Ethan collapsed against the door of his apartment, the wood groaning under his weight as he slid the heavy metal bolt into place. His breath came in ragged, wet hitches, and the metallic tang of the black gas felt like it was burning the inside of his throat. He was alive, but the victory felt hollow. In a world where half the population had been erased, every survival story was written in blood.He looked down at his hands. They were shaking violently, coated in the thick, tar-like substance that had sprayed from the wolf abomination. It wasn't just blood; it was a corruption that seemed to eat away at the light. Ethan scrambled to find a rag, any piece of cloth that wasn't completely filthy, to wipe the stinging fluid from his skin. Every movement was an agony. The rakes across his chest from the creature's claws were deep, turning the edges of his tattered shirt a dark, sodden crimson.The scarcity of resources hit him with a fresh wave of despair. There was no running water to wash the wounds. The electricity that once powered water heaters was a dead memory, and the pipes had long ago run dry or become clogged with the same black sludge that fouled the air. He reached for one of his two remaining soft drinks—the ones he had risked his life to scavenge from his neighbor's room. He didn't want to waste it on a wound, but the infection from an abomination was a death sentence.He cracked the tab of the warm soda, the hiss of carbonation sounding like a scream in the oppressive silence of the room. He poured the sugary liquid over his chest. The sting was blinding. Ethan bit down on a piece of leather to keep from crying out, knowing that a scream would only draw more gruesome beings to his door.The fire in Ethan's chest refused to subside, the sugary liquid of the soda mixing with the black grime and blood to create a sticky, stinging mess. He sat in the corner of his room, the only place far enough from the windows to avoid being seen by any wandering abominations outside. Every shadow in the room seemed to stretch and twist, a haunting reminder of how things touched by the black gas began to warp strangely. A year had passed since the mirror shattered, yet the trauma of that first day remained etched in his soul—the image of Frank roaring in anger before the gas leaked through the cracked glass and turned the basement into a tomb.Ethan leaned his head against the cold wall, his mind drifting back to the stories of how it all began. He had heard rumors of a group of religious fanatics summoned this disaster from another world. It seemed impossible that the collapse of human society, the death of billions, and the rise of the gruesome beings could be traced back to such. But in this new lawless reality, where the plants withered and the very air felt heavy with corruption, the "how" mattered far less than the "now".He looked at the second can of soda—his final reserve. His neighbor, the one he had stolen these from, had been gone for two months, likely transformed into something like the wolf Ethan had just fought. Ethan realized his sanctuary was compromised. The smell of his blood was fresh, and the black ichor he had tracked in was a beacon for the creatures that now occupied the earth. The silence of the apartment complex was no longer comforting; it was predatory.He forced himself to stand, his legs shaking. He needed to find real water and actual bandages if he wanted to survive the night. He grabbed his rusted machete, the metal still stained with the wolf's dark residue. His eighteen-year-old body was pushed to its limit, but he couldn't stop. He walked toward the door, listening intently. If he stayed, he was a sitting duck. If he left, he was a target.Choosing the latter, he unbolted the door. The hallway was a tunnel of darkness, the wallpaper peeling like dead skin. He began to knock on the neighboring doors, just as he had done all day, but this time his movements were frantic. He barged into the next unit, the door splintering under his desperate kick. Inside, the air was stagnant, smelling of dust and the faint, lingering scent of that cursed black gas. He searched the kitchen cabinets, throwing aside broken ceramic and rusted cutlery. Nothing.He moved to the bathroom, hoping against hope that the toilet tank might still hold a few cups of stagnant water. He lifted the lid, but all he found was a dry, blackened interior, coated in the same soot-like film that had claimed the plants on the first day. The desperation in his gut twisted into a knot of cold fury. He was an eighteen-year-old boy who should have been worrying about school or friends, but instead, he was scavenging for drops of water in a graveyard of a city.As he prepared to leave the room, a sound from the hallway froze him in place. It wasn't the heavy tread of a wolf or the mindless shuffling of a human-turned-abomination. It was a rhythmic tapping, followed by a low, guttural hiss that vibrated through the floorboards. The creatures were inside the building. Ethan gripped the handle of his machete, his knuckles white. The hunt was no longer outside on the road; the end of the world had finally come knocking on his inner circle. He backed into the shadows of the bedroom, his eyes fixed on the doorway, waiting for the first sign of twisted flesh to appear in the moonlight.The scent of the corrupted blood was a loud invitation in a world that thrived on silence. Ethan realized his mistake too late; between the metallic tang of the abomination's ichor clinging to his clothes and the echoed thuds of his desperate search through the neighboring rooms, he had practically rung a dinner bell for every predator in the vicinity. The rhythmic tapping in the hallway grew louder, a sound of bone-on-wood that suggested something with too many limbs was navigating the narrow corridor.He retreated deeper into the darkness of the apartment, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Every breath was a struggle, his lungs still burning from the black gas that had begun to twist reality exactly one year ago. He thought back to the story of the two men—the one built like a torch and the one like a meatball—whose argument over a woman named Sarah and an affair with Elena had led to the shattering of a mirror and the release of this plague. It was a small, petty beginning for a catastrophe that had already erased half of humanity.The door to the apartment creaked. Ethan didn't wait to see what was coming through. He knew the layout of these units; there was a fire escape through the kitchen window, though it was rusted and prone to screaming if moved too quickly. He moved with a ghost's grace, his boots barely touching the floorboards. He reached the kitchen and looked back one last time. A shadow was stretching across the living room floor—a jagged, impossible shape that didn't belong to a human or a wolf.He slid the window up, the friction grating against his nerves. He stepped onto the iron grating of the fire escape, the cold night air biting into the raw claw marks on his chest. Below, the streets were a graveyard of rusted cars and overgrown weeds, all touched by the gas that made plants wither and turn into ash. He began his descent, his hands gripping the freezing metal.Halfway down, he looked through the windows of the floor below. He saw figures huddled in the corners—survivors who had gone silent, people hiding in their homes and only venturing out for the scarcest supplies. They didn't look up. In this new society, there was no help, no judgment, and no mercy. There was only the hunt. Ethan reached the ground and vanished into the shadows of an alleyway, his rusted machete tight in his hand. He had lost his sanctuary, but he was still breathing, and in a world of abominations, that was the only victory that mattered.
