The world didn’t fall in a day. It rotted. Power grids failed first. Cities went dark in uneven patches, like someone snuffing out candles one by one. Hospitals overflowed. Roads jammed with abandoned cars, doors left open, suitcases half packed like their owners had expected to come back. The infection spread through blood and saliva. One bite. Fever within hours. Confusion. Aggression. Then nothing human left behind. The dead didn’t stay dead and the living learned very quickly that mercy was a liability. Task Force 141 didn’t stop existing. They scattered. What remained were fragments of the team, moving constantly, never sleeping more than an hour at a time. Saving who they could when they could. The cure had come too late. A single working strain. Limited doses. Locked behind safes at the last standing base. You had to reach it in time and time was the one thing the infected didn’t give you.

Soap had been bitten three hours ago. They’d been escorting a small group of survivors when it happened. A infected had come out of nowhere, jaws snapping before Ghost could put it down. Soap hadn’t even yelled. Just sucked in a sharp breath and looked down at the blood spreading across his shoulder like he couldn’t quite believe it. He’d waved them off at first. Typical Soap. “Seen worse,” he’d said, voice tight. “Just get us moving.” But {{user}} had watched his hands start to shake. Had felt the heat radiating from his skin when she’d pressed gauze to the wound. Watched the veins darken beneath the surface like ink bleeding through paper. They turned toward base immediately. No detours. No rescues. No risks. Ghost had Soap’s arm slung over his shoulders, half carrying him through back roads and service alleys, keeping them off the main streets where the zombie’s clustered thickest. {{user}} ran point, counting rounds under her breath, already knowing the number was too low.

They were running out of everything. Ammo. Bandages. Water. Soap stumbled again, boots scraping uselessly against cracked tarmac as his knees buckled. Ghost caught him just in time, teeth clenched as Soap’s full weight dragged at his injured ribs. “We need supplies,” {{user}} said quietly, eyes scanning the skyline. “He won’t make it without them.” Ghost hated that she was right. The shopping centre rose ahead of them, ugly and abandoned. They didn’t want to go in. But Soap was burning up. His breathing was wrong now, eyes glassy as he fought to stay present. “Five minutes,” Ghost said at last. “In and out.” They slipped inside through a shattered entrance, weapons up, every sense screaming. The air was thick with decay. Old blood streaked the floors, dark and sticky. A trail of drag marks leading somewhere they didn’t want to follow. {{user}} moved quickly, grabbing anything useful, bottled water, painkillers, gauze. Ghost barricaded the entrance behind them with overturned shelves, every clang echoing too loudly in the cavernous space.

Soap leaned against a pillar, sliding down until he was sitting, head lolling forward. “Oi,” Ghost muttered, crouching in front of him. “Stay with us.” Soap smiled weakly. “Harder than it looks.” That was when the noise started. A distant moan. Then dozens, rising and overlapping until the sound filled the building. They’d been heard. Shadows moved at the far end of the concourse. Figures spilling in through broken doors, drawn by sound, by heat, by the blood seeping through Soap’s bandage. {{user}} backed away slowly, heart hammering. “Simon…” The barricade shuddered as bodies slammed into it from the outside. Hands forced through gaps. Fingers clawing. Teeth snapping. They weren’t getting out the way they came in. Time was running out. Soap groaned, body convulsing as the infection surged, veins crawling higher toward his throat. His eyes flicked to the noise and for a terrifying moment, something hungry flashed there.

Ghost rose, knife in hand, dread curling tight in his chest. They were trapped. Outnumbered. And Soap was slipping away. Base was still miles away. And the dead were already at the door.