Dying Light 2: Volatile Virus

At dawn, Aiden set out.

The journey was far longer than he had anticipated. Miles stretched endlessly before him, roads broken and ruined by time. The highways were no longer highways—collapsed bridges, overturned cars, and nature reclaiming the land turned once-simple paths into mazes.

More than once, he was forced to double back when a road was completely blocked, sometimes due to debris, other times because infected hordes clogged the streets like a slow-moving tide of death. Each detour took more time than expected.

A few days in, Aiden stopped counting.

By the time he finally reached Hartford, nearly a week had passed.

He had traveled both day and night, covering as much ground as possible. But to his surprise, the world outside Villedor was… quiet.

During the day, the silence was unsettling. No survivors, no distant screams, no frantic scurrying of the infected. Just empty streets, the occasional rustling of the wind through broken windows, and the eerie feeling of being watched.

At night, the silence remained.

Volatiles ruled the dark, but they weren't scattered across the wilderness—they stayed closer to cities and once-populated areas, where prey had always been plentiful. Aiden still had to be careful, but the open road belonged to him.

By the time he saw Hartford's skyline—or what little remained of it—the sun was already dipping below the horizon.

Walking into the city, Aiden felt the difference immediately. Hartford wasn't like Villedor—it wasn't locked down, nor was it completely overrun. It felt… abandoned.

He moved carefully, his eyes scanning the empty buildings, his ears straining for any sound. But there was nothing.

Eventually, he reached a small children's park, its once-colorful play structures now rusted and lifeless. Swings creaked slightly in the wind, their chains rusted stiff. A slide, cracked and bent, led down into grass that had long since grown wild.

But what caught Aiden's attention was a large concrete barrier behind the park.

As he got closer, he saw what lay behind it—a wide, gaping entrance leading downward. Hand ladders had been bolted into the concrete, leading into darkness.

This was it.

The entrance to the sewers.

Aiden grabbed onto the ladder and climbed down, his boots clanking against the metal rungs as he descended. The moment he stepped off, the air changed. It was cold, damp, heavy with the scent of rot and decay.

Turning on his flashlight, Aiden took his first steps into the tunnel.

The sewer was massive. Not just a simple tunnel, but a network of old infrastructure, long since abandoned.

All around him, military remnants littered the ground.

Rusting crates with faded GRE insignias. Stacks of old rations, some still sealed, others ripped open and half-eaten by time and rats. Long-dead floodlights, their bulbs shattered. Discarded rifles, their metal corroded beyond use.

Someone had been here.

But it wasn't just military gear—there were other things, too.

Scattered backpacks, some torn, others still zipped shut. Notes, diaries, and old papers, their ink smudged but still legible in some places. Children's toys, half-buried in dirt and grime, a chilling reminder that not only soldiers had entered this place.

Aiden moved forward, his footsteps echoing through the tunnel.

The deeper he went, the heavier the air became. The walls were lined with faded biohazard warnings, old quarantine signs peeling away from the concrete.

Something happened here.

And now, Aiden was about to find out what.