PATIENT ZERO -The lone survivor
A cigarette dangled from his lips, the glowing cherry illuminating a wide, golden-toothed smile.
But it was the water that demanded Baraka’s absolute attention.
The knee-deep, freezing sludge of the colonial-era storm drain was actively avoiding the stranger. As Musa "The Ferryman" hopped down from the massive valve, the murky water peeled back from his boots like the skin of a fruit, forming a perfect, dry circle of exposed concrete wherever he stepped. The liquid didn't splash or ripple; it stood in an unnatural, vertical wall around his shins, held at bay by an invisible, localized force field.