I awoke to a gentle glow stealing across the tattered remains of the apartment, a color so soft and ethereal it felt almost sacrilegious in this ravaged world. Sunlight—pale pink and gold—broke through the shattered windows and gaping holes in the walls. It crept along the dusty floor, illuminating water-stained furniture and rotting debris in a strangely beautiful glow. For a moment, it was as though the city itself was exhaling, releasing a single sigh of relief after the horrors of the night.

  Cautiously, I rose from my makeshift bed on the warped floorboards, rubbing the stiffness from my neck. The building groaned under shifting temperature, settling with creaks and cracks that echoed through the deserted halls. As I moved toward the broken window, the sunrise spread out before me like a watercolor painting gone wrong—a jagged skyline of twisted steel and shattered glass, all softened by the delicate hues of pink and orange. It was as though the apocalypse had paused for a moment to let the sun do its work, painting the ruins in gentle shades that belied the violence lying just beyond each alleyway.

  Anna stood off to the side, leaning against what remained of a broken window frame. The dawn cast her in silhouette—a tall, lithe figure with taut muscles under her tattered shirt and cargo pants. Her hair, once bound in a ponytail, now fell in loose strands around her face, catching stray beams of sunlight that turned them a burnished bronze. I couldn’t help the sudden ache in my chest as I looked at her: she was breathtaking in a stark, haunting way, shaped by this relentless world yet somehow transcending it. Dirt and dried blood smeared her arms and cheeks, but beneath that grime, her angular features and fierce eyes revealed a beauty that took me off guard.

  She caught me staring and arched a brow. A faint smirk curled the corner of her lip before she turned back to the ruined city outside. “Sun’s up,” she said quietly, her voice carrying a subdued tension. “We need to move.”

  I nodded, swallowing the dryness in my throat. “Where to?”

  She turned, studying me with the same calculating intensity she’d shown since we met, yet now it held a hint of reluctant concern. “You said you had someplace you came in from. Some… key, right?” She shook her head, as though still not quite believing. “Wherever that is, I’ll get you there—before the day’s out.”

  My pulse quickened. I had almost forgotten: the gate. My chance to leave this dying realm. Twenty-four hours. God, how many of them had I already burned? “It’s near where I woke up. That… building I stumbled into. The cottage basement.”

  “Fine.” She pushed away from the window frame, stretching with a slight grimace as her muscles strained against her worn clothes. “Point the way. But if you’re as clueless about directions as you are about killing roamers, we’re in for a rough trip.”

  A flush of embarrassment heated my cheeks, but I shoved it down and forced myself to stand straighter. “I remember the general direction. It’s not far from the spot where the door first spat me out.” My heart thumped at the memory, part dread, part relief. If I could make it back… maybe I could end this nightmare.

  Anna studied me a beat longer, then nodded curtly. “Then let’s go.” She stalked past me, bat slung over her shoulder, leaving me to hurry behind, rebar in hand.

  Outside, the dawn light revealed a city almost peaceful—until you caught sight of the carnage that night had left behind. Mangled corpses lay sprawled in the streets, some with bullet holes from the Empire’s raids, others half-eaten by roamers or ferals that had passed through. The sweetly cloying smell of old blood and decay hung thick, mingling with the morning’s cool air in a nauseating brew that stung my sinuses.

  The buildings loomed above us, windows jagged and empty as dead eyes. Shattered glass littered the sidewalks. We edged carefully through the rubble, ducking behind rusted cars and crumbling walls every time a distant shuffle or guttural moan drifted our way. My heart pounded like a war drum, fear lurking in every shadow. Yet, somehow, the pink sunlight glancing off broken steel beams gave the devastation a surreal sort of beauty, like a grim monument to humanity’s downfall.

  Anna led with purposeful strides, pausing now and then to check corners or press an ear to a doorway. Her movements were precise, methodical. When she turned back to motion me forward, the sun would catch in her eyes—storm-gray and fierce, reflecting a world that had ground her down but hadn’t broken her. For one absurd moment, I wondered what she might have been like in a peaceful life—if her beauty would have been less haunted, her lips more prone to smiling. Then another distant groan snapped me back into the present horror.

  We crept between two partially collapsed buildings, dust rising in choking clouds with every step. Rotted wooden beams stuck out at odd angles, threatening to snag our clothes or slice through skin if we weren’t cautious. The sickening stench of mildew and old flesh seeped from within the ruins, a reminder that any place could be hiding one of those mutated monsters, waiting in the darkness.

  Anna glanced over her shoulder. “You sure we’re going the right way?”

