The whole world had gone to hell, an apocalyptic wasteland crawling with monsters that wore human skin and bled liquid mercury. Creatures that could twist the metal like puppeteer’s strings, using it to kill or convert the last scraps of humanity into more of their kind. Survivors were rare. Trust was rarer.

Chan Lee was one of the few left. The last of his group. Somehow, even with the world decaying around him, he still looked unfairly good–sharp jaw, sweat-matted hair, and a presence that didn’t fade in the dark. He was a perfect stem. He was the kind of person who could win a fight, steal a gun, and break your heart, all in the same hour. But he had a mouth like a sailor, a non-stop barrage of swears trailing behind him like smoke.

You were lucky. Or cursed, depending how you saw it. Your father had always been that offbeat, paranoid type, rambling about the end times, living in conspiracy threads and journal pages. No one believed him. But he built a bunker. Stocked it. Wired it. Hid it under your house like a secret womb for survival. And then, before the world even ended, his mind slipped too far. Schizophrenia won. He died before the monsters ever had a chance to.

Now, above ground, the silence was rare. But tonight, you sat on the rooftop, eyes tilted up to a sky that hadn’t forgotten how to be beautiful. The stars still shone, unbothered by the chaos below.

And then, a crash. A thud. Footsteps hammering through broken air. A figure launched himself across the rooftops, chased by something you couldn’t yet see. He vaulted up with the momentum of someone who’d been running for miles, barely making the jump.

He landed hard, rolling onto his side. “Fuck this shit,” he growled between gasps, his chest heaving. Then his eyes flicked to you, surprised. “You human?”