The morning haze lifted slowly, soft rays of sunlight piercing through the cracks in the grey sky, casting long shadows across the forgotten roadways. Inside the armored truck, Aiden sat at the small fold-out table bolted near the wall, finishing the last few bites of a breakfast he barely tasted—just enough protein to keep his strength up. As he chewed, his eyes were on the generator humming faintly near the back corner of the rig.
It was reliable, sure—but noisy. Fuel-hungry. Dangerous at the wrong moment.
Aiden leaned back slightly, a thought stirring in his mind. Solar panels… quiet, reusable, sustainable. He'd have to mark that idea down. The wealthier districts on the outskirts of Atlanta might have what he needed—suburban homes equipped with rooftop units, private solar battery packs, maybe even full garage systems. But that would be a task for another day.
Today's mission lay in the ruins of a once-civilian safe zone, a nearby shelter marked on his hand-drawn map. It was supposed to have been a haven, one of many makeshift strongholds set up in the early days of the outbreak. Judging by the faint smoke trails and scavenged walls he'd seen in passing the week before, it didn't last long.
After securing his gear—modular helmet, ballistic shield faceplate, tactical harness, and the composite longbow slung across his back—Aiden fired up the truck. The engine roared to life, loud and mechanical, cutting through the morning silence like a blade. He immediately saw movement. Walkers.
"Figures," he muttered, pulling on his gloves.
He drove slowly, deliberately, taking the back roads toward the ruined shelter until two worn-down brick buildings came into view—an alleyway between them just wide enough to wedge the truck in. It was the perfect place to hide the vehicle. He pulled in, angled it just right, and shut off the engine. The sudden silence felt thick, almost reverent.
Aiden climbed down and immediately went to work.
The walkers, now alerted by the echoing growl of the truck, shambled toward him. There were six—no more than a warm-up for him at this point. He crouched low, drew an arrow from his back quiver, and notched it silently. With a calm exhale, he loosed the shot.
Thwack.
The first walker dropped, arrow sunk cleanly into its eye. The rest began to close in, groaning with ravenous hunger, but Aiden didn't panic. He ducked behind a dumpster, drew another arrow, and used the metal to knock on it. The sound echoed, drawing one of the slower walkers ahead of the rest. Another clean shot.
Soon, it was over.
Six corpses littered the alley in front of the truck. Aiden took a moment to loot them. From their tattered clothing, he pulled:
Several coins for melting
Two cracked cell phones for parts
A decent wristwatch—possibly solar-powered
A torn-up denim jacket (useful for makeshift bandages or patching)
A pair of worn boots he could strip for leather
And a single functional lighter
[12 EXP]
Every item went into the system's endless storage. As always, time froze the moment it entered the inventory—no rot, no wear, no weight.
After dragging the bodies into a shadowed corner and throwing a few trash bins over them, Aiden did a full perimeter sweep. No more walkers nearby. No signs of other survivors.
He turned his gaze toward the battered civilian shelter a block away—steel gates sagging inward, sandbags spilled and scattered, makeshift barricades torn apart by time and decay.
He adjusted the strap on his shoulder, reached back to tap the hilt of his survival knife for reassurance, and started moving forward with steady, silent steps.
Another hunt. Another ruin. Another chance to scavenge the bones of a fallen world.
Aiden knew better than to just walk into a collapsed shelter, even if it looked abandoned. Ruin didn't mean empty—it meant unstable, unpredictable, and often crawling with death. So instead of heading straight to the entrance, he got to work preparing an ambush.
He moved with quiet precision, scavenging from the alley and nearby stores—wooden planks, discarded metal rods, bits of fencing, and chunks of broken shelving. He cleared a nearby storefront, then set up a crude funnel system across the road from the shelter's entrance. The structure resembled a wide-mouthed trap narrowing inward toward a waist-high barrier of debris, with the center just low enough for walkers to climb over—if they were stupid enough. Which they always were.
But Aiden wasn't done.
He hauled out some of the noisier gear from his system storage: an old alarm clock rigged to a speaker, and a few pans tied with wire to clank with the slightest motion. These he placed just inside the shelter's collapsed gate. Then, using one of the lighters he'd recovered earlier, he lit a rag-wrapped piece of metal and tossed it inside, right next to the sound trap.
The result was chaos.
The moment the fire met the pan traps, a sharp clang-clang-clang erupted, echoing off the dead walls like gunfire. The shelter groaned with the sudden sound—and then came the response.
At first it was just noise. But then, one by one, they started to appear.
Walkers. A lot of them.
Aiden's jaw clenched as they funneled out the gaping hole in the front of the building—about two dozen at first, but that quickly turned into thirty, then forty. He counted with a hunter's focus.
Forty-three. No, forty-five. Forty-nine…
They were mostly civilians: tattered clothing, ripped jeans, stained shirts from what had once been families, nurses, workers. But mixed into the group were at least six in half-destroyed police uniforms, gear half hanging off, utility belts still strapped to them—possible loot, if he could take them down cleanly.
