The air was sweet with spring. Laughter rippled through the halls, bouncing off the lockers and the scuffed floors that had seen a thousand teenage dramas. Elena leaned against the windowsill, sun pouring over her notebook as her friends argued about movies they never watched and homework they pretended to do. The world felt simple here — simple and safe.
She glanced at Caleb across the courtyard, his head tilted back in laughter, eyes crinkled with sunlight. God, she loved that sound. She thought about telling him — not right now, but someday soon. There was time. There would always be time.
The final bell rang, and she and her friends spilled into the afternoon with no hurry, no fear. They took the long way home. Shared jokes. Swapped music. Took pictures they thought they'd look back on years from now and laugh at.
They didn't know that tomorrow had already died.
The first sign was silence. Not just any silence — a deep, unnatural hush that settled over the city like a shroud. Then came the broadcasts. The screams. The blood. The things that no longer moved like people, yet wore their skin.
Now, days—maybe weeks—later, the world was ash and echo.
Elena ran.
She didn't know where Caleb was. Or if he still was. All she knew was the sound of her own heartbeat pounding in her skull, the cold weight of the knife in her hand, and the scent of rot thick in the air.
She ducked into the crumbling remains of a corner store, her breath ragged, limbs trembling. Behind her, something howled — wet and low, not quite human.
She pressed herself against the wall, eyes squeezed shut.
Tonight, the past was a ghost she couldn't outrun.
A distant scream shattered the quiet, a haunting reminder that the nightmare was far from over. Elena's eyes flicked to the horizon, where shadows twisted and shifted, alive with hunger and despair.
In this fractured world, hope was a fragile flame.
But it still burned.
And so did she.