Silas ran out through the door, ironically finding it wide open. The sunlight outside was bright and almost blinding.
Right after he stepped into it, he felt something stinging his skin. He scratched his arms as he looked up at the sky and saw the sun shining back at him.
He ignored the feeling; it was probably just the lack of exposure to sunlight after being trapped inside for so long.
He looked around.
Buildings had collapsed in different directions. He didn't know how long he had been out, but from the looks of things, it had been a very long time.
Cars were crashed into one another or abandoned in the middle of the road. There wasn't a single moving figure in sight.
As he stood there, he noticed something else. His vision was unnaturally clear. It wasn't that his eyesight had been bad before, but now he could see everything in sharp detail. Every crack on the ground, every peck of dust, he felt like he could see two ants going at it if he looked hard enough.
The same went for his other senses. The smell around him was strong, burnt rubber, blood again, and rot, and each scent was too distinct to ignore.
Even though he couldn't see anyone, he could hear faint growls somewhere in the distance.
He tried to make sense of it. Thinking back to the fight earlier, he remembered how fast he had moved. His body had reacted on its own. It had been too sharp, too precise to call it a reflex or panic.
And now, with everything else, his sight, his hearing, even the sensitivity of his skin, it was too much to be a coincidence.
What was happening to him?
"Is it the bite?"
The thought came without warning. He hadn't forgotten about it, not even when he was running back through the halls earlier.
By every standard he knew, he should be gone by now, some mindless body walking around looking for the next thing to tear apart. Yet here he was. Alive. Standing under the sun.
He looked down at the spot on his shoulder where the teeth had sunk in. The skin there was smooth now, no scar or mark left, let alone a scar on his abdomenal.
He felt stronger, not in the way people bragged about strength, but in the way his body carried itself, steady and different.
Modern media had filled his head with enough stories to draw comparisons. It was almost impossible not to.
When he wasn't working, he'd spent his nights watching or reading things like this, outbreaks, mutations, characters who somehow survived what should have killed them.
He wasn't antisocial by design, but he didn't keep friends either. His world had been small, quiet, and repetitive. Blood work, cheap food, and whatever show kept him company.
In every story, there was always one person who turned out immune, someone who carried the cure.
Others changed into something else entirely, half human, half monster. None of it had seemed real before, but now the lines were starting to blur.
He looked at his hands again, then at the ruined city around him.
Was he human? Was he immune? Or had the bite done something worse, something in between?
He didn't know. And for the first time, he realized it didn't matter much.
Anyone else might have been losing their mind by now. The world had ended, and every sound he heard came from something that wasn't supposed to exist. But panic wouldn't help him, and he knew it.
His life hadn't been much before this, just long shifts, quiet nights, and an empty apartment. Not that this new world was any kind of upgrade, but somewhere deep down, a part of him recognized it for what it was.
A reset.
He was alone again, but now the silence felt like something earned.
A second chance to do nothing at all.
Or do something.
The thought cut through his calm, landing heavier than he expected. For a while, he just stood there, thinking about everything and nothing at once. Then his mind shifted somewhere he hadn't gone since before the outbreak.
His family.
He looked different as soon as he thought about them. The calmness in his eyes went away. "Mom... Dad..." he mumbled, and his lips was dry.
He blinked and realized he had been standing in the hospital's entrance for too long.
The sounds in the distance were growing closer again, low growls, the shuffle of movement, something scraping along metal. He needed to move.
His parents' house wasn't far, at least not before all this. If they were still alive, they might have left something, food, tools, maybe a note. Anything that could help him figure out what came next.
He started running, his shoes slipping on broken glass as he left the building behind. The streets opened up around him, wide and silent except for the faint echoes of whatever followed from the distance.
Maybe he had made a mistake rushing like this. Maybe he was running straight into something worse. The world wasn't the kind of place that forgave bad timing anymore.
But he didn't stop. Thinking too much now would only slow him down. Whether his family was alive or gone, he had a reason to move, and for the first time since waking up, that was enough.
There were few things that could stop a man who had spent most of his life drifting without a purpose and had suddenly found one.
The sun still bothered him. The sting hadn't gone away, but it wasn't unbearable. It felt like having a mild fever, irritating and uncomfortable, but manageable. He pulled his sleeves down and kept walking.
The silence around him left too much space for thought. Every step gave him more time to wonder what had happened to him.
Why had he survived the bite? Why had he changed at all? The questions circled in his mind until they started to blend with the rhythm of his footsteps.
He crossed an intersection cluttered with crashed cars. Most of them had doors hanging open, as if the people inside had tried to run at the last second.
Sunlight reflected off cracked windshields and broken glass, turning the street into a long, uneven mirror.
The heat from the pavement rose in waves. He ignored it and kept moving.