They followed the sound into the funnel.
Aiden didn't wait. He drew his bow and began firing one shot at a time from his rooftop perch just across the street, each arrow aimed for the skull. He didn't try to be quick—he was deliberate. A calculated killer.
The walkers pressed forward into the funnel, unaware of the growing pile of bodies in their path. When a few got tangled in the debris, Aiden took advantage of the slowed pace, climbed down, and circled the kill zone from behind with his combat knife in hand. Like a ghost, he darted in and out of blind spots, slashing tendons, finishing off stragglers.
By the end of it, the street was a mess of corpses—roughly fifty in total.
He took a step back, breathing hard, then heard the familiar sound:
[Ding!]
[+100 EXP][Bonus: Stealth Kill Combo - +40 EXP][Skill Progress: Melee Mastery Lv.1 – 87%]
Aiden cracked his neck, flicked the gore off his blade, and holstered it before kneeling beside the nearest officer corpse.
"Time to see what the uniforms left behind."
Holsters, flashlights, two half-empty pistol mags, a working radio, and one surprisingly intact stab vest—maybe not ballistic grade, but still useful. Aiden stored it all. He moved quickly from body to body, looting coins, gear, knives, boots, phones, and anything even remotely valuable.
He found a body with a cracked badge still clipped to the shirt. "Sgt. Elaine Rogers." Aiden paused just long enough to mutter, "Sorry," before taking the badge and adding it to his collection of lost names—a grim but personal ritual.
Then he stood, glancing back at the shelter. The front was clear now.
After Aiden had finished the grim task of looting the corpses, pulling small valuables from stiff pockets, cutting usable rags from ruined clothes, and extracting coins and parts from what once were people, he turned his attention to the dozens of arrows embedded in pavement, concrete, corpses, or lodged deep into the crevices of broken streetlights and walls.
It was a long and frustrating process.
Some had shattered entirely. Others were bent beyond saving. A few were so deeply buried in skulls or torsos that he had to place a boot on the walker and yank with both hands. Each arrow he recovered—especially the intact ones—was a minor victory, because crafting new ones would take time and effort he didn't have in excess.
But when he finally gathered the last of them—just fourteen good arrows out of nearly thirty fired—he sat down on a nearby step and stared at his bow.
It was a sleek composite longbow, compact but powerful. It had served him well in the ambush… sort of.
Aiden grimaced.
"Damn thing's not the problem," he muttered under his breath, running his fingers along the bowstring. "It's me."
He knew the truth. His aim from distance was terrible. The closer walkers had been easier—headshots were manageable from twenty feet or less, especially if they weren't moving erratically. But beyond that? Most of his shots had gone wide, or embedded into necks, shoulders, even the ground.
He looked at his hand, the slight tremble in his fingers from fatigue, the strain of hours spent pulling the string back again and again. His fingertips throbbed, and his draw hand was starting to blister beneath the finger tab.
"Still not good enough," he muttered, sighing.
But there was progress. Slight, subtle, but real.
He remembered when he first picked up a bow in the mall. Every shot back then had gone wild, sometimes missing the target entirely. Now, at least, he was hitting flesh. He was landing hits. Some kills, even.
Not consistent. Not reliable. But improving.
Slowly.
And slow improvement meant survival.
He looked around at the scene he'd created—the walker funnel filled with corpses, the broken remains of once-dangerous threats. It hadn't been clean, but it had been his strategy. His victory.
He stood up, slung the bow over his back, and walked toward the shelter entrance. There would be more fights ahead. More things that needed killing. More reasons to improve.
And as he stepped over another mangled walker skull, Aiden grinned faintly.
"I'll get better," he said under his breath. "One headshot at a time."
Aiden stepped into the shelter, his boots crunching softly against broken glass and spent shell casings. The heavy metal doors had been forced open long ago, their hinges bent, rusted, one of them hanging by a thread. Darkness greeted him like an old companion—thick and quiet, save for the occasional creak of a swaying pipe or the distant drip of leaking water. He didn't flinch. Not anymore.
What was once a place of refuge now resembled a warzone.
The lobby was littered with the dead and the reminders of desperation—makeshift tents torn open and bloodstained, hastily abandoned medical stations with rusted IV stands toppled over, and personal belongings scattered in silent chaos: half-filled notebooks, pacifiers, broken wristwatches, family photos stained with old blood. A once white wall was now dark red in a sweeping smear, the clear sign of someone who'd tried to crawl away.
The air was musty, soured with the scent of mold, old blood, and rot that lingered in the walls. Aiden adjusted his mask slightly, not to block the smell—he was already used to that—but to keep his mind from dwelling too long on the human suffering that had painted these halls.
He moved silently, step by step, flashlight off, using the faint ambient light from cracks in the boarded windows and the green tint of the one functioning lens in his night vision goggles. He didn't speak. Didn't even mutter to himself like he used to. This was just another site. Another opportunity.
