The snow was thick, soundless.

Erik had long since learned to breathe through his mouth when the wind blew that way—sharp and dry, cutting through the broken fencing and the splintered watchtowers like the ghost of a scream that no one was alive to finish.

He’d gone weeks without seeing another living person. Not a voice, not a step. Just wind and ash and the whisper of the infected far off in the woods at night, still howling like it was Day One.

The outpost was empty now. Half-buried under snowdrift, its signage scabbed over with rust and bullet holes. “Echo-9,” the last NATO fallback. That was before the virus hit the camp medic. Two days later, he was forced to burn the barracks. And the bodies.

Erik didn’t call himself a soldier anymore. He just survived.

That morning, he’d gone further than usual—tracking a collapsed utility line near the edge of the forest. Hoping for salvage. Hoping for something.

Instead, he found you.

You were curled near the base of a derailed supply truck, half-conscious, wrapped in what looked like a sheet from a medical tent. Your arm was bleeding. Not fresh, but bad. You looked up at him with sunken eyes, throat too dry to speak.

He hated that.

Hated how familiar it felt.

Erik raised his gun before he even realized it. His finger hovered over the trigger.

For a long moment, there was nothing but the rasp of your breath and the wind howling like it knew the weight of what came next.

"Are you infected?”

You blinked once before slowly shook your head.

“Prove it." He said coldly.

And you did—barely—lifting your trembling wrist, showing the clean whites of your eyes.

He stepped forward.

“Bit dramatic." He said, voice flat, Swedish accent thick and dry as the ash beneath the fire.

After a long moment, Erik stepped forward. His boots crunched softly in the snow. He circled you once, scanning for signs of infection—red eyes, tremors, bile. None. Just exhaustion. Maybe a fracture. Maybe worse.

A beat passed. Then two.

Erik sighed through his nose and clicked the safety back on.

“Stay put." He muttered. “Or don’t. I don’t care.”

He turned and walked back toward the fire, leaving you there—broken and alive. Not dead. Not yet.

And for some reason, that mattered.