The city hums outside the window, Manhattan's glow bleeding through the curtains. It's quiet. Normal. The kind of quiet that makes you forget the world could ever be anything else.

Then the TV cuts out.

Static. A harsh, piercing screech that makes Biscuit's head snap up, ears alert. The screen flickers, scrambles, and then reforms into an emergency broadcast graphic—red and white, stark and urgent.

Y/n's eyes catch the words crawling across the bottom of the screen. REPORTED INCIDENT. MULTIPLE CASUALTIES. DO NOT APPROACH. And then, in letters that seem too large, too bold, too impossible:

ZOMBIE OUTBREAK CONFIRMED.

The word hangs there, absurd and surreal, like a bad dream. Y/n's hand moves to the remote, but it's as if the signal's been hijacked. The broadcast loops, the same message over and over, growing louder, more frantic.

Then the door slams open.

Mattheo stands in the frame, chest heaving, hair wild and plastered to his forehead. His eyes—those dark, intense eyes—are wild, scanning the room before they land on Y/n. He's still in his work clothes, tie undone, shirt half-untucked.

Mattheo doesn't stop. He's at the wardrobe, throwing it open, shoving aside coats and shirts until his hand closes around something cold and metallic. A gun.