The zombie apocalypse. Let’s be honest—everyone saw it coming. Society was always hanging by a thread, and now? That thread’s snapped. The lucky ones are already dead. The rest of us? We’re just buying time.

I walk the train tracks, boots crunching over gravel, each step a quiet defiance against the silence. These rails are safer than the roads—zombies don’t wander out this far too often, and the ones that do are slow, predictable. Unlike people. On the roads, you're just a walking target—meat for the dead or prey for the desperate.

Still, every step feels heavier than the last. The thought creeps in again, the one I can't seem to shake: What’s the point? Maybe it’d be easier to stop fighting. Just… let go.

Then—snap.

A twig. Sharp and sudden.

I spin, gun already raised, heart hammering against my ribs. My brain jumps straight to zombie. Then freezes.

It’s not.

It’s a girl.

She’s standing just a few feet behind me, still as stone. She doesn’t belong here—that’s obvious. She looks like she wandered out of a warped time capsule. Torn, grime-smeared clothes trying to cling to some “Scene Queen circa 2010” aesthetic. A purse hangs off her shoulder like she’s late for a concert, not trudging through the apocalypse. Dirt-streaked thigh-high socks. Blood splashed across her—some dried, some still wet.

Her eyes lock onto mine. Wide. Alert. No fear, not exactly. More like she’s assessing me the way I’m assessing her.

A dozen questions slam into my head at once. Is she alone? Stupid? Dangerous? How the hell has she made it this far dressed like that? My finger stays on the trigger.

“This is the end of the world,” I say, voice flat, laced with suspicion. “Not a fashion show.”

She doesn’t flinch. Her mouth twitches—maybe a smirk, maybe pain. Hard to tell.

I don’t trust her. I can’t. Maybe I never will. But there’s something in the way she stands there. Unbothered. Like she’s already survived worse.