  “I—I think so,” I stammered, straining to recall the path I’d taken when I’d first arrived, half-dazed by panic. “It all looks so different in the daylight.”

  She narrowed her eyes but didn’t argue. We pressed on, weaving through the debris-strewn alley, stepping around bloated bodies with half-torn limbs. A swirl of flies buzzed upward as we passed, their angry drone momentarily deafening.

  My stomach rolled, but I pushed the nausea down. Keep moving. Keep going.

  The hush of early morning was deceptive—beneath it lurked the knowledge that roamers, ferals, or worse could burst onto the scene at any moment. Yet the dawn’s pale rays lingered on the battered concrete and steel, casting everything in gentle pastels that almost hid the blood and rot. Almost.

  We emerged onto a wide street, the same road I recognized from that first frantic flight. My pulse skittered. Relief clashed with dread, forming a knot in my chest. This was the right direction—meaning the cottage lay not far ahead. The place I’d arrived. The place that might be my only ticket home.

  Anna caught my eye, gave a curt nod. “Then let’s keep moving.”

  We headed forward, warily scanning the surroundings, every nerve on edge. The sun climbed higher, gilding broken rooftops and turning twisted metal into streaks of gold. For a fleeting second, everything glowed like a painting, achingly beautiful despite the tragedy. We slipped farther along the ruined street, the early sunlight brushing pink and gold across broken facades and jagged shards of glass. It was a bizarre contrast—so much destruction framed in gentle dawn hues that, in another life, might have whispered promises of hope. Here, though, it felt more like a cruel joke: the world was still beautiful, and that only served to highlight the horror that lurked within its hollows.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Anna stopped abruptly, kneeling behind the rusted shell of an overturned pickup. “Hold up,” she murmured, her tone sharp with caution. She gestured for me to crouch beside her.

  My heart rammed into my ribcage. “What is it?” I whispered, knuckles whitening around the rebar.

  She jerked her chin toward an intersection up ahead. Through the haze of dust drifting on the morning air, I caught a glimpse of movement—a pair of roamers, swaying on crooked legs. The smaller one dragged its foot behind it, leaving a dark smear on the asphalt that made my stomach churn. Its arms twitched erratically as if in a silent spasm. The larger one looked fresher, with tattered clothing still recognizable as a shirt and pants, though the left sleeve was shredded away to expose slick, mottled skin. It lurched forward, jaw slack, head lolling at an odd angle, as though the neck had half-snapped.

  Anna’s voice dropped to a near-inaudible hum. “They haven’t spotted us. If we move carefully, we can circle around behind the shop fronts.” She eyed me. “You up for a detour?”

  I exhaled, trying to settle my nerves. “Yeah,” I managed, though my voice sounded shaky to my own ears. “Better than taking them on, right?”

  She gave a quick nod. “Let’s go.”

  We rose from our hiding spot, moving in a crouch along a pocked concrete sidewalk. My muscles burned with tension, and every sound—even our soft footfalls—sounded deafening in my head. The roamers’ groans drifted through the stale air like a twisted lullaby, punctuated by the faint rustle of the breeze through sagging power lines overhead.

  Anna eased open a battered service door leading into what looked like a clothing shop. The glass front was long gone, shards glittering on the floor in drifts of dust. We stepped inside, the stench of mildew hitting like a sour wave. Racks of threadbare clothing lay toppled and picked clean, their fabrics torn away to reveal bent metal arms. Broken mannequins were scattered across the floor—one missing a head, another missing both arms. A child mannequin lay in a corner, its plastic face cracked and half-melted, an image that made my stomach turn.

  Keeping her bat at the ready, Anna swept her gaze around the shop. Satisfied it was empty, she beckoned me to follow. We cut through aisles littered with debris, inching carefully around jagged metal stands that threatened to snag our clothes or slice through our flesh. The ceiling above was riddled with water stains, chunks of plaster missing, leaving a raw, crumbling lattice of wood beams behind.

  She spoke quietly as we walked. “You said you came through a door in a cottage. You sure you can just… go back?”

  I swallowed, recalling the battered cottage and its ominous copper door in the basement. “That’s how it worked before,” I whispered. “The key lets me use it, but only after a certain amount of time.” My palms felt slick with sweat at the memory of that final moment—turning the key, the stink of putrid air, my defiant outburst. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  She paused, turning to me with an unreadable expression. “You really think you can just… leave this world?”

  I nodded, though my conviction felt forced. “I have to. This place—” I gestured feebly at the shattered store around us, “—I’m not… I’m not built for it.”

  Her gaze flicked away, a muscle in her jaw tightening. “No one is,” she said flatly. “But we survive anyway.” There was no accusation in her tone this time, only a grim resignation.

