The journey downward felt far more oppressive than the climb.

  Something about descending felt wrong, as if I was retreating further into the jaws of something waiting, something hungry. The realization of where—when—I was clung to me like a second skin, a cold, suffocating layer of terror that I couldn’t shake.

  This was my world.

  Or what was left of it.

  Seven years separated me from the life I had known, yet here I was, moving through the hollow, decayed carcass of a history that had diverged into something else—something horrific.

  My boots scraped against the ruined carpet as I followed Anna down the stairwell, each step slow and deliberate. The cold, stagnant air thickened with an unnatural silence—no street noise, no distant hum of cars, no chatter of life beyond these walls. Just the soft, rhythmic shhhk of our movements and the faint, hollow moans that drifted from deeper within the building.

  I didn’t want to hear those sounds.

  Didn’t want to acknowledge them.

  But they were there, just beyond the cracked doors of abandoned offices, beyond the darkness spilling from shattered rooms. The faint shuffle of rotted feet against brittle paper. The quiet creak of old desks shifting beneath unseen weight.

  Anna moved like she belonged in this world, her every step light, deliberate, controlled. Her breathing steady. Her hands tight around the grip of her battered bat.

  I, on the other hand, felt like an intruder—a mistake standing in a place where I was never meant to exist.

  I wasn’t built for this.

  Not for the rot, the emptiness, the quiet horror of a world that had already lost.

  And yet, here I was.

  I gritted my teeth, forcing the thoughts away. Focus. Focus on the mission. Focus on getting out of here alive.

  Anna whispered as she moved. “We’re double-checking every floor on the way down. If we missed anything, we grab it now.”

  We moved cautiously, floor by floor, the destruction and decay worsening with every level we descended.

  Cubicles sat in disarray, chairs knocked over, desks ransacked, broken computers and shattered monitors scattered across mold-ridden carpets. Some places had the eerie look of a hasty evacuation, half-filled coffee cups left on desks, papers fluttering with the occasional draft from broken windows.

  Other rooms… weren’t so lucky.

  Some told a different story.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Dark stains marked the floors where bodies had collapsed and rotted away to nothing. Empty husks of skin clung to tattered clothes, the last remnants of the long-dead. Some had left behind skeletal remains, but others… others had simply dissolved into the fabric of the world.

  And still, from behind some of the closed doors, things moved.

  I could hear them.

  The slow, shuffling drag of feet against old carpet. The faint, wet sound of something breathing through decayed lungs. I had to force myself not to look through the cracks in the doors, not to see what was waiting just inches away.

  Anna barely hesitated. If she heard them, she didn’t acknowledge them—just kept moving forward. And so I followed, swallowing down the bile rising in my throat.

  By the time we reached the storage room, the weight of exhaustion and hunger was grinding against me mercilessly. My stomach was a hollow pit, a constant gnawing reminder that my body was on borrowed time.

  Anna entered first, sweeping the flashlight over the wreckage inside. The dim, artificial glow flickered across metal shelves, collapsed boxes, and dust-laden cabinets.

  We searched, but it was like picking through the remnants of a forgotten world.

  Faded office supplies—pens, paper, staplers, all utterly worthless.

  Discolored, unopened boxes of printer ink.

  Stacks of yellowed manuals with curling corners.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  I exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand over my face, feeling the grime stick to my skin. “There’s got to be something here,” I muttered, my voice barely above a whisper. “Anything.”

  Anna, crouched by a lower shelf, made a small sound before reaching inside. When she stood, she held up two dusty, sealed water bottles.

  Relief flooded through me so fast my knees nearly buckled.

  Anna gave me a dry look as she tossed one my way. “Don’t chug it all at once. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  I didn’t care.

  The moment the plastic hit my palm, I twisted the cap off and took a desperate gulp. The water was stale, plastic-tasting, but I didn’t care. I barely even felt the liquid hit my stomach before I was drinking again.

  Anna watched me with mild amusement as she took a measured sip of her own bottle.

  “Man Child,” she muttered under her breath.

  I paused mid-drink, narrowing my eyes at her. “Excuse me?”

  She smirked slightly, twisting the cap back onto her bottle. “You drink like someone who’s never been actually thirsty before. Like someone who’s always had running water, food, air conditioning.”

  I frowned. “And you haven’t?”

  Her expression darkened slightly, but she didn’t answer right away. Instead, she gestured for me to follow her back out of the room. As we re-entered the dim corridor, she finally spoke, voice lower than before.

  “I was a teenager when everything went to hell,” she muttered. “So yeah—I remember what things used to be like. But those memories don’t mean shit anymore.”

  Her words were a slap of cold reality.

  The world she knew had ended when she was still a child. She’d grown up in this nightmare, survived when billions had died. To her, this was life. The ruins, the dead, the constant terror—it was all she had ever known.

  For me, it had been Hours since I’d stepped into this world.

  For her, it had been a lifetime.

  I swallowed thickly, my grip tightening around my rebar as my brain once again screamed that none of this was real—that I had to wake up.

  But this wasn’t a dream.

  This wasn’t a nightmare.

  This was my world.

  And I was trapped in it.

  The wind howled through the broken skyscraper, a mournful sound that echoed through the dark, empty halls. Anna led the way back toward the stairwell, her bat slung loosely over her shoulder, moving with the same quiet ease as before.

  I followed, my stomach tightening, my pulse quickening every time I heard the faint shuffle of movement behind closed doors.

  This place…

  It was suffocating.

  Like it was alive and watching us.

  I glanced back one last time before stepping onto the stairwell, staring at the rows of broken offices, the ruined desks, the faded signs of a world that had once thrived here. Now, it was nothing but a graveyard

  I nodded silently, gripping the rebar tightly in my hand. My fingers ached from the tension, but I refused to loosen my grip. It was the only thing I had.