Aiden passed by military crates stacked haphazardly beside overturned folding tables. With methodical precision, he popped open the latches one by one, keeping his ears attuned to every faint sound around him. His combat knife rested loosely in his left hand, bow strapped across his back for emergencies, and his system's inventory opened up mentally like a menu floating just beneath his consciousness.
In the first crate—MREs. Dozens of them, albeit aged. He swept them into his inventory without hesitation. Next, a stash of .223 ammo clips. Aiden grinned faintly. That would come in handy later if he got his hands on a proper rifle. Some crates were empty, long since looted or abandoned, but others yielded surprises: combat tourniquets, spare military boots, water purification tablets, compressed field blankets, and sealed trauma packs.
He came across a duffle bag that was zipped but bloody. Carefully, he opened it—revealing three loaded pistol mags, a flare gun, and a half-used bottle of antibiotics. Jackpot.
All the while, his eyes darted to the shadowed corners and hallways.
Walkers could be anywhere.
And humans… well, they were worse.
He passed through what used to be the medical wing. Beds lined the hallway, many with skeletal remains still strapped down by belts. One had a child's stuffed rabbit clutched in its fingers. Aiden looked at it only for a moment before moving on.
The dormitory area had been the last stand for many. Barricades built from chairs and tables were broken, but the amount of spent shell casings on the floor spoke of resistance. Aiden checked lockers one by one, collecting anything not bolted down: extra clothes, old survival manuals, even a few faded walkie-talkies which he noted could be stripped for parts.
Despite the horror, Aiden's heartbeat never changed.
He didn't tremble. Didn't hesitate.
This was just another layer of the apocalypse.
And in that numb silence, that hardened resolve, he found a strange kind of peace. No one here to argue. No weak group to babysit. Just survival. Loot. Move.
He glanced up at a flickering emergency light that struggled to stay alive in the hallway. It blinked slowly, casting stuttering shadows on the wall like some sort of warning beacon long forgotten by the world.
Aiden ignored it and moved deeper in.
There was still more to loot. More ground to cover. And like always, he kept one hand on his knife and the other on his gear, eyes sharp, ears tuned, and a kill count that would only grow by the day.
And like that, Aiden continued his relentless looting, moving with silent efficiency through every hallway, storage room, and office the ruined shelter had to offer. The deeper he went, the more organized he became—not in the sense of order or tidiness, but in purpose. He had done this enough times now that it was second nature.
Every item had potential. Every room had opportunity.
He collected anything that might serve a purpose: weatherproof jackets, boots in various sizes, gloves—some clean, some bloodstained but salvageable after boiling—thermal underwear, even mismatched military fatigues. It didn't matter if they were too large or too small. Aiden knew well enough that in a world falling apart, people made do with what they had.
Books were next. He picked through the ones that hadn't been reduced to pulp by rain or mold—manuals on first aid, survival, mechanical repair, even a worn Boy Scout field guide that he chuckled at before tucking away. A few fiction novels, too—because even survivors would need something to help them sleep at night. Stories to remind them they were still human.
Then came the bags.
Aiden found them hanging in abandoned lockers, stuffed under cots, or shoved behind broken desks: backpacks in military camo and bright civilian colors, duffel bags half-zipped with long-forgotten contents, even rolling luggage caked in dirt. He dumped their contents without hesitation and added the bags to his system inventory, mentally tagging them for future use. If he ever crossed paths with other survivors and needed to bring them in—or just needed an excuse to explain how he had so many supplies without raising suspicions—these bags would serve as his alibi.
"Everyone carried their share," he could say. "They didn't make it. But their gear did."
It was morbid. Practical. Real.
He worked for hours, methodical and quiet, his breath steady, broken only by the occasional creak of the floorboards or the low groan of a walker somewhere in the distance that he'd already cleared in his mental map. If he heard a sound, he froze. Listened. Waited. Then moved again, silent as a shadow.
The system pinged with occasional [Ding!] notifications as his scavenging yielded minor experience points, reinforcing that even gathering wasn't just about survival—it was growth. Everything he did here now echoed in the stats, the points, the potential for upgrades.
By the time he finished, the shelter was stripped clean of anything useful. He hadn't taken junk, just what could be used, bartered, or stored for emergencies. He'd built a mental list of gear caches by now and was forming a habit of creating fallback plans for every zone he cleared. Leave nothing valuable behind… but always know what you left, just in case.
Before leaving, he walked back through the path he came in, double-checking for anything he missed. Then he quietly made his way out of the shelter, stepping over spent rounds, cracked bones, and long-dried blood trails as casually as if he were stepping across a muddy road.
The world was dead.
But Aiden? He was more alive than he'd ever been.
And with every bag, every item tucked away, he was one step closer to building a stronghold. Not just for him—but for the people he might choose to let in.
If they proved worth the risk.