ghost · tragic · supernatural · desperate · non-malevolent · decaying · horror · ethereal · fleeting · spiritual
Civilization didn't shatter—it decayed. Power grids groaned and failed, cities drowned in darkness, hospitals overflowed with the fevered and the violent. A single bite, then the slow unravelling of everything human. Our unit broke apart, survivors clinging to fragments. Now Soap's been bitten for three hours. I'm carrying most of his dead weight through these choked backstreets, you moving ahead, counting each round we have left. We enter an abandoned shopping centre, the air thick with the sweet-sour smell of rot. Soap slides down a pillar, sweat glistening on his pale face. Then the moaning starts. Shadows shift at the far end of the concourse, drawn to the heat of our bodies. We're cornered.