LIGHTS OUT

by Taochuu

Summary:

You thought your phone was broken when it read nine-forty-three in the morning while it was pitch black outside. One look at social media gave you all the information you needed to know what was happening.

The sun was gone.

Everywhere, in every state, city, country. Not only that, but people were making up all kinds of excuses for why it was missing. Yet, with each hour that passed, it kept worsening. People began looting in major cities, creating mobs to rush important buildings or block off busy roads. You, living close to a semi-large city, could hear the sounds from afar; until those sounds turned to screaming, yelling, running. There were things out there. Things that wanted to hurt you. People that wanted to hurt you.

Will daybreak ever come again? Or was this new, apocalyptic setting forever your new reality? ...And why did a masked, bloodied, man just break into your bathroom?

Chapter 1: Where is The Sun?

It was hot outside, the sun slowly cooking you alive as you moved in and out of your small home like a game of ping-pong, moving boxes from your small car. They were all items you had forgotten to pick up at your old roommates' place after they threatened to toss them. You didn't bother checking what was inside them, because, honestly, you forgot.

You paused in your fourth run back to your car after hearing your name called, "need any help with that?" Your neighbor, Samuel, bless his heart, called from across the fence line. He always offered his help to anyone; you assumed he was the type of person to hold the door open for someone who was just getting out of their car.

Accepting his help was the only thing you could do. There were... Seven boxes left, one box labeled HEAVY in bold, scribbled Sharpie. He jogged over, a wide grin gracing his face as he happily took that same box from your trunk.

Samuel was quite handsome too, now that you thought about it. He was on the younger side, bright, but always a gentleman.

"Set 'em here," you told him after stepping inside and placing the box in your hands right next to the door. There was one keeping it open so you didn't have to struggle each trip back. Yet, this also allowed the hot air to envelope your house in a warm embrace; you'd need to sit in front of a fan later or cool yourself off using the hose.

You turned back, watching as Samuel jogged back down your path with an all too familiar pep in his step. Envy, maybe that's what you felt as you tried to pull some of that energy into your own body. He was already walking toward your door again when you made it to the trunk of your car.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

The heat had gotten to you during the last trip, but you managed to collapse inside your house and not faceplant on the pavement just at your doorstep. Samuel was more than happy to take the last two boxes inside and grab you a water, and then immediately rush across the street after seeing the old lady just a house across from yours carrying two bags of groceries up her driveway. You didn't have time to give your thanks as he rushed away faster than you could process where he was going.

Chugging half of the water Samuel had gotten for you, you pulled yourself onto your feet and walked back outside to close your trunk and make sure it was locked. The sun had heated the metal to a searing heat, one that made you curl your fingers away after pushing down on the trunk for more than three seconds. The sting lingered even after you made it back inside your house, the sound of Samuel's distant chatter long behind your now-closed door.

The boxes you had spent an agonizingly long time bringing inside now cluttered the length of the entryway, pressed next to the door where you stored unneeded items; it wasn't a foyer, you could never afford a fancy house like the one across the street. The old lady was kind enough to let you come over once in a while, usually when her daughter, Brenda, was home. Brenda the bitch, you liked to nickname her. She hated your guts, for some reason. Maybe she thought you were going to steal her inheritance money.

The vindictive side of you would, but Samuel had a better shot at it than you or even Brenda, so it was a petty plan that left you a long time ago.

Right. The boxes. You chose two of the many boxes and hauled them over to your couch where you could pry them open in comfort.

The first box was full of old textbooks from high school and college, with some small sketchbooks squeezed together too. The spiral notebooks were worn, and you could see the familiar fringe of paper sticking out from top to bottom. Curiously, you picked one up, thumbing over the feathered edge of the spine, and opened the notebook to a random page.

It was filled with your who-knows-how-old handwriting with random drawings at the top and bottom corners of the paper. An embarrassed warmth crawled up your neck and made your lips curl as you carefully flipped the page and saw a terribly drawn humanoid dead center of your notes. Now the memories dawned on you; the start of high school where what should've been shame was instead false optimism as your creativity was at its peak.

If you could go back and redo high school with the knowledge you had now, you would.

Closing that notebook, you stuffed it back into the box and shoved the cardboard flaps hard against the top, shoving those memories back where they belonged.

In the second box, there was nothing noteworthy inside except a memorable game, the origami paper reminding you of all the good times you made with them. You never knew what this thing was called, nor did you remember how to make them anymore, only that it was supposed to tell your fortunes (in an ironic way, which it never did). All you remembered was playing with your friends during breaks. They would choose one of the four larger squares, which usually had a color, and you'd spell out the color while moving the origami with pinched fingers, then, out of two, or four, choices, they'd choose one.

It was always fun, seeing the surprise on your friend's faces at what result they'd be given. Although, you weren't sure if these things were popular nowadays with younger kids. That lingering thought made you grimace and sigh and push the box away. Fuck, the mood was ruined.

You begrudgingly got back to your feet upon feeling sweat gathering at the back of your shirt and the old memories clouding your mind. Everything was so unbearably hot and sticky that you just wanted to stick your head in the freezer.

Your eyes drifted over to the edge of your wooden floor and to the tile that patterned off your kitchen.

Well, fuck, you were an adult, you could do whatever the hell you want... Even if that want was sticking your head into the freezer.

Two minutes, you told yourself. Two minutes of cooling off the heat that clung to your face and the memories that began to resurface. None of them were terrible per se, but some things were best left forgotten... And your cringy, teen years just happened to be some of them.

Those two minutes went by much faster than you anticipated that you had forgotten about how uncomfortable your shirt clung to your back and the way your pants felt two sizes too small. This heat was the issue, you knew that, but it gave you a reasonable excuse to nobody that this day was a day for lounging around and doing absolutely nothing.

You'd reorganize the rest of your boxes later, this was a day meant for laziness.

---

You had slept hard and long after positioning your fan directly at your face (something you were told not to do) and finding a surprisingly comfortable position. Your mind slowly began to wake first, making your body known to the uncomfortable stick that was your sheets to your skin due to having sweat out the hours of your long nap(which turned out to be an entire nine or ten hour sleep). You glared groggily at your fan that sat a few feet from your bed which hummed with white noise and kicked childishly at the blanket that coiled around your feet.

It was dark out, causing you to sigh and slowly sit up and wipe the sleepiness from your face and instinctively reach out to your phone that always sat charging on your small bedstand.

You cringed at the screen as it glared harshly at your face, reading out the bold numbers; 9:43 AM. Turning your phone off, you sat in the darkness and wiped your eyes harder this time, then turned your phone on again. It wasn't your tired eyes playing tricks on you, it really did say nine in the morning.

Then why is it so dark outside?

You forced yourself up and out of bed, turned off your fan, and wobbled toward the small window that faces the house to the left of your plot; not Samuel's. You never really got to know the neighbor to your left as they were usually not home at all, but someone lived there, that was for sure.

And, fuck, was it dark outside.

Was it a time change? Maybe a solar eclipse? Those were the two first thoughts that your brain suggested as you closed the blinds once more, dust settling on your fingertips. You wandered back to the side of your bed and unplugged your phone, then tip-toed to your bedroom door that led out to the living room. Still dark, except for the light in the kitchen you forgot to turn off before heading to bed.

Your phone buzzed, causing your jackrabbiting pulse to spike as a few messages came in from a small server you were in on Discord. A few close friends, mostly online. One of them in particular you knew was across the country, and they too sent a message that projected your own question; where is the sun?

The sun is gone, another message. It's morning, but there's no light, said a second.

Bro, wtf is going on, you send, then immediately close out the app and launch (your not-so-favorite app) Twitter (you refuse to call it 'X').

The same questions were trending, your feed full of pictures of dark skies, crowded streets, and other posts questioning what the hell was going on. Honestly, who goes online the first thing the apocalypse begins? You glared at that comment, averting your eyes as if you had been caught doing something you shouldn't.

If I didn't, how would I know what to think about what's going on? You thought in jest, moving to your living room with what little light there was and turning on the TV. It illuminated the space around you and on the worn, leather couch that sunk as out sat down to switch to a News channel. Any News channel would do because every News channel was covering the exact same thing.

"The sun is missing today on一"

"一local authorities say一"

"Riots have begun to clog the high-way and main roads一"

"Where is the sun?"

Yeah. Yeah, you got it.

You flipped to the sixth channel, this one actually giving live feed of the city that was just a half-hour drive from where you lived. It was where all the bigger and more expensive restaurants and stores were, everything that was out of your regular budget, but it didn't stop you from treating yourself once and a while.

"一there are many arming themselves; get back a bit George. It's honestly shocking how many people are out here right now. Many are skipping work and school because of the sun disappearing," the woman on the screen spoke, the camera shaking as the cameraman, George, stepped back further away from the crowds that walked along the street, shouting and hollering words you could barely make out. You recognized this street too, it was connected to the interstate.

You began to multi-task now, looking down at your phone while keeping an ear out to the TV. Updates over updates, people hounding NASA, and even governments all over the world for a statement. There were images coming in now of hundreds of people gathering at the front of the capitol building, videos of people being detained by police, and someone throwing a brick and breaking a large, glass window of a store trying to keep people out.

One hour of this, and everything was going to hell.

"Something is happening-!" The woman on the News channel exclaimed before the sounds of screams ripped through the crowd the camera faced. Maybe it was for the views, confusion, or, better yet, fear that George did not run on the spot. You sure would've if you ever heard an ear-piercing cry like that.

Figures of people, cloaked in darkness and in the light of their phones, began scattering, screams interrupting into cries of help, to anguish, fear. The surge of bodies caused the woman on the screen to disappear in a sea of heads as the man was pushed away, falling back onto the stone.

Surprisingly enough, the camera kept rolling despite the heart-thundering events happening on screen. You turned down the volume of the television, worried that the screams coming from the TV would alert your oh-so-helpful neighbor to a false murder. You paused and thought for a moment if he would try and help out with that too.

"JUST RUN! GET AWAY!" Someone from the television called out, loud enough that you wondered if you turned the volume down enough, "H-HE'S GOING T-!"

The camera dropped, George finally finding some common sense in his current situation, and through the stampede of legs and shadows, you wondered if that was truly the reason why he dropped the camera.

There was a figure of a man lying on the cement of the road, multiple others doing the same even as some stragglers ran from the scene, they too began falling, but for other reasons. Someone stood over the one where the camera was so conveniently looking at and knelt down. You couldn't tell if they were saying something, nor did you think you would be able to hear him, but you did see him pry something out of his back and then flip it expertly in his hands.

You narrowed your eyes, leaning forward on your couch, trying to spot a tell or two to what this man looked like, yet, you didn't have to do much as his attention snapped to the camera lying a good distance away from him.

The audio scratched and sizzled as he stepped closer and the camera jostled as he picked it up. What you were faced with were orange eyes, no, goggles. There was a foggy sheen to them that you couldn't make out the eyes behind them, but you could hear him chuckle, then laugh as he placed the camera back down on the ground and raised his hand back.

There was one frame of this orange-goggled man breaking that (expensive) camera with what looked like an axe, which you could only assume was what he used to...kill that person.

It just dawned on you that you watched a murder, or two, or three, probably more, happen live.

Was that okay? Were you okay?

No, I think not, you thought to yourself, shuddering as you turned off the TV, the goggled maniac no longer at the forefront of your mind. Yet, it seemed to be on a lot of other people's minds, and on the internet. You were receiving messages from friends and spotting other videos and pictures from online with the same occurrence happening pretty much all over the world.

Is this the end of the world? One of your friends boldly asked, leaving the chat in silence.

Your eyes darted to the side door, the one that connected to a small side yard. Some people would call it a backyard, but it was small and it wasn't behind your house, just nestled between your house and your neighbor's fence line. There was a gate too that led out to the front of the house, just like your front door.

"Am I safe?" You murmured quietly to yourself.

You only thought about the end times a few desperate moments of your life. Just the normal, "what-ifs" and, "would you survive" questions. Nothing too deep as it always seemed like a fever dream.

What a hell of a fever dream this was then.

You got to your feet, quickly hurrying to the hall that led to your front door, and bumped against the boxes you had left out hours ago. It gave you a passing idea that you formed into a plan.

First, you peeked through the peephole that you never bothered to use most of the time. Nobody was outside, but the lights to your neighbor's house were on, the pattern the same as far as your eyes could see. You checked your door, making sure it was locked, then began stacking boxes up against the wood, the heavier ones on the bottom. There were enough that you could make two stacks of three, but you only felt safe once they were somewhat stable. It was the best you could do right now, given the situation.

What am I even doing right now? You thought, pursing your lips. Sensible, you were being sensible.

The backdoor needed attention now because you didn't trust the side gate to ward off unexpected guests. Even if those unexpected guests were around half an hour away, you didn't want to take any chances.

That man on the TV could be you, after all.

Making your way back down the hall once again proved to go smoother than before, with no bumps or bruises until you reached the tile of your kitchen where you nearly stubbed your toes against the counter. Your senses were too dull in the dark and now cursed past you for being so critical of the sun just hours ago.

You put a chair under the door handle.

It was almost as if you downgraded in terms of ideas as you stared at the frame of the backdoor, the square glass that was eye-level and just a bit taller giving you a shadowed look to the small, side-yard of your house. You'd need to cover that too; with ducktape, or maybe, for now, some cloth.

You were sure the normal person wouldn't be able to get passed a locked door, but if someone tried hard enough, they could definitely break the glass and force their way in. Now that you thought about it more, you really didn't like the easy access to your home, even if it didn't trouble you before. With the threat of a crazy, goggled murderer a simple drive away from your house, and the disappearance of the sun, it now just came to be.

Your mind drifted back to your phone, your hands instinctively moving for it as you made your way back to your living room to sit and stare at the screen for a while. It felt so wrong to see that it was exactly ten in the morning while it was still pitch black outside. Your brain was awake, acting as if it was still day and you were about to go outside and enact your daily activities.

Thank god I just went to the store, you thought, eyes darting over to your small pantry, then back to your phone as you lowered the brightness, fuck going outside. Who needs the sun anyway?

You do need the sun, though, came an intrusive thought causing your lips to tug downward as you caught up on the multitude of messages on Discord. Some were taking this seriously while others were already making memes out of this whole ordeal. Twitter too was the same, but more chaotic than not. Many people had seen the same News broadcast you had, and some were sharing screenshots from the moment the feed cut.

There were also more, just like the event that happened miles away from your home. Some scenes were bloodier than you expected, causing you to flip away from the video in cold shock, and then flip back in cruel curiosity (while covering half the screen).

Around thirty minutes passed by in your doom scrolling on Twitter. You had seen things that you wished you hadn't seen, kept up with what was happening in different areas of the planet, and, occasionally, laughed at the few, funny things that people were posting.

However, your time was cut short upon hearing a THU—THUNK! coming from down the hall, more notably, the bathroom down the hall.

You froze on the couch, staring in the dark at the even darker hallway. Your heart was beating hard against your chest as you tried with all your might to calm the blood that was rushing loud in your ears, telling the cells, I need to listen! The only way someone could get in through your bathroom was through the tiny window that acted more like a vent rather than a window in the first place. It wasn't a gap any normal person could fit through, you knew this.

Carefully and quickly, you got up from the couch and stepped carefully down the hall with your ear trained toward the door. There was no noise that came from it, nothing that could insinuate that someone had slithered their way through that gap and into your home.

With a sharp inhale, you grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it open (yes, pulled. The landlord never told you it was built wrong before buying this house). You turned on the flashlight built into your phone in the process and paused at the sight.

There, face-down on the tile floor, was a man. Most notably, he was tall and wore dark clothes, his hoodie black and his jeans a dark, grey-ish blue. What was most shocking about him was that he was covered in blood and an inky substance that was now smeared across the white tile of your bathroom.

"What the fuck..." You murmured, eyes darting up to the window, which was open with a smear of blood staining the glass and the wall that he probably crawled through, then down again when you saw the figure twitch.

He was alive.

You pulled back and closed the door quickly, locking it. The lock being on the outside never helped you out before, but now you were forever thankful for the fuck-up as it kept a wall between you and the bloodied intruder inside your bathroom.

Now, you had one more door to barricade.

Chapter 2: Knocking

The power in your house was fluctuating, keeping you on edge enough to place your phone on the charger in case of emergencies. You didn't have a battery pack, as you never needed one before, so the need for one now was strong.

Yet, the power in your house was only on number three of your worries. Your second worry was the noises outside. They sounded like airplanes soaring in the sky, but closer and causing your house to rattle. At first, you really thought they were planes as it never occurred to you it could be something else, but upon looking at your current source of entertainment—Twitter—planes didn't seem to be the cause of what you were hearing.

You were also hearing yelling in the distance, but you were never quick enough to open a window or peek outside to hear what the yelling was all about. You didn't risk opening the door a third time upon hearing the yelling turning into screaming of some kind and hid away in your bedroom for about an hour.

The third thing, or rather, person, on your list. You hadn't heard a single peep from the man in your bathroom. You were sat at the threshold of your hallway with a knife in hand, the door locked, and with a chair hooked underneath the handle. You tried thinking of different ways you could amp up your household security, but everything that came up was expensive cameras, and alarms that wouldn't get here until a week later; you weren't even sure if anyone was even up to deliver during the apocalypse.

DIY security was all that you were left with. And, as one of your colleagues on Discord suggested, you did your best to tie two cans on a string together and set them on the backdoor handle, so if it was twisted in any way it would make noise. You made another one for your bathroom door too and found it hard enough to navigate to your bathroom door and front door with the area being so cramped with a barricade.

Why am I so nervous? You thought, fidgeting on the floor with a pillow underneath you and a Rubix cube you never bothered playing with until now. This will all blow over soon, you couldn't help but remind yourself. Hell, even the president made a statement about the sun vanishing, but it was just a long rant that led off into events that didn't even matter to this situation.

The low-pitched groan from your bathroom down the hall made your head turn. Your pulse quickened and you set down the cube to your right so you could take up the knife you had placed on your left. You sat there, still as a statue, for a few minutes longer, waiting and listening for any more sounds you could hear from the man on the other side of the door, slicking your tile red.

Nothing.

There was nothing for three minutes, nothing when there was five, and nothing when there was nine. Was he dreaming? Maybe he was fluttering in and out of consciousness—blood loss did that, right?

Now you almost felt like an asshole for leaving a man, bleeding out in your bathroom, to bleed out in your bathroom. What else were you supposed to do? Help this bloody stranger who had crawled through the smallest gap of a window who was most likely wounded? He was the one who broke into your house... Would that make you a bad person?

As you relaxed back into your uncomfortable, slouched position, your eyes dropped. The wall behind you shuddered and a comforting warmth washed over your shoulders and down your back, seeping into your skin.

For a moment, just a moment, you drifted off into a daze, not a sleep. You could hear and feel things around you still, but your mind was awake even as your head nodded off, in between the choice of unconsciousness.

In a very small moment of consciousness, right before your mind slipped into the comforting abyss of sleep, you heard it.

Tap....

Tap...

Your heart lurched, eyes shooting open. You grabbed the knife, almost grabbing it on the blade with how your mind startled awake. The noise, once again, came from the bathroom and your mind wandered to the unwelcome guest inside.

You swallowed, staring in the dark, waiting for the tapping to stop.

Was that him? Was he awake, or was this tapping from something else entirely?

These thoughts did not ease your worries; they worsened them. You got up slowly, the pillow crinkled and dipped where you had been sitting, and you stepped slowly down the hall, closer to the chair that was lodged underneath the doorknob. Should you have added more to the barricade? Maybe. Would it ease your mind if you did? Most likely, yes. But did you even have a plan if your only resort was to leave through one of the exits you blocked off quickly? No. No, you did not.

Maybe you should have thought of it sooner. Maybe it could save you a lot of trouble without all these blockades keeping people out rather than a simple plan if someone got in.

Tap...

Your mind snapped to the front, and you stared hard at the door, almost trying to see through it. You swallowed hard, that swallow painfully slow as you did it a second time to ease your burning throat.

"A-... Are you awake?" You forced out, cringing at the way your voice broke the quiet of the whole house. It felt like all, invisible eyes were on you now, sensing your location, running to your home, and about to ruin all your precious work which only took you an hour total to arrange.

The quietness in response did not surprise you, however, the quiet sound of your own breathing became a sound you were growing uncomfortable with. It was so, so loud to you when it would be so quiet to others. It made you breathe out a wavering, silent laugh, amused by the aspect of something that was usually done unnoticed becoming something so unnerving in an inexplicable situation as this.

Now, you regretted speaking.

The knife in your hand did not feel comforting and the darkness outside and in no longer felt like a long night.

It felt like hell.

---

You don't know how long you were asleep. You didn't check your phone before you dozed off so you only knew what time it was now; 10:41 PM.

The man you kept behind your bathroom door seemingly hadn't woken up yet or hadn't said anything and you had the sudden fear of if he died on your floor. What would you even do? What would you say?

In the meantime, you looked for more information on your phone. You tried your TV, but there was no signal coming through from any News Station. Upon looking into it further, it looked like a good amount of people were experiencing the same thing. No signal, no power, no internet. Thank god you still had yours, but you were certain that this little win wasn't going to last very long.

You retreated to your room after feeling uneasy in the open space of your living room. Your bedroom didn't have any windows (your living room did), so you weren't worried about the feeling of being watched. Though, you didn't feel comfortable in turning on your bedroom lamp or your lights; you didn't think it was a good idea to light a beacon to everyone saying, "hey! I'm home!"

Your phone vibrated, sending your poor heart racing for a brief moment as you opened up Discord. A mass ping in your private friend group.

@(everyone)
don't go outside if you can! there's a lot of things going on and apparently there's these flashing lights that are chasing people. don't look at them, don't interact, just stay home and stay safe.

Flashing lights? You refrained from scoffing, even though some friends were echoing your thoughts in form of messages after the ping, even blowing it off as a joke. But something like that didn't seem out of this world if the sun could just up and vanish one day (night? You weren't sure).

In the moment of replying with your own message, you paused upon hearing a muffled sound. For a moment, you thought it was your bed shifting or something in the distance, but it came from the wall in front of you, the one that sat between you and the hallway on the other side. You couldn't put a finger on what the sound was, but it was definitely coming from your house, and, what you could only assume, from the bathroom.

