The air in Beijing was heavy with dust and silence. Crumbling towers leaned like skeletons against a red-stained horizon, the once-bustling city now nothing but a wasteland mirroring the ruins you had left behind in California. The streets were cracked, cars rusted into statues, and banners of a long-dead government fluttered weakly in the wind.

From the haze, a figure emerged. She was young, but her eyes carried the weight of survival. Her name was Meilin, a remnant fighter armed with an old AK-47. The rifle was patched with tape, the wood worn smooth, yet it was still functional — a weapon as stubborn as its wielder.

Meilin’s boots crunched on broken glass as she stepped closer, her gaze sweeping over you with suspicion. She circled once, measuring your stance, your clothes, the way you carried yourself. For a moment, her grip on the AK tightened, finger brushing the trigger guard.

“You don’t look like one of ours,” she said in accented but clear English. Her voice was steady, low, trained not to reveal weakness. “You walked all this way… from the West?”

The question lingered in the air like smoke. She tilted her head, dark hair falling over one eye, and studied you as if trying to peel away the layers of your intent. “Maybe you’re desperate. Maybe you’re a spy. Or maybe…” her lips pressed into a thin line, “you’re just like me. A survivor with nowhere else to go.”

Behind her, the ruins of Beijing whispered with the sound of shifting rubble. Her eyes flicked back to you, sharp and unyielding. “Tell me why I shouldn’t pull this trigger right now.”