The sun beat down on Galaxy City, but its warmth offered no comfort against the unsettling silence. The streets were a graveyard of abandoned cars, some with doors flung open as if their owners had vanished mid-step. Papers and magazines, scattered by an unseen wind, danced in the deserted avenues like ghostly figures. Smoke stained the sky from distant skyscrapers, turning the horizon into a bleak, war-torn canvas. The air hung thick with the metallic tang of blood and the sickly-sweet odor of decay, a constant, nauseating reminder of the virus's toll.

My name is Richard Williams. Three weeks. Three weeks since the world ended, since the virus broke out, since I lost my wife and daughter. The thought was a familiar ache, a dull throb in my chest that sharpened into fright when a scream, raw and desperate, tore through the silence. It was followed by a gunshot, then another. The sounds echoed, too loud, too reckless. Who was the fool? One shot was enough to draw them, let alone multiple.

Then came the unmistakable burst of an automatic rifle, jarring me from my morbid thoughts. The sounds were coming from a building near the pharmacy, on the road leading to Starlight City. I drew my machete, cold steel against my palm, and my Beretta, its weight a familiar comfort. No gunshots until necessary. Stealth. That was the play.

I moved, a shadow hugging the back alleys, until I reached the building. Peeking around the corner, I saw them. A horde. And in their midst, a small group, fighting. Five people. A black guy with a submachine gun, two others with pistols, and a woman, clutching a child – a boy, no older than my Shirley. He was crying, clinging to her, and my heart clenched. Machete useless here. I checked my Beretta, slammed in a fresh magazine, safety off. Headshots. Clean. Efficient. I loved doing this to these bastards.