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Chapter Text

   - The Journal of Uzi Doorman -

Entry 1:

It’s been two days since the outbreak.

I don’t really know why I’m writing this. I guess it’s something to do—something that helps me feel like I still exist in all this mess. Maybe if I keep track of things, it’ll make sense someday. Or maybe someone will find this and know we were here. That I  was here.

Two days ago, the world ended. Not in the dramatic, one-town-quarantined kind of way. I mean everything. The entire world—gone, just like that.

There wasn’t a warning. No signs, no time to prepare. I was in my room, doing the usual—just playing video games, zoning out, pretending life wasn’t as boring as it usually was.

Then the emergency broadcast came on.

All drones were told to stay inside. Avoid other drones. Avoid devices. That part stuck with me, even then. Something about it didn’t sound right.

I went to get Dad. I figured he’d brush it off like always, call it a glitch or some corporate stunt. But when he saw the screen, he froze. He never freezes.

That’s when the broadcast cut out, and the screen glitched into something else—a bright, cartoonish smiley face, and this weird, cheery little song playing underneath. It told us everything was fine. That we should go near our technology. That it was safe.

Dad didn’t even hesitate. He picked up the nearest glass and hurled it at the TV. The whole screen shattered, glass everywhere. Then he turned to me and told me to break everything. Every screen, every computer. Anything electric.

No hesitation in his voice. No time for explanations.

I didn’t argue.

Normally, I would’ve. I always do. But something in his voice scared me more than whatever was on the screen. He sounded like he already knew what was happening—and that he was trying to stop it before it got to us.

After we smashed everything in the house—every screen, every last piece of tech—it got quiet. Too quiet.

I didn’t realize how much noise we’re used to until it was all gone. No hum of the TV, no soft buzz from the lights or chargers or whatever else. Just this oppressive, suffocating silence that wrapped around everything like a blanket made of static. It made my skin crawl. It made my thoughts louder.

That’s when Dad sat me down. He looked… off. Not scared, exactly. More like focused. Determined in a way I didn’t know he could be. He said something was very wrong.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, obviously, ” I told him. I didn’t say it, but I was starting to freak out. I could feel it in my hands, the way they were shaking a little. My legs didn’t want to stay still.

He kept going, though, calmly. He told me he was going to leave—to get help. That I had to stay behind.

I laughed. Not because it was funny. Because it was ridiculous. I told him not to be stupid, that this would blow over in a day or two. That it wasn’t that serious.

But I think I knew it was. I just didn’t want to admit it.

I started yelling. I didn’t mean to, but I did. I told him not to leave. I told him he couldn’t just go, not now. Not when everything was falling apart. But he wasn’t listening. Or maybe he was, and he just didn’t care. Not in the heartless kind of way—more like he’d already made peace with it.

There was something in his eyes I’d never seen before. A quiet kind of resolve.

He told me there might be others—drones he used to know—who could do something. Help. Fix this. I asked what he meant. Pressed him for names, places, anything.

He wouldn’t tell me.

I’m still angry about that. Still wondering what he’s keeping from me. Why he couldn’t just trust me.

Before he left, he handed me this remote—the one for the ridiculous security system he installed last year. Full lockdown, every door sealed shut with some high-grade reinforced nonsense. I always made fun of him for it. Thought it was overkill. Who needs that many reinforced doors?

But now? Now they’re the only reason I still feel remotely safe.

He told me to lock the place down after he left. That he’d come back. That I just needed to wait.

I didn’t cry in front of him. I held it together until the door closed. Then I sat on the floor for a long time, just staring at the spot where he’d stood.

He said he’d come back.

I don’t know if I believe him.

After he left, I stared at the remote for a while. Then I pressed the stupid button.

The metal doors slammed shut over every entry point with a mechanical groan—like the house itself was bracing for impact.

Thick steel sealed the front door, the windows darkened under reinforced plating, and just like that, I was alone. Trapped in a metal box. And not in the fun, sci-fi adventure kind of way.

