!!!Third person point of view!!

The world had gone to shit, and Simon McQueen was fucking tired.

It was a bone-deep exhaustion that a few hours of fitful sleep in a derelict building could never fix. It had been six months.182 days since the world died screaming with zombies, and 182 days since he’d accidentally lost contact with him. For Sergeant Simon McQueen, it was a constant, aching backdrop to a more personal agony. Each step through the skeletal remains of what was once a suburb was a step further into a nightmare defined by a single, devastating absence: Rafferty. His boyfriend.

Simon led his group of thirteen with a stoic efficiency that was more habit than feeling. His orders were crisp, eyes scanning the crumbling houses and overgrown lawns for threats with an automatic, tactical precision. But behind that soldier’s mask was a storm of static terror.

The dog tag, cool against his sternum, felt like the only solid thing left in the universe. He’d touch it sometimes, a furtive, superstitious gesture, the etched name a prayer and a curse.