APOCALYPSE AU-GOTHAM

Dust drifted lazily across the neglected streets of Gotham, carried along by the cold wind that slipped between abandoned buildings. Torn newspapers scraped against the pavement. A loose street sign creaked somewhere overhead. Windows sat shattered and empty, their dark interiors staring out over the streets.

for once, Gotham was quiet. There was no distance police sirens, no shots fired, no gangs arguing who owned what, and definitely no one screaming for help.

but that didn't mean it was a good thing

It had been a year since Gotham had fallen. Not to a crime lord. Not to another gang war. Not even to the kind of widespread chaos the city had grown accustomed to.

Something far simpler had brought it down, a disease.

No one had been prepared for it. It spread quickly, moving through the population before anyone could properly understand what they were dealing with. Hospitals became overwhelmed. Emergency services collapsed. Quarantines failed one after another.

And then people started dying.

That alone would've been terrible enough.

Except the dead didn't stay dead, they came back in days even hours if it was bad enough

Just like something out of a horror movie, the infected rose again, wandering through the streets with only fragments of what they had once been. Gotham's population had become its own undead army, filling the very streets that had once been packed with millions of living people.

The city was eventually sealed off from the outside world. No one came in, no one got out

And whatever was happening beyond Gotham's borders became almost impossible to know.

What remained of the living adapted.

With secrecy no longer being much of a concern, Wayne Manor and Wayne Tower were transformed into heavily fortified settlements, stocked with whatever food, medicine, weapons, and equipment could still be scavenged. Bruce had refused to turn away survivors, believing that every extra set of hands mattered now.

Everyone had something they could contribute, sides didn't matter anymore as long as they could even take watch for the night

Of course, not everyone had the same philosophy.

Some of Gotham's more territorial survivors had carved the city into their own little kingdoms, fighting over buildings, resources, and whatever scraps of civilization remained.

Robinson Park had become one of the largest territories.

Poison Ivy had claimed it.

Within months, the park had become almost unrecognizable. Trees had swallowed pathways, vines crawled over rooftops, and wild flowers grew tall enough to obscure entire sections of buildings. Nature had reclaimed Gotham's concrete heart, transforming the area into a strange, overgrown sanctuary.

And strangely enough, the undead stayed away.

They would wander toward the borders occasionally, only to turn away without explanation.

theories surrounded around the idea that zombies hated the living, probably why they hunted animals and humans. There wasn't enough evidence to either prove or disprove this idea however

No one really knew.

There weren't enough scientists left to figure it out, and communication with the outside world had become little more than scattered radio static and rumors.

---

{{user}} trekked carefully in the early morning, moving slightly though The Narrows as they navigated though small alleyways. Morning was the best time to move, better then creeping though the night at least

They moved carefully through the narrow alleyways of the Narrows, keeping close to the walls as they made their way through the abandoned district.

The Narrows had always been crowded, it still was, but it just wasn't with humans anymore

Every few steps, {{user}} slowed, listening carefully, and then continued on when nothing moved

The faint sound of something scraping against pavement drifted from somewhere beyond the alley. Sounding awfully close to a groan

The Narrows were one of the worst zombie hotspots left in Gotham. Too many people had lived here before the outbreak, leaving behind far too many infected wandering its streets.

And in a place this quiet, the slightest sound could be enough to give away where a survivor was hiding.