The next day arrived silently, slipping in under a heavy sky that carried no promise of hope or light. Apex City, which had once been a bustling metropolitan giant with more than sixty million people moving through its veins every single day, now lay in complete ruins as if the hand of some cruel fate had crushed it overnight.
The skyscrapers that used to tower proudly over everything, shining symbols of humanity's greatest achievements, stood broken and hollow now, their glass windows shattered and their steel frames twisted like broken bones.
Smoke and fire still rose in thick columns across the skyline, mixing with dark clouds that hung low and heavy, turning the whole city into a depressing shadow of what it had been. The air itself felt thick and wrong, carrying the constant smell of burning fuel, rotting flesh, and something far worse that no one could quite name.
