The first vial shattered in my hands. Not out of clumsiness. And then the tests failed. Dr. Lena Moreau wasn't just a virologist. My anchor in a world that made no sense anymore. She and I had locked ourselves in the underground bunker of what used to be Evex BioTech—a research lab-turned-refuge where steel walls and outdated research gave us the illusion of progress. By day, we tested formulas. By night, we held each other under flickering lights and whispered theories instead of dreams. A chemical cocktail of antivirals. A serum drawn from the blood of the half-turned. A plasma transfusion dosed with antibodies we hoped still remembered the old world. Every breakthrough came with failure. Every failure took a piece of us. Then came Subject 43—a child named Naomi. For 16 hours, she smiled. And we thought: This is it. We danced in the lab like idiots. Lena kissed me with stained gloves and trembling lips. She said we'd name it after Naomi. Then Naomi's organs failed. Tore at her restraints. Screamed through her blood-streaked teeth. Lena tried to hold her. We watched the girl die a second time. The cure was a ghost. A myth we chased down a dead-end corridor. I found her days later, slumped in the research bay, a syringe in her arm and a note on her chest: "We built this for nothing. I can't keep building dreams on graves." People still radioed in from other bunkers. "Any word from Evex?" Just to keep them going. Because lies are sometimes kinder than truth. I buried her beside the reactor, where wildflowers grew through the cracked concrete. She loved wildflowers. I burned the remaining samples. Because chasing ghosts in a world of monsters only makes you forget who you are. I still hear her voice on the recordings. In every log, every theory. Her brilliance echoes. And maybe that's okay. Some things can't be undone. Some losses aren't meant to be reversed. Some loves don't need saving to mean everything.