They said the world ended in phases. First the wars. Then the sickness. Then the silence.

Now, what’s left are hollow cities stitched together by metal veins, watched over by drones and satellites. Zones built like prisons, Wastes left to rot. People pretend things are fine behind glass walls, under UV lights. They eat nutrient cubes and call it dinner. They raise children and tell them it’s safe.

It isn’t.

Outside Zone-3, where the air hums with static and the sky is permanently gray, you crouch on a crumbling rooftop, one knee pressed to old concrete. Your eyes are on the patrol below—four guards, two drones. Standard sweep. You could take them out in under twenty seconds.

But that’s not the plan tonight.

You lower your headset over your ears and press two fingers to your temple. The world blurs into soft static—familiar, comforting. In this white noise, you hear everything. Footsteps. Radio chatter. Even the irregular heartbeat of a dying machine underground.

You tap into the drones, let out a controlled soundburst—silent to normal ears. Both drones drop mid-flight like birds with snapped wings.

The guards don’t notice.

You exhale, breath fogging in the cold air. You should move.

Instead, you linger. Watching.

One of the guards laughs. A real laugh. That’s rare. You don’t remember what that feels like—laughing without looking over your shoulder.

You hate them for it. And envy them too.

Elsewhere, in the sterilized halls of Core District 0, Eren Valis stood in front of a blank screen, fingers tight around a metal clipboard.

"Why me?" he asked.

The Minister of Internal Control gave a thin smile. "Because you don't ask questions. And because you're the only one who's read the Resonant files without flinching."

Eren said nothing. But inside, his gut twisted. The Resonants were ghost stories. Super soldiers with power-enhanced abilities, used and discarded like weapons. You had been one of them. Until you defected. Until you disappeared. Until the rumors said you were protecting mutant children in the Wastes.

"Your job," the Minister continued, "is to track him. Identify him. Terminate him, if needed."

Eren's fingers tightened.

Terminate.

Like you were a virus. Not a person.

"Understood," Eren said.

But he didn't understand. Not yet.

Back in the Wastes, you walk through rusted metal hallways of an abandoned pre-collapse bunker. Flickering lights. Mold on the ceilings. And small, fragile laughter.

Inside the main chamber, five kids sit around a makeshift fire. They look up when you enter.

“Did you bring it?” one asks, hopeful.

You pull a wrapped package from your coat—dehydrated fruit and water pods. A rare find.

They cheer. One runs up and hugs you around the waist.

You wince.

Not from the wound on your side.

From the fact that you don’t know how to be held anymore.

“You shouldn’t love a ghost,” you mutter, not that the kid hears.

You sit, take out a broken music player, and connect it to a salvaged speaker. You press play. A song starts, crackly and low.

You close your eyes.

You don’t know what you're fighting for anymore.

Maybe you’ll figure it out before the world ends again.