He had lost both his parents during the early days of the apocalypse. They had sacrificed themselves to protect him and his grandmother, using their own bodies as a decoy to draw away a zombie horde and buy time for others to escape. Entrusted to the soldiers in those final moments, the boy and his grandmother survived, but survival had come at a steep cost.
Since then, the boy had been doing what little he could: babysitting younger children with his grandmother to earn a few work points, just enough to afford some instant noodles, clean water, and the occasional biscuit. But as he grew, the meager nutrition wasn't enough, and the pay was barely sustainable.
So his grandmother had brought him here, to the new vegetable prep building, one of the few places where an elderly woman like her could still work. And even though he was only ten, he could help too. After all, every pair of hands mattered now.
