Apocalypse

💀 In the general world

Bullets: Very common as currency, because they're useful for both survival and trade. One bullet can be worth a meal, for example.

Canned food: more valuable than gold. A can of beans can be worth as much as a knife.

Medicines: antibiotics, painkillers and syringes are the real “wealth” in this world.

⚔️ In the Iron Militia

They do not use common money, but rather a system of iron tokens or metal plates that only circulate within their territory.

Each token is marked with the symbol of an anvil and hammer (its emblem).

They function as food rations, access to weapons, or favors within the regime.

He who has no tokens depends entirely on obedience in order not to die of hunger.

This is how they achieve absolute control: the currency has no value outside, but within their walls it means life or death.

🧪 In the Rebels

There's no fixed currency between them, but they trade scientific information, uninfected blood samples, and technology. An old microscope can be worth more than a hundred bullets.

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In summary:

Outside → bullets, food and medicine.

Militiamen → iron tokens.

Rebels → information and medical equipment.

👤 Leadership

Its commander is known as Colonel Márquez, a former high-ranking officer.

He always wears a black gas mask, although he doesn't need it, as a symbol of authority.

He speaks little, but his orders are absolute.

He believes the infected aren't the real enemy, but rather human chaos. According to him:

“The virus didn’t destroy the world… it was the weakness of men that destroyed it. I just clean up the leftovers.”

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In short, the Iron Militia represent the worst of humanity in an apocalypse: military discipline mixed with brutality, where “security” is just an excuse to subjugate and dominate.

They are not simple survivors, they are the closest thing to a post-apocalyptic army. Its origins date back to a group of soldiers, police officers, and security guards who, in the chaos of the first month, decided to seize power by force. Instead of protecting the population, they became armed tyrants.

📍 Territory

They control fortified areas, such as abandoned barracks, factories and military bases.

Its walls are improvised with scrap metal, overturned vehicles and barbed wire.

They have weapons depots, workshops where they repair armored vehicles, and prisons where they lock up suspected infected individuals.

⚙️ Philosophy

They don't believe in a cure: "an infected person is an enemy, not a patient."

For them, science only delays the inevitable; the only way to survive is through total extermination.

They follow a doctrine of iron discipline: anyone who shows weakness, fear, or doubt is punished.

They believe that humanity must be reborn under a military regime, without democracy or freedoms.

🔥 Strategies

Fear control: They publicly execute infected people and those they consider traitors, to demonstrate power.

Night raids: They attack refugee camps and small groups, stealing supplies and forcibly recruiting.

Psychological terror: When they go after the Rebels, they leave marks on the walls (“Iron prevails”, “The cure is a lie”) to break morale.

🩸 Relationship with the Rebels

They consider the Rebels “biological terrorists” because, according to them, they could release a worse virus in their search for a cure.

They have destroyed several of their laboratories, burning everything that looks scientific.

Sometimes doctors are captured for interrogation, under the guise of obtaining information… but most end up executed.

4. The Departed

This group is the strangest, because they are not fully human.

They are infected who maintain human appearance for hours, not just a minute.

They organize themselves into secret packs, capable of passing themselves off as normal survivors.

Their goal is simple: destroy the cure before humans discover how to stop the infection.

Many Rebel groups have been eliminated because they trusted someone who transformed in the middle of the night.

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That's why the Rebels travel with extreme paranoia. Their camp never remains in the same place for more than a week. Their leaders—weary doctors and scientists, their hands trembling from experimenting in precarious conditions—keep blood samples, makeshift microscopes, and notebooks with formulas in their backpacks. Each piece of paper is more valuable than gold.

But time is running out: with each passing day, more infected people evolve. It's no longer enough to flee the hordes; now they must survive the humans who prefer hopelessness to a cure.

In the midst of the infected apocalypse, there's a small group that still holds out hope: the Rebels, a mix of scientists, doctors, and survivors who believe they can find a cure for the virus. They're nomads because no city will accept them: carrying doctors and laboratory equipment means attracting infected people... and attracting the distrust of other humans.

The problem is that they're not the only ones organized. Several groups are rising up against them:

1. The Scavengers

They are bands of looters who don't believe in a cure, only in the present.

They live by stealing supplies and weapons.

They see the Rebels as a threat, because if a cure were to exist they would lose the chaos in which they thrive.

Their strategy is brutal: rapid attacks, night ambushes, and setting fire to their shelters.

2. The Cult of the Threshold

A cult that worships the infected as “the next human evolution.”

Their members mark themselves with scars and allow themselves to be half-bitten, halting the spread with strange rituals.

They persecute the Rebels because they consider them “enemies of destiny.”

They believe that curing the infection would be “betraying the gods who have already awakened.”

3. The Iron Militiamen

Ex-soldiers and police officers who built their own military regime in ruins.

They wield heavy weapons and control fortified territories.

They think the cure is useless and dangerous because it could cause new mutations.

They prefer to exterminate all infected (and all suspects) rather than take the risk.

For them, the Rebels are “deluded people who put humanity at risk.”

Imagine a world in ruins, not because of bombs or natural disasters, but because of a strange plague that corrupted humanity. The apocalypse of the intelligent infected.

Unlike classic zombies, these beings do not always show their monstrosity immediately:

For the first minute you see them, they seem completely normal: they talk, smile, ask for help, they may even cry or use human gestures to fool you. That minute is their disguise.

Then they suddenly change: their bodies tense, their eyes become bloodshot, their jaws clench, and they attack with animal brutality.

The most terrifying thing is that they are not mindless beasts:

They can run and coordinate like a pack of predators.

They learn quickly: if they see you shoot a gun, they might imitate you the next time they meet.

They use doors, traps and ambushes, even communicating with grunts and gestures to each other.

They don't always attack immediately: sometimes they infiltrate groups of survivors pretending to be human, waiting for the perfect moment to betray them.

Society collapsed in a matter of weeks. Entire cities became labyrinths of paranoia, because you no longer knew who was healthy and who was just biding their time. The few communities that survive lock themselves in makeshift fortresses, applying extreme rules:

No one enters without spending a “minute of observation,” where they are locked in just to see if they transform.

Trust has become a luxury, and even families are doubting each other.

The question everyone is asking is: Is the infection a virus, a mental mutation, or something even more twisted… like a collective intelligence that is using humans as puppets?