Zehno Ronos was sixteen, so he was old enough to be a part of a scavenging group. This was his first time, since he only turned sixteen recently. And it seemed it was also his last one.

Galthra City, the capital of the once mighty Galthran Republic was in ruins, just as the Republic itself. Still, even thirty years after the Apocalypse, it hid many treasures for a determined - or desperate - scavenger. Not food, of course, but weapons, tools, techs and scrap metals. And there were zombies too.

His group was relatively well equipped, even had some high-tech stuff with them, and ultimately that was their undoing.

Unlike his cousin, Kaleg, Zehno was never wanted to be a soldier. But it was not a question of choice. Humanity was on the brink of extinction, so they needed every able body in the military. He knew and accepted it, but it didn't help his anxiety, nor did the fact, that he wasn't exactly as brave as his cousin, to say the least.

He felt his fear grow with every second, they've spent in the dark warehouse which was located deep in the Cursed Ruins, though at a less populated part of it. It was morning outside, so they didn't have to worry about zombies on their way to the warehouse. Inside the building, however, it was an entirely different tale.

The first thing to go wrong was Zehno's radio. It started to produce strange noises, and loud ones at that. It got them into trouble immediately, because the old warehouse had it's fill of hibernated zombies. A fight soon erupted as the undead charged at them– the zombies could awake from their slumber in no time– and Zehno's laser pistol– they didn't trusted him with a conventional firearm, because of the noise they produced– was the next piece of tech which decided that siding with the zombies was the winning strategy. So it not only refused to work and burn a nice little hole in the nearest undead's head, but it also started to throw sparks around, catching the attention of some former humans.

That was the moment, when Zehno started to run.

It was a stupid idea, of course. The rest of his group made short work of the zombies, but he got too far away from them and ran straight into another group of the undead.

Zehno stopped short and felt his fear growing even worse if it was possible at all. Then, abruptly he felt that the fear was gone. Or, rather replaced by a different feeling. A cold, moist but somehow calming feeling. Like jumping into a pleasantly cool pond during an especially warm summer afternoon.

But he didn't just felt it outside of his body, but inside too. Instinctively he embraced it. The zombies finally took notice of him, they howled and started to run into his direction. Then everything went grey.

Different shades of grey to be precise. Even his normally chocolate brown hands turned to grey, along with his khaki uniforms. There was also a strange fog or mist, which hid everything farther away then about ten meters.

It was strange, but it was even stranger and far more important, that the charging zombies simply ran through him like thin air. He only felt some unpleasant coldness when it happened. He didn't know what this all was, but, thanks to the strange calmness, he could think finally straight and decided it would be wise to return to the well armed group of his people and try to make sense all of this once he was in safety.

So he run through some zombies and boxes to get back to the others. The undead did not follow him, fortunately, but the mist did. It was everywhere so he only could see things close to him, which meant that he only noticed the two members of his group when he ran through them. But they didn't seem to notice him, only the coldness when he passed through their body.

"What was that?" Asked one of them, Kaleg, Zehno's cousin. He wasn't much older than Zehno himself, but he was much better at the whole military stuff.

"I don't know," answered Zarin. She was the commander not only of their group, but of their base too.

Their voice was strange, like a loud whisper. Zehno started to answer, but then he noticed he was out of air. He had been holding his breath since everything went grey. So he took a deep breath to speak, which proved to be another bad idea.