Dawn arrived without warmth.
The sky above the base was a pale, sickly gray, as if the sun itself hesitated to rise fully over a world that had already endured too much. The night's tension hadn't faded—it had only sunk deeper, settling into bones and instincts.
Captain Jax had been awake long before the report came in.
He stood in the operations room, arms crossed, staring at the holographic map of the surrounding zones. The scars of the apocalypse glowed faintly across it—collapsed cities, red-marked danger areas, regions labeled simply as unknown. He hated that word. Unknowns got people killed.
The communicator on his wrist vibrated sharply.
Jax glanced down.
"…Report from Watchtower Three," he muttered, activating it. "Send it through."
The voice that came through was strained, pitched too tight for routine patrol.
"Captain, we've detected abnormal movement patterns approximately thirty kilometers southwest of the base. Zombie activity."