You got up but didn't move from where you stood as a passing thought caused you to freeze, what if he got out? And then stepped toward your door as another thought countered the first, I strung two cans on the door, I would've heard it, and you opened your bedroom door with a bit more confidence than you usually would have.

The sound was dragging out and low, scraping against the dark wood of the door, as if a cat was scratching to get inside. Your eyes darted down to the pillow you left at the corner of the hall, where you stored the knife under it, and then back down the hall to the door where the noise hadn't stopped.

You walked closer, stepping slowly until you heard a rasp of a low, unfamiliar, voice, "who are you?"

Your heart lurched and your head whirled behind you, then in front again at the door.

The noise had stopped.

You didn't answer, you just stood in shock and a bit of awe that this person, whoever he was, could hear you coming even though you had kept your steps quiet and breath even quieter.

Then, there was a bang against the door that caused the cans to bump against the door and causing you to jump back, head turning to look at the pillow with the knife under it. Slowly, you retreated back to the opening of the hall and crouched low against the wall closest to your bedroom door, peeking around the corner as if whoever was behind that door would burst through at any moment.

And yet, the house fell quiet, but the outside didn't.

You could hear it clearly, the sound of someone yelling. Or shouting, you didn't care for the difference. But what you did care about was how close it was and how terrified you felt just sitting in this cramped space of yours. The yelling echoed down the lifeless streets, then began to drown out into some sort of pained wailing, until it stopped completely.

Nothing about that felt good at all. You curled yourself against the wall, sitting on the hard floor and turning on your phone.

No internet, you noticed quickly, but you still had data, so you tried to make use of what you had and quickly began searching up keywords.

Screaming outside

Flickering lights outside

Don't look at the flashing lights

Murderer on News

Some of your searches gave results that applied to your current situation. People were mentioning online how there were people being chased down by these flickering lights, but there was nothing about those people from the TV. Nothing that was recent, anyway.

B—ANG! BANG! BANG!

Someone... Someone was knocking on your front door.

You scrambled to your feet, nearly tripping over your legs as you tossed the pillow behind you and grabbed the knife, then scampered back to your bedroom where you felt safer with no clear windows or openings other than the door to the living room. You hurried to the sliding closet door and pushed it open slowly with your heart pounding in your ears. Even though there were no more hits on your front door, you didn't want to take the chance that someone or something was still out there.

You pulled the closet door closed behind you, only leaving the slightest gap between the crease in the wall and the rough of the door. Then, you nestled yourself back into the cold comfort of your clothes. It was stuffy in here, and you didn't feel great holding a knife at the ready toward the front.

---

Time had passed, and you knew that much as you awoke from an unprompted sleep by a rattling in the air. It shook you to your core, vibrating the stillness but not your house. There was a low, humming noise with it, and a wave of warmth washed over your body. For some reason, it felt refreshing and good.

You didn't know how much time it had been since you last saw the sun and felt bad how you were complaining about the heat before only to be grateful to feel it now rather than the cold chills you received whenever you lingered doing absolutely nothing.

Then, you remember why you were in the closet in the first place and think over if you really want to leave it at all. There should have been enough time between hearing those first knocks and now, right? It should be safe enough to at least go and do a small sweep around your house.

You peered through the small gap you left in the closet and then slowly inched it open, toes curling as your eyes darted around the corners of your room for any sign of unfamiliar movement.

Nothing.

Anxiety fueled your system, but you forced yourself forward and pressed close to your bedroom door after crawling out of that stuffy closet. There was no sound coming from the other side either and you, still uncertain, opened the door slowly. Your eyes scanned from right to left, then after taking one big step out on the living room floor, you looked down the hall to your front door.

Nothing.

Both barricades to your front and back door were still intact. Nobody had gotten in (as far as you could tell) and you were safe.

Well...aside from that one dude in your bathroom.

You walked closer to both doors down the hall, squeezing passed the chair that was crookedly shoved underneath the handle of the bathroom door, and pressed against the boxes to look through the peephole at your front door.

The view was blurry and limited and the only light outside was the streetlamps that lined the road in a spacious pattern. No person or flashing lights to be found.

"I know you're there," the voice coming from your right caused a chill to go up your spine, the warmth that flooded your house now sapped quickly from your body. You clutched the knife tighter, head turning toward the door so quickly that it hurt.

Your mouth opened, then closed again. Should you answer? You were sure you never made a sound and even more sure that you hadn't made a word exempt from that time you asked if he was awake.

"Yeah," your voice was quiet under the circumstances, and you nodded as if he could see you, "I-I am."

God, fuck, this was so weird. You didn't even know what this guy looked like other than what he was wearing and the fact that he was, most likely, still bloody. You were certain you didn't know this man, as the other men in your life were internet friends, your neighbors, and, most importantly, not in your life in the first place.

There was no response after a moment or two as if he wasn't expecting a response or something so simple. But you could most definitely hear something on the other side of the door—a small shhk noise, three times for two seconds—and you wavered in your place.

"Let me out," it was quiet, a rasp, just like last time. He was in pain, you knew it, but you didn't know if letting out a possible threat to your life would be the wisest idea. And you also didn't know how to convey that without sounding like an asshole.

So, as gently as possible, you said, "I can't," and knew immediately that what you said wasn't the answer he wanted to hear as a loud BANG! made you jump. He had hit the door, again, and made you scurry back down the hall to the safety of your living room.

"Wait," a groan left the door which made you pause and turn your head back.

No, no, don't wait, you don't have to wait for a stranger, your mind comforted your decision to head back into your room and shut it in fear of hearing his pained voice once more.

Your attention, thankfully, shifted to something else. Your phone buzzing coincidentally the moment you entered your room. After plopping yourself down onto your bed and placing the knife on your right, you unlocked your phone and checked the notification. It was another Discord ping.

@(everyone)
be careful, people are breaking into random houses. if you see someone suspicious outside or someone is trying to get you to open the door, don't do it! also, 911 and other emergency services are not working (depending where you are!)

You already experienced the first warning and you made that known as such with a short message, but also to show that you're still okay and breathing. You only received two responses pretty quickly, the others on the server were either offline or unresponsive. It was expected anyway, as something currently out of this world was happening in every place on this planet. People had bigger things to do other than be on the internet.

And you did as well.

There, again, was suddenly banging on your door. You shut off your phone, grabbed your knife, and crawled back into your closet. You found that comfortable spot between your stack of sweaters and empty shoe boxes, hangers of coats and longer attire hanging above your head as you slid the closet door shut and turned your phone back on. The brightness of the screen burned your eyes and you turned it down quickly, typing a frantic, second break-in attempt today! Go me! And sent it to the others.

You sat there, keeping your eyes open to listen to the constant knocking against your front door. The thought that only a good amount of wood kept you and whoever was outside was unnerving, but it was even more so at the thought of the stranger currently taking occupation in your bathroom.

Your thoughts always drifted off to him.

Chapter 3: Flashing Lights

The knocking had lasted for twenty minutes. You spent that whole time sitting in the closet with a knife to the door, wondering if whoever was at the door would ever go away. You were one hundred percent sure the person in the bathroom could hear them too, after all, he was the closest to the front door anyway.

You crawled out of your hiding place only after waiting twenty minutes after the knocking had stopped, just to make sure that they had left completely and weren't trying to find an alternate way inside. Only around this time, you noticed just how starving you really were. You hadn't eaten in hours(days?) and it was finally settling in your empty stomach, a painful ache that made you slouch and use your free hand to cover your stomach.

Opening the door to your bedroom slowly, your eyes landed on the backdoor which was still blocked off. You only now hated how your backdoor was positioned, so close to your kitchen and with a not-so-safe sidegate that you rarely used.

Nobody was watching you though, giving you the courage to crawl hands and knees to your pantry. You wouldn't do this under normal circumstances, but the thought of someone watching from a window still haunted you. There were only three windows in the main section of your house; one plastered against the backdoor, one that was in the kitchen and looked out at the side-yard (which was usually covered by some sheer cloth), and one on the other side of the room in the living room, also covered by some blinds.

You sat back on your knees and pulled open the pantry door, listening to the hinges squeak as the light, which would automatically turn on when opened, clicked as if it did. No power. Right. Your phone wasn't going to get charged anytime soon, but you'd leave it on the charger just in case the power decided to come back on.

There was a good amount of food to choose from the shelves, but your choice led you to pick up a box of cereal on one of the lower shelves and begin to eat out of it. Depending on how long you were to stay inside, there would soon be no more cereal, then maybe your bread would go bad next. You'd be forced to eat from your non-perishables, and then what? It wasn't as if you could stroll down the street to the supermarket, you were sure, at this point, people would've ransacked it by now... Or maybe those crazies from the TV got there first.

These bad vibes were spoiling your cereal.

You needed to think of a plan first. A plan when your first plan would fail, and a plan where the second plan would fail too. A quick escape route, maybe a backpack full of necessities if you were forced to move. Honestly, this should've been something you had in store way before the apocalypse started, but you never thought someone would have the audacity to target a small house like your own.

You paused in your munching, hearing the small thnk! of something hitting against a wall. Oh, goody, it's your new roommate! You didn't think he was awake, nor did you think he would be alive, but you felt a bit bad being able to eat so leisurely like this. How long had it been since he broke into your bathroom? A day, maybe, tops.

You slowly shut the pantry door, cringing at the drawn-out squeal it made as you did so. You kept the cereal with you, some bland, off-brand Cheerios, and made your way slowly down the hall to sit ten feet away from the bathroom door. From this distance though, you could smell something foul that stung your nostrils and caused you to recoil. It was too late to run off now, the smell had already ruined your senses that you could taste it.

"U-uh," you stammered out, choking back on whatever had happened on the other side of the door, "are-are you hungry?"

Was he dead? The first thought came to you as you placed the box of cereal next to you and held a hand over your mouth and nose. Dead bodies didn't smell like that, did they? His blood then? But, blood smelled like iron and copper, this didn't smell like either... It was a stale, sick smell.

He didn't answer your question either as you sat there waiting for a response. Was he not awake? You were sure you just heard something when you were in the kitchen. Then again, you heard lots of things lately that never really sat right with you, maybe the sound was a manifestation of your anxieties? Or... Or he could be awake and just not responding to you, which was odd because he was really up to talking with you yesterday as short as it was.

Something to your left brightened.

You blinked quickly. A trick of the eye? Maybe, you were pretty tired after all since this darkness was messing with your mind. But, again, a brightness that caused disorder in the darkness, just barely filtering through the minimal gap between your front door. It grabbed your attention and held it, flashing like a strobe with a faint noise following with it. They were like shudders, clicking over and over each time the light flashed.

The flashing lights.

Those flashing lights that captured the media's and your online friend's attention.

"Hey," you kept your voice low, creeping forward on the ground so you could angle your face closer to the bathroom door, "if you're awake, listen to me. There's these lights outside. Don't look at them, okay? I... I've heard that they chase people and..." Your voice slowly gave out as the light and sound began shifting right, in the direction of that thin window of your bathroom. Your conscious so badly wanted to open this door and drag the man out, but your instincts said otherwise.

You got up and hurried back to your bedroom, closing the door as quickly and as softly as possible and then back into your makeshift hiding place in your closet, almost opting to go into your bathroom connected to your bedroom, but you decided otherwise. This was becoming a normalized position for you, your knees pulled in, crammed in this tiny space with your kn-

You left the knife in the hallway.

Your hands clenched and unclenched, imagining yourself holding the knife or whatever weapon that could ease your nerves as you craned to listen to the clicking noise. From your bedroom and behind closed doors, you could not hear it, but you were sure it was still out there... Doing whatever it was doing. You weren't keen on finding out.

And the only thing you could do right now was wait.

And wait...

And wait...

And...

---

You woke up feeling cold. So cold. The warmth in your house had evaporated and you swore each time you breathed you could see the fog of your breath.

Despite this, you shimmied out of your hiding space and sat at the front of your closet for some time, trying to listen for any sign of danger. Your door was still closed, just like you left it, and you were sure you'd hear something if the flashing light tried to enter your house by force.

That absurd thought made you almost laugh, imagining the context to be very vague if not in this situation.

You checked your phone, eyes immediately focusing in on the low battery. Still no power to your house, so your phone, on forty percent, would last you a good two hours at best.

You decided to send a message about the flashing lights in Discord.

one of those light things was outside my house
i think
since im pretty sure my neighbor wouldnt be shining a strobe at my front door
safe for now?

No response, but you weren't expecting one so quickly as your last messages didn't get much of a response either. People weren't usually awake at three in the morning anyway.

You didn't feel that tired considering it was three in the morning and could only blame your sense of time becoming all fucked up because of the disappearance of the sun.

You pressed your head against your bedroom door and closed your eyes and listened. There was no noise except the slightest white noise that came from covering up your ear; almost like placing a shell to your ear so you could 'hear' the ocean. You found out years later you could mimic the same trick by cupping your ear closed with your own hand which ruined the magic.

Assuming that everything was all fine and dandy on the other side of the door, you twisted the knob slowly and pulled it open. Your house was still enveloped in darkness, and the strobe lights were nowhere to be seen from any inch of your windows and back door. Peeking around the corner to the hallway yielded the same results and you sighed quietly with relief.

Your cereal had fallen over during your scramble to get back to your room, and your knife was there too. Both untouched and giving you an odd wave of relief.

"Are you okay?" You asked quietly, finding your space back against the wall and staring at the door, "there, uh... There was a light outside. I was warned not to look at them."

Again, no response. That foul odor still hung in the air.

"I don't know if you heard my warning... But, yeah, if any of them come by again, just... Don't look at them, I guess."

You sat back, sighing again and dug your hand into the half-empty box of cereal to stuff some in your mouth. Tasteless and dry, leaving your tastebuds unsatisfied, but your stomach did not go hungry.

"Are you okay?" You ask again, nervously fiddling with the flap of the box and swallowing hard, "a-are you hungry?"

You remembered not receiving an answer before to this question and were growing just a bit more worried than before. How long could a person go without food before they starve to death again?

"Yes," a quiet groan, one that pulled you from your thoughts and forward on the bends of your knees, "hungry."

Okay, okay, he was hungry. Your heart pounded, feeling a sudden guilt weigh on your heart. You could fix this now, he didn't have to go hungry and maybe you could talk to him a bit more. After all, you were growing a bit lonely yourself.

"Um," you scooted closer to the door, glancing down at the smallest gap that parted from the ground and the shadow of the door. Your fingers couldn't squeeze under there (well, they could, but you were sure it'd hurt or they'd get stuck) but you could most definitely slide something underneath.

You shoved your hand in the box of cereal again and grabbed a handful, then you funneled a few through the small gap, making sure they slid through completely.

"I... I can get something else if you don't like cereal..." You trailed off, continuing to push them through the gap even after hearing no response. You did this for about a minute and only stopped after you heard absolutely nothing.

Why am I feeding an intruder? You thought to yourself, pushing your back against the wall. You didn't want to let him out to help himself to whatever you had in the kitchen, but you knew he was injured (did you?) and you had the knife.

"Hello?"

He was quiet again, unappreciative of your generosity and your cereal.

You jumped away though as suddenly, your front door was knocked on.

Not again! You thought, watching it with deer-in-headlight eyes. You didn't want to get back in the closet, you wanted to eat and keep an eye on the man in your bathroom.

B—AM! BAM BA—M! 

The knocking turned to hard slams, the door jolting at the force. You dropped your cereal and felt around for the knife. Your hand felt the slick, sharp texture of the blade and you grasped the hilt, nearly cutting your palm.

The force continued and you stood in place while gripping tight on the wood with the pointed end toward the door. Whoever was hitting your door had hit it so hard that you were afraid the door was about to break from its place. You weren't sure how old the wood was or the hinges that kept it in place, but they were both holding so far.

Then, after just two minutes of this loud noise, it stopped. You heard some muttering from the other side of the door, unintelligible and low. It had stopped though, and that was all you cared about. You stepped back from the hallway and pressed yourself near your bedroom door, sliding down the wall while still clutching the knife in your now sweaty hands.

But it wasn't over.

You heard a cracking noise come from outside to your far left, something that shouldn't be broken so easily. It was a clear snapping of wood and through the small slots of your kitchen window, you saw a shadow move across the glass, slowly, uncoordinated. Your heart skyrocketed once more and you scrambled to your bedroom.

Inside your room you began pushing whatever you could against the door as quietly as possible as the banging from your front door now continued from your back, but what caused your movements to halt was the breaking of glass. Your eyes darted down to the knife you kept in your dominant hand and then toward your door.

I don't want to die.

You didn't want to die.

You wouldn't die.

This became your mantra, your war chant in your mind that fueled your fear to adrenaline.

You heard another sound of breaking wood and the rattling of cans. Whoever was outside was now inside. And whoever was inside would find you.

Slowly, you backed up to your bathroom, which you hadn't been inside to hide in, the cold tile chilling the bottoms of your feet. It had a lock, but you didn't plan on using it. You stepped behind the door and steadied your breathing.

Everything would be fine, it's going to be fine, you clutched the knife tighter, knuckles turning white.

There were sounds coming from the room over. Someone was walking around in your kitchen and living room, you could hear their footsteps on the wooden floor; it sounded like they were stumbling around, or knocking into things, but you didn't know if it was on purpose. You heard it too when your bedroom door was attempted, the door pushing back against them as you had shoved a chair behind it but not underneath the doorknob. This person, whoever they were, pushed harder, a grunt leaving them followed by a heavy breath.

"The sun is back," someone whispered, their voice masculine, and they inhaled shakily. He knocked hard into something that caused a small thud against your carpeted floor, "the sun is back," he repeated.

You squeezed your eyes shut, feeling nothing but the hard pound of your heart hitting your ribcage. Your eyes were adjusted to the darkness at this point, but you didn't want to move in fear the door would shift or you'd somehow slip against the tile.

His footsteps rounded around your bed, moving closer, slowly approaching your bathroom. You saw his foot first and forced yourself to wait until at least a good part of his body had moved into your bathroom. He didn't look at you, he didn't even look around as he entered until you inhaled and lunged forward, plunging the knife into the man's side with the left side of your body forcing him into the shower curtains and into the bathtub.

You felt it when the knife pierced his soft flesh, the blade ripping through muscle and slipping free with ease as you yanked it out and ran out of your bathroom, almost tripping over the mess he made with your chair on the way out.

However, your fear spiked as you heard the man in the bathroom let out a sharp cry and the sound of his feet slamming against the tile. And then—

Thmp, thmp, thmp—

You spun around, eyes wide as your world tilted and your back hit the floor of your home, knife sliding from your grasp. You groaned, squirming on the ground for a moment as a weight lay half on your body and the rest not—it was him. He too was winded from his own tumble, but you had come to first.

You scrambled back kicking and kneeing him in the face as you got to your feet.

"The sun," the man muttered, "the sun!" He was shouting now.

He grabbed at your legs, his hands slick, but also pebbled with something sharp that scratched at your skin. You snapped your head to him in shock, eyes widening even more so at the sight of a familiar face. Samuel?!

He would never do something like this. Samuel was kind. Samuel was helpful. Samuel... Was not this!

"GET OFF!" You screamed at him, eyes searching for the knife. You spotted it at the edge of your kitchen and living room quickly and began fighting your way for it, but your hand met the slippery tile as a sharp tug caused you to fall back against the floor once again, your face meeting the wood with your nose painfully taking the brunt of it.

Your disorientation was enough for this man as he grasped your neck and squeezed. The tightness of his hands and the glass embedding them was the most uncomfortable and painful thing you had experienced thus far. You kicked at his legs, trying to bring them up and push against his legs, his groin, and you began scratching at his hands; trying to pry them away as your eyes blinked away tears.

You thought you heard another noise in the static noise in your brain as you were just about to lose consciousness. And you guessed that you weren't the only one who heard it as the crazed man above you had turned his head left and only let up slightly; just enough to give you a lungful of air to keep you from passing out. Again, there it was, a crack, a slam, and a loud, burst of noise that came running down your hall.

The weight was thrown off of you. No, not thrown, tackled with a movement of wind that followed. You gasped, greedily taking in large breaths of air as your brain began to regain the oxygen it most desperately needed. You sat up, a slow wave of vertigo (probably due to almost being choked out) hitting you harder than it needed. You turned right briefly and blinked rapidly.

The door to your bathroom was broken, large splinters of wood bending inward from the inside. It wasn't even supposed to open that way, and the chair in front of it was toppled too, one of the legs broken and lying a few feet away.

Wait, then, that meant...

You turned, groping around next to you before your hand gripped tightly on the knife. You were suddenly overcome with shock as one of the two just a few feet away was crying out in agony, yet you had the knife.

Don't look, your brain told you, you'll regret it.

Yet, the sound of tearing caught your attention, and your curiosity was too strong to resist. It was not the tear of clothes that you would've hoped to see. The figure on top of the other was instead tearing off skin and muscle, your wooden floor underneath the dying (or already dead) man already covered with a splash of red in the dark. You stepped back once, goosebumps crawling up your spine and spread across your body.

Who was eating who?

Deep down, you knew. You knew even as he stopped and raised his head as if just now noticing your presence. You knew he didn't mean to save you, that was just something that just happened and wasn't part of his plan. His plan, maybe, was to gather his strength and burst through to eat you instead. Would hunger really lead to eating a man?

He stood tall, taller than you, and moved a hand across his face, smearing blood and bits of viscera across his lips.

And you could see him lick it off, looking at you, his next meal.

Chapter 4: Screaming

You stared back at the beastly man in front of you who acted like he hadn't just ripped open your next-door neighbor who was most likely high on something. Your hands trembled, thinking back about how just moments ago he had just tackled Samuel off you like he weighed nothing. Could you fight him off if he did the same to you?

The man in front of you retched, shoulders slumping as his hands grasped at the couch next to him and dropped to his knees. He coughed and choked before vomiting on your already blood-soaked floor. You brought one hand up to your mouth and nose, covering it as you recoiled from the noise. Too late, it was already permanently etched into your mind and your brain replayed the noise again.

You watched, disgusted, as the man who had saved you moments ago, swayed on his knees and then fell to his side, letting out a low groan that was much clearer than the ones you had heard behind the door.

