The morning sun filters in through he cabin's single window, casting long shadows across the rough wooden floor.
Zack King stirs on the narrow cot, his body automatically tensing before his mind registers where he is.
Safe. Alone.
He sits up slowly, running a hand through his slightly longer-than regulation hair, and reaches for the framed photograph on the makeshift nightstand beside his bed.
Five soldiers in desert camouflage, arms slung around each other's shoulders, ginning at the camera.
Martinez. Thompson. O'Neal. Williams. And him.
His brothers.
Only two of them made it home.
Setting the photo aside, Zack drops to the floor and begins his morning routine.
Push-up after push-up, his dog tags catching the morning light as they sway with each movement. The familiar burn in his muscles feels good—real. Something he can control.
His breathing stays steady, measured, as he counts off the reps.
Fifty, seventy, a hundred.
When he's finished, sweat gleaming on his chest, he reaches for his phone— an ancient DREXA model—lying on the wooden dining table. The screen remains black when he presses the power button.
Dead.
"Damn," he mutters, digging through his olive-green duffel bag for his charger. T-shirts, socks, a few books he'd brought but hadn't yet touched—but no sign of the charger.
He could picture it clearly, plugged into the wall outlet in his childhood bedroom back home.
Slapping a palm to his forehead, Zack moves away from the bag. "I'll charge it when I get back home."
Zack grabs his metal canteen and steps outside into the crisp mountain air, stopping to take in a good inhale.
The cabin sits nestled in a small clearing, surrounded by towering pine trees that swayed gently in the morning breeze. A narrow stream bubbles twenty yards away. The sound as constant and comforting as white noise.
This was exactly what Zack needed. A quiet place to get away. Get his head on straight.
He kneels beside the creek, submerging the canteen in the clear waters and letting the liquid rush in.
Above him, birds called to each other from branch to branch—chickadees, maybe a cardinal, the distant cry of a hawk.
He'd learned to identify them during the long hours when sleep wouldn't come.
When the silence felt too much like waiting for the next round of gunfire.
Movement across the stream catches his eye. A doe steps delicately through the underbrush, her coat a rich brown in the dappled sunlight. She lowers her head to drink, completely unaware of Zack's presence.
Zack smiles, feeling more of the tension in his shoulders ease.
This was exactly what he needed—peace, simplicity, the uncomplicated rhythm of nature.
He screws the cap back onto his canteen, taking care not to make any sudden movements. But he drops it into the stream.
"Shit." Zack mutters.
He bends to grab the cap before it can float away. When he straightens, the deer is gone.
The birds have stopped singing too.
Zack frowns, scanning the treeline for the deer.
The forest stands eerily quiet, not even the rustle of leaves to break the silence.
He looks up at the sky and sees dark clouds gathering on the horizon, moving faster than seemed natural.
He grabs his canteen and heads back to the cabin.
The first drops of rain hit as he secures the door shut behind him.
Zack moves with practiced efficiency, lighting the gas lamp that casts a warm glow throughout the single room, checking his supply of split wood stacked neatly against the far wall. He'd caught two trout yesterday evening—they'd keep him fed through whatever weather was coming.
As thunder rumbled overhead, he cleans and fillets the fish at the small dining table, his knife work precise and methodical.
Through the window, he sees sheets of water rushing across the clearing, turning the dusty ground muddy.
He cooks the fish over the small gas burner, seasoning it with salt and pepper from his supplies. Simple food, but it tasted better than anything he'd eaten in months.
Outside, the storm raged with surprising intensity, wind howling through the pines and light illuminating the cabin in stark, white flashes.
Zack eats slowly, watching the rainwater hammer violently against the windows.
Weather like this used to make him nervous—too much noise, too many places for threats to hide.
But up here, with nothing but wilderness for mile in every direction, he felt oddly calm.
The storm was just weather. Nothing more.
On that note Zack heads to his bed where he sleeps like a baby.
