Aiden didn't remember deciding to move. He just did it on instinct.
Radio stuffed into his hoodie pocket, he slipped out of his bedroom, down the stairs, past the faint glow of the television where his mother sat stiffly on the couch, wine glass in hand. His father paced near the window, jaw tight, muttering something under his breath about "false alarms" and "media hysteria." Neither of them saw him ghost through the hallway and unlock the back door.
The summer air hit like a wall—humid, heavy, humming with something unspoken.
Crickets were louder tonight. Or maybe the silence in between was deeper.
He hopped the fence with ease, a little rush of adrenaline humming behind his ribs, and landed softly in the Ward family's yard. Their garden was overgrown, and the hose was still stretched across the grass from when Mira had used it earlier that week. She had sprayed her uncle Cal and then laughed so hard she dropped the nozzle. Aiden remembered because it was the only time he'd seen her laugh that loud.
She was waiting on the back steps.
As if she'd known he'd show up.
"Could hear that thing buzzing from my window," Mira said without looking at him. "Still trying to decode the end of the world?"
Aiden didn't respond at first. He pulled out the radio and sat beside her, leaving a few feet of distance like it was a rule. He set the device on his knee, and he adjusted the antenna again.
Static. Static. Then a pulse like a sonar.
"–contagion vector unclear–—cases appear neurologically driven—hosts respond to sound and—"
He turned the volume down.
Mira finally looked at him. "That doesn't sound like weather radio."
"It's not," he said. "Military encryption. Cracked loop band."
She blinked. "You're twelve."
"Twelve and a half."
She raised her eyebrows and smiled faintly. "Terrifying."
The radio hissed again.
Mira stared out at the trees lining the edge of the neighborhood. "Cal says they're locking down the highways. People trying to leave the cities are getting turned around. Some aren't coming back at all."
Aiden didn't answer.
He could feel it in his bones—that same feeling when he listened to the radio earlier. A feeling that something is wrong that had bled through the radio. Not panic. Not chaos. Something older. Like the world had passed an invisible threshold, and now everything was waiting to bloom.
"I had this dream," Mira said suddenly. "Last night. I was in the kitchen and the fridge door opened by itself. Inside wasn't food—it was just vines. Wet and breathing. They started growing toward me. And I didn't run."
Aiden looked at her.
"Does that mean something?" she asked.
He nodded, slowly. "Means you should unplug your fridge."
She laughed once—soft and nervous.
Then it hit.
The ground shook.
Not like an earthquake. More like the world had flinched.
A second later, the low, apocalyptic roar of a helicopter engine ripped across the treetops. The spotlight beam slashed through the trees, catching the fence in stark white, before vanishing into the night.
And then—
BOOM.
A burst of flame lit up the horizon like a sunrise through smoke. The treeline pulsed with light. A second helicopter veered overhead, something trailing smoke behind it. Mira stood up too fast, stumbling on the steps.
Aiden froze, eyes wide, as his radio screamed:
"—outbreak confirmed—civilian evacuation compromised—projected containment FAILURE—"
The back door of Mira's house slammed open.
"Nathan!" her voice rang through the yard. It was Tess.
Armed. Breathing hard. Covered in mud.
"Get your goddamn gear—NOW!"
Then a crash—glass breaking across the street.
Aiden turned toward the sound.
His front window was shattered. His mother was screaming. His father was—
"MIRA!" Nathan Ward's voice exploded from the hallway. "We're leaving now—grab your boots and your bag!"
Aiden didn't move. Mira grabbed his wrist.
"Come on."
He stood.
Somewhere far away, the root pulsed.
And in a lab long buried beneath stone and ash, a cold flicker of digital light ticked upward.