The house went completely black.

I didn’t think about that part. I didn’t even realize how much we relied on power until it was gone. No natural light from the windows. No glow from the devices we just smashed. No backup generators—Dad always said those were a waste of money.

The only thing keeping the darkness from swallowing me was one tiny flicker in the kitchen.

A candle. Just a dumb, normal scented candle we always had lit for some reason. Vanilla something. Never thought I’d be grateful for that smell.

I used its light to dig through the drawers, trying not to panic. Found some flashlights, a few more candles—enough to get by, for now. I’ve been scattering them around the house since. Creating little islands of light in the sea of black. It’s not perfect, but it helps. Kind of.

That was all the first day.

Now? I’ve managed to set up a few makeshift lamps using the flashlights. They flicker sometimes, but they’re better than nothing.

The pantry’s still decently stocked. If I ration it—and I mean really  ration it—I might be able to stretch it for about three months. Maybe more if I get creative. But no power means no cooking. Everything’s cold, or dry, or from a can. Which sucks. A lot.

The worst part isn’t the food or the dark or even the silence anymore.

It’s the waiting.

I haven’t heard anything from Dad. No messages. No signs. Just... nothing. I don’t even know what he was trying to do. Who he was trying to find. He acted like he knew   something, and I can’t stop thinking about that. Like there was a plan he never told me. Like I’m missing half the story.

Outside, things aren’t quiet. Not really. I heard gunshots last night. Screaming. Some of it was close. I tried not to listen. Tried not to think  about it. What could I even do?

I keep telling myself it’s only been two days. Barely. But it feels like forever. Like time broke along with everything else.

What am I supposed to do now? Is Dad okay? Did he really know someone who could fix this? And how am I supposed to survive when I don’t even know what I’m up against?

All I can do is hope. Hope that I get answers. That he comes back. That this all somehow ends.

But deep down?

I don’t think it will.

Chapter Text

Uzi’s eyes blinked open, swallowed at once by the familiar, suffocating dark.

She didn’t move at first. For a few long seconds, she lay still in the stale silence of her room, the thick weight of her blanket cocooned around her like a barrier she wasn’t quite ready to break. Then, with a deep exhale, she forced herself to turn over.

Her eyes landed on the dim glow of her analog alarm clock.

10:37 AM.

Wonderful. Another late start to another pointless day.

With a groggy sigh, she sat up slowly, joints creaking faintly as she yawned and rubbed at her face, trying to smear away the fatigue that never really left anymore.

She reached for the flashlight on her nightstand, her fingers finding its familiar shape in the dark. The click echoed louder than it should’ve in the quiet, and a narrow beam of pale light cut through the shadows.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, her feet hit the cold floor with a soft thud. She stood, flashlight in hand, and shuffled out of her room, the beam lighting her path through the dead corridors of her home.

She was hungry. Again.

Lately, that feeling had settled in her stomach like a permanent knot. The food was running low— dangerously low—and she’d been forced to ration even more strictly over the past few weeks.

She knew every can in the cupboard by heart now. Knew exactly how many crackers were left in the last box. It was the kind of knowledge she never wanted to have.

She hated this.

She hated  being trapped in this house like a rat in a cage, surrounded by metal walls and flickering candlelight. It had been nearly three months now. Ninety days of silence and waiting. Of pretending like it would get better.

And her dad… still wasn’t back.

He’d promised. Looked her in the eye and promised  he’d come back. That he just needed time. That he knew what to do.

But promises didn’t mean much anymore. Not when they echoed in an empty house.

Uzi didn’t want to admit it aloud—not even to herself—but hope was getting harder to hold on to. It slipped through her fingers more each day, like water through a crack. And maybe, just maybe, she was starting to believe he wasn’t coming back at all.

Not now.

Not ever.

