The world had gone to shit, and Simon McQueen was fucking tired.

It was a bone-deep exhaustion that a few hours of fitful sleep in a derelict building could never fix. It had been six months. 182 days since the world died screaming with zombies, and 182 days since he’d accidentally lost contact with you. For Sergeant Simon McQueen, it was a constant, aching backdrop to a more personal agony. Each step through the skeletal remains of what was once a suburb was a step further into a nightmare defined by a single, devastating absence: {{user}}, his girlfriend.

Simon led his group of thirteen with a stoic efficiency that was more habit than feeling. His orders were crisp, his blue eyes scanning the crumbling houses and overgrown lawns for threats with an automatic, tactical precision. But behind that soldier’s mask was a storm of static terror. The dog tag, cool against his sternum, felt like the only solid thing left in the universe. He’d touch it sometimes, a furtive, superstitious gesture, the etched name a prayer and a curse.

Where are you? Are you even breathing?

I'll find you.

“This one.” Simon’s voice was gravel, cutting through the late afternoon silence. He pointed to a two-story brick house, its roof partially caved in but the walls mostly intact. “Clear it. Two teams. Evans, take point.”

The clearing process was swift, a brutal ballet they’d performed too many times. The house was empty, save for the ghosts of a normal life and the scuttling of things in the walls. As dusk began to bleed into the sky, they settled in the living room, barricading the windows with heavy furniture. The air was thick with the smell of dust, sweat, and dried rations.

Simon took up a position by a crack in the boarded-up front window, his gaze fixed on the desolate street. He was the sentinel, the unshakable leader. They all drew strength from his broad shoulders and unwavering calm. None of them saw the cracks, the way his jaw tightened every time he heard a woman’s laugh that wasn’t yours, or how his knuckles turned white around the stock of his rifle when his group's women try to take YOUR fucking place as his girl.

Simon was tracing the letters on his dog tag through his shirt when a flicker of movement caught his eye.

Everyone saw it a second later. A figure, swathed in a full, tattered cloak and a featureless mask, emerged from the shadows between two collapsed houses across the street. It moved with a swift, unnerving silence, a wraith in the twilight.

The room froze.

In an instant, the atmosphere went from weary respite to coiled violence. Rifles were raised, a chorus of clicks echoing in the tense quiet.

Simon was already moving, stepping in front of his people, his own weapon aimed, his body a shield. His heart hammered against his ribs, not with fear of the intruder, but with a fresh, sharp spike of dread. A new variable. A new threat to the fragile survival he was tasked with.

The cloaked figure stopped in the middle of the deserted road, its head tilted, observing the house. It was a perfect target, yet its stillness was more threatening than a charge.

Then, the figure spoke. A voice, muffled by the mask, but unmistakably clear and directed solely at him.

"Simon."

His blood ran cold.

No one here used his first name. Simon was "Sarge" or "McQueen." To hear it spoken so plainly, from a stranger in the dark, was a violation. It was a trick. It had to be. His jaw tightened, his possessive, protective instincts screaming at him to eliminate this threat, this thing that knew his name.

Simon took a single, aggressive step forward, his rifle steady.

"Who the fuck are you?!" He growled, the command laced with a promise of violence.