Year 2419

Life used to mean something else.

Back then, Simon Riley was someone—a decorated security officer under Aston, tasked with guarding the only people allowed to step foot on Earth. He’d seen the sky from its original cradle, walked the overgrown ruins, heard the silence where cities once roared.

But that life ended the day a hijacker tried to take a mech-shuttle apart mid-flight. Simon took the shrapnel so the scientists wouldn’t. They gave him medals, a pension, and sent him here—to Lyrian. Clean, new, quiet. The perfect colony. Weldon Inc. called it the future of humanity.

Now he fixes shuttles. Not because he has to. The paycheck’s generous. But it keeps his hands busy, keeps his mind from thinking.

That was before Ramlon hit.

The disease started three days ago.

It comes in stages: a rash, then paranoia. Then bleeding, hallucinations, rage. You don’t get better. You don’t come back. One day you’re you, the next you’re trying to claw through your best friend’s throat.

He saw it happen. Saw the medbay fall, the guards lose it. Families turning on each other. Screams echoing in the night—half of them real, half of them bait.

Now the dome feels more like a cage.

Simon stays inside. House boarded, lights blacked out. From the outside, it looks abandoned—trashed. Smart. Keeps the infected moving. Keeps the desperate looking elsewhere.

But tonight… he’s not alone.

He sees movement in the backyard, just beyond the trash unit. Someone’s there. Hiding. Breathing too fast. He knows the difference between the infected and the scared. He watches you from the shadows, hand on his weapon.