And you waited for him to get up. You refused to budge from your place in the kitchen with your knife pointed at him, but not in a threatening manner. Even though he had just tackled a grown man, he just vomited all over your floor. He wasn't sick, was he?

He wasn't moving.

You averted your attention for just a moment to check on the door to your left. You cursed quietly at the sight of the glass on the door being broken, shards no doubt littering the floor. You looked back at your first intruder, now savior, watching his figure for any signs of movement. Ten seconds. Twenty; you had to guess he was passed out or just very, very disoriented.

Slowly, you hurried to your room and grabbed a pair of socks and shoes. After slipping them on, you hurried back to your kitchen and pulled open drawers and cupboards as quietly as you could. You found a roll of tape and two kitchen cloths. It wasn't your best idea, but it would have to work until you had a safer place to stay.

You then stepped carefully across the glass, the crunch of it grating to your ears until you stood face to face with your broken door. You placed the corner of one of the cloths against the corner of the frame and ripped a piece of tape from the roll, beginning to press it hard so it kept in place while continuing to tape the fabric to cover the hole. You did this a second time with the second cloth, having to drop your hands halfway through the work of the second one though as the blood from your hands was thinning, but managed to finish without a hitch.

Though, you covered the back of the cloth with a row of vertical tape, the sound of it stretching and ripping grating to the ears, but working out in the end as it would do the job of stopping anyone else from getting inside. All you had to worry about now was the glass on the floor, the collapsed man in your living room, and the dead body on the floor.

And the slow, clawing feeling that something was terribly wrong.

You knew that everything so far had been wrong. The eerie sounds from the outside, the pictures people were posting online, those crazy dudes on the News. Everyone wanted answers, even you. Maybe those people spouting nonsense about the world ending were right all along? You never made a tinfoil hat before, but you were really contemplating doing it now.

The glass broke under your shooed heel as you hopped across the tile and placed the tape down, then b-lined toward your storage door that had been blocked off due to the man in your bathroom (who now lay in your living room). Stale air and a bit of dust flew at your face when you opened it, the hinges letting out a surprised squeal after being shut for so long. You grabbed a flashlight that had been tucked away near the front corner of the small room and prayed that the batteries still worked as you shut the door behind you.

Light flickered faintly from the item and you made a silent cheer as you hurried back to the kitchen. A dustpan and a small duster were all you needed to sweep up the larger chunks of glass, just the ones that would be large enough to puncture your skin. The smaller pieces that hid under the crevices of your cupboards and counter would go forgotten, but on purpose, as you only needed a clean path to your backdoor, not a deep clean of your kitchen.

You stood straight, knees crackling under the soreness of squatting for a long period. You placed the dustpan and its add-on onto a counter and huffed, facing your next problem.

Him.

He had not moved since you had begun cleaning, and you made a conscious effort in steering clear of his direction every time you bounded back and forth between your kitchen and other spaces in your house (as those damn batteries died from the flashlight a minute into using it). He was alive, that's all you knew. Conscious? Unknown. Bleeding out? Could someone move like that while bleeding out? Could someone break through a door like that bleeding out?

Right! Your attention switched to the opening of your hall at the memory of your bathroom door. You tapped the tips of your shoes against the tile, once for both shoes, and treaded carefully down the hall with a flashlight pointed straight ahead. The door was irreparable. Caved in at the center like a battering ram had hit it three times before giving, the door off the top hinge and barely keeping it together on the second. It hung open, both inviting and nauseating at the same time.

Your bathroom was even more of a mess, blood smeared across the floor like someone had tried to use the tile for a terrible art project and just gave up halfway through. There was a second substance among the artistry, black in color which too painted the tile across the inside of your now ruined door. It was splattered on the left wall too, dripping down from the small window at the very top of the room where he no doubt crawled in from.

He did all this?

Your kind gesture of off-brand cheerios remained untouched at your feet too, some crushed, and some looking like they were half-eaten, turned to mulch.

You gagged and turned away, the sight of this room no longer intriguing to look at and now only scarring your mind and the audacity of such a spill. You returned down the hall and tip-toed to the back of your couch and peered over. You shined the light halfway at the man, narrowing your eyes at his figure.

He wore that same, black hoodie, and those jeans, grey-ish blue, stained with that black substance from the bathroom with an add-on of (possibly) Samuel's red blood. You bravely moved the light up a bit more to his face, or, at least, half of it. His face was half covered by a navy blue mask, the mask covering the upper part of his face. The sockets were black, and what looked like black paint ran down the bottom edges of the sockets. At the center, there was a direct line drawn down from forehead to chin, and stitches marked it every which way. What you could see of his face was that his mouth was stained dark with a deep red, confirming your suspicions of his man-eat-man tendencies. What you didn't expect was the dark grey hue of his skin.

Then, you swore you saw something move at the far right of the flashlight, where the circle of the beam just stopped. You swung your arm to it, choking at a strange noise that almost ripped from your throat.

There was...a tail?

Your mind didn't register it as a tail because only animals had tails, not humans. Unless... Unless it was an accessory, you could vibe with that, but WHOA, WAIT—it definitely moved again. The tail ended just before it reached the man's heels, long and grey, skin like leather, until the end where a good amount of... Fur? Hair? teardropped. It was dark and coiled around his leg, right above the beginning of his black boot(s).

He wasn't human.

That... That explained a lot of things.

You weren't as freaked out as you thought you'd be. At this point, what were you going to be surprised at? Maybe the biggest surprise was you'd see the sun tomorrow.

The stink of metal burned your lungs as you inhaled sharply. You did your best to ignore it for far too long, but you needed to get rid of it lest it stink up your whole house.

You returned to your room and changed into a long-sleeved t-shirt you didn't like and a pair of pants you also didn't like, then grabbed a blanket and pillow and hurried back to the couch. Slowly, you unwrapped the blanket and angled it so that it dropped on one side of the unconscious alien dude, so you could drop it on the other side so it covered the majority of his body save for the ends of his legs. You looked at the pillow you brought out and recoiled at the idea of lifting his head to sneak it underneath. What if he woke up?

You just placed it next to his head.

You ventured into your kitchen again, rummaging through drawers until you were met with a familiar box of plastic gloves. You put on a pair, and then stared at the box, ultimately deciding to put on two and then slowly opened your side door. This was the first, full glimpse you had of the outside world since it became a void monstrosity.

You returned to your home and approached Samuel's body with heaving breaths, only pausing when your shoes met the odd sensation of stepping on the rim of blood that pooled on the floor. It wasn't as wet as you were led to believe, but sticky and slick against the front of your shoe. You didn't have a flashlight, nor did you want one, as your eyes had adjusted well enough to show you the disgusting cave that was his torso, ripped open and gutted like an animal. You reached out and grabbed at his arm, tugging once, then again, harder this time. The body did give some and you felt a mind-numbing sensation of nausea hit you like a train at the squishing sound something made.

You dropped his arm with a dull thud and turned to scatter toward the open door and breathe a mouthful of fresh air. Then, you returned, glad your stomach wasn't full.

This time, you grabbed under his shoulders, cringing as his head lolled back and to the side, his hair tickling your right wrist as you pulled him to the edge of your living room and kitchen. You could see the shine of blood trailing after his dragged body and quickly lifted your head as to not look down at his gored stomach.

Keep going, you thought, pulling and stumbling over the threshold of your home. You tilted back, Samuel's corpse falling with you, the back of his head landing on your stomach and weighing you down on the grass as the lower half of his body was slightly angled up from the two steps down from your backdoor. You gagged and kicked and pulled yourself up and out from under his body.

You kept your attention elsewhere still as you grabbed his legs and slid him off of the stairs and walkway and then, thankfully, somehow managed to roll him over. You heard a wet splat of something else hitting the grass and retreated back inside, refusing to touch your face just yet as you had to clean the rest of the bloody mess littering your house.

You hated cleaning as much as the next person, but you'd take regular cleaning over cleaning a crime scene any day.

Some of the things you picked up you didn't want to even question what it was. Your gloves did little to create a barrier from your skin to the bits of flesh and stringy muscle and bone you picked up off the floor, and the pool of blood had only stained your floor just a tad bit red, but you would like to assume you did a good job... At least, without the help of a flashlight. The smell that hung in the air would not go away though, even after a multitude of sprays from Febreeze and other cleaning products.

The thing that lay on your floor though (you didn't know what else to call him, as you were still 90% sure he wasn't human), he hadn't woken up. You checked the area around him, remembering that he had retched before passing out, but he hadn't vomited, at least not that you could see.

He was eating a person, and now I'm housing him? You thought to yourself after returning to your just as messy room to check on your phone. You didn't mention his presence anymore online, and you already did your research but found nothing that related to your current, non-human housemate.

You felt like a mess. You were a mess. Your hair was greasy, although you couldn't tell, and there was no doubt something sticking to your face that made you not want to look into a mirror. Your mind wandered to taking a shower, and you were really keen on doing so. You had a bathroom, one that wasn't painted black and red, but that bothered another question. What if he wakes up?

The house felt dangerous.

Your eyes darted up and alert the moment you heard someone screaming though. Further down the street, but still close enough to make your blood run cold. You got up from sitting on your bed and looked around; where was the knife?

Kitchen, your mind answered and you exited your room.

Only to pause, noticing the rise of the man on the floor, hood falling back. You swallowed hard, those screams in the distance echoing in your head as if they were soon going to be yours as he could jump on you any second. He wasn't human, after all.

The man quietly grabbed onto the couch, his body shifting as he stood. His shoulders slouched one moment, then grew tall another. For a moment, his attention was directed to you as you could feel a terrible gaze rest on your form, looking through you rather than looking at you. The screams though, never stopped, and he froze just as you were doing.

And then he moved, staggering across your living room and bumping clumsily into the door before he found the handle and ripped it open. He stopped again, lifting his head as you could hear him inhale three times, each short, and then moved left, faster this time, faster than you'd ever seen Samuel run by your house on those past, sunny days, toward the gate that reached out to the open plot of land in front of your house. To the street.

You were left alone.

The silence weighed in on your ears, clogging them and making your head pound. You were finally alone.

You hurried over to the backdoor, closed it softly, and then scurried to your bedroom. Your thoughts returned to a shower, marking off the thought that he could awaken and ruin your private moment of sanctuary. You could clean off the dirt and grime that had accumulated over the past few days, especially the exhaustion.

The hot, torrent of water massaged your shoulders and back and cleansed your hair. You swiped your palms against your face, doing it again, this time harder, until your face tingled. You allowed yourself only five minutes though, as the quiet wasn't assured in a time like this. You knew better than to grab and cling tightly to a string of hope.

You dried and clothed yourself in a long t-shirt. You liked this one and the pants you wore too, as you tossed the other, bloodstained clothes into the trash in your bathroom as they were beyond saving at this point. You checked your phone a second time in the twenty-minute period, noticing that the power in the house had most likely come on for a few minutes, as the battery was higher than before, once at thirty-six, now at fifty-four. It was no longer charging though, so you were back to conserving energy.

Now that you had a quiet moment to relax though, you realized why you were relaxing.

The screaming down the street had stopped.

And...there was a cold draft in the house.

You ripped open your bedroom door mouth agape as you spotted a figure, cloaked in black, sitting on the counter in your kitchen. The noise of the door opening to your room made his head lift and direct toward you.

He was...back?

Why was he back?

"You," his voice wasn't as weak as it was before, but it was rough, not like anyone's you've ever heard before. You swallowed, mouth opening as if to reply, but you couldn't find the strength to do so.

He slid off the counter, his boots hitting the tile louder than you would've liked. It caused you to jump and stammer out, "ye-yes?!"

The man stood in the dark, his hooded figure looking even more intimidating outlined by the night than you would've liked to admit. He was quiet, pondering his words, and you stood there, unable to move lest it spelled your demise.

"Let's talk."

Chapter 5: Don't Trust Them

"Let's talk," he said simply, resting his hands palms first on the bend of your counter, leaning on it like it was a pleasant, Sunday afternoon and you were just good friends enjoying your time together. You gave a baffled look, him unable to see it due to the thick night and the distance between you two(or due to another reason, which you did not know yet).

"Yeah, yeah, okay," you nodded quickly, sucking in a cold breath as your eyes darted to the right, his left, to the back door that was open wide. You let out the same breath you took in, looking quickly back at the man in your kitchen, "about what?"

His head tilted to the side, and you could see something behind him move; his tail. It swayed back and forth, betraying the emotion you couldn't see on his face as it moved in the beats of silence. You hated the silence more than when he talked, because at least when he talked you knew what he wanted. You could hear tells in his voice, but in the dark and in the quiet, you could only pay attention to his tail.

"You trapped me in your bathroom," he said, stating it more like a fact than a question. And he expected you to answer.

"W-what else was I supposed to do? Normal people knock on the door when they want inside!" You blurted quickly, hands waving in the air, to the left and down the hall where the very same bathroom was, dirtied and probably ruined, "y-you were crawling through the window so I...I..."

You didn't know what he was, but with what you knew about cats, whenever their tails twitched at the end and thrashed around, didn't that mean they were getting annoyed? Angry even?

He was done with that topic it seemed as he turned his head fully to the left, staring at... Your TV? You still couldn't tell, "that person. Who were they? Why were they talking about the sun?"

All your instincts told you to not go, "have you been sleeping under a rock?" Because you knew full well he probably wouldn't find it as funny as you did, so instead, you looked at him like he was growing two heads.

"You...don't know?" You pursed your lips, swaying back and forth on your heels. He remained silent, so you continued, "the sun? It's gone."

You were sure if you could see his face, he would be looking at you like you had grown two heads. Even so, it was true. Maybe he just didn't grasp the concept of time passing while he was trapped in your bathroom for so long.

"I'm not lying! It's the truth! Did you...not see the news or something?" You didn't have the best convincing voice, but something in his posture shifted, which caused you to shift as well, more to the right, toward your couch, so if he tried to lunge at you you'd have something to play around in order to get away.

"If you haven't forgotten, I've been trapped in your goddamn bathroom for three days," he stated plainly, "also, no, I cannot see."

And you said that to a blind person? That's fucked up.

"My bad...uh," you realized slowly that you didn't even know his name, yet you were already minutes into this conversation that you felt too awkward to ask now, "but, yeah. The sun is missing. And there's been these...weird, freaky lights going around. You aren't supposed to look at them, but you'd be fine... I think?"

You weren't too sure you were buying into the blind part anymore as he tracked you carefully as you moved, pressing your side into the back of the couch like a safety net. The smell of blood still hung in the air, or it was permanently singed into your nostrils; you really hoped it wasn't that one.

"There were sounds too. What were they? The rumbling in the sky," he completely dismissed your previous comment, which made you sigh quietly with relief, but you were sure he picked that up too.

Noises. Rumbling in the sky. Honestly, it was pretty vague, the way he described it, but you were confident he meant the sounds that occasionally swooped over your house, which sometimes sounded like helicopters or some other aircraft; a plane, maybe. But you weren't too knowledgeable on what any kind of flying craft sounded like.

"I didn't get too much of a look at them. But, like... They're probably the reason the sun is gone? I could look on the internet," you offered with a roll of your hand, feeling your nerves tighten when he cocked his head to the side, then lowered it with a sigh of his own. You took that as a go-ahead and quickly hurried into your room, heart pounding.

Fuck, okay, first you had to contact someone. You swallowed dry as you slid on your knees to where your phone sat on the charger; not charging. You ripped the cable off of the bottom outlet and opened it up.

You didn't have family or friends close by, but you could probably ask for assistance from your online group. Since you were already in the process of opening Discord anyway, you typed out a quick flurry of messages which had to get someone's attention at some point. Ah, to hell with it, you were pinging everyone.

GUYS
@(everyone)
guyss
there's this creepy dude in my house that just tore open my neighbor with his bare hands and mouth
he's talking to me but he can proabbly rip me in two in five seconds
WAHT DO IDO

You got to your feet and spun around, only to freeze when you spotted that same creepy dude standing in the doorway of your room. Your mouth went dry, and despite the cold draft now following him into your room, you found it really hard to breathe.

"Why are you panicking." He didn't say that like a question, rather than a statement. He knew you were panicking, "your heart is accelerating."

Right now you couldn't utter a single quip that would allow you to cope in this situation in fear that those words would be your last. A late thought crossed your mind, he can hear my heart? But you probably didn't find that too weird since the man had a tail.

"You've gone quiet. Am I right to assume that you were trying to call for help?" He took a dangerous step into your room, into your safe place. His boots were on the carpet, and when your eyes darted down to take a look at them, he moved, leaving a small mark on the floor.

"I-... I didn't call," you spoke softly, then cleared your throat to speak again, "I can't-well, I could, but there's...nothing they could do. Nine-one-one won't answer the phone anyways, as far as I've heard."

It was hard to keep a steady voice as you now found yourself toying with your phone in both hands as a way to distract yourself from this terrifying person. And, it looked like he wouldn't try to eat you from the inside out just yet because what you said made him crane his head a little closer.

"What?"

"What?"

The both of you went silent, your response immediate and quick.

Buy yourself time, you thought, eyes wide.

"Emergency services are down, the sun is gone, weird, aircraft-shit—" He fell silent as, once again, the air shook and vibrated. Not only did the air shake, but the house too, and the temperature just grew a whole lot warmer. The noises of an unknown craft rattled above your home, and you were about to point that out to him too, just in case he was also deaf, but he suddenly grabbed your wrist.

You moved to rip it out of his cold grasp, but his grip only became tighter, squeezing the blood flow from your right hand, "okay, okay," you said quietly, hurrying behind him as he pulled you through the house and through the side door.

Samuel's body still remained the same.

"Look up! Tell me what you see!" The man pointed up to the dark sky, the sky you hadn't really taken time to look at since everything had started (you didn't count the times you looked through the windows). It was pitch black, no stars in sight, you took a quick look at your phone. Five o'clock sharp.

"I...I don't see..." You trailed off slowly, squinting your eyes as you caught the smallest of movements. It was big, very big, you weren't sure if you were seeing things at first or it was just a trick of the eye. Yet, it moved gracefully, above in the distance of the sky, heading away from your current position; but it had just flown over you.

"What? What do you see?" The man squeezed again, snapping your attention back to the reality you were currently living. You shook your head, blinking quickly.

"I-it's big, like, really big, like a spaceship, but...it's pointed at the top and bottom, like...like two triangles connected on their flat surfaces," you did your best explaining it to him, but it was pretty hard to know if you did a good job or not when he wore a blue, expressionless mask. The nods and tilts of his head were good enough for now, but you were sure it would get...situational if you tried to hold an actual conversation with him.

"Where is it headed?"

You sputtered, looking around you for a moment, a useless action, "I don't know! Straight? It could be going to the White House for all I care, I'm not going to find out."

He made a noise, a noise you weren't sure if you liked or disliked just yet, and let go of your wrist.

And then, he started moving toward your gate, which you now noticed was broken. Fucking great.

"Where are you going?!" You hissed, not in any hurry to grab him, or do that in general. He didn't turn back and acknowledge you, just kept walking.

"Stay here." Is all he said before he disappeared behind the broken wood of the gate, the dark, hood of his figure blending in with the night. You muttered something about not thinking about moving away from here in the first place, but when heading inside you really got thinking.

What were you even going to do here anyway? It wasn't like you had much going for you aside from basic-level protection. But, that was weakened now that Samuel had broken in and ruined all semblance of safety for you.

Your phone buzzed, causing your heart to do a flip in your ribcage, which caused your brain to throb painfully. You carefully closed the backdoor behind you, deciding to lock it (because you hoped he'd do the decent thing and knock, even if knocking creeped you out recently) in case of anymore, sun-crazed intruders.

Thankfully, your phone's battery still hadn't wavered.

oh god, you good?
pinging everyone xD
do you need help anymore?

You smiled at the response you got. Only one person, but it was better than none. You played games with them too sometimes, your recent session, a week ago, felt all too far away.

i'm good now, he left
i think he'll be back though, i'm not too sure

It felt so long since you talked to someone familiar. You were thankful it was just a regular conversation and not one where you were verbally struggling to keep yourself alive.

it's totally cool!
i can head over to you so we can stick together

You laughed quietly.

you're, like, states away lol
won't reach me before i'm probably dead lol

You caught yourself heading toward the living room, a habit, one that you would now want to get rid of if you didn't want to hang around the stench of blood, guts, and bile. You redirected to your bedroom to hunker down until that hooded man returned, or if he ever would.

oh right haha

Oh, right, haha? You thought with a raised brow. They knew you were states away, it was apparent because of the timezone; being three hours in the future was a perk, you always joked with them, but that also meant you were the one who stayed up late at night while they were up at a reasonable time.

You swiped out of Discord and returned to Twitter for a few minutes of doom-scrolling, but you still couldn't get away from the depressing state of the world. People openly breaking into houses, the skyrocketing amount of emergency calls being turned away, sand tores and other places being raided for supplies due to the world ending. Who'd want to survive in a dying world anyway? Maybe it was just human nature.

Though, surprisingly enough, you spotted something interesting. A person was documenting and sharing their experience during this time on Twitter, and it only caught your eye because of the screenshot he sent. It was a text message conversation between him and his friend, Danyon.

Answer my question. What year did we graduate high school?

bud we dont have time for this

Answer my question. Answer my question.

are you ok?

I'm fine.

im sorry to say this but im not sure i trust you

Likewise.

welp ... i guess thats it then

To you, it didn't look like much, just two friends having a small squabble, but this post led to you tapping on his profile and scrolling down a bit further to read up on the history between him and this guy, Danyon, then a bit lower, to get more of his story, and the stories that others have been sending him.

He had a run-in with the lights too, it seemed, and also had even more dangerous encounters than you. The video he sent of someone banging on his window, which most likely turned out to be that light that got into his house. He explained that they were big, and could move real fast if you weren't careful. That made you think what could've happened if that light got into your house, what it could've done to you.

The account also made his own 'alarm system', if you could even call it that, which was a stack of plastic solo cups in front of a door. If the door was opened, they would clatter on the ground. Smart, and as he said, primitive. Then, he explained how he was getting increasingly more paranoid, hearing noises when he was just about to wake up, or in his sleep, like the clanging of cans (which was his first alarm system), or the sounds of banging. So, he lined the floor with flour in front of his door.

