Ethan smiled. It was not a kind smile. He raised a single finger and pointed at the bandit’s gas mask. There was no gunshot. No bang. The bandit simply ceased – his body folded into itself like a crumpled piece of paper and vanished. A small floating text appeared: At first, it was a game. Ethan sprinted past convoys at superhuman speed, snatching ethanol barrels before drivers could blink. He jumped from the top of Joseph Seed’s statue, landed on his feet without a scratch, and walked through the fires of the Scrapyard like a tourist in a warm rain. The Highwaymen’s bullets became flies. Their bombs became firecrackers.

The first sign that something was wrong with the Hope County afterlife wasn’t the double-headed bear or the angel’s flaming sword. It was the silent click inside Ethan’s skull.

Ethan stared at the menu. He thought of Carmina’s terrified face. Of the way the bandit had folded into nothing. Of the silent, lonely speed of running faster than any human could witness. He had turned the apocalypse into a cheat code, and the only thing left to fight was the silence.