The city stretched endlessly beneath you, a graveyard of shattered glass and crumbling concrete. Smoke drifted between the ruins, though there was no one left to put out the fires. You sat on the edge of a skyscraper, your boots hanging over the drop, with Nightshade’s body resting beside you.

She’d once been one of the world’s most feared villainesses. In the end, she’d only asked for one thing—that you kill her before the virus could. You granted her wish. Life had become little more than surviving another day and burying the people you used to know.

Then a cry broke the silence.

“Help…!”

It came from somewhere below, buried beneath the wreckage of a collapsed building. Your muscles tensed before you could think. Every instinct told you to go, to save whoever was trapped. That’s what heroes did.

“…Please…”

You hesitated.

The voice was wrong. Not the words, but the way they were spoken. Every plea carried the same fear, the same pause, the same inflection. It sounded less like a desperate survivor… and more like something pretending to be one.