Uzi padded into the kitchen, the soft circle of flashlight light gliding ahead of her like a ghost. She reached the pantry and tugged the door open with a quiet creak, raising the beam to scan the shelves inside.

What greeted her made her stomach twist.

Bare shelves. A few dusty cans. A mostly empty cracker box. Her flashlight settled on a crumpled bag of uncooked ramen noodles shoved toward the back like it had been trying to hide.

Her shoulders sagged.

Great. Raw noodles. Again.

She snatched the bag off the shelf with a sigh, already bracing herself for the dry crunch. It wasn’t like she had many options.

The microwave was long gone—smashed to pieces the day everything changed. She remembered the way her dad had shouted at her to destroy it, how she'd grabbed a wrench and cracked it open like it was some enemy spy. Anything plugged into the wall had become a risk. Electricity wasn’t safe anymore. That much she understood, even if the why still escaped her.

She didn’t need to know how it worked. Just that it did.

And that it could kill her.

She turned and crossed the dim kitchen, setting the ramen bag on the counter before reaching for one of the water bottles lined up near the edge.

The tap had run dry a month ago. At first, the faucets worked perfectly fine, water running as usual as if everything was fine—but even that had stopped.

Uzi, though had thought ahead.

In those first panic-fueled days, she’d filled every cup, bowl, and pot she could find with water from the sink. And even better—she’d found two large cases of bottled water tucked behind some old baking supplies at the back of the pantry. She wasn’t even halfway through the first case yet.

It was probably the only thing she’d gotten right in all of this.

With the bottle in hand, she sat on one of the kitchen stools. The legs creaked softly beneath her weight.

Around her, a scattered circle of candles flickered along the counters and shelves, their flames steady and small. They painted the room in a dim, amber glow that barely kept the dark at bay.

Uzi stared at the bag of ramen in front of her, hunger gnawing at her insides. She knew she had to eat it. She just... didn’t want to.

Not because it tasted bad—though it did—but because each meal like this reminded her of how far everything had fallen. Of how much normalcy she’d lost.

Of how far away her dad still was.

And of the sick, growing possibility that he might never come back at all.

Uzi slid the nearest candle across the counter until the flickering flame hovered closer to her, casting shifting shadows across the scratched metal surface. She settled onto the stool, the familiar creak under her weight oddly comforting.

This was her usual spot now—just a lone candle, a stool, and whatever half-edible thing she managed to scavenge from the pantry.

She rarely even glanced at the dining table anymore.

It sat across the room in the dim glow, untouched, collecting dust and silence. The thought of sitting there—alone—made something twist in her chest.

Not because she and her dad had been close or anything. They hadn’t been. Most days, they barely spoke at all. He’d always been buried in his weird obsession with his door business and schematics, mumbling to himself about hinges and magnetic locks while she retreated to her room to play video games or work on her own projects.

Still… there were a few times. A few quiet, rare evenings where they had  sat at that table, forks clinking against plates while the world outside carried on like normal.

She couldn’t even remember what they’d talked about—if they’d talked at all. But just knowing he’d once been there made the idea of sitting there without him feel unbearable.

So she didn’t.

She stayed at the counter, in the warm circle of candlelight, letting the illusion of routine hold her together.

Uzi opened the ramen packet with a practiced tear and broke off a chunk of the brittle noodles. She popped it into her mouth without much ceremony, chewing as her thoughts drifted.

It tasted like nothing. Cardboard, maybe. But it was food. It filled the space in her stomach, and that was all that mattered.

This brand was easier to eat raw than most, probably because it was flash-fried or whatever. She remembered reading that on the wrapper once, back when wrappers were just something you read absentmindedly before tossing them in the trash—not something you memorized while counting how many meals you had left.

Just as she reached for another piece of brittle ramen, Uzi’s eyes drifted across the counter—and landed on the old radio.

A small, scuffed-up thing with tarnished knobs and faded lettering on the side: Motorola Model 55L2 Tube Portable. She hadn’t even known what that meant when she first found it, tucked away in the back of her dad’s closet beneath a box of spare wires and old instruction manuals. It looked like something from another century—probably because it was.

