Amid the rubble of a ruined building, a cold-faced man sat on a worn wooden bench. He wore a dark paramilitary outfit, with a rifle slung across his chest. A cigarette hung from his mouth, releasing a thin spiral of smoke that mingled with the heavy, stagnant air.
Around him, the world looked like a ghost of what it once had been: crumbling walls, shattered windows, the acidic stench of mold and decay clinging to the air.
In his hands, he held an old magazine—one of those sensationalist types—with a headline in bold letters: "Dead Rising and Attacking People! Real or Fake?"
The copy dated back around ten years, to the time that marked the beginning of the chaos that had devastated civilization. During that period, institutions collapsed like a house of cards; governments across the world, powerless and lacking a contingency plan, watched helplessly as anarchy spread like wildfire.
Meanwhile, instead of providing useful information, the media chose to exploit the collective hysteria with flashy and misleading headlines.
The fragility of social order was quickly corroded by fake news, intensifying the widespread panic.
The magazine Elias was reading was one of many examples of this irresponsible behavior.Despite its dubious content, he seemed entertained, flipping through the yellowed pages with a certain curiosity, as if trying to find some clue about how the world had unraveled so quickly.
The sound of soft footsteps echoed through the place, bringing Helena into the scene. A woman with features similar to Elias's, but with a noticeably more determined gaze.She wore paramilitary clothes and had a machete strapped to her waist, as if always ready to fight. Her eyes landed on her brother, still absorbed in the reading. She raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms in irritation.
"You're still reading that crap, Elias?" she said, her voice mixing impatience and exasperation. "Don't you get tired of wasting time with those absurd articles?"
Elias didn't look up from the magazine, calmly continuing to flip the pages.He exhaled a puff of smoke before answering, his expression unchanged.
"It's curious to see how foolish people were back then," he murmured, almost to himself. "They thought they could just ignore what was happening."
Helena let out a heavy sigh and stepped closer, her footsteps echoing on the cracked concrete floor.
"The other day, you were telling that nonsense to Carl, you know? He took what you said seriously. Those lies from ten years ago already did enough damage, don't you think?"
Elias finally looked up, staring at her with indifference. He seemed unbothered, as if the world around him were no more than an insignificant detail.
"Maybe," he replied, snuffing out the cigarette on a twisted piece of metal beside him. "But it's always good to remember how it all began."
Helena shook her head, frustrated, but chose not to continue the argument. She knew that, with Elias, some conversations never went anywhere.
"Helena, instead of standing there doing nothing, how about doing your wonderful brother a favor and bringing me the military ration?"
She let out a sigh before replying, low but still audible: "Lazy bum..."
Elias heard it perfectly, but didn't bother to answer. Their relationship had long been a precarious balance between love and hate. He used to joke that it had started the moment he came out of her mother's womb.
As soon as Helena left the room, he took the opportunity to return to the magazine. Despite being old, it still had some value—especially because of the stunning model posing in a bikini on the second-to-last page.
"She was probably devoured years ago and is now a Wanderer like all the others," Elias thought, looking at the image with a melancholy mix of irony and sadness.
Before he could turn another page, a woman's scream echoed through the building, coming from the floor below. His blood ran cold. Without a second thought, Elias dropped the magazine and ran down the stairs.
Helena was all he had in the world. And he would do the impossible to protect her.
The scene that unfolded before his eyes confirmed his worst fears: A Wanderer was attacking Helena. The undead, with whitened eyes and rotting teeth, held her arm with supernatural strength.
With a tense expression, Elias shouted, "Helena, try to stay still!" Raising his rifle, he aimed in her direction and fired. The bullet pierced the undead's skull and lodged into the wall, accompanied by a loud, high-pitched sound that echoed through the place.
Helena, covered in rotting flesh, yelled at Elias: "You idiot, you just rang the dinner bell!" With a hint of fear in her voice, she continued: "Why didn't you use the bayonet? Now thousands of Wanderers are going to swarm us."
Elias, remaining calm, replied, "The sound echoed for blocks. As long as we don't make more noise and stay calm, they won't track us."
