The Last Safe Zone

When the sky fractures and the System descends, humanity is not chosen for glory—it is processed for extinction. Cities become hunting grounds, hospitals turn into nests, and every survivor is branded with a countdown to the first monster wave. In the ruins of Pittsburgh, paramedic Mara Venn awakens to a broken class no one else can see: Corpse Shepherd, a forbidden path that lets her harvest echoes from the dead and command the memories monsters leave behind.

Mara only wants to reach her younger brother inside a downtown safe zone, but sanctuary comes with walls, ration laws, and people willing to sell lives for levels. As factions rise from the ashes—militias, cults, corporate enclaves, and awakened warlords—Mara must decide what kind of monster she is willing to become. Because the System is not here to test humanity. It is here to build an army from whatever survives.