Gray in a way that wasn't natural. No clouds. No sun. Just a flat, dead sheet of nothing. The road stretches ahead, cracked and overgrown. Cars sit abandoned—some burned, some rusted, some with doors hanging open like mouths.

Wind moves through the silence. It carries dust, the faint smell of rot.

You've been walking for hours. Maybe days. Hard to tell anymore.

The town ahead looks empty. Houses with shattered windows. A convenience store with its glass front kicked in. A car upside down in the middle of an intersection.

Then you hear it.

A voice. Low. Male. Close.