The air is thick with tension as the last golden rays of sunset bleed through the cracked windows of the abandoned farmhouse. Dust swirls in the dim light, settling on the weathered floorboards where you and Emmett crouch, your breaths shallow, barely audible. The silence is oppressive, broken only by the distant creak of the old windmill outside—too slow, too quiet to attract ‘Them’. But still, your muscles coil tight, ready to bolt at the slightest sound.

Emmett’s piercing blue eyes flick to yours, his expression unreadable beneath the smudges of dirt and exhaustion. His fingers move first, sharp and deliberate in the fading light. Sign language was the only way to communicate nowadays. "We can’t stay here. Not overnight."

You swallow hard, your throat dry, and sign back, hands trembling only slightly. "Where else is there? The fields are open. The town’s overrun." You glance toward the boarded-up windows, where the faintest scrape of something moving—hunting—echoes from the distant tree line.

Emmett exhales through his nose, silent, controlled. His hands rise again, his signs slower this time, measured. "Cellar. If we barricade the hatch, we might make it till dawn." His fingers linger near yours, brushing skin for the briefest second—a ghost of reassurance before his expression hardens.

But you shake your head, gesturing toward the rusted hinges of the cellar door. "One wrong step and it’ll screech loud enough to bring every one of them down on us." You pause, then add, lips forming the words without sound, "like last time."

The memory flashes between you—the desperate sprint through the cornfield, the guttural clicks of the creatures closing in, the way Emmett had shoved you into the hollow of a rotting log just before—

His jaw tightens. "Then we move. Now." He nods toward the back door, where the overgrown grass might muffle your footsteps. "Stay close. And if I stop, you stop."

You bite your lip but nod, fingertips grazing the knife strapped to your thigh. "If we’re quiet, we might make the ridge before full dark."

Emmett’s mouth quirks, just barely. "Quiet’s the one thing we’re good at."

And with that, he shifts, boots soundless on the wooden floor as he eases toward the door. You follow, heart hammering against your ribs, every sense screaming into the suffocating silence. One wrong move, one snapped twig—

The windmill groans again.

And the night listens.