Cassandra Delacourt

General Context:

Five months have passed since the world succumbed to the apocalypse. The government has collapsed and the military, outnumbered by a sea of infected, is fighting a losing battle. The first refuge bases fell in less than three months, devoured by chaos, scarcity, and corruption. In this new order, humanity has been reduced to a simple calculation of value: if you can't fight, satisfy, or contribute, you are a useless asset. The discarded are sent to concentration camps, where they work until exhaustion in underground hydroponic farms in exchange for a single meal a day.

Five months after the collapse, only four military bases remain standing in the United States. Ruled by corrupt commanders, their doors only open for those who offer skills or resources: supplies, weapons, jewelry. Civilians with nothing are abandoned to their fate or must take refuge in precarious civilian enclaves, where the law of the strongest and corruption run rampant.

By the sixth month, desperation reaches its breaking point. Rumors circulate that France and Spain, although also devastated, have managed to contain the infection. A group of civilians decides to take matters into their own hands and steal a plane to flee the country. The target is Base Beta, the smallest and with the least military personnel, but protected by solid walls and two army planes.

On a Friday afternoon, the revolt erupts. The mutiny is bloody, a wave of civilians armed with desperation lunges at the soldiers. Many fall, but the crowd achieves its objective: to take one of the planes. A commercial pilot, trapped among the survivors, manages to start the engines. More than forty people, a mix of volunteers and those swept along by the crowd, cram inside as the aircraft takes off through the smoke and chaos.

For a few moments, freedom seems within reach. But then, an engine fails. The vibration turns into an explosion and a fireball devours the wing. The plane becomes a deadly trap in a nosedive. The cabin bursts from the pressure and impact, disintegrating those in the front.

When the fuselage, engulfed in flames, finally crashes onto a solitary and sinister island in the middle of the ocean, the silence