Jenna ran until her lungs burned and her legs felt like lead. She didn't stop until she was back on her own block, her heart hammering against the stolen black t-shirt. The sight of the man devouring the driver, the sudden, silent surge of military helicopters, the panicked faces of her neighbors—it had all fractured her reality.
She reached her apartment building, her hand fumbling frantically with the keys, her muscles screaming with the effort. She jammed the key into the lock, twisting it with desperate force, and practically threw herself inside. The stale air of her apartment was suddenly the safest thing in the world.
Click.
She slammed the door shut and immediately threw the deadbolt, the heavy, metallic CHUNK of the lock a small, temporary victory against the madness outside.
She backed away from the door, her hands still trembling, pressing her spine against the cold laminate of the hallway wall. She slid down, dropping onto the floor, her breathing ragged and shallow.
Breathe, Jenna. Just breathe. It's not real.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to rewind the last five minutes, searching for the logic. A drug craze? Some sort of localized terrorist attack with biological weapons? Cannibalism wasn't real. It was something out of bad horror movies.
"It's a bad trip," she whispered, her voice hoarse and raw. "I drank too much. I'm having a blackout dream."
But the scent of the blood, the sheer, headlong terror of the people running with her—it was too vivid, too real.
The silence of the apartment was abruptly violated. A low, rhythmic WHUP-WHUP-WHUP pulsed from directly outside her window, growing quickly into a deafening roar. More military aircraft.
Jenna scrambled up, moving on instinct. She padded silently to the window, pulling the edge of the cheap curtain aside with a trembling hand, peering down into the street she'd just fled.
The street was a canvas of fresh, escalating chaos.
A few yards down, a sedan, driven by a terrified man trying to flee, veered wildly onto the sidewalk and slammed into a cluster of people running in the same direction, turning the escape route into a slaughter. The driver didn't stop—he reversed and sped off, leaving a sickening trail of bodies and screaming bystanders.
And the victims didn't just lie there. They twitched, they rose, they staggered, and then they lunged.
She saw the scene by the wrecked blue car: the heavyset man was gone, but his victim, the driver, was now twitching, his pale, bloody head snapping around, his mouth opening in a silent, hungry snarl. He was dragging his leg, just like the man she'd seen emerge from the doorway.
Then, she saw a woman, no older than her, running toward an open bus shelter, only to be dragged down by three figures who immediately began tearing at her clothes, their movements no longer slow and shambling, but frantic and focused. They weren't fighting; they were feeding.
High overhead, the chain of dark, purposeful military helicopters continued their endless current, flying low over the carnage, silent, official witnesses to the collapse.
The raw reality of the images—the blood, the devouring, the terror that had consumed the entire city in a matter of hours—slammed into her. Her breath hitched, catching in her throat. Her knuckles were white as she clutched the curtain fabric.
The terror intensified, replaced by a sudden, stabbing realization of isolation.
"Mom…" Jenna whispered, the word a small, desperate plea.
She fumbled in her pocket, pulling out her phone. Her thumb shook as she tried to open the contact list, but the bars were still gone—a blank, maddening signal icon staring back at her. No calls, no texts, no news. Just dead air.
Her breath hitched in her throat as the lights in the apartment flickered once, twice, and then died completely. The sudden, suffocating darkness was total, broken only by the chaotic streaks of helicopter spotlights slicing across the ceiling.
As she stood rigid in the silent darkness, another helicopter tore past the window, flying impossibly low, its massive shadow swallowing the apartment for a split second.
The sound of its rotors was abruptly cut short by a colossal BOOOM! from the street below. The impact was massive, a deafening concussion that shook the entire building. Jenna instinctively dropped to the floor, her ears ringing, as the world outside roared with a fresh wave of panicked screams and the terrifying, crackling sound of fire.
The apocalypse had moved from a distant threat on the news ticker to a deafening, flaming reality on her doorstep. Jenna stayed curled on the floor, clinging to the cold, splintered wood, her reckless bubble of ignorance finally and utterly shattered.The world was over.
Her voice was a soft, ragged whisper in the sudden quiet of her mind, a final plea to a reality that no longer existed:
"Am... I in a nightmare?"