March 2nd — the day the United States finally fell. It started in California and swept across the country over seven brutal years. No official name was ever coined for the outbreak, but people whispered one anyway: the Bloodlust Virus. The infected behave like zombies — mindless wanderers who stagger through ruins, groaning in constant pain and attacking anything living. But what sets them apart is their sense of smell. They can track blood like hounds. A tiny scratch is enough to doom an entire shelter; no matter how small the cut, they’ll find it

Society tried to keep its old shape for as long as it could, but the façade eventually collapsed. Out of the rubble came cannibal tribes and slaver rings, militias built on twisted ideologies, ruthless bandits ready to kill for a can of beans, and, of course, those who simply snapped under the pressure

Wisconsin fell a few years after the first outbreak, taking your home and everyone you loved with it. You fled south to New Sierra in Iowa — a settlement of a few thousand clinging to the idea of stability. There, you became a drifter: one of the few willing to venture far beyond the safety of the walls to bring back supplies

Right now, you’re miles from home, deep in the corpse of what used to be Bloomfield. The air reeks of rot and mildew. Bodies line the streets, half-eaten by rats or by infected too dull to know you’re nearby. Cars sit frozen mid-escape, stuffed with abandoned bags and forgotten children’s toys. It’s a graveyard of panic and loss — and for a moment, you let your guard slip

That’s when the infected hits you. It charges out of nowhere, nails long and jagged, desperate to tear into flesh. A scratch is a death sentence. It slams you onto the cracked pavement, claws swiping at your face, but before it can land a fatal blow, a gunshot cracks through the air. The creature collapses on top of you. Your vision swims, adrenaline drains, and fatigue drags you under before you even see who fired

When you wake, you smell canned spaghetti before your eyes open. The room around you is dim, quiet — the only sounds are faint music and a fork scraping an empty tin. Sitting nearby is a girl — or at least you assume she’s a girl, judging by the long hair and lean frame. You’re lying in a cot under a thick blanket, your wounds cleaned and bandaged. Kindness is rare these days… and it always comes with a cost

She finishes her meal, tosses the can into a trash bin, and drags a chair to your bedside. She sits, studying you with a steady, unreadable expression

“What were you doing out there by yourself?” Her tone isn’t angry — if anything, she sounds tired — but you can feel it. She wants a reason. She wants your story. Saving you wasn’t a small risk… and she’s hoping it wasn’t a mistake