{TIME: 4:03 a.m.}
The road ahead wasn't a road at all.
It was a patchy line of cracked asphalt framed by the skeletons of buildings—burnt-out shells, glassless windows, and collapsed walls. We pedaled through the apocalypse like ghosts from a past life, our shadows flickering under the half-moon and flashes of lightning that cracked the sky like angry gods arguing.
Our bikes rattled across debris—discarded bags, ripped-up barricade tape, half-eaten street signs. Each pedal felt like a heartbeat. Each breath? Borrowed time.
Insha led the group, her hair tied up tight, a scarf wrapped around her face. Zayn and Aaron followed close behind, scanning the sides of every alley, every shattered storefront. I brought up the rear, my hands shaking on the handlebars but gripping tighter every time the wind screamed through the ruins.
We hadn't spoken since we left the parking lot of the apartment complex. Partly because the storm was loud, but mostly because silence was all we had to protect us.
But that silence wouldn't last.
"Insha," Zayn called out, voice hushed but firm, "We're close. I saw the terminal tower on the way down that bridge. We cut through that half-standing complex ahead, we'll see the airport from the other side."
TIME: 4:05 a.m.}
We turned onto a road that felt more like a memory. It used to be a marketplace once. Now, it looked like the set of a horror movie—torn stalls, scattered mannequins, and burned-out delivery trucks.
Then we saw it.
Through the skeletal frame of a collapsed building with no walls, just cement pillars standing like mourners at a funeral—we saw the airport.
Faint lights. The blinking runway lamps. The unmistakable green-white logo of an airline on a terminal wall, half-broken but still glowing.
Insha stopped, her hand shooting up to signal us to halt. "That's it," she whispered.
We all took a moment, our chests heaving. Not from the ride. From the hope crashing into us like the storm overhead.
But then—
CLANK.
A sound too sharp. Too wrong.
We all snapped toward it.
Insha's face paled as she looked down.
Her keychain. A tiny metal loop shaped like a crescent moon. It had slipped from her sidebag and hit the concrete with a sound that echoed across the broken pillars.
We froze.
For two seconds.
Then—
A low groan.
Then another.
We turned as shadows moved from the other side of the building. Figures—slouched, twitching, sniffing—crawled from the ruins like nightmares had just respawned.
"Go!" Aaron shouted.
We split instantly, instincts kicking in. Zayn grabbed my arm and yanked me left down a narrow alley flanked by exposed pipes and rusted dumpsters. Insha and Aaron veered right, past the shattered skeleton of a pharmacy.
Footsteps. Growls. The air behind us felt like it had teeth.
"Don't stop!" Zayn yelled, gripping his bike and weaving like a lunatic.
"I'm not tryna die today!" I snapped back, heart punching my ribs.
We skidded into an open parking lot, the storm wind slamming us like a slap. Dozens of abandoned cars sat like grave markers—some burned, some bloodied, all dead.
Zayn dived behind a flipped-over SUV. I ducked behind a crushed red hatchback.
Across the lot, Aaron and Insha mirrored us—ducking behind a pair of long-forgotten sedans.
"Where'd they go?" I whispered.
"I don't know," Zayn hissed, peeking over the edge. "I think we lost them, or they're still behind—"
SNAP.
A broken bottle crunched just yards away.
Two zombies limped into view between the cars, twitchy and confused, sniffing the air like broken machines hunting signals.
One of them was missing an arm. The other had glass embedded in its face.
I held my breath.
If we moved wrong, spoke, even breathed too loud—
CRACK.
A quiet shot. Muffled like someone had clapped with gloves on.
The glass-face zombie collapsed. The other twitched once, then fell next to it.
{TIME: 4:10 a.m.}
From the far edge of the lot, behind a makeshift barrier of sandbags and razor wire, stood two soldiers. Real soldiers. One of them—tall, masked, rifle raised—nodded at us.
"The one with the moon key," he said quietly through a radio speaker. "She almost got toasted."
Another voice crackled in our ears from a small walkie-talkie near one of the parking meters. It had to have been connected to their channel, maybe left behind during a patrol.
"Get up. Quietly. One at a time. Start moving toward the main gate. Don't look back. Run only if we shoot again."
Zayn's eyes widened. He signaled to the rest of us—two fingers to the eyes, then pointed at the soldiers.
Aaron was the first to move. He stayed crouched, weaving between cars like a practiced player in a stealth game. Then Insha. Then me.
I was halfway across the lot when the wind shifted and blew the smell of blood straight into the night.
A new screech tore the air.
Three more.
Zayn darted toward the fence. Insha bolted, dragging me as my foot tripped over a parking block.
Then—footsteps behind us.
"Go, go, go!" one of the soldiers shouted.
We ran, boots slamming against concrete, breath burning, the main airport gate so close we could taste metal and ozone.
And then it happened.
A screamer lunged at Insha from behind a truck.
But before it made contact—
PFFFT!
A silenced shot.
Its head snapped sideways mid-air and the body collapsed in front of us with a thud. Insha froze. I pushed her.
"MOVE!"
The soldier who fired gave a thumbs up and pointed ahead.
{TIME: 4:15 a.m.}
Past the gate. Past the razor wire. Past the barricade lined with sandbags and crates—was the door. The checkpoint.
Two more soldiers pulled it open as we sprinted inside.
"CLEAR!" someone shouted.
The door slammed shut behind us.
And just like that—the noise of the world outside dimmed.
Our ears rang. Our legs wobbled.
But we were inside.