Chapter 7
The city isn’t dead, just broken into a thousand pieces and set to rot at different speeds.
The ground crunches under my boots, the sound a blend of glass, gravel, and something softer that doesn’t bear too much scrutiny.
I keep to the shadows of the lowest buildings, counting intersections and alleyways as if anyone could follow me through this maze.
Every block brings a new mutation: a playground flooded by puddles the color of old bruises, a storefront where mannequins have fused into a single mass, faces pressed together in a permanent, silent scream.
I skirt a collapsed onramp and duck beneath a canopy of power lines.
They sag, clotted with nests or webbing—some made by insects, some by the city’s newer residents.
The pendant at my chest is brightening, flicker by flicker, enough that I keep it tucked under the flap of my suit.
It feels less like a tool now and more like a warning.
The first taste of the trees is at the edge of a former park.
They cluster along the median, grown wild and unchecked in the years since the city fell.
Their bark pulses in slow waves, swelling and contracting with a rhythm not quite aligned with the wind.
The trunks aren’t straight, but bend in desperate arcs, reaching for gaps in the canopy above.
Leaves, if they are that, are flattened fans of pale green, slick with condensation.
I touch the nearest tree with the back of my glove.
The surface is warmer than ambient—by a lot.
I scrape a sample, quick, and the bark exhales, releasing a puff of air thick with sweet, dizzying pheromones.
I jerk my hand back, breathing through my mouth, but it’s already in my head: the world wobbles and straightens, colors deepen, and for a moment the pain in my arm disappears.
I back away, mind racing, cataloguing symptoms. Possible neurotoxin.
Engineered or evolved, I can’t guess. My hands shake; I flex them, force the tremor into the rhythm of walking.
The trees thin out and the road twists left, dropping me into a corridor of rusted-out vehicles.
They’re parked with algorithmic precision, bumper to bumper, all facing the same direction—away from the city’s heart.
I weave between them, boots silent on the ashy road.
The silence grows heavier, weighted down by the absence of crows, dogs, any of the city’s old vermin.
Every step echoes off the glassless windows, amplifying my presence.
I’m halfway through a bus when the world splits.
There’s a sound, first—a scrape, then a moist, wet pop—and then something moves behind the frame of a delivery van ten meters ahead.
I flatten to the ground, heart slamming, eyes dilated to twice their size.
The shape is wrong for a person: too tall, shoulders hunched, limbs stiff and angular like a praying mantis built from leftover bone.
It lurches into view, bare feet slapping the pavement, knees locked but capable of horrific speed.
The skin is stretched membrane, nearly transparent, veins black and thick as shoelaces.
Where there should be hair, there’s only a thin halo of growth, wiry and colorless.
The head cocks to one side and holds, as if listening for a specific frequency.
I don’t breathe. I check the pendant: pulsing red, hot against my chest. My body makes a decision before my mind catches up—I shuffle backwards, slow as a melting candle, putting the bulk of the bus between me and the creature.
The pendant is now vibrating, a steady whine that I can feel through the bones in my neck.
The thing sniffs the air. I watch its chest inflate, the ribs visible through the meat, each breath pumping a surge of tar-colored blood.
It turns, senses something, and makes a noise: not a growl, not a scream, but the desperate, raw-throated bark of a human whose vocal cords have been dipped in acid.
The sound strips the air. I flinch, hands over ears.
The thing shambles closer. Its eyes are sunken, almost lost in the skull, but I can see the reflection when it passes under the open roof.
The gaze is empty, but not stupid. It’s searching.
It’s hunting. I do the math: It’s between me and the only exit from the vehicle row.
Double back and I’ll be trapped by the trees and their psychoactive haze.
Forward is suicide, unless I can draw it away.
I fish in my pack and come up with the only thing that might count as a distraction: a cracked phone, battery dead, but heavy enough to matter.
I toss it to the left, aiming for a cluster of bottles on the hood of a sedan.
The sound is righteous—bottles shatter, a half-burned rag flares up, and the creature whirls, locked on the noise.
