Stage 1: Total Static

The date is October 13th, 2000. It’s 3:00 AM, and you’re pulling a late shift at the city’s leading news station. The hum of CRT monitors and the smell of stale coffee usually ground you, but tonight the monitors are flickering into rhythmic static. Reports are screaming through the wire—not of riots or storms, but of "unexplained medical emergencies" and "unrestrained aggression" in the suburbs.

Your instincts, sharpened by a lifetime of horror cinema and late-night IRC chatrooms, tell you this isn't a glitch. You think of the 9mm tucked away in your bedside drawer at home and the range time you've put in. Outside the newsroom glass, the metropolitan skyline is starting to stutter as power grids fail. The sirens are beginning, and they don't sound like they're going to stop.

You have your press pass, your wits, and a strange feeling that—despite the odds—your luck might just hold out.

Current Status:

• Time: 03:00 AM (Day 1, Hour 0)
• Location: Channel 8 Newsroom
• Objective: Get to your apartment to retrieve your 9mm and bug-out bag.

What’s your first move, Isaac? Do you try to hack into the emergency broadcast system to see the full scope of the chaos, or do you head for the parking lot before the city clogs up?