Cassel — POV
They stepped out from behind our vehicles.
To be precise—they weren't just a group. It was painfully clear they were a family.
The oldest among them was a man and a woman who must have once carried great dignity. Now their hair was threaded with gray, their faces carved with age and exhaustion, yet their features still held a gentleness—a softness you didn't see anymore. Not in this world. Not after everything had burned and rotted and collapsed into chaos.
The apocalypse wasn't a place for kindness. It wasn't a place for humanity. It had stripped people down to their ugliest instincts.
I'd seen it all.
Parents selling their own children for a stale piece of bread.
Husbands murdering husbands for a handful of supplies. I'd even seen a man butcher and eat what remained of his family because hunger had hollowed him into something less than human.
So seeing this family—this intact, united group—standing before us felt almost unreal.
