The dormitory was a graveyard of shattered bones and lifeless husks, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood and the acrid stench of decay.
Jon stood at the center of the carnage, his coat slick with gore, his hands steady despite the chaos he'd just quelled. He'd cleared the male dormitory of zombies, ripping their bones free with ruthless efficiency, each snap and crunch a grim reminder of the world's new reality to the survivors.
The survivors, sixty in total, including the forty he'd led from the upper floors, clustered behind him, their faces pale, their eyes wide with a mix of awe and terror. They stepped out of the dormitory into the open air, and the sight that greeted them stole their breath.
The once-vibrant campus of Palflic University was unrecognizable. Collapsed buildings jutted from the ground like broken teeth, their concrete facades reduced to rubble. Dead bodies littered the pathways, some torn apart, others eerily still, as if frozen mid-step.
