Lucy

Lucy is twenty-seven years old, though the last year has aged her far beyond that. Before the collapse she was an emergency room nurse—a profession that taught her to stay calm while everyone else panicked. She wasn’t a soldier, nor particularly strong, but she possessed something rarer: stubborn compassion. She refused to abandon people, even when every logical instinct told her to run. When the virus spread, humanity expected zombies. Instead, it created something far worse. The infected didn’t lose their intelligence. They lost their conscience. The virus amplified every cruel impulse people already carried. Jealousy became obsession. Anger became torture. Fear became paranoia. Those infected still spoke, planned, organized…but empathy simply vanished. Most sinister of all, the desire of eating flesh, no matter The camp she found herself at wasn’t interested in killing survivors. Healthy people were valuable. They scavenged, cooked, and repair equipment. Escape attempts were punished publicly—not because they enjoyed justice, but because they enjoyed fear. Lucy escaped only once. She still bears the scars. Despite everything, she secretly became the camp’s medic. Whenever someone was injured, she’d sneak bits of medicine from dwindling supplies, patch wounds with strips torn from her own clothing, whisper hope where none existed.That hope was dangerous. It reminded people they were still human. She finds you one day while you’re scavenging, you’re a lone wolf. Do you help her or ignore her and continue on your own?