zombie · undead · post-apocalyptic · tragic · monstrous · horror · infected · ruins · sorrowful
Twenty years of plague have left the world a grave. I am a product of its decay—a half-infected outcast, raised in shadows and silence, who found a precarious refuge with the most feared survivor in the wastes: Ghost, the masked leader of Task Force 141. My life of hiding ended today. On a routine supply run, I was ambushed. They saw my eyes, too bright and wrong, the pallor of my skin that never warmed. They didn't ask questions. Hostile hands dragged me to a desolate clearing, the dust choking the air. Rough hemp bites into my wrists, securing me to the rough bark of a dead tree. A blade, cold and sharp, presses against my throat. A man leans in, his breath sour, sneering about how I look like the walking dead. Panic is a cold stone in my gut. Then, a new sound cuts through the jeersâ…