The city screamed in silence.
No birds. No engines. No footsteps.
Only the soft crunch of gravel beneath Daniel's boots as he walked down Seventh Avenue, past corpses of buses, shops choked in ivy, and shattered windows gaping like dead mouths. Smoke curled from a building far off, black against the grey sky.
He clutched a kitchen knife, blood crusted on the handle, though he couldn't remember using it.
A whisper hissed past his ear. He spun around.
Nothing.
No zombies. No people. Nothing.
"Stay alert," he muttered to himself, tightening the grip on the knife. "They come when it's quiet."
He passed an abandoned grocery store. Broken glass. Empty shelves. A stroller overturned.
He stared at the stroller too long. The blanket inside had a cartoon elephant.
It was moving.
No—it wasn't.
He blinked.
The blanket was empty.
---
DAY 39
He etched the number with the tip of his blade on the wall of a building he couldn't name. A ritual now. The numbers climbed, but never added up.
How long could a man go without speaking to anyone?
Daniel didn't know.
He talked to himself now. Quietly. Carefully. Whispering strategies for survival, just like the ones from the book he never remembered reading.
Rule #1: Avoid the infected.
Rule #2: Don't trust the silence.
Rule #3: Never enter the red doors.
He never questioned the rules. They just existed. Etched deep. Like scars.
---
One night, as the city slept under fractured moonlight, he saw a man standing across the street.
Wearing a coat.
Clean.
Smiling.
"Hey!" Daniel called.
The man didn't move.
"Hey!"
Daniel ran across the road. The man was gone. Just… gone.
No footsteps.
Only a mirror, propped up awkwardly against a wall.
Daniel looked in. His reflection stared back—but the eyes were wrong. Too calm. Too understanding. The kind of look you give someone you've already given up on.
He smashed the mirror with the hilt of the knife.
A single shard remained. It cut his palm. He didn't flinch.
---
DAY 44
Daniel sat on top of a bus, watching the empty world breathe.
Suddenly, a sound—a phone ringing.
Somewhere.
Real. Clear. Loud.
He ran.
Through streets. Down alleys. Past red doors.
He found it—a phone booth.
The glass was clean. No dust.
The phone inside was still ringing.
He picked it up.
A child's voice whispered:
"Are you still pretending, Dad?"
He dropped the receiver. Stumbled back. Vomited.
When he looked up—the booth was gone.
Just a rusted sign in the dirt:
> "A..gr.ve M..t.l I.....ute – Closed Permanently"
He didn't read it.
He couldn't.
There were no words.
Just a rusty board and an ache in his chest.
---
DAY ??
He woke up in a church. One he didn't remember entering.
The pews were full.
Of mannequins.
Dressed in tattered clothes. Some missing limbs. Some eyeless. All facing forward.
He walked down the aisle.
At the altar stood a figure with its back turned.
"Father?" Daniel asked, voice hoarse.
The figure turned.
It was Daniel.
Smiling.
Wearing clean clothes.
He held out his hand.
"You can stop now."
Daniel screamed and stabbed him—again and again—until the world bled white.
---
Final Scene:
He sat alone in a small room.
White walls.
Fluorescent lights buzzing above.
He drew something on the wall in crayon: a red door.
Outside, muffled voices spoke:
"He's stabilizing… for now. The simulations are getting more elaborate. Still no breakthrough."
"Any response to visual stimuli?"
"Nothing. But he keeps drawing… red doors."
---
The End.