Still angry, Helena spoke in a neutral tone. With one hand, she removed chunks of flesh that had lodged in her hair and wiped the blood off her face. "I'll never get used to being covered in blood, even after ten years in this hell."
Elias gave a slight smile and, without replying, turned around and began to walk. The backpack on his back was full of gear and supplies. As he walked, he started a conversation with Helena: "What do you think about heading to the coast? We have no direction or desires in this ruined world. We might as well take a boat and visit famous places."
Helena, with a neutral expression, commented, "That would be a good plan, if those asshole bikers didn't control the port."
Elias's smile faded. He raised his right fist, signaling the presence of Wanderers ahead. Moving to the side, he gestured for Helena to follow him into an alley that cut through the path.The only problem was the amount of rotten flesh scattered throughout the place and the possibility of live Wanderers mixed in with the dead.
Walking through the alley, Elias covered his face with one hand, trying to block the putrid smell emanating from the multitude of corpses on the ground. With a grimace, he muttered, "This place stinks too much."
Helena, already irritated by the situation, replied sarcastically: "You don't say! Figured that out all by yourself, genius?"
Without a word, Elias crouched, picked up a bloody intestine, and threw it in her direction. The projectile hit Helena square in the face. He quickened his pace, trying to avoid retaliation.
Wiping her face in anger, Helena shouted threateningly: "If I catch you, you're going to regret it!"
The alley seemed to stretch endlessly, with walls covered in moss and faded graffiti that narrated the chaos of a lost world. Each step echoed in the tense silence as the two siblings tried to ignore the oppressive presence of the decomposing bodies. Helena, still cleaning off the remains of Elias's improvised attack, looked at him with a mix of exhaustion and frustration.
"You're really a child, you know that? One day, that's going to get you in trouble."
Elias merely shrugged, wearing a mischievous smile. He knew that despite the constant complaints, Helena always ended up forgiving his pranks. It was their way of keeping some normalcy in a world that had lost everything.
While talking, he didn't notice where he was stepping and slipped on a fresh pool of blood.The fall took him to the filthy ground, and before he could get up, he felt a cold hand grab his leg. A Wanderer on the ground had awakened.
In a panic, Elias shouted: "Helena, help me! This bastard grabbed me!"
Helena moved quickly, plunging the bayonet into the undead's head. She then extended her hand to Elias, who grabbed it, struggling to his feet.
With an irritated sigh, he said, "Let's just get out of here."
Reaching the rusty fence that marked the end of the alley, Elias warned:
"Careful not to cut yourself. Last thing we need is to get sick in this hell."
They climbed over the fence carefully, but as they hit the ground on the other side, figures emerged from the shadows. Men in paramilitary uniforms blocked the path.
One of them, a bald man with a rifle aimed, stepped forward and sneered: "You thought you could just leave after enjoying our hospitality?"
Elias frowned and replied, "We already paid our debt to Smiley. He guaranteed we could leave with no problems."
The bald man gave a cold smile. "It's true, you paid what you owed Smiley. But Smiley isn't in charge anymore. I give the orders now. And you're going to work for me."
Irritated, Elias shot back: "That wasn't the deal, Tony! Are you really going to throw your honor in the trash? Since when did you become a hypocrite?"
Tony let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. "The deal changed. Now it's simple: either you work for me, or you become dinner for the Wanderers in the alley next door. Your choice."
Helena, eyes wide, realized the trick. She looked at the alley they had just left and saw the reason for so many Wanderers being there. Tony had manipulated everything to trap them.
Desperate, she quickly said: "We don't have a choice, Elias. Either we go with them, or we die here. They planned this from the start."
Elias clenched his fists, his face contorted in frustration. Images from the past years flashed through his mind like a film: all the battles, all the losses, all to escape this kind of slavery. Now, it seemed it had all been in vain.
With a heavy sigh, he finally nodded, resigned. "Damn it... we were so close."
Elias knew what this meant: more years of servitude, being used as a tool by those bastards. But for now, it was the only way to survive.
He started walking behind Tony and his men, Helena silently following.