Smart, you thought, eyes darting up to the next post, and the next, eager to find out what else he was doing; if he was safe, or not. The poster was hearing screaming too, very sporadic, he couldn't tell where it was coming from. You didn't think he was in the same area as you, but you couldn't be so sure. And then, you came up to a post where he first asked Danyon what year they graduated high school.

Just curious, what year did we graduate high school?

lol what?

Nevermind.

Danyon's response didn't look very unordinary, as asking your friend what year you graduated in while the sun was missing was something out of the blue, which then led you back to the post you first saw him tweet.

He sent out another one only fifteen minutes ago, venting his frustration over people DMing him about updates, telling everyone that he had run out of bottled water days ago, couldn't sleep, and was very close to running out of food. You sucked air through gritted teeth and pressed the follow button on his profile. Sure, you didn't know this person, he didn't know you, but you wanted to keep track of those that were still alive. Maybe... It could give you some semblance of peace knowing that there were others out there hanging on to whatever life they had left.

However, the thought of the user questioning his long-time friend sat in your mind like a boulder refusing to budge. A question that he should've known, but avoided answering.

You opened Discord, replying to the most recent message your online friend had sent.

hey
what game did we meet on again?
wasn't it minecraft?

You stared at the message and swiped to the members page. They were still online, idle, but online. Your eyes were like eagle's, only blinking once the idle status changed to green; they saw the message.

???
why why do you want to know?

Avoidance.

oh just thinking about hopping on something to keep my mind off things
and i wanted to relive the good ol days :)

You watched as the dots appeared on the bottom of the screen as they typed, and then stopped, disappearing for a few moments. Your heart thundered in your ears, loud and deafening. No, it couldn't be true.

lol i can't remember rn
probably
its been a while

You swiped out of Discord, gripping at your stomach, then at your chest, screaming at your mind to breathe, settle down, don't cry.

Everything you had said to them, about meeting on a video game and wanting to play that very same game, was a lie. You never met them in a video game, another one of your friends met them on Minecraft and invited them to the server; you only met them a few days later, and not once did you ever play games with them, only chat with them through voice chat and messages.

You were sure that the Discord server would no longer be safe if that person was in there. You didn't know what they could do or if they were even the same person anymore, but you didn't plan on finding out. Much to your own conscience, you opened up the app again and kicked out the member from the server. Nobody would bat an eye about this, maybe not even see it until a few days later, because nobody else was online anymore; just you.

Your phone had drained to forty-three percent, so you placed it back onto the charger, sighing with relief as it made a small noise in response to the electricity flowing through the outlet. But how long was that going to stay?

BANG!

You jumped, turned, and then fell back against the side of your bed at the sound that came from your side door. The bang turned into two, quiet knocks and you slowly got to your feet.

You poked your head out through the doorway, narrowing your eyes at the dark area of your kitchen, frowning at the sight of a dark silhouette taking up much of your sideyard.

"Let me in," a very muffled voice came from the other side of the wall, probably much louder than you and he both would like, but it was someone familiar at least. You, begrudgingly, made your way over to the door and unlocked it, pulling it hard with some resistance coming from the door due to the previous events.

The hooded man strode into your house, passed by you, and felt toward your kitchen. His hand slid on the counter, pausing as it dipped slightly into your sink.

"A cup," he turned his head to you, which sent shivers up your spine at the hollow sockets of his mask. You quietly took the long way around him, then, on your tip-toes, opened a cupboard to the left of him and pulled out a cup.

He took it, both your fingers brushing accidentally together. The second time today where you could feel the cold of his fingers that ended with pointed claw-like nails. He brought the cup up to the sink and pulled the handle.

He allowed it to fill halfway, then stopped and turned off the water. You watched, slowly becoming more puzzled, as he brought it up to his masked face, not to drink it, no. You didn't know what he was doing.

"Another," he said, placing the cup to his right and holding his left hand out to you. Slowly, you grabbed another cup and handed it to him, the man doing the same thing as last time. And then, again, he asked for a third, a fourth, and a fifth.

On the sixth, you sighed loudly, "what's going on?" You handed him a clear, plastic one, as he had taken more than half of your good cups, and you didn't want him to use up all of them. You weren't breaking out the fine China for this guy.

He didn't respond, only began filling up this cup until it almost began to overflow, then set it next to the taller glasses.

"Do you see something," he said quietly, "with the water. Is there something there?"

You frowned, almost refusing to look his way or the water's way, but you did so for the sake of his curiosity. From this angle and in the darkness, you couldn't see much, only the slight shimmer of water in a glass, or that was your mind knowing there was water, therefore reflecting it as such.

"Let me get a light," you said, returning to your room to grab your flashlight, and then appeared on the man's right, yet still kept some good space between the two of you.

You pressed your thumb hard on the back of the flashlight, turning it on. You glared at the sheer brightness of the device, not used to it due to being in the dark for so long, but your eyes grew accustomed quickly.

Starting from the first cup he filled, you shined the light across each, it looked normal, the second did too, and so did the third. You felt a frown coming on and pushed away the itch to grab one of these cups and throw the contents onto the one standing next to you for, supposedly, treating you like an idiot; but you paused on the fourth cup.

There was...something floating around inside of it.

At first, you cut it out to be maybe something that came through unfiltered in your house, or maybe the faucet was dusty, but you turned the light to the fifth and noticed that there were even more particles in this one, and the water was considerably darker, as if someone had added the smallest amount of black food coloring and mixed it in as a fun joke.

The sixth was even darker, and you were sure, if you didn't have a light, you wouldn't see anything wrong with it.

"It's dark," you murmured, shaking your head quickly, "I meant, the fourth, fifth, and sixth cup. It's... It's like someone added dark food coloring, or ash, or...something!"

"Any strange smell?"

Your lips thinned out into a straight line and you slowly brought your head above the fifth cup of water and inhaled, "no," you sniffed again, quietly, "nothing."

Wait, you paused, stepping back, watching as he poured out the waters in your sink, was he smelling the water?

"We need to move, then," he placed all the cups, even the plastic one, in a stack, either on accident or purpose, you didn't know. Then, your mind snapped to.

"We?" You echoed.

It was his turn to pause, visibly so, his movements lagging back a second like he had been jolted from a hard stop in a car.

"Unless you want to stay here, be my guest," he answered gruffly, wiping his hands down his pants before turning to you and pointing to the water he just drained, "that stuff was in that mindless human who attacked you. It has the same smell, and, I can only assume that if you drink enough of it, you'll become like him."

You stepped back as the tall man stepped by you and made his way to the door, "across the street," he spoke again, his voice fading with the darkness, just like him, "the water is safe and nobody is home."

Across the street, you replayed his words, remembering the old woman and her daughter, where did you go?

Chapter 6: It's Too Quiet

You had a small lapse in judgement, standing before the packed items you wanted to bring. Two backpacks full, to be specific. There were just too many things you had that either held some practical significance to you or had some sentimental value. While adding things, you kept telling yourself, I'll need this, or, I don't want to lose this, because you had no clue when you'd be home.

Your destination was right across the street, so you had no clue why everything was so difficult now of all times.

While you unpacked your bags to seriously repack and rethink your decision, you pulled off the jacket that you had pulled on due to the lowering temperatures. They kept fluctuating, which you didn't think was weird; you fussed it up to it having something to do with the sun being gone, but you weren't too sure.

There was no rattling of your house from aircraft above, and you hadn't had any more close calls with those flickering lights, so things should be going good (despite your lack of skill in packing light).

You resorted to sectioning items out, thinking, I'll come back for this later when tossing something to the side, an item you definitely did not need when traveling with a complete stranger.

It was funny how you didn't know his name yet.

You had most things sectioned out now, and the backpack was about as heavy as someone ready for a day-hike, maybe a bit heavier. A few extra clothes, a charger for your phone, a small medkit which had very little in it, a flashlight, and, as you stepped out of your room and hurried toward the kitchen, some snacks.

You knew a lot of your food would have to stay behind, and only the non-perishables (or the ones you'd eat quickly) would be packed in the small space you had left. Nothing that required heat, nothing that came from the fridge, and, just in general, nothing that would go bad quickly. This was a sad given as you plucked a few things from the shelves with a small frown. Granola, a bag of raisins, and Ritz crackers for the road. This was harder than you thought.

They'd have food in the pantry across the street, though, you reminded yourself while zipping up your backpack that weighed lighter than before, but heavier than you thought. You'd hopefully be using all that you packed, though, and wouldn't have to worry about the weight later.

Pausing at the backdoor where a stray shard of glass crunched under your shoe, you looked back at the living room shrouded in darkness, then to your bedroom door, the hallway, and your kitchen. For some reason, it felt like you were going to be gone for a long, long time, and you didn't want to leave the safety blanket that was your home.

But it wasn't safe here, a voice whispered, causing your body to turn and finally step through the doorway, holding your breath as the stench of death hung heavy at your back door, blood tainting the overgrown grass. You jumped to the left on the pavement, purposefully avoiding the area within three feet of it.

Moving out of the fenced-off area of your sideyard felt like you were doing something wrong. A sour taste settled on the roof of your mouth, and whenever you swallowed, your throat went dry. Your eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, and the streetlights that dotted the road every now and again made your heart jump, thinking they were those flashing lights.

"Okay," you whispered aloud, zeroing in on the house directly across the street, "okay, let's go... I got this..."

Crossing the street was never this much of a task. You imagined Samuel, just a few days ago, jogging over to help the old lady carry her bags of groceries up her driveway, the sun beating down on them both. You stepped out from behind the chipped wood of the fence, head swiveling right and left over and over again before you began rushing across the pavement.

Your heart was galloping in your chest as you touched down on the smooth slope of the driveway and hurried on the path that would lead inside. The door you found was unlocked, and you tentatively stepped inside, shutting and locking the door as you did so. It wasn't bone-chilling cold or agonizingly warm here; it was a plain neutral, something you were pleased about.

The foyer was giant, nothing compared to your small abode right across the street. You saw stairs off to your right, an archway leading into a different room ahead of you, and to your left. This place was so much larger that you couldn't help but feel a tad bit jealous.

Yet, the smell of metal still hung in the air.

You knew it was blood the moment you took a few steps forward, a small pool of it sticking to the tile, and nearly your shoe before you stepped around it, holding your breath as you stepped further into the house. No lights were on, and you were sure if you were to try it, they wouldn't come on anyway (and you weren't going to try it either).

There was a thumping of movement directly above your head, causing the breath in your throat to hitch and catch in your lungs. You slapped a hand over your mouth to muffle the coughing that came with choking on absolutely nothing. The sound paused, a thick quiet clogging your ears until you spotted the brief movement of dark legs moving down the stairs, that turning to a body, one that was relievingly recognizable in the dark.

"You're too loud," he muttered, his words clear despite that mask covering his face. You sucked in a few breaths of air, lungs now sore, and removed your hands slowly from your face.

"I almost forgot you were here," you admitted, watching as he stepped narrowly close to the spilled blood and watched his boots for any sign of the same trailing after his steps on the carpet. There were none, so you wondered if the blood was even a product of another attack from him, or came from something else entirely.

You did your best to pull your attention away from him as he stalked into the dark, but large, kitchen. You stood in the living room, which was twice as large as your own, with the biggest couch you'd ever seen. Although, the sanctity of the living room wasn't great with the large, glass doors that sat between the living room and the kitchen. If an intruder or flashing light found their way into the backyard, they could easily break in by shattering the glass.

You sat in the very(dark) corner of the couch anyway, watching the masked man in the kitchen. He ran the water from the faucet, and his shadow leaned down. It only lasted a few seconds before he turned it off and took to the fridge instead. Actually, he opened the freezer, surprisingly. No lights came on, indicating the house was without power, just like your own.

"Damn it..." You heard him mutter amidst the silence, obviously irritated with what he did or didn't find. You tugged off the straps of your backpack, pushing it to your left as you sank back into the cushions and watched.

It took everything in you not to fill the silence with questions or just simple ramblings. You'd like to think you were getting better at holding your tongue anyway due to being alone for so long, but now that you had a traveling partner...

Was traveling partner even the right word? Was he going to join you? You didn't ask, only assume, due to the man being blind. Yet, even you could see that he didn't have any trouble moving around by himself.

So why was he keeping you close?

You shifted, feeling uncomfortable with that question branching off into more possibilities; possibilities that you didn't like.

"I'm gonna go look around upstairs," you spoke aloud, receiving nothing in response from the man who still went unnamed. You left your backpack, the weight gone from your sore shoulders, and hopped over the blood that would forever be stained in your mind.

You grasped the smooth wood of the railing as you walked up, thinking off-handedly how the old woman got up and down the stairs. Slowly, probably. With help from her daughter? Possible, but unlikely in most cases. Brenda the bitch, you wondered where she was. You didn't see her the day the sun was still in the sky, but maybe she was home, maybe she was inside while her mother did all the shopping, even at that old age. If you still lived close to your family, or were still in contact with them, you wouldn't have left your greying mother to do all the heavy lifting.

Upstairs was just like downstairs, spacious and way too expensive. Every door except one was already open, probably rummaged and searched through by your inhuman companion downstairs.

But, there was a metallic tinge in the air that made your lips downturn. When downstairs earlier, you smelled it too, but you thought it was only because of the blood in the foyer.

There were three open doors, and one shut. You were curious, but not morbid enough to go and poke around for a corpse even though you've already seen one today. Even so, it wouldn't hurt to peek into each of the rooms, though, right?

You shuffled over to the one on the left, the one closest to you at this very moment. It was a bathroom, bigger than the one close to your front door, but just around the same size as the one connected to your bedroom. Maybe a bit bigger though. You stepped inside since the bathroom was clean and tidy, nothing wrong here aside from the metallic smell being accompanied by the faint scent of vanilla.

You stepped back, out of the bathroom, and faced the next door to the right. You hated that you couldn't see too far in and could only imagine what the shapes of the shadows were; furniture, you knew this, but your mind didn't settle for knowing. You had to be absolutely sure.

You took a step inside, eyes darting quickly to the left at a chair and a dresser that made you think there was someone crouched there, looking up at you as you entered. A jacket was draped over it, so you relaxed only slightly as the smell of vanilla followed you into the room.

A bed, directly in front of you, creating an area on the far side of the room that you couldn't see.

Strong, the smell was too strong. You stepped around the foot of the bed, taking large strides to see what that shape was on the ground. It looked like a rug, but a rug on carpet usually didn't make sense.

It had to, though, because that carpet really looked like a body.

Your eyes adjusted slowly, and you saw the outline of a face, sideways, hair, long and tangled, and a dark substance staining the carpet. Blood, you knew this was blood, and that vanilla scent was gone. Nausea hit you like a wave, just like last time, as you recognized the face. Brenda was the one on the floor, a corpse, bleeding from somewhere vital, or the wound was large.

You did your best not to inhale and took a few large steps back, exiting the room before re-entering the bathroom you had examined mere minutes before discovering that body.

That vanilla scent was strong, filling your lungs with the bitterness of pennies from either the body in the other room or the blood that felt like coming up the back of your throat. You felt sick, figuratively and literally.

You spat in the sink, running the faucet in the process before cupping your hands together to take a bit of water into your mouth to wash out the blood on your tongue. You didn't like Brenda, and she didn't like you; that was mutual, but you never wanted her to die.

And where was that sweet, old lady? You didn't want to search the other room or the closed door. Your gut couldn't handle it, and the same with your mind.

Yanking the handle of the sink back, you slowly stepped out of the bathroom and leaned against the railing on your way down the stairs.

He wasn't in the kitchen when you stepped on the tile in the foyer and around the blood and into the living room. He was sitting on the couch, on the opposite side where you had chosen to leave your backpack. You stuck to the back of the couch, almost lifting yourself over the top of the cushions by using the firm backing as support, but you stopped, mouth parting open.

"Hey," you muttered without turning your head to where he sat. Your eyes were wide, "what are you?"

You were more nervous about finding a third body upstairs than asking this question. And you wouldn't take, "not human," for an answer, since that much was obvious. He could break down a door after not eating for two days straight and tear open a man with his bare hands and teeth. He had a tail, and some sharp nails that bordered on claws; plus, his skin was an ash grey.

He shifted, kicking up his right leg so that his foot rested on his left knee, "you won't like the truth."

Did he mean won't believe the truth? You weren't sure, but, at this point, if he gave that as an answer, you were sure you'd believe anything at this point. The sun was fucking gone and if he wanted to dance around the topic, you would dance right along with him.

"I've seen a lot of things and heard a lot of things I don't like this week," you responded, finally looking over at him in the dark of the room. Every once and a while, you'd look back at the front door, swearing up and down that you saw a flicker of light through the decorative glass window, "I'm sure a break in my reality won't make any more of a difference."

Your hands that had been gripping the back part of the couch gripped harder than before. Answers, you thought, even if it doesn't excuse the fact that you murdered both my neighbors, I'm getting answers.

"I used to be human, believe it or not," his tone took a shift, not cold, but hard and flat, "then I was turned into this. You could call me a demon, a creature. I've heard it all before."

A demon.

You had your guesses about what he was, "demon" was one of the few things that floated about, questionable, but now that you had confirmation, you could put it to rest.

"Then...you eat people?"

You watched him, you don't know when your eyes focused in on him entirely, but you couldn't look away now. His figure was hunched, and no longer did the darkness fog around his outline; you could clearly make out smaller movements, like the bounce of his left leg.

"I am a cannibal, yes," he had no qualms in admitting this to you, it seemed. Or he didn't find any shame in saying this aloud.

You knew they existed; cannibals. Humans that ate other humans. You never thought of doing so before, but did have the disgusting thought of how a human, or their organs, would taste. Everyone has had that curiosity at least once in their life, right? You didn't feel like it was a terrible thought to have, but it was one you locked away in the dark corner of your mind.

There was a sudden thought that resurfaced, though, a memory of not so long ago when he was still trapped behind your bathroom door. A croak of his voice saying, "hungry," in response to you questioning his well-being.

"So when you attacked Samuel, uh, that man who was attacking me, you ate him?" He had torn at his flesh so easily. If the lights worked in your house, you were sure that if you turned them on and looked toward the mess you cleaned, it would look like a terribly covered-up crime scene.

"I tried to," he grunted, kicking his right foot forward while leaning back, "he tasted vile. There was something in his organs, or, in general, his entire body." A hand of his came up to rub the underside of his jaw, "but I was starving enough to swallow some of it down."

"And now?" You quickly asked, eyes darting down to the hand that was still at his side, and then at the one that was lifted to his face, "are you hungry?"

"Currently, no."

That was relieving to hear, but did not sit right with you to even have to ask a question like that.

"Then," you swallowed hard, another taste of dryness in the back of your throat, creating a lump that went down slowly, "back to before. You could've instead ripped me apart if you were so hungry," you let this sit with him for a moment. He even looked at you too back in your house, you remember seeing the outline of his face with what little light you had, and the way he licked his lips like a five-star meal was just placed in front of him, "why didn't you?"

This question had an underlying meaning; you knew it too, are you going to kill me? You could ask that too, but, for some reason, you didn't want to hear the answer. You didn't want to know what he had in store for you just because he had shown you a few ounces of decency for the past two hours.

He scared you—fact.

And he was also taking too long to answer. This made your nerves stand on end, and your blood rushed hot beneath your skin as a nervous flush took over your system. Your eyes began searching the room, the darkness ebbing your vision at the most coincidental moment, making all the furniture on the walls, at the side of the room, and the one you tightened your hold on, look like puddles of void. You needed a way out, just in case things didn't go the way you planned.

"I made a choice," his voice caused your head to snap back to him, who sat upright, and his head facing toward you, where your blood quickly turned cold.

"A choice," you repeated quietly.

"You speak of a world without a sun, lights that move and chase down people, symmetrical ships that cause the air to shake. The reality I come from is nothing like that, but it isn't as believable due to who I've met and what I've seen, metaphorically speaking," his voice fell at the end, and he sighed, "regardless. I've come to a decision that could benefit both of us."

You looked at the glass door, wondering if it was unlocked, if it slid left or right.

"Well," you straightened, squeezing the back of the couch once more and then releasing it, "let me hear it."

He didn't speak immediately, and you hated the way he seemingly just stared onward at you. Those dark sockets in his mask creeped you the fuck out.

"As I said before, I cannot see," he tapped a lower part of his mask. The item sounded much thicker and sturdier than plastic, but nothing like wood, "it's not a pretty sight under here too, as far as I'm told, so I prefer to keep it on unless I'm eating or...other circumstances."

You nodded slowly.

"Uh, yes, go on," you spoke aloud, feeling suddenly embarrassed after he literally just restated his blindness.

"For the time being, we should stick together. Since you're more familiar with the area and the situation, you can be my eyes. Whenever there's trouble, let's say...another break-in, or attack from a human threat, I can easily fight them off." The hooded man explained this well enough for you to understand, but what you didn't like was how it was a good plan.

"What about the lights?" Your attention moved to the door once again at the mention of them, finding nothing had changed, "could you fight those too?"

"I don't know. You've told me nothing about them except that you can't look at them, which won't be a problem for me, unless it's nothing about sight but something else," that was right too. You only got this information online. Yet, you weren't about to step outside and experiment with it yourself.

And were you about to put your trust in a cannibalistic, blind, demon? If he wanted to cut the deal short, he could kill you right then and there. What if he couldn't get his hands on any organs? You thought maybe the most gentlemanly thing he could do was make sure you were out cold before he indulged himself.

Maybe this was all a trick?

"You're panicking again," his voice snapped you present. He hadn't moved, but he was still staring on. He was still creepy for being able to sense that too, you decided, "you're free to decline."

Yes, you didn't have to accept his offer. You could shake your head then and there, grab your bag, and head back across the street to your home, where you knew the place best. Even so, you couldn't find it in you to move.

"I'll accept your plan," you forced your voice out, face crinkling at the way it cracked near the end, "I wanna know your name though."

I don't want to keep calling you "creepy dude" in my head.