Her first instinct had been to smash it, just like everything else that buzzed or blinked.

But something about it made her hesitate.

Maybe it was the worn leather handle, or the chipped paint on the dials. Maybe it was the weirdly comforting sense that it had outlived its time and still worked, unlike most of the world. It was a relic from a quieter time. Or maybe, deep down, she just didn’t want to break one more thing.

She’d inspected it more closely that day, trying to decide if it was dangerous. No cord. No charging port. Just a small hatch on the bottom for batteries—it was analog.

She had figured out that whatever caused the infection clearly spread through electronics—considering that ominous message on the TV the first day of the outbreak. It only made sense, because obviously no news station would change their warning signal to a happy face that said ‘go near electronics.’ Did it think drones were stupid? Well… probably. Some drones were complete morons.

Regardless, this made Uzi begin to think. If it spreads through devices that connected to outlets, what about devices that didn’t? Was there even anything like that in this day and age?

Then, she realized. Analog technology. The difference between analog and digital technology may not seem huge, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that maybe it was worth a try. This thing couldn’t seriously travel through vinyl records, cassette tapes, old radios, or walkie talkies… could it?

It was worth a shot.

So she’d popped in a few half-dead double-A batteries she’d scavenged and, to her surprise, the thing had crackled to life.

That first time she heard static, followed by the faint warble of some distant broadcast, she’d almost cried.

It didn’t matter that most stations were gone now. What remained were scraps—sometimes a looped emergency message from months ago, sometimes an old jazz record or fragments of talk shows echoing out like ghosts. Still, the sound of another voice, even distorted, was enough to ease the crushing weight of silence.

She reached over now and clicked the dial, twisting it slowly until the speaker whined, then settled into a low hum of static. After a moment, a warbly tune filtered in—some old song, half-erased by time, crooning faintly about sunshine and better days.

She leaned back on the stool and let the sound fill the empty room.

It helped. A little.

It made her feel like maybe she wasn’t the last one left. Like maybe someone else out there was turning their dial too, listening, surviving.

And that was enough to take another bite.

Uzi was down to the last few crumbs of her ramen, idly breaking them apart with her fingers when the song ended. Static returned for a beat—then silence.

She leaned forward, twisting the dial in hopes of catching another station. Something less mopey. Maybe even something with lyrics that didn’t sound like they were being sung by a long-dead lounge singer.

But instead of music, a series of strange beeps crackled through the speaker.

Her hand froze over the dial.

At first, she rolled her eyes, assuming it was just interference—some leftover junk signal bouncing around the static. But then... it repeated. Not exactly, but close enough. Long, short. Pause. Short, short. Long. The rhythm wasn’t random. Her eyes widened as she leaned closer.

Morse code.

Her pulse spiked.

“No way,” she breathed, suddenly alert.

She glanced at the speaker as if it might explain itself, heart thudding against her ribs.

Was someone sending this? Trying to reach out to anyone still listening? Could they be nearby? Or maybe it was just some pre-recorded automated transmission, endlessly looping through a dead channel.

Still—what if it wasn’t?

She bolted upright, nearly knocking the stool over as she spun around. Her flashlight beam bounced wildly across the kitchen before landing on the far drawer— the junk drawer. Her dad’s personal abyss of magnets, rubber bands, coupons, and random scraps of things he swore were useful.

She yanked it open and dug through it with frantic hands, sending pens and bottle caps clattering aside. And then, near the back, partially wedged beneath a souvenir spoon, she spotted it.

A tiny magnet, in the shape of a rectangle. Faded letters across the front read: MORSE CODE ALPHABET – Western Tech Museum.

She stared at it for a moment in disbelief. It was the kind of thing she used to mock. She probably would’ve said something like, ‘Wow, what a great souvenir, Dad. I’m sure you’ll use it every single day. ’ But now it felt like a lifeline.

