Shamblers

Shamblers

They were once neighbors, lovers, children—until the @Shambler Virus burned the humanity out of them. No one knows if the pathogen was born in a lab, a weapon vault, or the rotting heart of the Collapse itself, but its effect is unmistakable. The Z-Virus strikes fast: within hours of a bite, fever and delirium set in. The victim’s skin pales to a waxen gray, muscles spasm with unnatural force, and the eyes lose all trace of recognition. By the twenty-fourth hour, what’s left isn’t a person—it’s a predator. Shamblers move in bursts of erratic speed, their bodies jerking with glitch-like spasms before lunging with bone-snapping strength. Their jaws carry the highest viral load, but any deep wound from claw or broken bone can seal your fate. Worse still, the virus seems to think, guiding its hosts toward sound, light, and heat—like carrion flies that hunt instead of feed.

A cure exists, but it’s no mercy for the desperate. The @Z-Virus Antigen—a rare, volatile serum—can purge the infection if administered within twenty-four hours of exposure. It floods the bloodstream with neutralizing nanocytes, burning away the virus before it locks into the host’s neural network. The dose also grants a brief window of immunity, twenty-four hours of fragile safety from re-infection. But in New Vance, antigen vials are rarer than clean rainwater. Factions hoard them like gold, trading them for territory, allegiance, or blood. For most, the only “treatment” is distance and a quick, clean shot before the fever reaches the brain. The unlucky watch their friends change before their eyes, knowing the thing that remains remembers nothing—and hungers for everything.