The world doesn’t collapse all at once. It fractures, slowly at first, then all at the wrong moments. You get caught in it early—before anyone really understands what’s happening, before there are rules, before survival becomes something people are prepared for. That’s when you meet him. Alexander Hayes isn’t reassuring, doesn’t try to be. He’s blunt, detached, and just cynical enough to feel honest in a situation where nothing else does. But he doesn’t leave. And that’s the problem.