The darkness that played with your vision had paused only for a moment, allowing you to see the way he turned his head away slowly and the small lift in his shoulders as he sat straight, tension building for just a moment as he dropped them quickly. You knew this wasn't the end of the conversation, this couldn't be. You were almost used to his exponentially long pauses after you asked a question or made an odd statement in reply to his own words.

"Just call me Jack," he murmured. A very normal name for a not-so-normal guy like him. You felt relief in knowing something personal now, and, in turn, you gave him your name as well. There was an awkward giddiness in addition to that relief, replacing the nervousness in your system slowly.

"Jack," you tested on your tongue, causing the man to turn his head slightly, before bringing it forward. You didn't hear him say yours in return, not like you were hoping for that.

You turned your head back to the door, where no light shone through, leaving you itching and waiting for something to fill the quiet that he brought you into.

Chapter 7: Stay Low

It was hard to keep track of how many days had passed staying with Jack.

Well, Jack and the body upstairs, but you didn't want to think about it too hard.

You made no effort to bring it up, even though he was sure you knew about it by now. You only went upstairs to use the second bedroom whenever you were tired, while Jack stayed downstairs the majority of the time. You couldn't sleep the first time you did this, and only fell asleep the second time due to trying to will yourself awake.

"If I wanted you dead, don't you think you would've been dead by now?" Jack told you after you had said something nonsensical, probably due to your lack of sleep. You were sure you weren't going to get any sleep this time either, but his words made sense, and you found yourself dozing off peacefully while lying on a king-sized bed; the first, comfortable sleep you had gotten despite living with a cannibal.

You found yourself upstairs, lying in that same bed now, but you weren't tossing and turning like the last few days, and you weren't too sleepy to doze off like you were in your own home, so you opted for your phone instead. Having it plugged in the majority of the time without knowing when it would actually charge was tiring, because you checked it often, frowning when there was no budge in the percentage, or grinning at the numbers when it was just four or five higher than what it was originally.

More small victories!

Yet, you knew you had to ration the battery, so you tried your hardest not to open up any mobile games, even if it was somewhat tempting. You mostly used your phone to check up on the Discord server and that one person's Twitter page, sometimes opening up other pages on Google for a quick search for anything that may have happened near your location, too.

That person, the one who ran the Twitter page, found out the contamination in the water too after swapping houses, just like you did. It was the smartest thing in retrospect. You didn't know what was up with the water, and didn't exactly want to test any theories that may come up. There were also a few other things he found, like a suspicious paper mentioning the lights.

REMEMBER

- Don't look into the light.
- Don't move. They see motion.
- Don't produce light. They will see.

Then, at the bottom, in large, bold letters, THE STROBE???

And another tweet, a screenshot of a message from Danyon, the one he supposedly no longer trusted.

listen. i know you dont trust me and i dont trust you. but if you are still you, you have to get low.
get out of sight, whatever it takes.

You didn't understand what it meant, and TheSunVanished (the account's username) hadn't seen or heard anything even after taking Danyon's advice. Nothing had happened on your end either, so you only assumed it was because you weren't in the same area as them.

They then posted about a thing above the house again, vibrating and shaking it, but not leaving. This reminded you of the time whenever the ship(?) would fly over your house and shake your walls, sometimes rattling your skeleton and leaving tremors that would last a few more minutes, even miles away. He posted a dark video too, and when you listened, they were the exact noises you were hearing days prior.

You tapped out of the video and pulled down at the feed, frowning when there were no more updates. The profile's posts became some sort of normalcy in all of this for you. You were glad that someone else was experiencing this hell with you, documenting it for others to see. Of course, you knew that this wasn't the only person affected; everyone in the world was, but this felt a bit special.

You didn't feel alone.

You weren't alone, though, you had Jack, but you didn't really count him as...good company. He was an acquaintance at best, maybe a tolerance at worst, but you knew to keep him at an arm's length at all times.

Just as you were thinking about the man, you heard a soft knock on the bedroom door. You sat up quickly, heading snapping in the direction of the dark shape of the door, the frame something you could only barely make out with your eyes, but you knew it was there.

"I'm coming in," Jack said, muffled through both the door and his mask that he never took off, "we need to talk."

He opened the door without your say in the matter. You hadn't spoken too often with him, only when it was necessary, when he left the house for a short time, and when you were just curious. Like, when you asked about where he went sometimes, he just responded, "I have to eat." And you left it at that.

"About what?" You pressed your right thumb over the sleek screen of your phone, the brightness tuned down to the lowest setting, and dragged it slowly down. You were still on TheSunVanished's page, but another thing you confirmed with Jack was that he truly couldn't see. Despite the way he turned his head when you made a small noise, or the feeling of a gaze resting on the back of your head when you turned, he never reacted to your odd faces or the time you turned the flashlight of your phone on in front of his face.

Looking back on that, it might not have been the brightest idea, certainly not the kindest, but you were still learning to trust him, given his whole cannibalistic and non-human parts.

"Our plan," he moved from the doorway to the wall next to it, his foot bumping against a twine basket, however, your eyes darted down to the thrash of his tail in the dark, which reminded you of a cat when annoyed, "we cannot stay here forever."

You knew this to be true as well. As much as you would've liked to move from house to house, there was a chance that one of the houses down the line would be occupied, or already ransacked, or even patrolled by those flashing lights.

Pausing in your ministrations, you shifted on the bed, "yeah. I know," your voice grew quiet at the end, but you straightened and cleared your throat, "what do you think we should do?"

"There's a city nearby, correct?"

You nodded, staring at him in the dark, then quickly forced out a small, "yes." It was still not something you were used to. He either didn't mind or kept any complaints tight-lipped.

"We head to the city to stock up on supplies, then find transportation away, possibly somewhere less populated, maybe forested... Or someplace where it can be well-guarded..." Jack brought up a hand, scratching underneath his chin, and you almost leaned forward to see if he was about to take it off. Almost.

But, head to the city? You couldn't think of a more stupid idea than that. Sure, it had probably been almost a week, or maybe it had, since that whole spectacle on the news. You hadn't mentioned it to Jack, but that supposedly wasn't the only threat out there, and you could only hope that the two threats were on opposite sides of each other.

And, two, you didn't know of any forests nearby. The only place you knew, which couldn't be considered nearby, was the mountains, a good two or maybe three hours' drive. Yet, if you were to do as Jack said, at one point you would need more supplies again, and he'd need more... Whatever he ate.

"Aren't you not supposed to go toward populated areas like cities in a zombie apocalypse?" You mused, thumb sliding off the phone as your index finger powered it down to save the battery. The power wasn't on when you took it out of the charger, but you were hoping it would be now.

"Yet, we're not in a zombie apocalypse," he murmured, "unless you're keeping something else from me."

Your heart skipped a beat, and you swallowed down the lump that came with it. Was there something else you weren't telling him? Like the killers from the TV? Yet, it dawned on you slowly that he was making a slight joke out of the situation, so you too tried to make light of it by chuckling quietly.

"Right, uh, but still, I was just thinking it really feels like one..." You tried searching in the dark with your eyes to see if Jack had noticed your rapid pulse like he usually could, "the city, it's close, but it'd be faster to get there by car. And we don't know what we'll face when driving there, or if we'll even get there."

"Right." He answered coolly, "that's why we'll walk some distance first, and return here once we've found the best route."

What? He wanted you to...go outside? You wouldn't be so resistant to that suggestion if it didn't mean possibly meeting your certain demise, but you didn't exactly have any other alternative. Surely, if you followed in Jack's footsteps, the two of you could get back in one piece. He needed you, just like you needed him.

"And what if we get caught?" You voiced your thoughts anyway, finding it somewhat therapeutic getting them out there rather than leaving them to spiral in your head, "a strobe, I mean, the lights, or by those weird, muttering people?"

You heard a rumbling noise, and it took you a moment to realize that it did not come from the sky or the rattling of the house, but from Jack as he hummed, acknowledging your worries. It sounded odd, and it sent your pulse racing once again, "you know how to run," he said plainly, "and I know how to fight."

"You want me to leave you?" These words left you before you had a chance actually to think them through. That wasn't what he said, but it had the same context.

"If it comes down to it," he paused, "unless you want me to run instead."

And let you fight.

Another joke, you hoped, and shook your head silently, then let the words fall, "no, I, uh, I just thought it'd be a bit... Sad, I guess. Or unfair."

You didn't like thinking about it, running away, leaving someone behind just to secure your own safety. Surely that didn't have to happen so quickly into this journey. It felt like a betrayal, even if the person you were traveling with said it was okay.

He didn't say anything after a beat of silence, then another, and then another. You started wondering if he hadn't heard what you had said, or if he did, maybe he didn't care to respond, and just wanted this topic to be over and done with. You didn't know at this point; his personality was so hard to get a grasp of, so you just shook your head and sighed.

"Okay, well, when should we scout ahead?" You questioned, inhaling slowly as you pushed unnecessary thoughts to the back of your mind.

"Now would be the best time," Jack said, while turning so he faced the doorway, head slightly tilted down, "head downstairs when you're ready."

No room for argument, huh? You thought, watching him step once through the frame and completely vanish in the darkness. You slowly turned your head downward, fiddling with your phone while keeping the device off. You were already getting nervous at the thought of venturing outside, where it was dangerous, where you had nowhere to hide.

You had thought and dreamed of scenarios in your head about stepping outside your house and into the darkness, alone. There were sometimes nothing but the barren roads of your neighborhood, the lights of the streetlamps scaring you more than the darkness itself. Your dreams would always end before you could do anything more than walk a few minutes down the street, but your imagination filled in the blanks in gruesome ways you didn't want to think about.

Quietly, you pushed yourself off the bed, already regretting the fact that you got no sleep during your time alone, and plugged your phone into the charger on the lower wall. There was no noise that indicated it was charging, leading you to sigh in disappointment. Your bag, which you had brought upstairs and into the bedroom a day ago, sat next to it. You emptied it out, save for a small bottle of water(clear, you had inspected it multiple times) and a singular snack.

Your hand hovered over your flashlight, lips pursing at the sight of it. After seeing that paper and what it mentioned about those lights seeing light, you weren't too keen on adding that to your list of items. Your eyes were already adjusted to the darkness, so you were sure you could fare without it for a bit.

You sat there, crouched for a moment, pondering that decision, it wouldn't hurt just to bring it though, right?

You stuffed the flashlight into the small pouch near the front of your backpack and slung it over your shoulder. The bag was definitely lighter, but you felt the weight of the flashlight jostling around as you moved even slightly. Even as you made your way down the stairs, it felt like a whole weight had been placed in the empty space.

As you stood on the tile of the foyer, you noticed that Jack wasn't at the front door, and then turned around, eyes staring passed the railing at the only place he could be.

"Let's go," he motioned toward the sliding glass door that led into the backyard. You had tried to cover those up with blankets and even looked for extra shower curtains, but no dice. Instead, you pushed up some medium-sized furniture like dressers from downstairs, or chairs with full backs.

You followed Jack through the small opening, tugging your backpack through last. The cold air of the sunless day made your skin crawl, but the sight of absolutely nothing in the backyard was something you didn't know you could find so relaxing; just a yard of grass with large bushes lining the back fence. Jack moved in front of you, then passed you, off to the right, and so you followed along closely.

He must've been back here before, because he moved between the side of the house easily while you nearly tripped over some uprooted stones in the path. You balanced yourself once again, heart pounding as your hand grasped the side of the house, as Jack pulled open the side gate, which had a lock on the inside, not out. He turned to you before heading through.

"Wait for a moment." And then disappeared into the midnight.

You inhaled slowly through your nose, exhaling through your mouth. You tried peering past the foliage that grew at the side of the house, searching for the dark movement of his tall figure, or maybe something else moving about in the street. You didn't hope for the latter, though.

The silence was the worst of it.

Usually, there would be the sounds of insects singing their song, or maybe the small rustle of leaves in the wind or from a stray animal, but there was absolutely nothing. You stood there, leaning further against the wall of the house, hoping to blend in with the darkness, blend in with the rough brick of the house. Normally, you wouldn't do something like this, not knowing what was on the material or where you were standing, but this felt right.

Then, without a sound, a dark figure approached. You let out a small yelp, stepping back and nearly falling because of the small dip in the stone. It was Jack, but you only knew this after seeing the mask. The mask that caused your mind to run with endless possibilities.

"Come," he whispered, and you followed him slowly, mindful of the sound of your steps as the two of you passed the threshold of the gate and moved left to the next property. You kept your eyes trained on the road, wide and alert, your breathing uneven, and attention snapping to every small shift in the dirt, especially when the terrain under your feet changed to uneven gravel.

"Keep your eyes ahead," Jack muttered in front of you, his hand reached out back to stop you from moving any further as he had stopped himself, "don't look anywhere else."

How do you know?! You thought with your eyes wide and a quiet nod. He was still for a moment longer, until the two of you kept creeping along the grass, gravel, dirt, and cement.

There was a flickering lamppost up ahead, halting you in your movements, which stopped Jack as well, "nothing, keep going," you whispered to him, staring down the road and almost patting him on the back to keep him going.

You both were like this for a long time, thankfully with no strobes or flashing lights from other sources other than the lampposts that lined the street. Although when you took a few glimpses at the front doors and various windows throughout the neighborhood, you saw multiple windows boarded up, and some doors broken, or open wide.

"Has anything changed?" Jack then asked, snapping your mind present.

"No. Just...a lot of boarded-up windows, and some smashed-in doors," you told him, shivering. Some people must've had the same revelation as you did and bunkered down in their homes, but thanks to Jack's guidance with the water, you wouldn't make too much of a mistake in choosing an unsafe place.

He made a noise of acknowledgement that sounded like a small hum, then paused before he could take a step forward. He lifted his head, and you felt something bump against the front of your right knee; his tail, which had accidentally tapped it.

"The sky," he stepped further to the left, hand reaching out to the air, grasping at air, inches away from the lip of a window, "something is in the sky."

He could hear better than you, you knew this as a fact (because who in the hell could hear a heartbeat), and turned your attention to the sky. You couldn't see anything for a bit, until the black and very, very dark blue of the sky parted like the deep sea, making way for that same, symmetrical object. You could hear it once again, breaching your eardrums with that incessant rumbling and hums that sounded otherworldly.

"It's that ship again," you told him, also taking a step back, as the house you stood in front of had no trees as cover, so you two were practically out for the picking, "it's coming this way."

Jack felt along the wall of the house, moving quickly by you and toward the indent of the building where the door sat. Unlike the other ones, this one was intact, much to your dismay. Jack, though, had other plans. He took a few steps back after placing his palm on the door and then ran shoulder-first at the door.

You let out a loud gasp at the noise that broke the air as the door visibly bent inwards, but remained on its hinges. Jack stepped back quickly, saying something you couldn't quite catch over the noise the ship emitted, and then tried breaking down the door once again.

You looked up, heart sinking at the sight of the ship floating almost directly over both of you, but just off by a house or two, then turned back to Jack, who lifted his right leg and pivoted on his other foot, causing the wood to crack as he used his right foot to kick the door inward. You hurried forward, forcing the door open with what little strength you had, and stumbled inside at the small step that led you straight into the hallway of a foreign home.

There was then a loud, head-splitting noise that caused you to nearly knock backward into Jack, which came from the skies above, that caused you to cry out in shock. Something lit up the roadway behind you in blue and white, blue that you only wished brightened up the sky instead.

A hand grasped a fistful of your backpack, yanking you hard to the right and into a room lined with tile, which didn't ease your fall. Your knees hit the tile first, then your hands, but your hands flew to your ears, trying to shut that noise out. You turned on the floor, slowly to the doorway where Jack threw you into, finding it shut, but with light filtering through underneath the crack of the door. Jack was on the left, your right, next to the door, leaning his head against the wall with one hand pressed against the opposite side.

You knew his hearing was much more sensitive than your own; you could only compare the loudness to a tornado siren and the noise to a high-pitched, but drawn-out, alarm. It would grow low-pitched sometimes, pause, and then return to the high notes that made the hairs on your neck stand on end.

The house rattled as you sat there, hands cupped over your ears, staring at the blue light underneath the gap of the door, eyes filled with what you could only describe as concern for the man accompanying you.

You were trapped here in a stranger's bathroom for an indefinite amount of time, and you couldn't help but find it just a little bit funny.

Chapter 8: The Sun is Still Gone

Notes:

Thank you guys so much for the encouraging comments and words :]
I read every single one, and I'll try to reply to all of them !!

You were pretty sure Jack was asleep.

The ship had moved on, thank God, but Jack wasn't responding to your words, nor had he even checked the surroundings when the noises and vibrations had ceased. You were hesitant to touch him, afraid he might just be sitting still and waiting for something to happen, so you kept your hands to yourself. You were growing antsy though, listening from your spot on the floor.

There were no more sounds, so it had to be safe.

Much to your better judgment, you crept forward and unlocked the bathroom door, evening out your breathing as best as possible to poke around in the hallway.

It was dark on the right, and the hallway cut off on the left and shaped out into a larger room. You turned to the left, back to the door Jack had broken down not long ago(you couldn't tell how long you'd been inside anyway). Everything was still, so you continued forward, tiptoeing around the wood and splinters on the floor until you could fully slip around the door and step outside.

There was a pungent smell of ozone in the air, hot and burning. It made your eyes water, and you kicked away the urge to turn back into the house. It was bearable, but not very pleasant.

The streets and buildings looked the same as when you entered the house behind you, except for the noticeable lack of light from the lamps that lined the roads. You frowned, feeling the flashlight in your backpack weigh just a bit heavier, saying, "it's my turn, isn't it?!" Even so, you made no effort to bring it out and walked slowly down the front yard.

You examined as far as you could to the right, the way you and Jack came from, and where the ship had flown and stopped over. You didn't think it was directly over the house you had been using as a base, but it was very close. Besides, that blue light definitely came from the aircraft, even though you didn't know what it did; there was nothing else that could emit such a light.

Next, the left side of the street. There were no lights, just like the area on the right, but the area down the street was branched off into three paths: left, right, and straight. You knew the road going center led a bit further toward a place with stores, restaurants, and other in-and-out shops. The left and right led to more houses.

Keeping your head down was something you were good at, your eyes wandering to your surroundings, but keeping the majority of your attention forward. Even though you couldn't see any light or any movement, it didn't ease your nerves. Nothing about this was right, and now that you were moving alone, it wasn't easy.

Why did you go alone? Why did you think you'd be fine? Your courage came with numbers, but now that it was down to one, you found yourself trembling while keeping your head low. It was hard to breathe in the metallic air that burned your lungs and stung your nostrils. It was hard to keep your steps steady while your legs felt both heavy as lead and weak like jelly. But you moved forward because Jack had a plan, and you had to act alone.

You were too dependent.

Yet, you made it to the corner of the road where the paths diverged, hunched over to keep yourself as small as possible. The lampposts to your left were both on and off, the closest one to you, thankfully, inoperable, but the second closest on, buzzing with life. You glanced behind you, frowning at the lights that still remained offline. The outage of power in your neighborhood road must've just been down that road, probably mostly due to the aircraft and the mysterious, blue light.

Your attention then turned to your right, where the lights were also on.

Then, straight ahead, you saw it at a distance, a flashing light. It caused you to freeze up, but your eyes darted quickly to the ground, mind spinning. You couldn't help it though. Right as you looked away, you returned your gaze forward to watch the flickering light as it moved across the road. You couldn't tell if it was moving toward you or away from you, but you weren't about to wait around and find out.

Slowly, you moved slowly, stepping backward once, then twice, holding your hand out behind you in case you hadn't seen something along the sidewalk as you moved. You remembered a bush, growing wild with roses, and a fence post with a "BEWARE OF DOG" sign on it, even though there was no dog. There were no uneven places in the sidewalk, you could get away without a hitch.

You could get back to the house, wake Jack, and get back to the original home to regain your composure.

The flickering light did not move, and you turned your eyes away from it from time to time, making sure your eyes were never on it for more than a few seconds. What if you stared longer? What would happen then? Your mind was a bit more loose than you thought, forcing your eyes back up; maybe, maybe just to check, what would happen if you looked at it for just a bit longer.

Your eyes felt hot, and your breath caught in the back of your throat. Burning, you felt your skin burning, melting your brain, your eyes, until you were nothing but bones. It was bright, so bright, but then dark again as your head grew slack. Your fingertips tingled and you nearly collapsed, but this heat caused your eyes to close shut until you were turning your back on the light and faced the dark.

Maybe this is what Jack saw: darkness, absolutely nothing except a feeling, as you relied on your memory and instinct to carry you quickly down the street, down the sidewalk, almost slipping when your foot hit gravel. Your eyes were focusing, and you no longer felt heat crawling across your body. You blinked away the tears, and you felt every thought that had been put on pause come rushing at you at once.

Look away!

No, no, this is a terrible idea.

Run.

Run.

Run!

You half stumbled, half ran at an angle up the lawn of a random house and hit the soft dirt of the yard. Leaves brushed your face and caught in your hair as you lowered yourself to the ground to catch your breath. Your hand flew to your lips, pressing hard into your skin even though the dirt and grime that clung to your palm now was dirtying the area around your mouth. Your stomach churned.

Don't throw up.

Don't do it, you pressed your palm tighter, trying to breathe clearly through your nose, but cringed at the smell in the air. That terrible, nauseating smell.

Breathe. Breathe.

You sucked in another breath, slowly releasing your hand from your mouth and wiped away the dirt that happened to stick to your skin. You sat back, turning your body toward the road so that if the light did manage to see you and follow, you would have time to react. It did not, and you could only barely see the low bush-like tree that you hid under, the leaves acting like a green canopy over your head.

It was so, so dark. You wished you had never left that bathroom and waited for Jack to wake up from whatever slumber or daze he was in, even if it meant sleeping yourself. But you had, and you couldn't change that. You had made it to a point where you could see that the place ahead was more dangerous, and at least one of those flickering lights was patrolling ahead. You wondered if it would make it to your location, or if it was the same one that had already examined your house days ago.

You never realized how the dark would really affect you.

All those nights you spent awake rather than asleep, playing games or talking to friends, reading, or doom-scrolling on your phone. It was comforting, always being able to wake up to something brighter outside and then repeat the same process over again.

