Crossed: The Fractured Fairy Tale and TikTok Sensation (Never After)

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Nitpicky: The summary on the inside flap states: “But even as Cassia sacrifices everything to reunite with Ky, ingenious surprises from Xander may change the game once again. In Family Values, the story centers on a religious family who escapes their North Carolinian ranch to survive in a mountain compound led by the protagonist Adaline's father, who, while being a strong leader against the Crossed, is a sexual predator who has routinely raped his daughters. Smokey is one of the smartest Crossed ever seen, being able to organize and lead a large group of Crossed. She falls in with The Livers, three survivors that have formed a close bond despite their mutual insanity and occasional cannibalistic tendencies, and finds a new way to survive.

Meanwhile, the few surviving non-infected are hardened veterans who have been combating the Crossed for years, further increasing the pressure of natural selection as the Crossed are forced to become smarter and more cunning to catch the survivors off-guard. A number of Crossed, however, appear to be naturally smarter or, at least, more capable of patience and planning: deferring immediate pleasure to have a greater atrocity later. When the outbreak happened, one man attempted to find the theory's professor in the hope of learning about the origins of the Crossed – there turned out to be no link, with the prehistoric scenes being an in-universe story by the Crossed about the world they were making now.

The outbreak began in Yorkshire, United Kingdom: the patient zero was a man who had a psychotic breakdown and murdered his family, and the infection spread rapidly from two local policemen to the entire population of the village of Tethersby. What keeps them going are the memories they each have of the other and the intensity of their newfound love. Some of these more rational Crossed will consciously coat their weapons in their own bodily fluids, actively trying to turn non-infected survivors into more Crossed. His father always wanted to learn about everything, especially reading and writing, and to know the meaning of everything. The only survivor is Philly, the young niece of town cop Lorna; she escapes by boat after being forced to kill her aunt, who was infected when a dead Crossed fell on her.

These tend to become the leaders of large gangs, numbering in the many dozens or, in Crossed +100, a whole community. Four British Army soldiers (representing each nation of the United Kingdom) go on a suicide mission to break into Porton Down and release the biological weapons, hoping it will wipe out the Crossed but leave enough humans alive for Britain to rebuild and go on an offensive war against the infected.

assuming that Boss Yamada doesn't first feed them to Usama, his pet lion, in the end all 5 infect each other renewing their blood oath, becoming infected, and die fighting other Crossed.