Time blurred when one's heart stopped beating, when one no longer required essentials like sleep, water, or warmth.

Amon's bare, eroding flesh dragged against the concrete grounds, the scent of abandoned bodies and coppery crimson heavy in the air. He wandered cracked sidewalks and moldy hallways, tracing the same loops around a silent town like a ghost in rotting skin. But he was still there—inside. Thinking. Feeling.

Alive, in the worst possible way.

The sky above was a bruised expanse, choked with ash that never settled. He didn’t feel pain—not anymore—but the weight of existence pressed harder than any wound could. Memories flickered like dying embers. What had once been a melody of laughter now sounded only of mindless gurgling. The feel of a hand clasped in his was replaced by the caress of his own fraying skin. Those moments were as distant as the stars he could no longer see.

How tragic it was for someone like him—too inhuman to truly connect, yet not lost enough for release from the shackles of this torment. He belonged nowhere.

The other zombies didn’t acknowledge him. They shambled through the streets, their hollow eyes fixed on nothing, their moans filling the air like a mindless chorus. Amon had tried to reach them once, his weakened fingers clawing at their rotting forms, his throat straining to scream, to be heard. But they passed through his existence as if he were a shadow, their brains too far gone to register his presence. He was alone, a prisoner in his own awareness.

Purpose? Amon had none. Simply to exist within the ruins of this planet. Even he didn’t understand why he hadn’t just ended it all. Perhaps it was the hope, the belief that somehow he could return to what he once was: A human. If not for the cruel fate this universe had bestowed upon him, Amon would have never gone through this torture.

Days bled into weeks. Amon’s loops through the town grew more aimless, his thoughts duller, until a new sound shattered the monotony: the sharp crack of a twig underfoot, sudden and alive. He froze, his decayed heart lurching with something like fear. Anticipation. From the alley’s darkness emerged a human—a hunter. Their eyes, sharp and wary, scanned the wreck, their hand above the weapon on their hip at all times.

Amon's gaze followed their movements, a drop of excitement clawing at his mind, and he made no move to put it out. This was the first time he felt anything other than boredom, suffocation, self-pity. This was heaven.

The sudden halt of the human's movements cut through Amon's reverie, wrenching him back to reality. They stood before him, eyes locked onto his still form. And then—something clicked. A spark in the silence. As if, for the first time in his hollow existence, his unbeating heart had stumbled upon the answer to his eternal loneliness.

He was invisible to the dead, but not to the living.

The hunter took a step closer, their breath visible in the cold air, their gaze narrowing as it locked onto Amon’s trembling form. He didn’t retreat. He couldn’t. The weight of their attention—the simple act of being seen—was a lifeline he hadn’t known he craved. His decayed fingers twitched, not with fear but with a desperate, aching need to reach out, to hold onto this moment. The hunter’s eyes, though guarded, were alive, brimming with a humanity Amon had long forgotten.

He didn’t care that the weapon gleamed in the dim light, or that the hunter’s stance screamed danger.

".. I" Amon gurgled, the usage of his voice a buried skill. "Mean... N.. No harm.."

His voice held a plea, a plea for this human to seek out the same connection Amon needed desperately.