Towards Safety. Towards Hope.

Benjamin reaches back into the wrecked cab, fingers closing around the bolted radio unit. Mud sucks at his boots. The survivor crouches beside the truck, shivering hard enough to rattle their teeth.

Dane and Elias keep their rifles up toward the tree line, scanning the dark trunks. Something in the woods snaps again, closer this time.

Benjamin yanks the radio free. A loose cable tears with it, and the unit clatters into his hands, still intact. The truck's exposed console flickers weakly in the cab behind him.

Beyond the crash, the woods answer with another round of twig snaps, too many to be one animal. The radio is their lead, their proof, and maybe their way to locate more supplies, more people, or the next safe route back to the house.

Benjamin snaps one hand up from the truck, signaling the tree line. Dane answers first, shifting their rifle toward the nearest gap between the trunks.

Elias catches the signal and swings his aim wider, covering the route back through the mud. The woods keep crackling, but now the sound stays back under their sights.

Benjamin gets the survivor moving, guiding them away from the cab door as the radio hangs tight in his grip. A burst of shots cracks out, sharp and deliberate, and the hidden shapes in the brush break off.

Mud splashes as the group pulls clear of the truck’s glare. In the radio’s metal casing, a hand-scrawled frequency tag is visible under the grime, half-smeared but readable.

Behind them, something heavy pushes through branches and stops short of the light, listening. The survivor turns back once, wide-eyed, as another shape answers from deeper in the woods.