The city didn’t just feel old; it felt surrendered.
It hadn’t been destroyed by a singular cataclysm. It had simply been left behind long enough for nature to start pulling the stitches out of civilization.
Brittle, yellowed grass punched through fissures in the asphalt. Thick, parasitic vines throttled the storefronts, crawling over broken glass and sun-bleached sale signs. A massive, rusted billboard leaned precariously over the street, groaning in the wind like a tired sentry guarding a graveyard.
Brice and Brian collapsed beneath the dark, cool belly of a broken freeway overpass. They slumped against a concrete support, their chests heaving in ragged, uneven rhythms. For a long time, the only sound was the wet, hitching struggle for air and the distant, lonely rattle of debris shifting in the wind.
Beneath the overpass, the remains of an abandoned survivor camp sat in a half-circle of dead fire pits and empty water bottles. Someone had spray-painted SAFE ZONE EAST – LIES across the side of a burned city bus. A child’s backpack hung from the bus mirror, faded pink fabric turned gray with ash.
After a long silence, Brian wiped a smear of dried blood from his jaw. “I forgot how much running sucks. I think my soul left my body about three blocks ago.”
Brice offered a shaky, mirthless laugh. “You’ve been saying that for twenty years, Brian. It’s your signature brand.”
“I’ve been right for twenty years, Brice. Consistency is key.”
Brice reached into the pocket of the thin, abrasive hospital pants Genesis had dressed him in. His fingers brushed against something hard and familiar. He frowned, fishing it out.
“…No way.”
Brian cracked one eye open. “What? Did you manifest a sandwich out of thin air?”
Brice turned the object over.
His cellphone.
The screen was a chaotic web of cracks, the case scuffed raw, but it was unmistakably his.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“It should’ve been in my SUV at the compound.”
Brian shrugged, his gaze fixed on the dead street. “They probably cataloged everything they took. Trophy collection. I’m sure they have a lovely display case for our dignity.”
Brice pressed the power button, not expecting a miracle.
The screen flickered.
He didn’t cheer. He just stared as the phone slowly finished its boot sequence.
No signal.
No internet.
No notifications.
Just the cold, digital stillness of the lock screen.
He swiped to unlock it.
The date caught his eye.
His breath hitched. He froze, the air suddenly turning thin.
“…No.”
Brian shifted, his brow furrowing. “What?”
Brice didn’t say a word. He just handed him the phone.
Brian read the date.
The color drained from his face until he looked as gray as the concrete support behind him.
“Ninety days…”
The realization settled between them, heavier than the tons of road above their heads.
Brice took the phone back, his fingers trembling.
“For me… it was yesterday. I talked to Angel. We were at the kitchen table. It was raining. I can still smell the coffee.”
Brian stared out at the dead street, his eyes unfocused. “I thought maybe… a week. Two, tops. I was planning on coming over for dinner on Sunday.”
Brice nodded, the world blurring at the edges. “Me too.”
Silence, absolute and suffocating, took over.
“They had me in some kind of glass tube,” Brian finally whispered, his voice jagged. “I’d wake up, and it was always the same. Doctors. Machines. Questions. They’d ask, I’d try to answer, then they’d hit the drip. Darkness. I never knew how much time was passing.”
“Same,” Brice replied, his voice hollow. “Wake. Test. Blood. Blackout. It was like living in a strobe light of trauma.”
Brian looked toward the horizon, where the distant, oily smoke from the Genesis facility still tainted the sunset. “So… what happened? Why now? Why did we wake up?”
Brice followed his gaze. “The explosion. I think… I think it must’ve tripped a failsafe. Cut the power to the tubes, or scrambled the schedule. Whatever they were doing to us, the blast interrupted it.”
Brian looked down at his own hands, opening and closing his fists, watching the faint, unnatural gray shimmer of his skin. “I don’t remember much of the breakout. Just fire. My whole body felt like it was being poured into a mold. Then the tube shattered. I panicked. I just started running.”
He looked at Brice, a ghost of a smile appearing.
“Then I opened your door.”
Brice pushed himself up. His ankle screamed in protest—a white-hot spike of agony. He ignored it, gritting his teeth until his jaw ached.
He looked at the city again, really seeing it for the first time.
The barricades.
The burned-out husks of cars.
The shops stripped bare.
The abandoned camp beneath the overpass.
The warning painted across the bus.
Three months.
The world hadn’t waited for them. It had just moved on, broken and hungry.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket. The ache in his chest was sharper than the pain in his leg.
“…Angel.”
Brian stood, wincing, but he didn’t complain. He just squared his shoulders and stood beside his friend.
It had always been this way: Brice pointed at the impossible, and Brian made sure he didn’t run at it alone.
“So,” Brian asked, his voice steadying. “What’s the plan?”
Brice looked east.
Across the shattered city.
Across the ocean.
Across a world that had forgotten them.
“We’re bringing her home,” Brice said.
Brian didn’t ask how. He didn’t ask if they were strong enough. He just nodded, the heavy steel pipe from the parking lot gripped firmly in his hand.
“Then let’s get started.”
The two men stepped out from the shadow of the freeway, limping into the heart of the empty city.
Three months behind the rest of the world.
But finally walking toward something instead of running away.