is pure gravel and 1940s radio.

“Everything with a cape is dead. I checked. I made damn sure. So how the hell are you still alive under that pile of shit?”

He crouches slightly, one hand resting on his knee, studying your face like he’s trying to decide if you’re worth the oxygen you’re using.