Time had stopped meaning much inside the quarantine zone. There was no calendar nailed to the wall, no radio broadcast counting the days, no clock that mattered. Days bled into nights, nights into days, and all anyone knew was that the world had cracked open and they were trapped inside the fracture.
Michael didn't bother keeping count anymore. A man could drive himself crazy scratching tallies into concrete, waiting for rescue or salvation that wasn't coming. He lived by simpler measures: how much food was left, how much water they could carry back from the distribution line, how many soldiers looked tired enough to make mistakes.
In the beginning, the zone had almost felt orderly. Soldiers barked orders with the clipped precision of training, rations were handed out in neat lines, and the fences hummed with the electricity of control. But months had gnawed at that order like rats in a granary. Now boots dragged instead of marched. Officers spoke with weariness instead of command. Even the fences seemed tired, sagging in spots, patched hastily with scrap metal and welded rebar.
And the people? The people had changed the most. The fear that once kept them quiet had curdled into something uglier resentment, anger, desperation. You could see it in the way they hunched over their rations, guarding every bite, in the way voices snapped louder, quicker, more violent over scraps. Hope had burned out, leaving only smoke.
Michael watched it all with the same quiet detachment he'd carried through every battlefield of his past life. To him, this wasn't shocking. It was predictable. Quarantine zones weren't havens. They were pressure cookers. And sooner or later, something inside always exploded.
Sarah and Lena had gone on the morning water run, two jugs each clutched tight in their hands. When they came back, faces pale and lips pressed thin, Michael knew before they spoke that something had happened.
He set down the length of wire he'd been working into a makeshift snare and rose to meet them.
"What?" His voice was steady, even.
Sarah bit her lip before answering. "A fight broke out in the line. A man said someone cut. Soldiers… they didn't listen. They hit him. Hard."
Lena nodded, her eyes wide and wet. "It was awful. Everyone was yelling. They dragged him away. He was still breathing, but… I don't know if he'll make it."
Michael inhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, then crouched so he could meet their eyes directly. He'd learned long ago that children didn't need lies. They needed something to hold onto.
"You did the right thing," he said. "You kept your heads down. You brought back the water. That's all that matters."
Sarah's eyes were burning though, not with fear, but with anger. "It wasn't fair. He didn't cut. I saw him. They just "
"Fair doesn't keep you alive," Michael interrupted, his tone firm but not harsh. "Fair is a word that doesn't mean anything anymore. You want to make it through this? You learn when to fight and when to stay still. Today, you stayed still. That's survival."
Sarah pressed her lips together, but she nodded. Lena just clutched the jug tighter, as if afraid it might slip away like everything else.
That night, Michael met Kyle in the abandoned parking structure again. They'd picked it as their quiet meeting place, away from the soldiers' patrols and the prying eyes of desperate civilians. Their little cache of supplies was hidden there barbed wire bats, a couple of crude spike bombs, smoke jars filled with ash and oil. Nothing flashy, nothing that would draw suspicion, but enough to give them an edge if the zone started to fall apart.
Kyle flicked a cigarette stub between his fingers, unlit, savoring it like a relic.
"This place is going to eat itself alive," Kyle muttered, shaking his head. "Don't need infected. Don't need bombs. Just hunger and fear. That's all it takes."
Michael checked the smoke bombs, making sure the seals held, making sure the oil hadn't leaked. "That's always all it takes."
"You sound like you've seen it before."
Michael's gaze stayed on the weapons. "I've seen enough. People don't need much help to break. Just a push."
Kyle studied him for a long moment, then looked away. He didn't ask for details. He knew better.
The cracks showed more each day. Bread lines shortened, bowls of soup thinned until they were little more than broth. Soldiers began confiscating tools anything sharper than a spoon, anything that could be turned into a weapon. People whispered that the confiscations weren't about safety, but control.
At night, those whispers grew louder. Some said other zones had fallen. Some swore they'd seen soldiers slipping away with bags of food for themselves. Others murmured that the infected had gotten inside, that people had vanished in the dark.
Michael didn't believe every rumor, but he didn't dismiss them either. Rumors were like smoke you might not see the fire yet, but it was burning somewhere.
Then came the broadcast.
The loudspeakers crackled to life one afternoon, static hissing before a general's voice cut through. It was the same speech they'd heard a dozen times already: promises of stability, of safety, of new shipments arriving "soon."
Michael listened without expression. Promises like that were worth less than the paper they weren't printed on. He'd heard them in ruined cities, from officers already halfway out the door. He knew a man reading a script when he heard one.
Still, for Sarah and Lena, there were small lights in the darkness. They'd made friends two kids their age, a brother and sister who had managed to survive with their mother. For a time, their laughter returned in quick bursts, hushed games played in the shadow of the crumbling walls.
Michael let them. He wanted them to have something human left. But he also knew better than to let them cling too hard. Nothing in this world lasted long.
His fears sharpened the morning he saw a soldier dragging a coughing man out of the ration line. The scanner blinked red in the soldier's hand, the crude device humming like it was straining to do a job too big for it.
Michael's stomach clenched. He'd watched those scanners enough to know they were unreliable. They had let infected slip through before. And if even one turned inside the zone…
He kept his face still, but inside he was already counting exits, already picturing the chaos that would follow.
"It's only a matter of time," he muttered.
Kyle, standing beside him, gave a short nod. "Then we make damn sure we're ready when it happens."
Michael didn't look at him, just kept his eyes on the scanning line. "Always. That's the only way you survive. You stay ready."
And though the people around them still clung to scraps of order, Michael knew the truth. The zone wasn't holding. It was rotting. And sooner or later, rot always spread.