The Week Before the Fall
Day One — August 20
Confirmation
Marcus Hale woke knowing the date.
August 20th.
The certainty was absolute. Seven days remained. Not an estimate—memory. In his first life, this had been the last calm morning before everything cracked open.
He did not panic.
Panic wasted time.
He lay still and replayed what mattered: when emergency rooms would overflow, when highways would jam, when people would start killing each other over bottled water. The order was fixed. That was the one mercy of knowing the future.
His body felt different. Alert. Tuned. When he stood, he moved without hesitation, catching a chair he clipped with his knee without looking.
Perfect timing.
He stared at his hand for a long moment.
"That's new."
He wrote nothing down. He didn't need to.
By noon, he had a plan.
Day Two — August 21
Knowledge First
Marcus started with libraries.
Not one. Many.
Public branches opened early and were nearly empty. People hadn't panicked yet. The internet still worked. That was why no one noticed a man carrying out stacks of books.
He didn't browse.
He harvested.
Manuals and reference texts disappeared into the unseen space the moment he touched them:
• Small engine repair
• Automotive rebuilding
• Electrical wiring and generators
• Structural carpentry
• Welding and cutting
• Blacksmithing and forging
• Agriculture and soil management
• Seed saving
• Foraging and wild edibles
• Food preservation
• First aid and trauma care
Entire shelves vanished.
He moved to university libraries next. County archives. Places with older material—pre-digital, pre‑internet. Books that assumed the reader would have to do things without help.
That night, Marcus slept for three hours.
He didn't feel tired.
Day Three — August 22
Maps
Marcus returned to the libraries.
This time, he went straight to the map sections.
Road atlases lay untouched, folded and forgotten. Wall maps yellowed with age. Topographical charts rolled into tubes that no one had opened in years.
He took them all.
• State and county road maps
• Topographical and elevation maps
• USGS quadrangles
• Floodplain charts
• Watershed and river systems
• Agricultural soil maps
• Geological and mineral surveys
• Rail lines and abandoned spurs
• Utility corridors and pipeline routes
• Forest service and logging roads
• Urban infrastructure diagrams
He took maps for places he had never been.
Because one day, he might need to go there.
People would forget where land rose and fell. They would forget which roads turned into death traps when it rained. Marcus would not.
By evening, the storage space held more navigational knowledge than most governments.
Day Four — August 23
Logistics
Food came next.
Not hoarding—selection.
Small grocery stores. Ethnic markets. Rural co‑ops. He avoided chains that would attract crowds in days to come.
He took:
• Rice, beans, lentils
• Salt, sugar, flour
• Cooking oil
• Canned meat
• Vitamins
• Water purification tablets
Then hardware stores.
Hand tools. Fasteners. Wire. Rope. Tarps. Shovels. Axes. Propane cylinders. Welding rods.
He never carried more than a backpack.
Everything else vanished into the space.
That night, he realized something disturbing.
He had walked nearly twenty miles.
He wasn't sore.
Day Five — August 24
Weapons Without Intention
Marcus didn't hunt for guns.
They presented themselves.
A pawn shop closing early. A rural house abandoned in a hurry. An unlocked police cruiser with the trunk open.
He took only what made sense:
• AR‑15 (5.56×45)
• Remington 700 (.308 Winchester)
• Glock 19 (9×19mm)
• Glock 26 (9×19mm)
• A worn 1911 (.45 ACP)
He cleaned them methodically.
Dry‑fire drills followed—alone, in abandoned structures. Reloads smoothed out unnaturally fast. His grip corrected itself. Trigger press became instinctive.
He stopped, breathing hard.
"I've never done this before."
His hands disagreed.
Day Six — August 25
Blades and the Body
The kukri came first.
Practical. Useful. Honest.
The sword came from a private seller who didn't ask questions. Straight‑bladed. Short. Built for close spaces.
A ninjatō.
Marcus didn't know the word.
He only knew that the moment he held it, his stance aligned without thought.
Foot placement. Balance. Centerline.
That night, he trained in silence—parking garages, warehouses, places where mistakes wouldn't be seen.
His body learned faster than it should have.
Or remembered.
He didn't sleep at all.
Day Seven — August 26
The Last Normal Day
The city felt wrong.
News anchors stopped smiling. Police sirens overlapped more than usual. People argued in stores over nothing.
Marcus packed his last acquisitions and walked his apartment one final time.
Everything that mattered was already gone.
Books. Maps. Tools. Food. Weapons.
The knowledge of a dead world rested somewhere no one could ever reach.
That night, he stood on his balcony and watched Atlanta glow.
Tomorrow, the broadcasts would stop making sense.
Soon after, they would stop entirely.
Marcus left before dawn.
The Fall — August 27
The world ended exactly as he remembered.
And Marcus Hale was ready.
Absolutely. Here's the continuation directly after the fall, showing Marcus navigating the immediate chaos, the panic in Atlanta, and the military trying to maintain control—all while keeping him independent, methodical, and undetected. It keeps weapons, maps, and skills integrated, and remains canon with Season 1.
Dead Quiet — The Collapse
The sun rose on August 27th, 2010, and the world had changed.
Atlanta was already burning.
Marcus Hale moved through quiet backstreets, staying off main roads. Smoke rose from downtown, thick and acrid, and the smell of burning plastic and paper carried on the wind. Sirens screamed in overlapping waves. People shouted, ran, and fought. Car horns honked incessantly. Overhead, helicopters circled—military, trying to impose order, trying to stop what had already begun.