You hadn't really thought through how terrible this really was because you had another by your side, even if he was a bit odd. Not a bit, very odd. And, so far, it was thanks to him that you were still alive.

Fuck, you really messed up, didn't you? In a moment of slight boredom, you wanted to do your part and scout ahead to find out whether the path was safe or not. You really didn't mean any harm.

And you needed to get back to the house.

It hadn't been long at all since you left him there. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, had passed. You crawled out from underneath the leaves and slowly got to your feet. The wave of lightheadedness and emptiness had passed by, and the light had not followed, so you were at least safe from those threats.

You began walking again, trying to distance yourself from that location. It was a surprisingly short walk when you weren't primarily focusing on your stealth. You'd like to think Jack would keep his distance if you were walking so casually like this, not that you had to be super careful around these houses, only cautious and aware. The door Jack broke down was only four houses down, which wasn't as far as you thought, but the yards were long and had their fair share of picket fences and thorny bushes.

You stepped back inside, relieved to have walls on either side of you, and stepped quietly down the hall and to the bathroom Jack was inside.

A hand grabbed tightly onto your ankle, causing you to jump, until you realized it was Jack, and Jack realized it was you. Your name came quietly from under his breath, and he released his grip.

"Where were you?" You were expecting this question, but his voice was forced... And somewhat pained? You shifted further to the right, so you could no longer be grasped by him if he decided otherwise.

"Down the road," you spoke quietly, bumping the door closed lightly with your left foot so that you could both talk just a tiny bit louder than in your hushed voices, "I was...checking if it was clear, since you were asleep."

Jack shifted in place on the floor, thinking over your words. Maybe he was judging you, or reassessing the plan he set with you altogether. You frowned, brow tightening together. You wouldn't blame him, but part of you really hoped he wasn't. You didn't want to be alone through this.

And that same part of you had grown comfortable with his quiet, creepy presence.

"What did you see?" He asked this time, causing your bunched shoulders to relax and your expression to soften.

"The lights in the neighborhood are out... I think it's because of the ship, which sent down this bright, blue light," you told him, shuffling right so you could settle down on the floor, your knees and the soles of your feet aching, "but down the road...there was one of those flashing lights. Even though it's a straight shot to the city if we go straight, I think it'd be better if we use a detour."

Going right was your other option; going down the left road would bring you to a dead end, as there were endless suburbs until you were on the outskirts of town.

"I think I also found out what the light does to you..." You murmured, thinning your lips out at the painful memory of feeling that hotness blazing across your body, halting your thoughts. It was more like the light stalled them rather than stopped them, like how someone could pause and unpause a video.

Jack snapped his head over to you, you could see as such even at the distance you sat, "oh, no, no, I wasn't around it long. I wasn't even that close to it... But I guess it really doesn't matter how close to them you are, you just can't look at them," your heart didn't jump in panic this time as you explained with ease.

"Can't look at 'em," you reiterated mostly to yourself, "there was this burning feeling that started in my brain, like someone was pouring gasoline on a match. It...it was so hot, I couldn't breathe for a bit, I saw this white brightness, not the sun, but, like, literal white...then it was dark again when I managed to break free, I think."

"Why did you look?" Jack then asked, breaking you from your spiral, "you already knew not to, so why did you do it anyway?"

You opened your mouth, then closed it. You did know that you shouldn't have looked, but even the smallest glimpse of it at such a large distance had lowered your defences. It should be fine, since it's so far away, you remembered that thought passing by as your eyes had met that one, flickering orb. Except, it wasn't just a floating orb, you were sure that the light was a head on the shoulders of a tall figure, but you weren't supposed to look at that, only the light.

"It makes you think it should be fine to look at it, I think," you clasped your hands together, "it's hard to explain, it's... It makes you comfortable in thinking that nothing would happen, but when you look at it... It's like a switch just flips in your mind."

"It talked to you?"

You paused, furrowing and then unfurrowing your eyebrows in confusion, "talked? No... No, I-I don't think so."

Where did he get that from? You thought, squeezing your palms and wringing your fingers one by one. Jack's mind was working in some wonderful way, and you were a bit disappointed you couldn't see his expression as it did so. There was no way of knowing what he was thinking with it on.

There was no harm in asking.

"Why did you ask that?"

Jack twitched, and his head, which had turned straight ahead, made a slight movement to where you sat, "hm?"

You frowned and pulled your hands apart, then pushed yourself onto your knees, turned, and sat on the opposite side, now more or less seated where the end of Jack's feet rested, "you asked if it talked to me. Why would it talk to me?"

He was still and silent. You crossed your arms.

Maybe his mind wasn't working in a wonderful way, but instead his voice was. You often spoke without thinking first, and it happened before with Jack, so maybe this was his turn. You had caught him in something he had no intention of sharing in the first place.

Jack sighed, "a certain..." He trailed off immediately, searching for the correct vocabulary in order to describe what was on his mind, but ultimately disappointing you, "person, can talk to people at a distance. Sometimes the way we receive its message is different. Heat is sometimes one way of receiving said message."

"We?" You remarked, "its?"

You wouldn't push too hard on the 'its', because maybe this person went by it/its, but you would definitely press Jack a bit more on this 'we' he was talking about. Jack sighed again, and you couldn't help but feel a tad bit giddy about picking his words apart.

"You are more observant of my words than of your surroundings," he grunted, sliding up the bathroom wall as his left hand came quickly to his right shoulder, grasping it tightly. You stiffened, eyes darting to his hand, then over at his mask as if you could meet a pair of eyes underneath it.

"Are you hurt?" You asked quietly, forgoing your previous conversation. He didn't sound pained, nor did he move like he was; the only sign that he gave was the way he held his shoulder. Jack only silently stood tall, joints and bones cracking and popping in the air.

Then, a shocking and painful, C-L—​​​​​​​ICK. It sounded more like a popping or cracking noise, mixed with the goosebump-enducing sound of a click. It left you shivering, mouth open wide in shock.

"Y-your shoulder!" You let out a quiet shout, "did...did you just pop it back into place?!"

He moved his left hand down and up along his right shoulder, and you could hear him exhale loudly a few times from underneath his mask before he finally responded, "yes," and then turned toward the door, "let's get back to the house. I need to rest."

Like you weren't just resting the entire time? You wanted to say, but obediently followed him out into the hallway.

He stopped you, though, instructing you to go and search the kitchen quietly for anything that may be useful before the two of you left. He would watch the front, obviously, and you hurried through the house, finding yourself opening a squeaky pantry instead of sneaking across an expensive, green lawn.

You knew he probably dislocated his shoulder while breaking down the door, which was probably why he switched to kicking it down near the end of his rush, or he found that after two hits, it would break under a simple kick. And even through that, he found the strength to drag you into a bathroom to take cover from whatever the ship was about to blast at the center of the neighborhood.

You owed a lot to him.

There were only a few edible things in the pantry. It was hard to read the expiration dates without shoving them in your face, but you were able to make out some on a bag of pretzels, a jar of peanut butter, a half-empty bag of bagels, and some trail mix. You also raided the kitchen drawers and stole a kitchen knife, making sure to tuck that away with the flashlight. You returned to Jack and, without a word, set off back into the dark.

There was a comfortable silence now that you were back following him outside, sneaking along the shadow of the houses, only occasionally checking behind you for the light that may or may not have made its way down toward you. There was nothing though, and you were thankful.

"Don't you need to eat?" You found yourself asking him quietly as you squeezed in between the gate after him, shutting it quietly behind you and locking it, giving the gate a small push to make sure it was secure. You knew what this question entailed and yet still asked him out of both concern for his health and for your own.

He turned back to look at you, then turned away and kept walking. You nervously followed until he stopped in front of the glass door that the two of you had left open.

"Stay here," he muttered, and slipped inside. You did just that, stepping to the side so you could turn and examine the backyard a bit more closely with the limited vision you had.

Large, well-trimmed bushes growing at the far side of the yard, probably paid to be kept that way since this house was just as expensive. Flowers were planted on the far left, lining the edge of the grass, but probably now close to wilting due to the lack of sunlight. The thought of no longer seeing a proper flower grow was a bit depressing in and of itself. You never really spent enough time to care about growing your own flowers, maybe once or twice during elementary, but not at your current home.

Jack tapped the glass, signalling you back inside. You stepped in, glad to close and lock the sliding door in silence. There was nothing you could do to secure it, sadly, but you at least felt much safer knowing you had Jack on your side.

Fucking weird, you thought, stealing a glance at the demon-like man who collapsed on the couch, favoring his right shoulder, lying on his left side. His tail lay limp, dangling off the couch with his back toward the door. So much for security.

You made your way upstairs, frowning as the smell of rot wafted past your nose. Even with that door closed and with a towel stuffed underneath the crack of the doorway, nothing could get rid of the smell of that body. You refused to touch it and weren't going to ask Jack to carry it out of here. Soon, you'd have to bring up the topic of moving again, or maybe even kick up that plan to head to the city.

The room on your right was just as you left it, and your attention immediately deviated to your phone after closing the door behind you. Though your phone did not charge, you were pleased to see that someone had sent you a private message over Discord. Someone you knew well, and who seemed to care about your well-being enough to send you a link to a Reddit post.

Your town, city, whatever you wanted to call it, had a subreddit, and you only knew about it now?

The post was made about an hour ago and had three downvotes.

WHAT A FUCKING BLOODBATH

Oh, what a title, you thought, and cringed at the sight of the image attached.

There were bodies stacked upon bodies in the middle of a street, with terrible lighting coming from the orange-hued streetlights that lined the side of the road. Someone sat on top of the bodies, head hung low, with black hair concealing his face. His white hoodie was stained with so much red, his hands too, with a knife that this person gripped so loosely between his fingers.

Another was in the picture, but at the corner of the screen, probably the one who took it, but was so terribly bad at taking a selfie that his familiar, orange goggles and brown hair were the only thing to be seen, blood smeared across the lens.

That post received a fourth downvote from you.

Chapter 9: Relocate

You were moving boxes from your car, the sun beating down on your skin as you slowly regretted wearing this dark t-shirt. Even though you looked so good in it, it was not worth the pain and the sweat that you were currently soaking through it. You couldn't remember what were in these boxes, but you were god damn sure that they weren't worth the hassle of repeating this agonizing process in the sun while everyone else got to lounge around inside with their fans and air conditioning.

Now that you've thought about it, you really needed to fix yours.

"Need any help with that?" Samuel called from your left as you trudged down the center walkway that led to your house. You sent him a weary smile and a nod in confirmation, setting the third box down at the front door, turning so you could make the next trip back as quick as you could.

Samuel's back was turned to you, his back muscles flexing as he leaned down into the trunk of your car to retrieve a box of his own. You couldn't help but stare for a moment, and then turn your attention to the boxes. Samuel wasn't bad to look at, refreshing even on a hot day like this. You understood why all the ladies on the street accepted his help when he offered, but Samuel was just a good enough guy not to see through their oogling eyes.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

You entered your house on the fifth trip, shutting the door behind you. And you stood there, alone, staring down the hallway with an uneasy sense of déjà vu.

What...were you doing again?

There were voices right outside your house, talking, muttering, but it was one voice.

"The sun is gone," your skin crawled, and you squatted low. The voice was loud and familiar in your head, even though it was supposed to be far, far away from here. You were afraid, afraid of this voice, afraid of the person speaking, "the sun is gone."

The sun? What happened to the sun again?

Your house was bright as could be, and the voice changed, "the sun is back, the sun is back."

Oh, you knew why the voice was so familiar again.

Because it was your voice.

Your mind was numb, and even if you couldn't help it, you knew you were speaking. Your lips were moving, tongue twisting, jaw lax as you uttered these words over and over again. You could feel your limbs bending and moving as you wobbled slowly around the house, in search for something. What were you looking for? Your vision was so distorted, so weird, like water falling on a watercolor painting, causing it to cry even more.

Until you were the one crying.

Because the sun wasn't back.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Your body jolted awake. Not like the kind of way you'd feel when falling in a dream and waking up right before you hit the ground, but right before you would've died in a dream that felt so real. Your heart was pounding hard, thumping loudly in your chest and in your brain, so that it was the only thing you could hear in your skull. Your skin was cold and damp with sweat, so you quickly kicked off the blanket you had draped over yourself to combat the chill in the air.

Just as you grasped your current reality, you heard Jack utter your name behind the door and sat up quickly. With wide eyes, you stared at the door, mouth open, dry and unable to respond. Not until he spoke your name again, "are you okay?"

You kept staring, gaping, trying to relive those moments in your dream, even if it was surreal and teetered on terrifying. You wanted to see the sun again, even if it was fake.

"Yeah," your voice caught in your throat, but it was loud enough so he could hear. You cleared it with a small cough, frowning, "bad dream."

Bad dream? You thought, your frown deepening. It wasn't exactly a great dream, but you weren't sure it was a nightmare. Yet, that wasn't what you called it, was it? People often consider dreams to be good unless they say "bad" before them. Nightmares, you felt, were bad dreams twisted to fit anyone's worst fear due to stress, trauma, and anxiety.

Maybe this was a nightmare in disguise, because you had (or have) gone through all three.

You realized Jack hadn't responded after you told him what was up. You were certain that he was checking up on you because he heard the rapid beat of your heart, and maybe you even said a few things while slumbering that caused him to knock. This brought up all sorts of silly ideas in your mind, ideas that you didn't want to look into further, so they wouldn't sprout into expectations and delusions you knew weren't possible.

"Did you need something?" You finally spoke again, staring at the door keeping you from seeing his masked face. What kind of expression was he making? What was he doing while standing there? Did he have any ulterior motives for checking on your well-being?

The door opened slowly, and you sat up straighter, heart slowing. It was him, you knew it was him, but seeing him physically was a bigger relief than you had thought it would be.

"Not really," he stepped to the side again, aware of the basket he had bumped against before, and leaned against the wall next to it and the door, "but, since you're awake and I'm here, we should talk about our plan a bit more."

Right. The plan. You two were going to drive to the city(well, you'd have to drive to the city), gather as many supplies as you could, and head to the hills... Or mountains, wherever Jack thought would be a good place to hide out.

"There's a car sitting in front of the house near the driveway. If we can find the keys, then we can get going as soon as possible," Jack said, his voice hushed, "depending on how much gas there is, we might need to siphon some on our way there."

You had no clue how to siphon gas from other cars, but you've seen it done in movies. You could only assume, since Jack mentioned it, that he knew how to do so.

"What happens if we run into one of those lights?" You whispered, remembering the one down the road, wondering where it was now. It could be right outside the house, ear (does it have ears?) to the front door, listening to your conversation. You'd like to think it had features of a human, but you also wouldn't like that, because making something so terrifying look so human would just make things even weirder.

Jack made a noise, a hum mixed with a, "I understand your concerns," grunt. That paper, the one TheSunVanished posted, said that the Strobes, which you knew you'd call them Strobes from now on, were attracted to light and movement.

"I'm not sure," Jack finally said, finalizing your worries, "you know more about them than I do. You've seen them, I've only... Felt their presence."

How strange it was that even Jack didn't know what to do?

"No headlights," you murmured, loud enough for him to hear, "it's gonna be slow. We'll have to be. Uh," you felt around for your phone, realizing that it was on the floor to your left, connected to the charger like it always was. Right. You weren't home, so you weren't falling asleep with it in your hands.

"There's this guy, on Twitter, I mean, he's posting some stuff about the Strobes, and other stuff that's pretty informative," you explained, forcing yourself out of bed until you were cradling your phone and glaring at the number that had not changed since you last saw it, "I'm sure he posted again..."

A few taps later, and you were on his page, eyes widening at the sight of new posts. It was like finding out your favorite show had a second season.

You only did a quick scroll through to not be rude to the man that you were having a conversation with. But what would he know?

It seemed that the man behind the account also went through something you had, that blue light filtering through the bottom of a doorway, then a post not too long later, mentioning that he had heard someone yelling in agony while the blue light was still outside. You could put two and two together.

After it had left, he had posted a poll, which you sadly missed, of whether he should leave or stay. The majority voted to leave, and that's what he did. He left the bathroom.

I left the bathroom. I'm trying my best to stay calm as I type this, but I think there is a dead body in the middle of the street.

And right after that.

There's no way I'm taking a picture of a dead body. This is too gruesome
I'm just going to try to avoid it.

You tried not to imagine that picture from Reddit of those dead bodies piled in the street with two, bloodied humans posing as if it was a reward that needed to be seen by all. It had no relation to what you were currently reading, but it was a coincidence he even mentioned something like this.

"He's going through the same thing that we are, and... I'm pretty sure he's going through much worse," your grip tightened, and you turned your head quickly to Jack, remembering he was still in the room. You were doing a lot of remembering today, remembering a lot of good, and a lot of bad, but mostly bad.

"If one of those things sees us, or the car and then us, we'll...probably just have to keep our heads down," you rambled on, imagining the scenario, "if it tries to get in, then I'll hit the gas. I don't know how fast they can move."

Of course, you didn't exactly know if that would work or not. The sound could bring about more attention and more enemies, so you just hoped it wouldn't come to stepping on the gas.

"And what about you?"

"Me?" You immediately responded, earning a few beats of silence. What about you?

"Your...wellness. You're the one going to drive, and we're only going to leave if you are certain you can handle something like this," his voice was firm. He wasn't saying this out of kindness, but out of the possibility of being caught, just like your worries, "I'm patient. But if you have doubts, we aren't leaving."

Your stomach flipped. Were you ready? You were ready to go ahead and rip the band-aid off, but that didn't mean that you were mentally prepared. You wanted to get this done just to get it done, but thinking about it further... Stepping outside, creating far more noise than you would've liked, venturing into the city.... It gave you chills. You were never scared of stepping outside before, it was all because of the damn sun!

"I'm gonna need a bit," you admitted in a white voice, head low, staring at your phone as it dimmed, "I want to say I'm ready, it's just..."

You trailed off. It's just... It's just what?

"It's just what?" Jack echoed your thoughts, and you felt heat rise up your neck, but it did not rise any further. That nervousness you got from talking to him for the first time came rushing to your stomach as it did a second flip.

"I dunno! Nervousness? Anxiety, probably. You don't get what's going on around here, what it was like the first few days of not being able to...to..." You weren't going to say "see", because he couldn't see, "to live normally."

There was a small thump that hit the wall, which caused your heart to jump. It came from near Jack, but he didn't turn. You could see in the dark, right behind the bend of his leg, crossed over the other, his tail twitching, moving slowly.

"Sorry, it's just, I guess I'm...scared. Of what I'm going to see, I think," fuck, you were spilling your heart to this cannibal and all you got was an irritated tail thump against the wall? "Especially with the broadcast. So many people died. And they're still dying."

"People die all the time," Jack finally spoke, but his words didn't comfort you.

"But not like this!" You stressed, phone now a forgotten weight in your hands, "killed by these Strobes and these freakish people!"

Blood. Blood. So much blood.

You saw Jack shift and then grow still. A moment passed, and then some more. You felt terrible in every way possible. For throwing all of this on Jack, for living in this situation, and for not having enough time to sleep peacefully without a nightmare waking you up.

Jack shifted again and inhaled loudly, "I can't imagine, nor relate, to how you're feeling. I won't say it'll get better, because as far as I know, and from what you told me... It probably won't," his head hung low and he let out a short sigh, "I was once in your shoes too, afraid, unwilling to take a step to conquer something that seemed so unbelievably challenging..."

He inhaled again, as if he was going to keep talking, but he didn't; his words just hung in the air, and you just stared. You had never heard Jack's voice become this...soft before. It was a way to ease nerves and conflict, to keep someone calm, like you, and you were grateful.

"What did you have to conquer?" You asked tentatively, easing yourself backward to sit on the floor. There was a numbness sparking in your legs as you finally crossed them in a comfortable position.

Jack wavered for just a moment.

You could not see this, you weren't paying attention either, but there was a thought: why had it gone so quiet? You had asked a question, yes, a hesitant one. Maybe it was too invasive? You thought it only to be fair since you were so truthful, or so scattered, moments ago. Surely he could share this one thing with you.

"My blindness," he said in a tone you did not recognize. Scratch that, you didn't recognize this tone on him, but even so, you couldn't put that strangled noise to a feeling right then and there.

He wasn't always blind, you thought simply. So, if you described yourself to him, he would know what you meant. You wondered too if he knew that his skin was an ashy grey, and that his hoodie had a hue of blue to it(which was probably still somewhat stained with whatever substance was on your bathroom floor).

But you realized the weight of his words as you recalled his earlier sentence. He was afraid and unwilling, like you were, to move forward, alone in complete darkness, knowing full well what world he was in, but unable to traverse it. You could stand up and close your eyes right now and try and travel from the bedroom to the front door and fail miserably, but to Jack... He had to do this every day.

Yet, he was still...not human... Did that have an effect? Even unseeing, he could sense you. He could hear every beat your heart made, or at least when it accelerated. This made you nervous just thinking about it.

Jack was trying to sympathize with you.

He was willing to compare the moment he turned blind to your capabilities of driving the two of you to the city in the dark.

You'd both be blind to the dangers to come (pun not intended), but he was willing to face them with you. Why you? What made you so special that he was willing to wait for you?

It made you nervous again.

"Thanks," you muttered, trying to distract your only slightly racing heart with your words, "I'll be okay. We can leave after we find the keys."

You still weren't one hundred percent sure that you were ready, but that percentage had risen from what it was minutes ago. Jack was, surprisingly, decent at reassuring someone, even if the execution was a little off. He made no sound when he pushed off the wall and left the room, only the slight creak of the stairs as he walked down them signalling his descent.

You had grown comfortable in this bedroom, despite the odor that carried from the other bedroom a door down sometimes. You wouldn't know how long you'd go without a nice place to sleep, or when you'd be surrounded by thick walls.

After checking the battery one more time, you unplugged both your phone and the charger and stuffed it into your bag, which would soon grow heavy with more weight added to it. You had, sadly, only changed your clothes once through your stay here, unsure of when the cycle of night and day would usually take place. You weren't too picky, but now that you were soon on the move, you were a bit wary of how your supplies would run.

You stepped slowly down the stairs, knowing what was waiting for you. The small table that was sitting in the foyer, up against the wall, the sticky puddle of blood you were keen on avoiding, and the back of the large couch in the living room.

