The streets lay bare, though crowded with absence. Edward Arnold walked beside his father and mother, each step echoing in the hollow city. The air was heavy, thick with distrust, yet lighter in a sense, for people had abandoned most of their routines. The government had thrown open doors—malls, hospitals, banks—all left free, all unguarded. It was not generosity but despair; freedom had become a slow, inexorable poison, for the city's economy collapsed beneath it, leaving only fragments of survival.
Edward glanced at a bank along the way, its doors smashed and windows fractured, the smell of spent fire and metal lingering in the air. And there, just a few meters from the ruin, a group of five stood—composed, calm, impossibly still. They did not speak; they did not move. And yet, they smiled. The smiles were not of joy but of eternity, as though they had waited before the world's collapse and would wait still after it, untouched by time, untouched by reason.
It was strange and terrible. Edward felt a shiver run along his spine. What did it mean to smile without end? To exist without motion or breath, yet remain so absolute, so immovable, so horrifyingly alive in one's stillness? The mind recoiled, refusing to calculate their meaning, and yet it knew, at some deep and unnameable level, that these smiles were the answer to questions the city no longer dared to ask. The heart, however, resisted: it recoiled in fear, in pity, and—Edward did not know why—in sorrow.
"Matilda… honey, please," his father said, his voice low, almost a murmur. "Turn around. We are not going anymore to the mall."
Edward's steps faltered. His mind, which had been so focused on the practical—supplies, food, safety—shivered in frustration. "But Dad, we still need a lot of supplies. For Maria, and… and food for months, because we…" His voice trailed, uncertain. Even now, it seemed as though the very world resisted his arguments.
Matilda's hand gripped her metal bar tightly, her knuckles pale beneath the skin. "You're dad is right. We probably shouldn't do a suicide mission." Her words were firm, but there was also a tremor—an awareness that each choice might carry consequences far beyond reason.
"I know," his father said. His eyes, dark under the weight of care and worry, lingered on Edward, then shifted to the streets beyond. "But what about if we go to a low population street?" His voice held that faint hope that reason might yet survive the city's collapse.
"North Street," his mother suggested. Her tone was cautious, weighted with experience, yet tinged with the quiet despair of those who have already witnessed too many wrong steps.
"Not that one," Edward interjected. "It's full of… partying. Just people without guidance. People with real problems with their parents. The street is alive, but wrong, and reckless in a way we cannot touch."
His mother's voice hardened, soft but unmistakable. "Yeah. Don't you dare approach that road, or even think about it."
"You're just seventeen," his father said, a quiet chuckle, but the words carried both the fondness and helplessness of age.
"I will never let you go there," Matilda replied sharply, "even if you are ninety-eight and your grandpa wants to accompany you."
His father smiled, or at least the shadow of a smile touched his lips. "So funny, honey."
Matilda snorted. "Hi. It seemed funnier on the internet. And don't act like you're the funny one, Noah."
Noah, his father, raised an eyebrow with mock dignity. "I am very comedic, right Edie?"
Edward rolled his eyes. "No, and stop fooling around."
Noah muttered, almost to himself, almost like a confession to the street itself, "At least Ree values me."
Edward shook his head. "Okay, Dad. We're just there."
They walked further, eyes scanning, hands gripping metal bars with the subtle tension of those who know every shadow could contain the end of reason. They looked for the creatures they called zombies, but found none. Only silence. Only the distorted, lingering world around them.
Noah turned to Matilda, a faint vindication in his tone. "Wasn't I right?"
Matilda's smile, slow and rueful, softened in relief. "Yes… yes, you were. I suppose… in some way, you were right about the streets. About the dangers… the way the shadows linger… and even about keeping us from rushing into… into what might have been nothing but our own undoing. Yes… yes, you were right."
Edward's mind remained tense, calculating, shifting between caution and desire. His fingers brushed the metal of the bar in readiness, yet his heart lingered on another concern—the car, the only fragile vehicle that might carry them safely if chaos struck the city fully. The group paused. Edward, reluctant, hesitated.
"Good luck," he said softly, almost a whisper, almost a prayer. "And… be cautious."
The others nodded, faces pale in the dim light, shadows flickering along the walls as if the city itself listened. The weight of the streets pressed down. The ruined bank, the smiling five, the deserted mall—they all waited, silent witnesses to the fragile march of human persistence. And Edward remained, heart heavy, metal bar ready, and mind unwilling to abandon the fragile vessel of survival they had built.
Above them, the sky hung low, gray as judgment. Each step, each breath, each heartbeat felt amplified by the pressure of inevitability. The shadows lingered at the edges of vision, moving or waiting—it was impossible to know. And somewhere, in the distant streets, the eternal smiles remained, like an unanswerable question, like a riddle too cruel for thought, too absolute for mercy.
Edward Arnold exhaled, and in that moment, he felt it—the strange communion of terror and love. Life was fragile. Chaos was omnipresent. And yet, in the small vigil he kept, in the protection of the car, in the care for family, there was a single, trembling certainty: survival, prayer, and human love could still exist, if only for a moment, if only within themselves.
And so he waited. Boots unyielding, heart steady, mind clear.