They failed.
Marcus observed it all from a distance, slipping between shadows and empty alleyways. He did not panic. He had already prepared. He had the knowledge, he had the tools, he had the weapons, and he had the maps to navigate Atlanta as though it were a grid of empty streets—and to find paths that others could not.
The Panic
People poured into streets, pushing and shoving, clogging intersections, screaming at each other. Traffic jams became barricades. Broken windows offered a view of looting. The smell of sweat, smoke, and fear was thick.
Marcus avoided them all. He moved silently, making note of obstacles, possible choke points, and routes that might remain open for days. Each overturned car, each abandoned store, each fallen pedestrian was a marker on the mental map of Atlanta he was already forming.
Walkers came quickly. Not the shambling dead from his memory—they were faster, desperate, drawn to noise. A few stumbled into the chaos, and civilians reacted unpredictably. People screamed, ran in random directions, and the dead followed.
Marcus did not draw a gun. He did not intervene. Not yet. He was learning patterns. Observation was preparation.
The Military Tries to Hold
The National Guard and active-duty troops had deployed. Humvees rolled down streets, rifles raised, trucks blocking intersections. The helicopters circled, attempting to coordinate groups of panicked civilians.
Marcus watched from a distance.
• Soldiers moved in organized units, attempting to control crowds and secure perimeters.
• Barricades were set up at major intersections.
• Loudspeakers ordered people to go home, to stay in vehicles, to remain calm.
It was organized chaos. But no plan survives contact with civilians—or walkers.
• Soldiers fired warning shots into crowds.
• Vehicles were abandoned mid-intersection.
• Checkpoints formed and dissolved as people forced their way through.
Marcus memorized everything. He noted supply points, medical stations, vehicle caches, and choke points for both humans and walkers. He cataloged escape routes, alleys, and rooftops. Everything would matter later.
First Contact With Walkers
By mid-morning, the first walkers approached him in the shadows of an abandoned gas station.
A man, torn shirt, blood crusted around the mouth, staggered toward him.
Marcus did not panic. He drew his ninjatō, its balance and weight instinctive in his hands.
• Step in.
• Eye line to center.
• Swift thrust through the skull.
The body dropped before his mind fully processed it.
Two more stumbled into view. He dispatched them with the kukri.
No one noticed.
This was methodical. Quiet. Clean.
He paused, breathing steady. His body had moved before fear existed.
Using the Maps
Marcus needed to move deeper into Atlanta to scavenge critical resources—water, fuel, and vehicles—without crossing heavily populated chaos or being trapped by the military.
He consulted his topo maps and marked:
• Safe backroads and alleys
• Abandoned service corridors
• Flood-prone streets to avoid
• Possible vantage points for observation
He crossed streets at angles most people wouldn't think to check. He climbed over walls, slipped through service tunnels, and made it to a warehouse district unnoticed.
There, he found food, tools, and a few motorcycles abandoned in a small depot. All of it went into the storage space, safe and untouchable by anyone else.
Nightfall — Observing Order Collapse
By nightfall, the military lines were fraying. Troop vehicles blocked intersections, but chaos seeped around them. Fires burned unchecked in alleys. Screams echoed from collapsed neighborhoods.
Marcus set up a temporary hide in an empty rooftop. From this height, he could see:
• Soldiers retreating from streets overrun by walkers
• Civilians barricading themselves in stores
• Fires moving unpredictably with the wind
• Smoke obscuring long-range visibility
He took notes mentally, storing everything for later: escape routes, defensible positions, likely future movements of both humans and walkers.
He didn't sleep, but he didn't need to. He surveyed until the stars came out. The city was burning, but he was already mapping the aftermath.
Closing — Ready for the Next Step
Marcus Hale had survived the initial panic without being seen or engaged. He had watched:
• The failure of human order
• The speed of the walkers' spread
• The collapse of military perimeters
He had weapons ready. Food and water hidden. Maps memorized. Books and knowledge secured.
And in the darkness, he realized something else: he had the patience and foresight most would never have.
Tomorrow, he would move toward his long-term site, selecting high ground, defensible terrain, and water access—turning knowledge into survival.
The world had changed.
Marcus Hale was already ready.
The First Dreams
By the second night after the collapse, Marcus was perched on the rooftop overlooking Atlanta. Smoke curled into the sky, fires flickered in the distance, and the chaos of the streets had softened into an uneasy quiet.
He closed his eyes for a moment, just to rest, and the world shifted.
The Dream
He was somewhere else—dense forest, low fog rolling through conifers. He moved silently over uneven terrain, barefoot, observing without being seen. He could hear the smallest rustle of leaves, the distant snap of a twig under a branch, and the subtle shift of weight in another person's posture hundreds of meters away.
He was crouched behind a ridge, observing two figures approaching a clearing. One held a firearm, the other a radio. He memorized their positions, their spacing, their pacing. Then he moved—a single, fluid motion, bringing his hands up to immobilize both before they ever knew he was there.
He woke gasping.
The Effect
Marcus's body felt different. The balance and subtle movements in the dream were already echoing in reality:
• His stealth movements through Atlanta became sharper, instinctive.
• The way he cleared alleyways and observed from rooftops felt like muscle memory he didn't earn in this life.
• He remembered knots, camouflage techniques, and silent entry strategies—not consciously, but they were in his hands and feet.
He sat on the rooftop for hours, staring at the glow of the fires below. Something in him was waking.
He didn't yet know why he had these dreams.