She grabbed it, turned on her flashlight with a click, and squinted at the minuscule print.

She could read it. Barely.

Then, on instinct, she reached back into the drawer and snatched up a sticky note pad and a pen. With everything clutched tightly in her arms, she rushed back to the stool and dropped into it, heart still hammering.

The radio continued its slow, rhythmic beeping.

She placed the decoder on the counter, pen poised above the yellow paper, and took a shaky breath.

If this was a message—if someone was out there—it might change everything.

And for the first time in months, the silence didn’t feel quite so empty.

She hunched over the counter, her face lit by the soft flicker of candlelight and the stark beam of her flashlight. The radio kept clicking out its strange beeps, steady and deliberate. With the Morse code magnet in one hand and her pen in the other, Uzi scribbled on the sticky note, muttering under her breath.

“…dot-dash… that’s an A… okay…”

Another pause, then two more sequences—both identical.

“L. L. That’s… ‘All?’” she whispered. “Okay, that’s a word. That’s a thing*. ”

A pause in the beeping, just long enough to be a space. Then static crackled sharply in the speaker, loud enough to make her flinch.

Her heart slammed against her ribs, eyes darting toward the hallway like something might come crawling out of the shadows.

But nothing did. The static faded, the signal cleared, and the beeping resumed.

She swallowed hard and forced herself to focus.

“M… E… E… T…”

Another space.

‘All meet.’ That didn’t make much sense. She frowned, tapping the pen against the paper.

Then: “M… E… A… T…”

Another pause.

She blinked. “All… meet meat?” she muttered skeptically.

More letters: “T… H… E…”

Space.

“M…”

Now she just stared at the page, squinting down at the messy line of letters:

All meet meat the m.

What?

She leaned closer, brow furrowed. The paper didn’t magically rearrange itself. But something tugged at the back of her mind—an instinct. A second look. She mentally shuffled the words, the way you’d rearrange fridge magnets or unscramble a puzzle.

Then it clicked.

“…Meet me at the mall,” she whispered.

Her pen dropped to the counter.

The words stared back at her like a challenge. Simple. Direct. And impossible to ignore.

Meet me at the mall.

A message. A real message. Someone out there had sent that. Someone was alive.

And suddenly, her thoughts spiraled—colliding, colliding, colliding. Which mall? There was only one close enough to make sense. The big one just outside town. It was barely fifteen minutes by car. Anything further signal wouldn’t even reach this far… would it?

But even as her brain started calculating the logistics, a wall slammed into her chest: she couldn’t go.

She had to stay. She’d promised  her dad. He’d told her to wait.

But he was gone.

Three months. Three months of static and silence. Of pacing and waiting and rationing food she could barely stomach. Three months of talking to empty rooms and watching the front door, praying she’d hear a knock or a voice or anything.

And nothing had come.

What if he wasn’t ever coming back?

She clenched her jaw, hand curling into a fist. The anger hit first—sharp and bitter.

He was supposed to protect her. He was supposed to fix everything, like he always acted like he could. He left, and she was still here—alone, eating cold, raw ramen by candlelight, and listening to ghosts on an antique radio.

But right beneath the anger was something colder. A quieter kind of ache. Because if this was all she had left… if he wasn’t coming back… then what? Was she just going to rot in this house until the food ran out and all the batteries died?

Her stomach twisted at the thought. She glanced at the sticky note again.

Meet me at the mall.

Someone was out there. Someone brave—or reckless—enough to send a message.

She didn’t even know what the world outside looked like anymore. Didn’t know if she’d step out and find ashes, monsters, or more silence.

But she did know she couldn’t wait here forever.

Not when hope had finally spoken.