It darts, faster than should be possible, and disappears behind the car.
I move. Low, silent, up and over the bus seats, through a shattered window.
I hit the ground running, every stride threatening to snap the scab on my arm.
The creature is still at the noise, tearing into the hood as if the phone might bleed.
I use the distraction to put distance between us, sprinting for the far side of the lot.
I clear the last car and hit open ground, a stretch of pavement exposed to the full glare of the sun. My lungs burn; I taste iron and bile. I risk a glance back. The thing is following. It’s not running, not yet, but every step covers more ground than mine. It’s learning.
I duck into a side alley, boots slipping on old rain and decomposed paper.
The alley is a bottleneck, and I know it, but there’s no time to think.
I barrel forward, ricocheting off walls, following the path of least resistance.
The Geiger counter at my hip is screaming, numbers irrelevant.
I toss it, let it clatter behind me. The creature reaches it in seconds, pauses, cocks its head as if the ticking is a new language.
I use the time. There’s a stack of crates at the end of the alley, rotten and spongy but tall enough to climb.
I scramble up, fingers digging into soft wood, and haul myself onto a rusted fire escape.
The whole thing shifts under my weight, but holds.
Above, there’s a catwalk that bridges to the next building.
If I can reach it, I might lose the thing.
I look down. The Ghoul stands at the mouth of the alley, staring up with a patience I can feel in my marrow. Its mouth opens, impossibly wide, and it releases another of those screams. My ear drums protest, but I keep moving, one rung at a time, every muscle in my body screaming for oxygen.
The catwalk is a gamble. It’s bowed in the middle, half the slats missing, but I don’t stop.
I sprint, hands out for balance. The Ghoul is below me, tracking my every step, eyes unblinking.
I make it across, slam into a door, and to my disbelief, it gives way.
I tumble inside, slam the door shut, and wedge my pack against the frame.
I collapse, chest heaving. I expect the creature to slam into the door, but instead there’s silence.
Then, slowly, the sound of nails dragging down metal—like it knows I’m still inside, but can afford to wait.
I crawl to the far side of the room, which is mostly intact—a former office, papers plastered to the floor by old rain, desks welded to the ground by their own rust.
I find a vent at the base of the wall, kick out the screen, and worm my way inside.
The tunnel is barely wide enough, and I can feel the gash in my arm reopen, blood wetting the sleeve.
I don’t stop. Not until I’m ten meters in, curled in a fetal ball, counting the pulse in my throat.
For a while, I listen. Nothing. The world is as still as the grave.
I wait, counting backwards from a thousand, until the adrenaline fades and the pain takes over.
I squeeze the wound shut, press gauze against it, and bite down on the edge of my glove.
The pendant is still red, but dimming. I cradle it, rock slightly, and whisper to it like a mother to a terrified child.
It’s a long time before I can move. When I finally crawl out, the sun has shifted and the world is blinding.
The street is empty. No sign of the Ghoul.
I keep to the shadows, now, never crossing open ground unless I can see both ends.
Every rustle, every flicker, every breath of wind is suspect.
I run simulations in my head, over and over, optimizing for survival.
The city is alive, but it is not my friend.
Only when I reach the edge of a plaza—once a shopping center, now a crater—do I stop.
I check the pendant. The blue is back, faint but loyal.
I drop to my knees and weep, silent and bitter, until the need to survive takes hold again. I rise, wipe my face, and keep going. This time, I don’t look back, even when the wind carries that hollow, human scream across the concrete.
The worst of the city is behind me. I can feel it in my teeth, the way the ache in my jaw lessens with every kilometer.
The buildings thin, giving way to derelict warehouse rows and the blackened stumps of what used to be forest. Out here, the geometry of the world warps in less predictable ways.
Roads start and end in midair, slabs of pavement hung between sinkholes like drawbridges to nowhere.
The pendant at my throat is both map and warning—its pulse is a lantern, drawing a line between the maybes and the sure things.