The morning sunlight filtered weakly through the dense, gray fog that clung to the treetops like the breath of ghosts. Riley stood at the edge of the ruined farmhouse, clutching the battered backpack to her chest as if it contained her last lifeline. Maybe it did.
Her eyes flicked back to the others — a silent, mismatched group of survivors who'd formed not from trust or friendship, but from necessity. They were quiet now, eating cold beans from dented cans, each lost in their own thoughts. No one smiled. No one made jokes. Not anymore.
The world had burned away those things.
"Are we moving soon?" she asked, her voice low and careful, like someone afraid to disturb the bones of the earth.
Mason, the tall, broad-shouldered ex-paramedic with a jaw like stone, looked up. His dark eyes held the same weariness she'd seen in the mirror that morning. "We'll leave in ten. Fog's still thick, but I'd rather deal with poor visibility than another night in this goddamned house."
"Yeah," muttered Theo, the youngest in the group — barely eighteen — wiping his blade with an old shirt. "The floorboards creak like they're whispering."
Nobody laughed.
Riley turned away and stared into the mist beyond the fields. Trees stood like soldiers, motionless and shrouded, while crows circled above with eerie purpose. She wasn't sure what unnerved her more these days: the monsters outside or the silence between the people she walked beside.
She knelt to check her boots — one had a growing tear along the seam, and she knew it wouldn't last the week. The roads were cruel to the weak, and that applied to people as much as to gear.
"I'll scout ahead," came a voice behind her — calm, low, female.
Nia.
Riley straightened. "Alone?"
"I move faster alone," Nia replied, already slipping her rifle strap tighter over her shoulder. She wore a long, hooded coat that brushed her knees, and a pair of mirrored goggles that hid her eyes completely. Nobody really knew what Nia did before the world fell apart. There were rumors — ex-military, special ops, assassin — but no one dared ask.
Mason nodded. "Go. Five-minute lead."
Without a word, Nia vanished into the mist like a ghost returning home.
They moved ten minutes later.
The farmhouse gave one final groan as they left it behind, a structure dying slowly, quietly — just like everything else. Riley walked in the middle of the group, flanked by Mason and Theo, with two others bringing up the rear: Jun — a wiry engineer who'd once designed microchips and now rigged traps with spare wires and hope — and Mary, a former nurse with trembling hands but a spine of steel.
Their destination was a distant radio tower they'd spotted from a ridge two days earlier — the only sign of life they'd seen in over a week. Whether it was military, private, or abandoned, they didn't know. But a tower meant signal. Signal meant answers.
And maybe — just maybe — it meant people.
The forest swallowed them whole.
Every step was a negotiation with the past. Bullet casings littered the path. A rusted bicycle leaned against a tree, vines curling around its frame like nature trying to erase human error. Skeletons of birds hung from low branches — warning signs left by the Feral Ones, or maybe something worse.
Theo kept glancing over his shoulder. "You think Nia's okay?"
"She's better than any of us out here," Mason grunted.
Still, Riley couldn't shake the itch beneath her skin. Something felt off. The fog was too quiet. The birds too distant. The air too still.
They passed a burned-out SUV half-buried in moss, its windows shattered, and interior charred. A child's car seat lay discarded beside it, covered in mold.
Riley looked away.
"What happened to your hand?" Jun asked her quietly, noticing the makeshift bandage around her palm.
She didn't answer right away.
"I... cut it. On some glass."
Truth, but not the whole truth. She'd been inside a convenience store three nights ago, scavenging, when she'd found a family huddled in the freezer — long dead. She'd backed away too quickly, stumbled into a broken display rack, and sliced her palm open. The wound still throbbed.
"Let me check it later," Mary offered. "If it gets infected—"
"I'll let you know," Riley interrupted gently. She didn't want kindness right now. Not when she might have to watch Mary die tomorrow. Or kill her. That's how this world worked. Mercy was a memory. And hope? Hope was a luxury.
They traveled in silence for another hour.
Then they found Nia.
She was kneeling in the center of a clearing, motionless. Her rifle lay beside her, untouched. The trees around her were smeared with something dark — black-red, like dried tar. Or old blood.
Mason rushed forward. "Nia!"
She didn't move. Just raised one finger to her lips. Shhh.
Everyone froze.
Then Riley saw it — the corpses. Three of them. Sprawled across the clearing in unnatural positions, faces contorted in horror. One was missing an eye. Another had its chest caved in like something had exploded outward.
"What the hell did this?" Theo whispered.
Jun crouched near one of the bodies. "No burns. No bullet holes. This isn't human."
"You think it's infected?" Mary asked, her voice trembling.
"No," Nia finally spoke. "Worse. It's evolving."
Riley blinked. "What do you mean?"
Nia stood slowly, brushing dirt from her gloves. "Whatever's hunting out here isn't just killing for food. It's testing. Tearing bodies apart. Studying. We're not just prey anymore."
A chill settled over the group.
"I say we go around," Jun muttered. "Put distance between us and... this."
Mason looked to Nia, who gave a curt nod.
They moved in a tight circle, weapons ready, eyes darting. Riley felt the weight in her pack like an anchor. She wanted to run. She wanted to scream.
But most of all, she wanted to survive.
They didn't speak for the next three miles.
The fog began to lift near sunset, revealing more of the shattered landscape. Cracked roads. Half-collapsed barns. An overturned police car with its lights still flickering faintly, like some dying firefly.
Then they saw it: the tower.
It rose in the distance, skeletal against the amber glow of the dying sun. Metallic, bent in places, but still standing. Still defiant.
Theo let out a breath. "We made it."
But Riley didn't feel relief.
She felt dread.
Because between them and the tower, in the valley below, was something worse than a pack of ferals.
A nest.
Dozens of them.
Moving.
Waiting.
Watching.
Mason swore under his breath. "We'll camp here. We approach at dawn."
And as darkness claimed the world again, Riley clutched her backpack, stared at the monsters below, and whispered a silent promise to herself:
You've survived this far. Don't stop now.