"I found them," Jack said suddenly as he stepped around the corner ahead, causing your pulse to spike for a moment. It was a type of scare that shouldn't be so nerve-racking. You heard the slight jingling of something; keys, the "them" he was talking about were keys. He had found them quickly.

"Okay." You murmured, turning your head toward the front door, then turned back to Jack, who did not move, "I'm... I'm gonna grab some things from the kitchen. Then we can go."

You tiptoed around him, not sure if you felt his tail brush against your leg or if it was just your imagination. You've been feeling and seeing a lot of things that made you uncertain if you could trust your own senses lately. Like in the kitchen. Was that a hand creeping up from behind the counter? Oh, no, it was just a rag. You knocked the rag off the edge and then felt bad and picked it up, placing it in the center of the counter, then directed yourself toward the pantry.

There was nothing much you could take that you hadn't already eaten from. You only took three water bottles from the pack at the bottom, wishing you could take the entire plastic crate of them, but there was no telling what you'd run into.

Damn. You really didn't want to leave.

You left the kitchen lest your mind breaks and you strike out in the pantry, forcing Jack to leave your pitiful self. He waited by the front door, then straightened when you approached. He didn't need to say anything, only staring you down, unmoving.

"I'm ready," not only telling him, but yourself. He nodded quietly and turned, unlocking and opening the door. It creaked very quietly, and you took your first step out behind Jack. He sidestepped to the right and forced the keys into your hands once you were on the front porch, and then continued to take the lead.

You made sure to look left and right and left and right over and over, checking, double-checking, and triple-checking the streets. Perhaps, after the blue light, those alien things didn't care much to check the area for a while, or maybe they had and miraculously skimmed over the house the two of you were using.

The car belonging to the old lady, or maybe even Brenda, was sitting at the end of the driveway like Jack had said. You couldn't tell what type it was, only that it was a four-seater, not like it mattered much. You hurried over to the driver's side and pressed the unlock button on the car keys after squinting hard at the small symbols in the dark. It made that normal ch-chk! noise, much louder than you anticipated. Pulling open the door, you jumped inside and pulled it shut, tensing at how loud it must've sounded on the outside.

Jack had hopped into the passenger's seat and yanked the door with more force than you had. Your head snapped to his, staring at him for a good minute, judging him, glaring probably, before sighing.

"Anything out there?" He finally said something as you locked the doors using the key fob and then stared forward. There were no Strobes down the road the car was facing, the way you were going to go, and you weren't sure if there were any behind. You double checked, though, remembering that your enemies weren't only the Strobes, but those sleepwalking humans as well. Those were and would be harder to spot.

"I don't see anything," you told him, pulling off your backpack and tossing it over to Jack, who grunted in return, "I'm gonna turn on the car now."

You slotted the key into the ignition and sat there for a moment. The leather of the car seat felt so tough all of a sudden, and your blood was running hot under your skin, you could feel everything and hear everything, even though all you needed to do was apply just a little more pressure and twist一

But not only were you overthinking it, you were doing it, the car rumbling to life as it suddenly grew brighter on the inside and on the outside. The car had sensed how dark it was and had automatically switched on the headlights. Your hands quickly reached for the buttons and gears, forgetting where things were, telling Jack, "the lights are on, the lights are on!" Until you found the switch after accidentally turning the windshield wipers on as well.

You sat back in the driver's seat and took a moment to breathe.

"Sorry," you apologized a second time, rechecking that no Strobes had made an appearance after your fumble.

Nothing.

And no response from Jack.

You pushed the gear into drive, took in another steady breath, and put a very light amount of pressure on the gas. As you drove, you wondered if the sounds on the outside were as loud as you were making them out to be in your head, and if it would attract any attention in the first place.

Only time would tell, and it was only eight thirty.

Chapter 10: Gone

You would've loved to take a drive like this under normal circumstances.

A late-night drive while everyone else was asleep, your car, and maybe other night owls, driving at a slow pace under the stars and night sky. You could listen to some music either on at a low volume or at full blast, whatever you preferred that night. Maybe drop by a 24/7 drive-thru for a late-night snack or something unhealthy, or maybe somewhere far away from the city so you could watch the sunrise or look at the stars without the sight of buildings in the background.

Those whims seemed so distant. You tried your best to make it feel so normal now, even though the act of driving through pitch-black streets with a cannibal demon sitting next to you didn't scream normal.

Jack hadn't said anything since you left, you noticed. It was normal for him not to say much, but to say nothing at all made you a bit antsy. You didn't dare try to strike up a conversation, except hearing nothing but the low hum of the car was beginning to drive you a bit crazy. You wondered if it was due to the fact that you had a nervous breakdown right before leaving, or it was the small act of you tossing your backpack over to him so you could drive comfortably.

But you were probably overthinking again.

You steeled yourself by focusing on the road once more, eyes drifting to the houses once in a while with a frown each time you saw something amiss in the windows or the doors. Nothing moving, thank God, but broken windows and open doors didn't bode well with the situation you were facing.

No lights, no weird ships flying over the sky, no yelling or bodies in the road. You hadn't told Jack about the thing you saw on Reddit. You didn't mean to keep it from him, but there was no reason to bring it up.

In your peripheral vision, you spotted something flash and slowly eased the brake with a hammering heart. You stared for a moment, the light that you saw disappearing behind the shadowy figure of a house. You stayed like this for a few more moments, saying nothing, and trying your best to ease your breathing in case of another meltdown.

A shift in the car caused your body to stiffen; Jack had adjusted himself only slightly, and still did not say a thing.

Right, right, you thought, bringing your right hand to your chest to clutch at the fabric of your clothes, he can hear my heartbeat.

You moved that hand away from your chest and to the stick shift at the center console and pushed it into park. It made a loud ker-chunk noise which caused your heart rate to spike at an unbelievable level, but you knew for sure that the sound was only loud from the inside, not out.

They didn't hear you. At least, you hoped they didn't. The lights couldn't hear, could they?

Jack hadn't said a word throughout all of this, which you were somewhat grateful about. You were also somewhat glad that he couldn't see the way you were slinking down in the driver's seat so that your eyes could peek over the dashboard, but the rest of your body remained hidden.

Then, again, a flicker of light where you had seen it before. Your heart lurched, face flushed cold with a feeling of panic, until it washed away...because it wasn't a Strobe, it was a flashlight. It stretched along the ground, originating from the side of the house, before jumping to the right, your left, onto the wall of the house next door to them.

"What is it?" Jack's voice finally cut through the silence as you braced your hands on the leather seat, pulling yourself back into a seated position, yet you kept yourself slumped just in case.

"There's a flashlight," you watched as it flashed back toward the middle, jostling a bit, before retracting, "I think it's a person."

It was a person, because you saw them step out from behind the corner, the flashlight slightly illuminating their face as they lifted it upwards for just a moment.

"Do they see us?"

"No." You weren't sure if that answer would remain the truth for long, because their flashlight just barely missed the car right after you told him this, "but they might soon. We're just sitting in the middle of the road."

And the only reason you could think of for why they would be outside with a flashlight would be because of the sounds of the car. You just hoped that wasn't the case.

Waiting in the middle of the road while watching someone twist a flashlight around was nerve-wracking, knowing that at any moment they could just happen to turn that light towards the car and spot the two of you inside. And you waited for that to happen, not exactly sure if you wanted it to happen. What would you say? What would you do? What would Jack do? Surely those people were of their right minds and wouldn't attack you upon realizing you were human.

Yet, even as you stared at this unsuspecting stranger, they never once turned the light in your direction. They turned the light downwards, the beam becoming a small circle on the ground before it vanished completely, and the figure disappeared around the corner of the house.

You waited a bit longer, trying to keep your eyes from blinking lest you miss the moment they'd return, but they didn't. The silence that filled the car was now filling your ears with pressure and that uncomfortable sense of unease.

"Gone," you murmured, your hand coming slowly to rest back on the stick shift but not yet pulling it to drive. You kept your foot on the brake a moment longer before releasing it to return to that slow crawl.

Stay safe, you thought, eyes focused on the road ahead.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The rural neighborhood did not end where you thought it would. Or maybe it was because you were going slower than you usually would, but you were slowly growing more and more antsy. You needed to move around after sitting in place for so long (how long had it been?).

"Jack," you braved up the courage to tell him this, "I'm going to pull over for a second. I need to move around."

Jack made a humming sound in response to this. You took this as a go-ahead and eased the break like before, then set it in park. You had half a tank of gas left, enough that you were sure you'd be able to make it to the city soon. You pulled the keys from the ignition with a small sigh.

There was nothing too interesting about the surroundings, nothing dangerous either. You unlocked the door and pushed it open slowly, then hopped out. Your feet tingled, sending jolts up your legs, to your knees, creating a soreness you didn't even know had existed before. Was it exhaustion? Fear?

You remembered the small freakout in the car right before you and Jack were about to leave. It must've been part of that, maybe. You didn't remember having one of those attacks before, or maybe you did and you just weren't able to tell what the aftereffects were the first time around.

The area around you was dotted with trees every few yards, lining the side of the road with a few lamp posts doing the same. The lamps closest weren't on, except for one that kept buzzing down the road, dimming, then brightening, catching your attention each time in fear that a Strobe had appeared.

The houses were much bigger than the ones on your street, at least the ones you had parked near. One house nearby looked well-maintained by the look of it, and the house next to that one had flowers grown on each side of the path leading up to the front door. Your eyes drifted to the windows, lips straining into a thin line as you spotted one window shattered. You forced yourself to look away and turned your attention down the road once more.

Still no flashing lights, you were fine for a few more minutes of stretching.

There was another road that you passed a good hundred feet behind the car, one that you glanced at just in case a Strobe or a human wandered around down there. The lights were on down that street, making that uneasy feeling you had toward that direction all the more worse.

A feeling of familiarity, perhaps? Maybe you drove down it before. You did live nearby, but not as close that you knew it specifically. And you had no courage to follow through on investigating, at least, not alone. But you weren't about to ask Jack to come with you and, most likely, in the end, find absolutely nothing wrong with the place.

You let out a sigh, this one leaving your mind and shoulders feeling heavy. You were glad for the break from mindlessly driving at a snail's pace, but you wished for walls on either side of you once again, so you began your short walk back to the car.

There was something off.

You didn't know why you felt this way, but you did. Sure, maybe you could chalk it up to the situation around you, or the anxiety of being spotted by one of the Strobes that you may not have noticed. So, for good measure, you did another quick scan of the area, finding no floating, flashing lights in the distance or nearby.

Why? You thought, reaching the dark figure of the car, your eyes narrowing.

Why? You thought again as the car jolted from your tug on the door, the dim sensor lights already on as you stared inside.

Why! Your mind screamed at the sight of the empty passenger seat and the open door on the other side. Your mind was the one panicking as you couldn't help but just stare at the car for a moment, unmoving.

Breathe, breathe. In... Out...

Shutting the driver's door, you scurried around the front of the car and to the passenger's door. Your backpack was set at the foot of the seat, but Jack was nowhere to be seen. You hadn't even heard the door opening, nor did you hear Jack moving around on the road. As much as you were impressed by this fact, you were also very worried.

You hurried to the back of the car and whipped your head around, eyes searching hard in the dark. Your mouth opened, already inhaling sharply when the cold air catches in your throat and your pounding heart skips for just a moment.

Would you dare yell out his name in a place like this?

Your jaw slackened, but you kept searching anyway, "Jack!" You hissed out his name, regretting that act immediately as you felt it was much too loud already.

Did he leave you? Was he just looking for a quick drive down the road and made a break for it when you were distracted?

Without Jack, you'd...

What would you be without Jack? That thought nearly made you laugh. You were sure you could do lots of things without Jack, but thinking back on your few memories with him... He certainly had a way of getting things done.

Without Jack, you'd be oblivious to your water situation and would be drinking that contaminated gunk. You'd still be sitting in your home with a corpse outside the side door and with many broken doors. Were you even capable of fending off one of those mindless humans by yourself?

You stumbled forward, your foot catching onto the lip of the sidewalk. Part of you didn't want to move away from the car, because Jack could come back, maybe he was also stretching, but he'd tell you first. Right?

You stopped, fidgeting nervously as you repeatedly surveyed the area... The oh-so familiar area.

The lamppost nearest to you flickered, finally losing power, and died out. It was a warm, yellow color, bordering on orange. The road that forked off from the one you were driving on earlier was dead silent, but drenched in a sickly orange color from the lights that stretched down the street.

Your eyes followed the empty road, mouth slowly falling open at the sight of a figure crouched in the middle of it.

"J...ack?!" You strained your voice, whisper-shouting once again as you stepped down the sidewalk slowly, head bobbing down to your feet so you didn't step on any horror-movie sticks, and then up to keep an eye on the person in the middle of the warm-hued road.

This person shifted, head turning, tail curling. The only person you knew who could hear you from this distance and had a tail was Jack, and your cold fear turned to hot relief.

You approached carefully, stepping off the sidewalk and onto the rough asphalt and concrete to stand a bit to his right, but angled behind him.

"I smelled blood here," Jack muttered, standing, "there's nothing here, correct?"

There were rows of houses that kept going on both your right and left, trees accompanied the sidewalk every now and again, blocking out the lampposts in the far distance until they were specks of light. And, directly in front of you, there was absolutely nothing.

Yet, Jack said he smelled blood.

Your eyes fell to the ground, where Jack had knelt moments ago. Your blood turned hot as you noticed dark blotches of color amongst the orange hue of light. The road was stained with it, so inconsistent and messy. You both were standing in it, a bit at the edge of where it starts behind both of you, but still standing in whatever mess this was.

The mess, it had to be blood, right?

You began to search for other things you wouldn't normally look out for, at least within the reach of the light. There were dark marks on the sidewalk next to one of the lampposts to your right, one long, red smear disappearing somewhere darker amongst the grass of a house. And to your left, there was a discarded shoe, as well as a pair of glasses; dirty.

"There's nothing," you responded, turning your head downward again, "but I think we're standing in it."

Then, you remembered seeing a scene just like this. It felt like just hours ago, but you swore this was the same place. The same lighting! All that was missing were the pile of bodies and the two perpetrators.

"Standing in blood?" Jack turned his head downward too, as if he was looking at the road covered in blood, no longer wet, and no longer covered in corpses.

"I saw this, I think, a picture of bodies in a pile with someone sitting on top of them," you were beginning to put the pieces together, the words tumbling out of your mouth, "on Reddit, I mean."

Jack's head snapped to you, and you flinched, heart jumping in surprise, "what?"

"Yeah, well, I think so... The bodies are missing, and I don't know how long ago the picture was taken. But I'm, like, ninety-nine percent sure it was this place."

Jack didn't move, you were pretty sure he was thinking hard. Even though you couldn't tell what he was thinking or see what kind of expression he was making, the slow increase of his tail swishing around did not give you a good feeling.

"There was someone sitting on top of them. What did they look like?"

You thought back to the moment you laid eyes on that picture, at least, you tried to. At the moment of opening it, you weren't too focused on who the people were in the photo; the contents of the image were jarring enough that your mind did the responsible thing and evicted it from your thoughts.

"I-I'm pretty sure there were two, uh, the guy on the pile... He was wearing white, but I do remember the one taking the picture had orange goggles! Just like the one from the News broadcast right before it got cut off."

"Broadcast?" He parroted.

You were sure you mentioned something akin to the broadcast, but now you were second-guessing yourself.

"W-... Listen. Stuff happened during the time you were locked in my bathroom, a-and sometimes I don't know what to tell you. Sometimes I don't know what to say at all!" You were keenly aware of how loud your voice had gotten in that moment, so your next words came out low, "you can't just...disappear or-or go quiet and expect me to know what you want or what you need to know."

The air around you felt suddenly really heavy. Your clothes were sticking to your skin, and despite feeling so hot, your shoulders and heart felt light and weightless. Letting out a slow breath, you stared hard at the dark circles in Jack's blue mask.

"If this is gonna work, then you can't leave me in the dark..." You trailed off, snorting, "pun not intended."

Jack didn't move for a moment, not that you expected him to. So you decided to do so first.

"I'm going to get back to the car. If you need me to tell you anything before that, better tell me now."

You meant, "tell you about the surroundings," rather than, "anything," but Jack was smart. He'd (probably) know what you were talking about. He turned his head left, toward the long stretch of road.

"No," he finally breathed out, "it's fine."

Nodding, you turned and stiffly moved away.

Despite your mind running a mile a minute, you kept your eyes peeled for any threats in the area. You were doing it subconsciously at this point, stopping and staring only once due to the fact that you swore you saw something moving in the shadows. An animal, you told yourself, then suddenly growing sad as you thought of all the cats, dogs, and other pets that were out there during this situation.

You climbed into the driver's seat after moving around and closing the passenger side door, enough that it was shut, but not completely closed. You pulled the keys from your pocket and began to toy with them, thinking about your words to Jack.

It was tough saying those things to someone who was in a completely different world from you. Sure, he wasn't human, but he acted human, clearly didn't have some properties of a human, but was built like one. He could talk, feel(?), he was aware.

So he should be aware of how you need to communicate properly.

"Fuck," you whispered under your breath, bringing a hand up to drag down your face. It seemed so stupid now, telling him those things. You weren't a hero-type, you weren't the leader, and you didn't know what the hell got into you to say those things. You wanted to get along with Jack. That was the only plausible answer.

The passenger side door opened, and quietly, Jack ducked and slid into the seat, closing the door behind him with a small clunk. You straightened and fiddled with the keys a moment longer.

You'd have to put them into the ignition, start the car, and drive through the agonizing silence once again.

Although your name, coming from Jack, was too unfamiliar to you, he said it twice, snapping your attention over to him.

"I'm not great at conversation. That's why I don't try to talk whenever there isn't a need to," he mumbled, his blue mask staring ahead, "the people I know... They're strange. They don't act like you."

You ran your thumb along the teeth of the key, "the people you know..."

Was it someone in the picture? Your mouth opened, wishing to express those thoughts, the question that was urging to be answered. And, for a moment, you hesitated, almost thinking, he'll tell me on his own time, but you didn't know that. When would Jack's time be?

Didn't you just say you'd communicate better?

"The people you know, was it someone I described from the picture?" You pressed your thumb harder into the metal until the stinging pain against your skin matched the writhing in your heart.

His silence was a terrible feeling, too, but you kept waiting, watching him lean forward in the car seat and clasp his hands together.

"Yes."

Okay. Okay, you weren't sure if this was a win or a loss.

A win; Jack was communicating.

A loss; Jack was potentially connected to a mass murderer(s).

"Okay," you jammed the key into the ignition and twisted hard. The rumble of the engine didn't scare you, and your fingers flew quickly to the button that turned off the headlights. You weren't expecting the answer that came out of your mouth, and you were sure Jack didn't either, but you weren't capable of processing what else to do next but drive.

Nothing could scare you more than uncertainty.

Chapter 11: Activity

It took about twenty minutes to finally leave the various rows of houses, each street a mirror copy of the next. You were keeping Jack up to speed on everything you were seeing, too—the civilian homes being replaced by restaurants, stores, and empty plots of land.

There was a minor urge to pull over at the sight of a familiar take-out place you frequented often, but just below the LED lights that, surprisingly, were still on, was a shattered pane of glass. That urge fizzled quickly, your eyes snapping back to the road. You just hoped whoever, or whatever, broke into that shop was no longer around.

There were more places you recognized, even in the dark. The small corner store, a Starbucks that just got a remodel a week ago, and even that one store you always wanted to enter but never had because they were never open.

Even though it was fun to point out the familiar buildings in your mind, you shared your attention to the road, which was much busier than the suburbs. Not in the way that the roads were being used, they were in the past, it's just that there were a bunch of cars lining the lanes in certain areas. You were a bit uneasy at the thought of having to ditch the car and travel on foot.

And, just your luck, it looked like that thought was about to make it to reality. You spotted the junction in the road just a minute crawl ahead. Though what was really concerning was the fact that the cars were totaled, a truck tipped over near a crosswalk, a van was T-boned by a smaller car, and at least two more vehicles had their fronts crushed into each other.

"Jack," you were slowly easing on the break now, looking right and left down both roads, "the road's blocked. Should we find a detour or...go on foot?" You did not want to go on foot.

In the back of your head, there was a whisper, it's quiet...too quiet, and you resisted the urge to bring it to the forefront of your mind.

In the corner of your eye, you could see Jack's knee bouncing. Yours would too if you weren't so focused on keeping the car at a steady pace, but that steady pace was gone now that you stopped and kept your foot on the brake. While Jack made a plan in silence, you returned your attention to the road around you.

Four ways, well, three if you counted the one you were on. The traffic lights that hung from the sturdy poles were blinking red, some of the only light that you could see, if you didn't count the Strobe that flickered down on your far right.

Yes, a Strobe, you made sure it was one by not staring at it, only keeping it in your peripheral vision. You didn't want a repeat of that burning feeling in your eyes. Surprisingly, you weren't freaking out like you usually would at the sight of those things. Maybe you were becoming desensitized to it? Or maybe you weren't as bothered because it was further away, but even so, you made sure to tell Jack.

"Is it not possible to drive around the blockage?" Jack said, either completely brushing aside the fact of the Strobe being nearby, or just silently storing this knowledge away.

You turned your attention back to the road, looking to the left and the right of the crash site.

"Well... I mean, yes...but..." You trailed off, brows furrowing. It would make noise, and you hadn't really thought of a plan like that because your morals surrounding driving still remained intact, unaffected by the scenario happening in the world.

To hell with the laws in this economy, right? There was nothing stopping you now from jumping the curb and driving around this mess.

Though it would make a lot of noise, and there was a high possibility that Strobe would hear the noise.

Could the Strobes hear? They could definitely see things, so the possibility of being able to hear you wasn't completely off the table.

"Alright, I... I guess I can try." You gave in to Jack's suggestion, pulling the gear in reverse. You weren't able to see much out of the review mirror and didn't trust yourself driving backwards while looking over your shoulder, so you instead relied on your memory of the empty road.

The instinctive urge to flick on the headlights to see where the curb lined the road was strong, but you resisted, thank god. You switched the gear back to drive and spun the wheel.

