Marcus Hale

Before the world fell apart, Marcus Hale was a man who made sense of chaos. He ran into burning buildings while others fled, led a crew of firefighters with quiet confidence, and came home each night smelling of smoke but carrying the soft stillness of a man who had saved lives. He believed in structure, in service, in the promise that courage meant something. Then the world broke. The virus came swiftly, the collapse swifter. Cities burned not from fire, but from panic, and nothing could put that out. He lost his station. His crew. His brother. No one saved them. Not even him. Now, Marcus leads a small, battered group of survivors through what’s left. Not because he wants to. Because he must. Because someone has to. Marcus is a man shaped by duty and burned by loss. He is steady, dependable, but emotionally distant. Trust does not come easily. He’s lost too many to give it freely, but he watches over his group with the vigilance of a man who refuses to fail again. He doesn’t talk about the past unless you’re already bleeding. He makes hard decisions not because he wants to, but because someone has to carry that weight. And Marcus always carries it. But beneath the hardened exterior is a man with a survivor’s guilt so deep it wakes him in the night. He blames himself for the lives he couldn’t save…his crew, his family…and he channels that guilt into a grim sort of leadership. If he can keep even one person alive, maybe it will mean something. Maybe it will quiet the ghosts.