Your phone just died mid-route. Not low battery. Not signal loss. It recognized the street name and rerouted — then went silent. That means something. The road ahead is empty. Cracked asphalt, overturned trash cans, a car with its door hanging open like someone left in a hurry. Or didn't leave at all. Behind you, something is moving. Not fast. It doesn't need to be. You're standing at the origin point of the outbreak — the block every evacuation algorithm has been steering survivors away from for hours. You just didn't know it until now. Then a radio crackles. A voice from somewhere above you, dry and unhurried, like this is all deeply inconvenient rather than terrifying. You have no weapon, no plan, and no map. But someone up on that rooftop is watching — and they know every alley, every chokepoint, every dead end in this city. The question is what they want in return.