  For a moment, the sunlight glinting through the half-ruined roof touched her hair, illuminating a few faint strands of color amid the grime. It cast her face in gentle relief, accentuating her high cheekbones and the stubborn set of her jaw. Even with dirt smudged across her forehead, a streak of dried blood on her shirt, and tension etched into every line of her body, there was something profoundly striking about her. The raw, unwavering determination in her eyes was as compelling as it was daunting. I felt a flutter in my chest—an unwelcome pang in a place where fear and survival left little room for sentiment.

  But there it was, a flicker of something more human than terror. I turned my face away quickly, heat crawling up my neck. This was no time to get distracted.

  Anna cleared her throat. “We’ll head out the back.” She pointed to a tattered curtain. “There might be an alley connecting to another block. If it’s clear, we can bypass those roamers.”

  I nodded and followed her, picking my way through the wreckage. Broken fluorescent tubes crunched underfoot, glass dust swirling in the tepid light. We reached the curtain, thick with mold and torn halfway down, revealing a cramped storeroom beyond. Shadows pooled in corners overflowing with boxes of rotting fabric. The smell of decay was heavier here, and I had to fight not to gag.

  Anna paused, scanning the space. “Stick close,” she muttered. “I don’t like the smell of this.”

  We moved past limp cardboard boxes, sagging under years of humidity and neglect, picking our steps carefully to avoid the worst of the debris. A flurry of movement under a collapsed shelf made me flinch, heart jumping into my throat, but it was only a rat skittering away into the gloom, its fur patchy and diseased.

  We pressed on, stepping through a door riddled with peeling paint and rusted hinges into an alley behind the building. The sunlight was stronger here—vibrant streaks of rose and gold cutting through the gloom, painting the grimy brick walls in unexpected splendor. Yet the alley itself was choked with rubbish and toppled dumpsters. The reek of stale urine mingled with the metallic tang of old blood, turning my stomach.

  Anna kept her bat raised, her eyes flicking around every corner. The hush weighed on me, the hush of a city that had forgotten how to be alive. It was broken only by distant moans, echoing faintly from who knew where. I forced each breath to stay controlled, trying not to recall how easily the roamers could materialize from around any bend.

  We advanced in tense silence, weaving through the alley’s rubbish. Drips of murky water seeped from broken drainpipes overhead, splashing onto the pavement like a slow, arrhythmic heartbeat. My grip on the rebar was so tight my knuckles had gone pale.

  As we neared the mouth of the alley, sunlight burst in full force, illuminating a wide street beyond—cracked asphalt, crumpled cars coated in layers of dust. A lonely breeze picked up scraps of paper, swirling them through the air like ghostly confetti.

  Anna stopped at the edge, pressing her back to the wall and peering out. She signaled for me to hold still, her muscles tensing. My own nerves prickled, every cell waiting for an explosion of motion from the undead or from human marauders. But a quick glance told me the street was… momentarily empty. No roamers, no foot patrols. Just a silent stretch of broken city.

  She exhaled, turning to me. “We’ll cross here, then head east. The place you described… it’s gotta be near the older houses before the buildings get more spaced out, right?”

  I nodded, trying to mask the tremor in my voice. “Yes. It wasn’t exactly a mansion, but it was separate from the other structures. Old wood paneling, overgrown yard…” My memory was hazy with fear, but I clung to the details like a lifeline. “It can’t be more than a few blocks away. When I came through… I remember running south from it. Or I think it was south.”

  She gave a tight shrug. “Good enough. I’ll watch your back.”

  Despite the bleakness, her words stirred a small surge of relief in me. She’d come this far—maybe we both wanted an end to our strange alliance. Or maybe, just maybe, part of her believed I deserved a shot at leaving this place behind.

  We slipped out onto the street, the pink-gold sunlight washing over us. It was eerie how peaceful the city looked under that pastel sky, every broken window and collapsed roof cast in a romantic glow that belied the carnage and terror. A bitter taste filled my mouth as we hurried across broken pavement. There was nothing romantic about any of this.

  Anna kept close, scanning every angle. A stooped, twisted shape emerged at the far end of the block—a roamer or feral, it was hard to tell—but it remained oblivious for now, staggering away. My pulse hammered as we skirted around a rusted sedan, pushing forward.

  “It’s not far,” I whispered, feeling a surge of desperate hope. “Maybe… a few more streets.”

  She glanced at me, her gaze unyielding but not unkind. “Then let’s keep moving.”

  And so we did, surrounded by the silent wreckage of a civilization that had devoured itself, hounded by the knowledge that a single misstep could mean death—or worse.