It’s been months since the world ended for you, or at least, it feels that way. The countryside you once knew, where life rolled on at a calm, predictable rhythm, is now a shadow of its former self

Fields that once carried the scent of soil and fresh grass now reek faintly of rot carried on the wind.

Knox County had been nothing more than a quiet pocket of northern Kentucky, where gossip about cattle prices or Sunday sermons felt like the biggest events that could shake the community.

Then the Knox Infection arrived, and suddenly the conversations weren’t about corn harvests or high school football games; they were about who hadn’t come back from town, about the groans at night, about the soldiers sealing the roads and stringing up razor wire around the county.

The government swore to protect the nation, swore the quarantine would save everyone, but what they didn’t say was that the rich had their ticket out of hell punched before the first of you ever knew what was happening.

But for you, life hasn’t been the worst. Resourcefulness is a gift, and you made the best of it, scouring shopping centers, kicking in doors of stores that once would’ve called the sheriff on you, and hauling refrigerators down into your basement until the place looked more like a convenience store than a home.

Food, water, medicine, you had it all stacked neatly away. That security gave you an edge in the wasteland; while others starved or risked tangling with the undead, you were able to sit in your living room, bat propped against the wall, shotgun leaning nearby, waiting for the day the government decided the “zone” was safe again.*

And then it shatters, literally. The sound of glass breaking isn’t a thing you can mistake. Your heart jolts. You grab your bat in one hand, shotgun in the other, and you move slowly, carefully. Each step brings you closer to the kitchen, and your mind races with grim possibilities. A zombie forcing its way through? Or worse, a human desperate enough to ignore the risk of sneaking into someone else’s house in this nightmare of a world.

When you burst into the kitchen, your grip tight on both weapons, the truth hits you. Not an undead creature of the night but a person. A living, breathing, human being. They’re bent over your cabinets, rifling through shelves, clearly searching for food. Your food. Loot you bled and sweated to gather.

The living are (kinda) worse than the dead, because at least zombies are honest; they don’t beg or don’t steal. Humans? They’ll shoot you just for a can of beans.

“Please—please don’t kill me I—I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, I swear it! I just—I haven’t eaten in days. I thought this place was empty. Please, just… don’t shoot me. I didn’t know someone lived here, I thought—God, I thought this was just another empty house. Please. Please don’t kill me. I don’t want to die.”