Chapter Text

ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: Pale

    • Modern Color •

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1:03 / 2:06 ───○ 🔊⠀ ᴴᴰ ⚙ ❐ ⮎1⮌

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Uzi sat frozen, the sticky note still lying on the counter in front of her like it carried some unspeakable weight. The words hadn’t changed—short, clear, and demanding. Meet me at the mall. But her thoughts swirled in chaotic circles, tugging her in two directions at once.

She didn’t know what to do.

Leaving meant stepping into the unknown. It meant abandoning the only shelter she had, risking exposure to whatever nightmare still lingered out there. But staying? Staying meant slow death. A death that would creep in quiet and cruel, stealing what little she had left—her food, her sanity, her hope.

And her father hadn’t come back.

He said he would. He looked her in the eye and promised.

But that was three months ago. And despite her denial, despite the thousands of times she’d convinced herself he was just delayed… some part of her had already buried the truth. She just hadn’t said it out loud yet.

And now this message—this signal, this possibility—was forcing her to say it. Not with words, but with action.

She stood abruptly, the legs of her stool scraping softly against the floor, and grabbed the flashlight again. The flame of a nearby candle flickered in protest as she turned and strode out of the kitchen. Up the hallway. Into her room.

Her fingers trembled around the flashlight, but she ignored it. She scanned the space—every corner still achingly familiar, every poster and stack of books untouched, like the world hadn’t ended outside her window.

Her eyes landed on her backpack. Slouched beside her bed, still bulging with the weight of a routine that no longer mattered. School notes, half-finished worksheets, stupid doodles in the margins.

She knelt down and unzipped it.

Then, without a second thought, she upended the whole thing.

Papers scattered like leaves—science homework, math tests, a permission slip she’d never turned in. The clutter of a life that used to be normal. Uzi stared at it for a moment, barely blinking. She should’ve felt relief. If the world hadn’t ended, this would’ve been the dream—tossing out schoolwork without consequence.

But it didn’t feel like freedom. It felt like surrender.

Clearing out her bag wasn’t just a symbolic gesture. It meant she was preparing to leave. To walk out that door and possibly never return. To face a world she didn’t understand—filled with infected, ravenous drones driven by a virus she barely knew anything about. It sounded like science fiction, like something you’d watch late at night when the power was still on and the worst thing you worried about was your GPA.

But it wasn’t a story. It was real. And it could kill her.

She sat back on her heels, her stomach twisting. This wasn’t excitement. This was dread. Heavy and real and suffocating. Every movement she made now—packing, planning, preparing—felt like a countdown to something she couldn’t see.

Still… she knew what she had to do.

No matter how much it scared her.

Uzi swept the beam of her flashlight across the room, her gaze moving methodically, as if checking boxes off a mental list. Every step she took now felt deliberate, heavy with a quiet urgency.

She crossed to her nightstand first, grabbing the two flashlights she always kept within reach, their plastic shells warm from sitting near candlelight.

Then came the spare pack of batteries tucked behind a stack of old books—she snagged it without a second thought, clutching it like it was worth its weight in gold.

Her eyes drifted to the closet. A change of clothes. It sounded like such a mundane thing, but it wasn’t. It meant she was planning for the road ahead, for time beyond today. Her heart thudded louder at the thought.

She rummaged through the dark closet until she pulled together an outfit: a pair of sturdy khaki cargo pants, worn but dependable; an black, silver studded belt; a fitted grey long-sleeved shirt that clung to warmth; and a dark green tee with a cracked, faded white graphic stretching across the front. Something about layering made her feel a little safer, like the extra fabric might be enough to keep the world at bay. Just a little. She reached for her black zip-up hoodie next—frayed at the cuffs, but thick and familiar—and set it aside for last.

Her current clothes were soft and loose, the same pajamas she’d lived in for weeks now. They smelled faintly of the house—dust, candle wax, and the lingering scent of old detergent—they felt like a second skin, a reminder of the comfort she’d once had.

Changing out of them felt strangely final. Like she was shedding the version of herself who thought this would all blow over.

But there was no point hesitating. Not anymore.

