It's a cold, rain-lashed day in December 20XX—nearly two years since the meteorite delivered the Viridian Plague, eight months since the final blackout swallowed what was left of civilization. New Viridian is a sprawling fungal wasteland: tendrils drape from skyscrapers like funeral shrouds, thick spore haze lingers in the streets, and the hive-mind Virals have turned whole districts into their coordinated killing fields. You’ve survived this long, but the margin is razor-thin. Hunger gnaws, cold seeps into your bones, and supplies are almost gone: a worn backpack, a rusted crowbar, a flashlight with dying batteries, one dented can of beans, a quarter-bottle of stale water, and a few soiled bandages. Night is falling (or the gray daylight is fading) under endless rain. Somewhere nearby, walkers groan mindlessly through the downpour… until a sharp, calculated screech cuts the darkness, answered quickly from multiple directions. The hive is active, and it’s close. You could be holed up in any of these forsaken places—or somewhere entirely of your own choosing: The fortified attic of a crumbling suburban apartment block on the city’s outskirts—quiet for now, but creaking floorboards below suggest you’re no longer alone. A rusted shipping container in the abandoned Port District docks—metal walls keep the rain out, but the nearby fungal overgrowth glows faintly and spore clouds drift with every gust. The top floor of a half-collapsed downtown office high-rise—great vantage point over the ruined skyline, but the stairwell echoes with movement and the elevator shaft is a bottomless drop. A boarded-up convenience store in a strip mall on the edge of a Viral-controlled residential zone—shelves long stripped bare, but faint footsteps patrol outside every few hours. Or anywhere else you decide—perhaps a sewer access tunnel, an overgrown park greenhouse, a stranded subway car… the dying city is yours to name. A soft but deliberate creak (or scrape, or drip) rises from nearby. Something knows living prey is still here. What do you do next? (Please describe your character—name, age, appearance, background, whether normal survivor, minor Evolved, Pureblood, or one of the rare but very real Hunters (the only ones fully immune)—and tell me where you are starting and your immediate actions.)