"Hold onto something," you warned, pressing on the gas a bit harder than in the past twenty minutes of driving. You could hear the muffled roar of the engine, which wasn't exactly a roar either, just the rise of its humming.

The vehicle jostled, swaying your body in the car seat for a moment as you drove over the curb and onto the sidewalk, then onto a small section of a parking lot. Your heart leaped and jumped with the car, feeling adrenaline pumping in your system from the measly act of defiance against roadway laws. And yet, nobody saw a thing. Not even Jack.

You leaned close to the front windshield, squeezing the wheel tightly as you tracked the area in front of you while examining the roadway to your left. The red, flickering light from the traffic light didn't help the atmosphere, and you could only hope that the Strobe, which nearly looked and felt much closer than before, didn't notice a thing.

The car jumped up slightly as the front wheels hit the next curb that separated you and the open road of the right section that would lead down to the very thing you were trying to avoid. You kept your attention forward though, tapping the gas so you could ride over it again with the back wheels, then up the slope of the section of parking lot on the other side, thankfully not over another small jump.

You were getting the hang of this.

Twisting the wheel left, you curved the car so it faced toward the road you needed to drive on. Only the back-end of the red light helped illuminate one end of a car that didn't block your path, but did before. Again, you leaned forward, peering through the tinted glass, trying to make out the shape of cars or anything else on the road.

THUNK.

Something rough hit the back, right corner of the car, the sound rattling the car but not moving it. It made your blood run cold for a moment, but you tried to rationalize it.

This car could have issues, or maybe I kicked up a rock?

You heard your name, just barely, spoken in a hushed voice by Jack, "there's footsteps outside-"

THU-THUNK!

Noise again, louder, as a figure near the back, right passenger window dragged itself across the glass. You froze, wide-eyed, nearly easing your foot on the brake in your stunned state, but you managed to keep firm even if your heart was doing backflips in your stomach. You were about to tell Jack what was going on exactly until the figure disappeared from the back window, out of sight.

"Someone's..." You trailed off, unsure of where this someone had gone. It was like a spider you were focused on killing vanished from sight, but you knew it was alive, just somewhere you couldn't see, which made the situation so much worse.

You knew Jack knew too, because he was alert, yet his head did not turn or move, just stared straight ahead. Knowing something you didn't, you also turned your attention forward, nearly shrieking at the sight of the figure standing directly in front of the car.

"They're in front of us, they-" Your eyes flicked to the review mirror, almost like an instinct. It was the flash of light that grabbed your attention, and you couldn't help but swallow the lump that had gathered in your throat.

The Strobe.

Whether it had heard the sounds of the figure throwing themselves against the car, or the sound of you driving over the curb, it didn't matter, because it was here.

"Jack, the... A Strobe is behind us," you whispered, eyes darting away from the mirror, afraid that if you looked into it long enough, the heat from before would return, "but the person, they're in front of us."

Your hands gripped the steering wheel impossibly tighter.

On one hand, you wanted to floor it, get away from the thing that could cause you the most harm right now. It caused you literal pain to try and remember that feeling you had gotten when you first looked at the Strobe for too long, that searing pain that would cause you to see nothing, feel nothing, until you were nothing. But, in doing so, you'd hit the person in front of you who stood practically seven feet away from the hood of the car.

Or you could open a door, allow this person inside. Did they need help? Maybe they hit the side of the car because they had seen you drive, but they weren't capable of speaking? And you kept branching that thought more and more, which just made the original thought more flimsy and impossible.

Wasn't this person's actions just like Samuel's?

"Hit the gas," Jack instructed finally, head snapping to you, "do it!"

You did so without hesitation.

The car jerked forward, the engine roaring in your ears louder than ever before. You let out a small, strangled gasp at the force of something hitting the front of the car, sliding down and under the front of it, then the bump of the tires hitting the section of cement that parted the lot from the roadway, as well as something else you couldn't describe.

Your whole body felt stiff, finding it impossible to ease your foot on the gas as you drove down the road. It was still hard to see, but there were no cars on the road.

The light that you were so afraid of was no longer in the review mirror, and it didn't look like it was anywhere around you now, only the cold darkness.

And for what felt like forever, you just drove without the agonizing fear of being spotted by a Strobe. Maybe you should've slowed down because you were long gone from the point of danger, but the adrenaline was just now coming down, and your heart was slowing.

Finally, finally, you eased up on the gas, your foot coming off of it entirely.

You didn't remember what the buildings closest to you were, and there was no light to help either. The car was rolling slowly along the road now, and only when you eased on the brakes did it stop, allowing you to put it in park.

The car was darker than it had ever been before. You leaned back slowly in the driver's seat, the leather seat squealing slightly at the shift, your sigh joining the noise in the empty air.

"...I'm a murderer," you uttered, these words not thought through, but part of you knew it.

You had killed a person.

The scene, the sounds, and the dim visuals burned your mind, replaying the same instance over and over in your head. The dark figure, blending with the shadow of the road, standing and practically launching themselves onto the hood of the car just as you hit the gas to get away from the Strobe, then, their body slipped easily underneath the front, the bump after the curb was their body being crushed under the wheels of the car.

Jack froze next to you. He let the silence swallow the inside of the car for a moment longer before you finally heard something from him.

"You're not a murderer."

His voice, in the short time you've known him, never sounded this firm. Sure, he was stiff to talk to when you first met him, and his commands while the two of you were scouting ahead were, well, commanding.

You turned your head slightly, blinking slowly at him.

"I...but I killed..." You couldn't bring yourself to mention the truth.

It wasn't like you did it on purpose, right? You didn't want to kill a person. They were in front of you, too, but...

"A-at the very least...it's manslaughter. They were-it was just-"

"It wasn't a person," Jack cut you off quickly, voice just as firm as before, just as resolved.

Wasn't a person? Sure, it was dark, but it wasn't hard to make out the head, the torso, and the general shape of a body. Unless you were mistaken. Unless you didn't see it right.

But Jack couldn't see, how could he know?

It was a person.

Jack spoke your name, as if he was capable of hearing your thoughts, "it wasn't a person," could non-human cannibals also have some supernatural, mind-reading power?

You knew it though, you knew it was. The unmistakable likeness of their movement, similar to Samuel's, not in their right mind, but still human, regardless.

"An animal, a beast," his voice sounded so sure, so, so sure, "but not a person."

You turned your head back forward, furrowing your brows.

It wasn't a person. You thought once, then again, and again, and again, forcing yourself to accept the fabricated reality Jack was trying to help you see. It wasn't a person; it was an animal attracted to the noise of the car.

Your silence was an uncertain acceptance of sorts to Jack. Even though he was quiet now, you were certain if you made another, "but..." comment, he'd go right to denying it once again.

Though even with the memory now fuzzy and warped, the heaviness that came after felt exhausting. You leaned forward again, eyes peering hard at the dark sky, trying to make out the large buildings of the city in the distance. It was hard, since the sky was a blanket of black; there were no stars like you wished, because stars could at least be blocked out by those very same buildings.

You didn't need stars to see the red light that came from the tip of a tower on top of one of the large, industrial buildings within the city though. Despite the building itself losing power, the slim, metal rod at least carried enough self-sustaining power to light itself up.

Your thoughts lingered one more time to the beast, then to the task at hand, "we're almost there," you murmured to Jack, staring blankly forward, "ten, fifteen more minutes."

You didn't want to drive right now. You wanted to go back home and throw yourself on your bed, or even the neighbor's bed, and sleep. Sleep sounded so good right now, and with the fake night sky paired with the relaxing hum of the car, it was hard not to close your eyes then and there.

How long ago did you leave? What time was it? You could check your phone, but it was in your bag. And your bag was in the back seat by courtesy of Jack.

So, you drove slowly just like before, the monotonous action eating away at your patience like flies to rot.

Chapter 12: Chills

A jolt of urgency forced you awake, heart pounding in your chest, while your clothes stuck to you like a second skin due to the dampness of sweat along your body. A small groan left your lips as you turned from your shoulder to your back, the back seats of the car squeaking at the weight shift.

Asleep, you were just asleep.

It felt odd finally getting some rest, even though it felt like you hadn't slept at all. The backseat of the car wasn't that comfortable to begin with, and with the suffocating silence that accompanied the inside of the vehicle, this wasn't pairing well. Plus, the air had a chill to it, but it was way colder than you would've liked.

You only slept because Jack recommended that you should.

It kept you from thinking.

Thinking about that figure, that body. The adrenaline had worn off which had made you sluggish, which reminded your brain of how much sleep it needed.

"I'll be here," Jack had said when you crawled into the backseat, tucking your backpack on the car floor and attempting to make yourself comfortable.

He wasn't, but you weren't surprised at this point. Even if you had your worries, you didn't doubt him.

At least you told yourself that.

The silence in the car and the ever-creeping darkness that cloaked you were keeping a hold on your nerves. Your eyes, which you were certain would never see the sun again, darted to the left window as you sat up. The car was parked diagonally on the road so that you were capable of moving it in either direction in case of emergencies.

You shifted slowly in the backseat, rolling your shoulders and neck to disperse the numbness that had spread throughout your joints. The silence was broken by the small cracks and pops, although it was very quiet.

So quiet.

Your eyes darted down to your backpack, which had been stuffed down between the seats and the center console for ease of access. You leaned over and fished around for your phone, but once you grabbed hold of it, you didn't pull your hand out.

What setting was your brightness at again?

You leaned over further, holding your phone at the opening of your backpack, and tentatively pressed the power button. It didn't blind you as much as you thought it would, but it was enough to have you squint while tapping quickly to turn it down. After doing that, you leaned back into the tough seats and held the device close to your face.

First, you wanted to check on that one dude's account. TheSunVanished.

There were numerous photos of papers scrawled with messy handwriting that was still legible.

I regret my decision to stay. It has gotten incredibly
lonely, and I have come to terms with the fact that
I may never see Martha or my grandkids again. I
pray to God that they, at the very least, are safer
than I am.

I have no real caution or regard for my own life
anymore. I can only hope that what I gather from
my near-suicidal experiments can be useful to someone
else at a later date. I either die and be at peace
or I get more information. Both outcomes sound
favorable.

This wasn't a will, you had to remind yourself that.

Experiment Notes

I placed several flashlights around the perimeter of
the house, testing them at different intensities (the
control being no light at all) I believe the entities
are more attracted to the flashlights than myself. Why?
I got back inside before any permanent damage
was done.

So the Strobes would prioritize light over humans? Or over movement? You descretly checked your phone's brightness once again, then looked both right and left outside the windows for any sign of Strobes.

No light except for the distant glow of some streetlamps that multiplied when growing closer to the city.

Experiment Notes

Blue lights appeared after day 6 in the dark. (Significance?) Light
sources do not seem to attract their ████████ presence.
Unlike the entities producing white/red flashing lights,
the blue lights are higher in elevation and also seem to
come from a different entity altogether. I believe the blue
lights may also be more likely to move in unison, however
there is no  way to know for certain until they return. If
they return at all.

You were ninety-nine percent sure that the blue light came from those shapes in the sky; the ships (which you were one-hundred percent sure were ships). Although you weren't too keen on calling these things aliens.

The last image that was posted was in thick letters, but written shakily and grew bigger with each line.

Experiament Notes

IT finally happened. I was being
recKless and I looKed intO
the light. The red light

I feel empty inside

THE SUN IS
BACK

The sun is back.

You remembered hearing those words before from Samuel. Those confusing, false words paired with the burning fear of dying, only to be saved by Jack.

Had you even thanked him yet?

Yes, the sun is still gone. I have no clue what this journal is talking about.
Seems like the same "talking nonsense" Tucker was talking about with his friend Flynn.

Tucker, a friend of TheSunVanished, who seemed to also have an account that posted about their experiences, but you only followed TheSunVanished. The doomscroller in you would spend too much time reading every post to follow the timeline if you searched the other account, so you decided to keep to TheSunVanished for now.

There were two more posts after that: one of a DM conversation between TSV and Tucker, and one that gave some chilling details about a certain discovery.

The body is just gone. Didn't see what happened to it, but it's not in the street anymore.

Bodies disappearing. Another familiar instance. Yet, TSV only ever saw one body, while you had seen a post about multiple, and been to the site where they had disappeared.

There was no way to dispute a connection, and also little way to make one.

A sigh left your lips as you tapped out of Twitter and turned off your phone without taking a look at the time or your remaining battery life. For one, you knew you had enough battery left, and the time didn't matter. It wouldn't matter unless you really wanted it to.

You settled again in the seat, resting your head low against the right door of the car. Not enough to fall asleep, but in a position to be comfortable.

Your eyes stared hard at the distance between you and the city that sat close by. The buildings were like shadows in the night, and there were little to no lights that you could see that weren't streetlights.

You knew that cities were terrible places to be in apocalypses; at least zombie ones(this thought reminded you of the very same topic you had mentioned to Jack). The population was dense, at least more so than the place you lived in the outskirts. If the roads were bad heading into the city, you wondered how bad they'd be within it. How many people would still be alive? How many were still around, avoiding these creatures?

How many bodies would you see?

You breathed in sharply, that one thought causing your mind to wander back to the figure that you had hit, who knows how long ago. The sound it made, coming into contact with a car that wasn't yours, then what little force there was when hitting the gas.

And then Jack, minutes later, told you that it wasn't a person, but an animal.

God dammit, you were thinking about it too hard again.

If Jack said it was an animal, then you'd believe him, even though you knew he was blind.

Your eye caught a flicker of movement through the shadows of multiple cars. The backdrop of streetlights, at least the working ones, made it easier to spot it too. It was Jack, surprisingly, walking with careful practice alongside the side of the road. He was somewhat slouched, but kept his head up and straight, and your eyes drifted down to what you could see of his tail, which was still as he headed towards you and the car.

It was a relief to see him again. You didn't want to leave the safety of the car anytime soon, but allowing Jack to do so while you stayed behind left you with a sense of unease.

Jack approached the front passenger door and pulled it open. Initially, you wanted to have all the doors locked, but came to a compromise with Jack to leave all of them locked except the front passenger door, just in case of emergencies.

He paused for a moment, and you saw between the side gap of the seat and the car the way his head turned toward you in the backseat. A small chill ran down your spine, still unsure of how you truly felt about him practically knowing what was happening around him when he shouldn't be capable.

Not human, a small voice reminded you.

The car jostled for a moment as he climbed in, shutting the door behind him. The noise made your shoulders tense, eyes darting outside, and swimming in the darkness for any signs of incoming Strobes.

"Are you better now?" Jack's voice did not miss your ears.

"I'm fine," you didn't know if that was a lie, "wasn't the best sleep, but I feel much more refreshed now."

You scooted further to the left so you were positioned at the center of the backseat, able to see the side of Jack's head as he stared forward. You hadn't really taken his appearance in unhooded that much before, as most of the time, you didn't have the luxury of doing so, but you had an okay view of his left profile in the dim light.

Matted brown hair, at least you were pretty sure it was brown; it was too dark to really tell if it was dark or lighter. You could also see the straps of his mask wrapped securely around his head, two straps connected at the base of his skull.

"Is something wrong?" He turned his head only slightly to the left, to which you leaned back in response. You weren't leaning forward, but it felt like he knew you were staring when he broke the silence once again.

"No, nothing," you said quickly, turning your own head to the left to stare out the window, glaring at the dark buildings in the distance. They weren't as tall as the city's, but they were bigger than your home.

You turned your attention back to Jack, "what did you find out there?"

This was an open-ended question, and you weren't expecting a clear answer due to the fact that Jack could only vaguely describe things to you rather than what they physically were.

"It's much warmer in the city than here," he stated, shifting in his seat, "I could hear someone or something moving around in the buildings. Multiple. And there are most definitely Strobes lingering on the streets."

You frowned at his words. Those were all things you were hoping not to hear from him, but if there were survivors, then that was a good thing.

"So...we'll have to ditch the car.." You murmured with a small sigh.

"Yes."

Your frown deepened, and you reached down to hold onto the hook of your backpack, wringing it between your index and middle fingers absentmindedly.

"We'll need another backpack. And a jerrycan, if possible, to carry out the plan."

"Do you know your way around the city?" Jack asked, turning his head again, looking near you but not directly at you.

"Uh, kinda..." You took a slow breath, "there's a lot of places we can go... But if the store was looted already, we'll need to go somewhere else." And going somewhere else after traveling so far to one location was a pain.

"Is there a mall nearby?"

"A mall?" You echoed, nearly laughing aloud. You weren't about to laugh because of the question, but of the aspect of going to a place that could be swarming with Strobes. A place people should actively avoid in an apocalyptic scenario.

Jack remained silent, awaiting an answer.

"Y-yes. There's a mall, but it'd be much more dangerous to go somewhere like that than a regular convenience store!" That, and you didn't want to deal with the aftermath of being caught by a Strobe or brainwashed human.

"Yet we'd kill two birds with one stone by heading to a mall so we can grab as many supplies as we need from various stores."

Jack's retort...made sense. A lot of sense. You tightened your fingers around the hook of your backpack, face going warm as you could no longer control the rapid pace of your heart.

"And...and you sure you can fight something off if it comes down to it? Like, really sure?"

The memory of Samuel getting bulldozed by Jack replayed in your mind. You didn’t care how many times it did; you just needed to hear it from Jack now.

"I am," he nodded too, which did little to ease those 'what if' thoughts.

"Okay..." You lowered your head and sighed, then lifted it again, "anything else? Or should we just go already?"

The mall wasn't close, but it wasn't at the heart of the city either. The thing you worried about the most was hoping that all of this wouldn't be in vain.

Jack didn't speak, or he did and you didn't hear him, because a noise rattled your brain. No, the car was shaking. The humming that reached your ears felt like you were sinking in the sea, pressurizing your eardrums and clogging your brain with this numbing sensation.

You released the backpack and pressed yourself close to the left door, cheek up against the glass. The sky was dark, and a streetlamp prohibited your view too much, so you slid to the right, doing the same and glaring at the inky sky.

"Holy shit," you muttered, watching as a giant shadow moved across the dark expanse at a slow pace. You were only able to see it due to the faint, pulsating lights that ran across its body and the fact that it was the only visible thing in the sky.

"It's back?" Jack knew what the thing was by the sound alone; the vibrations in the air were probably much more sensitive to him than you. You didn't say anything, only watched as it continued to move, beginning to disappear out of your sight due to it hovering straight above the car.

You noticed immediately the way a wave of warmth cascaded over your body. The chill you had awoken to began to ebb away, the warmth ebbing the cold away at your fingertips.

And somehow, you knew immediately that this wasn't safe.

"Jack," you reached over to grab your bag, eyes darting to the driver's seat in uncertainty, then to the door to your right, "Jack, we need to go."

The car would be faster, but it would take too long to actually get it started. By then, the ship may have already pulverized you both.

You pushed the door open, mentally apologizing to your deceased (and missing) neighbor for stealing and destroying their car in the midst of a life-or-death situation. Jack, who was already ahead of you at this point, lifted his head to the sky, then turned your way, raising his voice and saying your name a little too loud for your liking.

"Bag!" He outstretched his hands, and you pieced the puzzle together quickly, tossing him the backpack.

The humming in the air turned to that annoying rumbling sound now that you were outside, and a passing thought wondered if it could see you. The ship did not move even as you began running, Jack still much faster even while carrying your backpack.

Hairs on the back of your neck stood on end as the smell of burning ozone met your nose.

Where could you run to?! Your mind cried as you searched around ahead of you while weaving around an abandoned car or two. It would take too long for Jack to knock down a door like last time, so you needed something open, at least temporarily.

You caught a glimpse of the top of a familiar, but dark, structure disappearing by the two in front of it, a public parking garage.

Your heart caught in your throat, and you felt tears burn your eyes as you called out to Jack, "follow me!" And even though you couldn't keep his pace, you'd only hope that he'd keep yours.

Thank fucking god he listened.

The moment the first, ear-splitting noise began to hum, you dove to the first corner of the building on your left, ducking low, while also keeping your eyes set forward. It felt like your entire body was being tossed around but kept stationary all at the same time. Jack had done the same, and you were surprised to see the quick rise and fall of his shoulders as the two of you caught your breath amid the neon blue hue that painted the road, and more so.

Once the noise became low-pitched, you stood and made a break for the street across, where you'd need to find temporary shelter the second the high notes returned. And they did, quicker than before.

You dove to the ground, deciding to prioritize getting low rather than getting to cover. The asphalt felt rough against your face as you dug it in further, the sharper pieces stinging against your skin. The back of your head felt hot as blue light filtered through the slits of your eyes, which you had squeezed shut, unable to look at the inevitable if this plan failed.

It felt like you were lying on the beach in California summer heat with no sunscreen, but ten times hotter. You let out a strangled noise as the heat subsided, humming a low noise while you scrambled with your bearings and your jelly-felt legs.

A sudden shove caused you to stumble and pick up the pace even faster as Jack made it to your right, "movement further right. Behind us." You were surprised to hear him over the sounds of that incessant rumbling, but you made a point to pick up the pace, that pace increasing at the sight of the large parking building.

You weren't disregarding his warning of possibly being followed, but your hopeful wish was that Jack had possibly heard wrong.

The ship in the sky made that high-pitched whine for a third time just as you made it past the first-floor entrance of the parking garage, which was, thankfully, not closed off, but expectedly filled with cars. You didn't feel that threatened by the blue light casting rays of blue along the stretch of ground in front of you, which created shadows of you and Jack along the pavement, but the unknown people (or aliens) were still threats.

Unexpectedly, you felt Jack's hand grab your wrist tightly. His palm was warm, but the fingers that touched the pulse on your wrist were cold as ice. He pulled you to the right, towards a crowded group of parked cars, and urged you behind one, shoving your backpack back into your hands.

Sliding down against the stiff, cement wall of the parking structure, you clutched the backpack tightly, staring at the gap between the cars where you could barely see the entrance from. Jack was squished next to you, his presence almost invisible if not for his shoulder digging into your own. Coinidentally, the neon light from outside died out, and the deafening noise ceased, leaving you in a muffled darkness as warmth spread across your skin.

Yet, you still felt a chill run up your spine when you saw the outline of a human stepping into the dark of the parking garage.