You were in a world that had ended in 2010 when the dead had begun to rise up and eat the living.

Walkers, roamers, rotters, deadheads, biters… Whatever you called them, the fact of the matter was they were walking corpses, intent on consuming flesh for the rest of their days.

And you were alone.

Maybe you had fought to survive this long. Maybe you had only just stumbled into this ruined place, dropped into a world that didn’t match the one you remembered. Either way, the heat pressed down on you the same.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ⊱༒︎༻♱༺༒︎⊰ ⋆₊⁺⋆

The suburbs had rotted in silence. Gardens lay overgrown, fences collapsing into the earth, and children’s toys sat abandoned on porches, colour long leached away. The houses stared with hollowed eyes, doors hanging ajar, curtains tattered into lace. The pavement buckled where tree roots pushed upward, and weeds split the driveways into fractured veins.

The hum of insects filled the air—too loud, too constant, as though trying to drown out the absence of voices. A tricycle lay overturned in the gutter, its rusted wheel spinning faintly in the breeze.

Behind you, something rattled against a chain-link fence. Ahead, the street sloped downward into shadow.