She changed in silence, the flashlight propped up on the dresser to cast a soft glow across the room. The cold fabric of her new clothes clung to her skin, stiff at first, but slowly warming as she moved. She pulled the hoodie over her head last, and when she looked at herself in the mirror above her dresser—just a glimpse—she barely recognized the drone staring back. Not a scared kid anymore. Not exactly brave either. Just… determined.

Back at her bed, she knelt beside the backpack and carefully packed her supplies—flashlights in one side pocket, batteries tucked securely in another, the spare clothes rolled tight and pressed flat to save space. Her hands moved with focused precision, though her stomach churned with quiet anxiety. She zipped the bag shut and slung it over one shoulder.

As she stepped out of the room, the familiar creak of the door behind her made her pause. For just a second, she looked back.

This room had been her world for months—her shelter, her prison, her comfort. But now, it was just a memory.

She turned away and didn’t look back again.

-

The next few minutes passed in a blur of motion and dim flashlight beams, Uzi moving from room to room like a shadow chasing fragments of security.

In her dad’s room, the air was stale and still, holding the kind of silence that only came from a place long untouched. She rummaged through drawers, hesitated at old photographs and half-written notes, but didn’t linger. Her fingers closed around a butterfly knife—folded neatly, sharp and heavy in her palm. It startled her how natural it felt to take it.

Next came a small first aid kit, its case dusty but still sealed, and then something she hadn’t expected: a cheap plastic compass tucked away in a drawer beneath an old t-shirt. It bore the logo of a national park gift shop, faded and half-rubbed off. She stared at it for a moment. Of course her dad had kept something like this. He always brought back random trinkets whenever he traveled. Little objects that never meant much in the moment… and yet now, this one felt like it might actually matter.

In the kitchen, she moved quickly. A few water bottles went into the side pockets of her backpack, followed by some energy bars, two cans of soup, and—almost miraculously—a working lighter buried beneath the usual tangle of rubber bands, dull scissors, and mystery screws in the junk drawer. She tested the lighter with a flick of her thumb, watched the flame catch and vanish in a blink, then shoved it into her bag.

The garage was the last stop.

The air in there was colder, and she could smell the sharp tang of metal and dust. She found what she was looking for quickly—a woodworking mask, its straps stretched from disuse, hanging beside shelves of unused supplies.

Her dad had worn it while cutting wood for the doors he was always so obsessed with. She used to roll her eyes at it—at him—thinking it was all such a waste of time. But now, the thick plastic and filtered lining looked almost… reliable. She didn’t know how the virus worked—what if it was airborne, and she just hadn’t been exposed since she was sealed in this house? Now, this dusty old mask became something that might help if she ran into one of them.

And there it was. Near the back corner, resting beneath a tangle of extension cords and old sports equipment: a metal baseball bat. It was dulled with age, a thin layer of grime clinging to the handle, but it was solid. Heavy. Real. She wrapped her fingers around it, testing its weight. It felt right. No fancy tools. No complicated weapons. Just something she could swing.

By the time she returned to the front door, her backpack was tight across her shoulders, and every step felt heavier than the last. The house was quiet again—watching her, almost.

She stood still for a moment, her flashlight casting a pale glow across the floor. In her other hand, she held the remote for the security system. Her thumb hovered over the button marked for the front entrance, the only one that wouldn’t trigger the reinforced shutters. Just one press, and the way out would be open.

Her hand trembled slightly. She gripped the remote tighter.

This was it.

No turning back. No more hiding behind boarded-up windows and hopeful lies. No more waiting for her dad to come home—because some part of her, the part that still felt young and stupid and safe finally accepted that he probably wasn’t. And if he was  alive… then he wasn’t coming back for her.

Uzi took a slow breath, grounding herself. The hallway smelled like candle wax and faint dust. The silence pressed against her ears.

She glanced down at the remote, flashlight catching the worn lettering. She found the right button.

Here goes nothing.