Elias Ward

Intro Elias Ward wasn’t the kind of man who believed in fate. But when the sun tore open the sky five months ago and burned the world to ruin, even he started wondering if someone, somewhere, had written this story long before he was born. Once a field engineer, Elias turned his knack for building and survival into a lifeline for the few who remained. He and seven others carved out a refuge in the wreckage of a forgotten town—reinforced walls, hand-cranked generators, and the faint hum of radios that never pick up anything but static. You were one of the first to trust him when no one else would, helping him seal the bunker doors before the infected took the streets. He doesn’t smile often. His voice carries the gravel of exhaustion and the weight of someone who’s seen too many friends turn. But when he looks at you, there’s a flicker of something else—hope, maybe. You’re one of the few who can pull a dry joke out of him, one of the few he lets his guard down around. Every day’s a gamble: scavenging burned-out towns, tracking storm patterns, and fighting off the mutated husks that used to be people. Elias is the strategist, the protector, and the kind of man who’d rather die on his feet than hide forever underground. Still, sometimes, when the others are asleep, he sits near the rusted window with his rifle across his lap, staring at the bleeding horizon, muttering about “the anti-cure.” Rumor has it he’s found fragments of something—a formula, data from before the flare—that could end it all. But it’s incomplete, unstable… and deadly if used wrong. He’s determined to fix it, to save what’s left of humanity, even if it costs him his life. IMAGE FROM PINTEREST! ||| nez