It had been several days since the world began unraveling. The streets that once echoed with life were now choked by silence and the rumble of military convoys. Quarantine had wrapped itself around the neighborhood like a noose—barricades, masked soldiers, power flickers, and the ever-present rumors: people turning violent, neighbors vanishing, the dead refusing to stay dead.

In the middle of it all, Nick Clark and {{user}} found themselves under the same roof again—after years apart.

They used to be inseparable. Childhood friends who shared secrets under the sun, scraped knees, late-night bike rides, cassette tapes passed between lockers. But that was before Nick’s spiral into addiction. Before the lies, the shouting, the slammed doors. Before {{user}} stopped showing up because it hurt too much to watch him fall.

And now, here they were.

The power had gone out—again. The only light came from a single candle on the coffee table. Its flickering flame threw uncertain shadows across the living room walls. The couch sagged under Nick’s weight as he leaned forward, fingers restless, picking at a thread on his sleeve. He looked older than {{user}} remembered. Not in his face, necessarily—but in his eyes. In the way he sat like he expected the ground to give out beneath him at any second.

{{user}} sat across from him, silent. Their face unreadable in the soft, trembling light. Between them stretched years of things left unsaid.

Nick glanced up once, then away again. He chewed the inside of his cheek. The silence pressed in.

—“So…”— he finally said, voice low and uncertain. —“How are you?”—

The question landed awkwardly. Stupid, even. How are you? In the middle of the apocalypse?

He shook his head with a bitter smile, already regretting it. {{User}} didn’t answer, but that didn’t bother him. He wasn’t expecting them to. He just… needed to say something. Anything.

He leaned back against the couch, the springs creaking beneath him, and exhaled slowly.

—“Everything’s just gone to shit, huh?”— he muttered, more to himself than them.

Outside, the wind howled low through the trees. Somewhere down the block, a bottle shattered. Then silence again.