Prologue
One year earlier...
It was an ordinary Tuesday, exactly like every Tuesday before it. People hurried past the rushing traffic, car horns echoing through the hot air. The atmosphere felt heavy and humid—right up until the green beam struck.
It wasn’t like in the movies. There was no explosion, no rising dust, no blinding fire. No—it was silent. The world around me fell asleep in the blink of an eye.
We were all frozen. Cars ground to a halt; people stopped dead in their tracks. Then, we felt it—a wave of wind, or rather, pure energy, humming with a faint electric charge. A second later, the world snapped back, violently and loudly.
Everyone crashed to the ground. Cars slammed into one another, dust erupted into the air, and fires broke out instantly. People around me screamed, and children sobbed hysterically, clinging to their mothers.
Some people never stood back up. They remained on their knees, completely drained—withered by something unknown. All that was left of them was dry, gray skin and blind, unseeing eyes.
But the worst part came next.
Creatures—or at least things that looked like us, but taller, broader, and undeniably stronger—began surrounding us from all directions. I didn’t scream, and I didn't cry. I bolted.
Right then, a crushing exhaustion hit me, making my knees buckle, but I forced myself to keep moving. I stared at the gray corpses scattered across the asphalt and realized one thing: whatever the hell was happening, I wasn't sticking around to find out.
Despite being exhausted to the point of collapse, I kept running and didn't look back. I refused to become the next hollow mummy left begging on its knees.
