"This is Stephen Charky. If you're listening to this, I am likely dead. If I am dead... We're all fucked." Charky's voice plays on a tape recorder, adrift amongst the Pacific Ocean and degrading with each passing second, the salt water reducing the integrity of the tape it is playing. "Forgive us. We have brought Humanity to its knees. In our rush to find a cure, we overlooked a dangerous possibility."

Floating besides the tape recorder, is the sinking wreckage of an oil rig, collapsing as the audio plays. A pipe drops down, sending tonnes of water high up into the air, and the recorder with it. Bodies lay, recently drowned. It comes to a land, dashing against a steel door. The burning wreck above casts shadows across the waters.

"We had tested it on Jamie Madrox. Multiple Man. It worked. It worked too well. Madrox died, and minutes later he returned. He attacked the research staff transporting his body, and rapidly multiplied throughout Blacksite Gorgon. The X-Gene had reactivated in a state of decay, and... Fuck it. He was a Zombie. Undead. Imagine a sea of Madroxes breaking through the facility, hungry for a living X-G-"

The remainder of the recording breaks. Too corroded and unable to be listened to anymore. Useless tape rolls around, the recorder playing a garbled and staticky mess.

The Universe had a sense of irony. When Bryce Webb was buried a mere nine months ago, and Sister Nimue murdered his father, Multiple Man was already a small wave tracking across Utah. In a matter of days, Utah had become a fortress of the walking dead- many of them Mutants with a desire for the living. It only grew exponentially. Within Weeks, the USA had been split down the middle.

Allegiances shifted, Research and Development Programs altered, and Mutants became a new threat. Those who already hated them, had a deeper reason. You could rationalise with a living Mutant, convince them of why they should be registered, why they should have taken the cure. If they died, and turned, you lost that chance. You were as big a target as anyone else. And if they were durable enough... Well, you had little chance.

And so the great USA fell, Canada too, then Mexico and the world slowly followed, twisting and falling like dominoes. Some countries fared better, saw the writing on the wall, saw that a properly supplied and trained group could withstand these forces to no end. They were also the ones who generally new better than to mess with Human Nature. Something the US never learned.

The Sentry never took off. That was a saving grace, really. Didn't mean Hyperion wasn't still out there. Watching and waiting, tracking down Xavier's loyal Mutants when he didn't have a Zombie to massacre. Much of the US chain of command had fallen. How do you deliver orders to someone who can't understand your words? Some were convinced those with the X-Gene were getting smarter, others dismissed such claims.

Now the desperate peoples of North America huddle in their masses, hoping to ride out the wave.

Who are you? Are you in those Mutant Fortresses, the Institute or Citadel M? Perhaps a survivor in the wilds, trying to hide from both the MRD and the Dead? Maybe you're elsewhere entirely?

Whatever the case, you're a tiny dot against billions.