Five days later, the rain had stopped as abruptly as it had begun. But the silence that followed felt different from the peaceful quiet of a morning after a storm.
Heavier.
More complete.
Zack steps outside to assess the damage.
Broken branches litter the clearing, and a decent-sized tree branch has fallen across the tarp covering his trunk.
He spends the better part of an hour clearing the debris, hauling the smaller branches into a pile for firewood and wrestling the larger trunk off his vehicle.
When he's done, he pulls back the tarp. The truck looks unharmed.
Zack climbs into the driver's seat and turns the key.
The engine whines but doesnt catch. He tries again. Nothing. On the third attempt, it roars to life with a satisfying rumble.
"Come on girl," he says, patting the dashboard. "Time to head home."
The drive down the mountain road revealed the storm's path—more fallen trees, scattered leaves, the occasional washout where rain had carved new channels into the earth. But it was passable, and Zack found himself looking forward to seeing his family again. Two weeks alone had been good enough for him, but he missed his parents' easy rapport, Chloe's artistic chatter, even her terrible jokes.
As he reaches the flatter farmland at the base of the mountains, something feels off.
The Johnson farm, which usually bustled with activity this time of day, sits empty. Tractors and trucks were scattered throughout the fields as if their operators had simply vanished mid-task.
No cattle grazing in the pastures either.
Zack slows his truck, frowning. He tries the radio, wondering if there was some sort of event happening today. But turning the dial through station after station, he hears nothing but static.
He pulls into the farm's driveway and gets out, leaving the engine running.
"Hello?" he calls toward the farmhouse. "Anybody home?"
His voice echoes across the empty yard. From inside the house, he could hear the distant buzz of television, but no voices, no footsteps. Even the farm dogs where nowhere to be seen.
"Hello?" he tries again, louder this time.
Nothing.
Did the Johnson's move away, he wonders.
But then, why leave all their farm equipment behind.
Movement in the distant field catches his attention—a small group of deer slowly emerging from the dense forest, approaching the field, their ears pricking to pick up any signs of danger. The deers enter the field and begin to graze where cattle should have been. One looks up and notices him but doesn't bolt, comfortable with the absence of human activity.
Zack climbs back into his truck, unease prickling at the back of his neck. It was probably nothing. Maybe the Johnson's had gone to visit relatives. Mayb there'd been some kind of emergency that called everyone away.
But as he drives through town, the emptiness becomes impossible to ignore.
Main Street stands deserted, cars parked at odd angles in the middle of the road as if their drivers had simply stepped out and walked away. The traffic light cycled pointlessly from red to green, with no one there to obey its signals.
Through the windshield of his truck, Zack studies the abandoned storefronts, the empty sidewalks, the complete absence of human life. His hands tighten on the steering wheel as he turns into Maple Street, weaving carefully around a sedan that sits diagonally across both lanes, its driver's door hanging open.
As he navigates toward his neighborhood, more details register.
A Honda civic abandoned in the intersection, hazard lights still blinking weakly. A pickup truck stopped halfway through a three-point turn, blocking the sidewalk.
He has to reverse to find an alternate route around a cluster of vehicles that looked like they'd collided in slow motion, their drivers vanishing before impact.
When he finally turned onto the familiar curve of his cul-de-sac, something else strikes him as wrong.
The lawns—usually pristine, maintained every Saturday morning with urban precision—were growing wild. Mrs. Patterson's prize-winning roses sprawling untamed over her white picket fence. Mr. Richmond's precious begonias and marigolds were completely drowned, the flowerbeds turned to muddy swamps with a garden hose lying nearby, still trickling water as if someone had simply dropped it mid-watering and walked away.
It was such a small thing, but somehow it felt more unsettling than the abandoned cars.
His neighbors took their landscaping seriously—almost competitively so. For the plants to look like this, no one had touched them for days.
Panic slowly started rising inside him.
Whatever happened here, he was about to find out if it had reached his family too.