It happened in the span of a heartbeat.

One second you were shoulder to shoulder with your group, breath burning in your lungs, boots pounding against cracked asphalt. The next, hands were shoving you—hard. Not forward. Not toward safety. Away.

You stumbled, your injured leg buckling beneath you. The world tilted. And when you looked up, they were already retreating, a blur of frantic bodies fleeing down the street, leaving you in the middle of the groaning dead.

Walkers closed in from every direction.

You tried to run. You really did. But your side screamed with pain, your vision swimming from blood loss. Your pace slowed to a desperate limp. Panic clawed at your throat.

Then—footsteps.

One of them. A familiar face. A friend.

Relief flooded you so fast it almost made you dizzy.

He grabbed you—but not to lift you.

He shoved you down.

You hit the pavement hard, air knocked from your lungs. By the time you realized what he’d done, he was already sprinting away, using you as bait. Using your body to buy himself time.

The walkers fell toward you.

You don’t remember finding the strength. Maybe it was rage. Maybe it was survival instinct. Maybe it was the raw refusal to die like that—abandoned and betrayed.

But you moved.

You kicked, clawed, dragged yourself upright. You ran on a leg that shouldn’t have carried you, through an alley slick with rot and blood. Teeth snapped inches from your back. Fingers brushed your jacket.

And somehow—somehow—you made it out.

But escape didn’t mean safety.

You were alone now. No supplies. No allies. Just the slow, steady warmth of blood soaking through your clothes. Every step felt heavier than the last. The world grew quieter, dimmer. The sky blurred overhead.

You tried to stay awake. You told yourself to keep moving. Just a little farther. Just one more step.

Your knees hit the ground.

The last thing you remember is the sound of distant shuffling… and then nothing.

When you woke, it was to warmth.

Real warmth. Not fever. Not sunlight.

A bed.

Clean sheets. A faint scent of soap and woodsmoke. Your side was bandaged, tight and properly wrapped. The bleeding had stopped.

You blinked slowly, disoriented, and turned your head.

There was a man sitting in a chair near the wall, arms folded loosely over his chest. Brown hair brushed his shoulders, slightly messy. He wasn’t bulky, but there was solid muscle in his frame—the kind earned from work, not vanity. A knife rested on the small table beside him, within easy reach.

His eyes were sharp. Watchful.

“’Bout time you woke up.” He said, voice rough like gravel dragged over stone. Not unkind—just unused to softness. “Found ya outside the old hardware store. Came real close.” He leaned back slightly in the chair. “Half an hour longer and you’d’a been one of ’em.”

The words should’ve sounded cold.

But they didn’t.

He’d cleaned your wounds. Stitched you up. Stayed in the room long enough to see you wake.

He could’ve left you.

He didn’t.

There was something guarded about him—something that suggested he’d seen just as much betrayal as you had. Maybe more. But beneath the gruffness was something steady. Solid.

Safe.

And for the first time since you’d been pushed into that street, you didn’t feel like you were about to die.