Jason launched the drone with practiced ease, watching as the small machine rose into the morning air. Through the control screen, he could see the city from above—a sprawling concrete graveyard stretching in all directions. The drone's camera captured the eerie stillness of a place once teeming with life. Empty streets. Abandoned cars. Buildings standing like tombstones against the sky.
"It's so quiet," Jason murmured, guiding the drone higher. "Like the whole world just... stopped."
"The absence of human activity is striking," Nia agreed. "No power. No emissions. No movement patterns consistent with—wait. Three o'clock, approximately two miles out."
Jason turned the drone, zooming in on a distant movement. Three vehicles—two SUVs and what looked like a modified pickup truck—moved slowly down a main avenue on the far side of the city.
"A convoy," Jason said, keeping his voice low despite the distance. "First living people we've seen besides the women and those assholes I killed."
"They appear organized. Moving in formation. Likely armed."
"Should we investigate?"
Nia's response came after a brief pause. "Negative. Their trajectory is away from our position, and engagement presents unnecessary risk. I have a better alternative."
"I'm listening."
"There's a specialized medical supply depot approximately 5 miles northeast of our position. It was a restricted facility, supplying research hospitals and specialized care centers. Its location wasn't publicly listed—only accessible to authorized medical personnel."
"And you think it might still have supplies?"
"High probability. Standard pharmacies would be obvious targets during the initial chaos. This facility would be known only to specialists. It's also conveniently closer to the Ascension Lab and away from the convoy's current direction."
Jason nodded, bringing the drone back. "Perfect. We'll hit a few pharmacies on the way—increase our chances."
"A prudent approach," Nia agreed.
———————❖———————
They moved through the city like ghosts, Jason's enhanced senses alert to any danger. The streets felt both desolate and haunted—empty of life but filled with remnants of what once was. Newspapers tumbled across intersections. Birds nested in traffic lights. A child's abandoned bicycle lay rusting against a mailbox.
The first pharmacy they checked had been thoroughly ransacked—shelves toppled, glass shattered, not even empty pill bottles remaining.
"Desperate people," Jason muttered, stepping over broken glass.
The second pharmacy was the same—picked clean, with signs of violent looting. The third had been burned, its charred interior offering nothing but ash. The fourth showed signs of an animal den—likely coyotes or feral dogs had claimed it.
By the fifth pharmacy, Jason's patience had worn dangerously thin. He kicked over an empty display stand, sending it crashing into a wall.
"Fucking hell!" he shouted, his voice echoing through the empty building. "Is this what we've become? Just... taking everything? Hoarding shit while people die? While little girls like Aiko suffer?"
He paced furiously, gesturing at the empty shelves.
"You know what kills me? Most of these meds probably went to waste. Expired. Unused. Just sitting in some asshole's bunker while people who needed them died in agony. What kind of fucking animals are we?"
"Your frustration is understandable," Nia replied calmly. "But I'm analyzing a different pattern."
"What pattern?"
"The thoroughness of the looting. It's systematic, not chaotic. Notice how even non-essential items are gone? Bandages, alcohol swabs, basic painkillers—items abundant enough that panicked looters would likely overlook some."
Jason paused, looking around with fresh eyes.
"You're saying this wasn't just people grabbing what they could?"
"I'm suggesting an alternative hypothesis: what if someone is deliberately controlling access to medicine? Not just for personal survival, but as a strategic resource?"
"A power play," Jason said slowly. "Control the meds, control the survivors."
"Precisely. In any collapse scenario, certain resources become currency. Food. Water. Ammunition. Medicine. By monopolizing one or more of these, a group establishes dominance."
Jason's anger shifted, becoming something colder and more focused. "So we're not dealing with scattered scavengers. We're dealing with an organized faction."
"That would be my assessment. And if correct, it explains the comprehensive nature of the looting we're witnessing."
Jason checked his weapons, suddenly feeling exposed. "Let's keep moving. I don't want to run into whoever's behind this."
———————❖———————
They moved through the ruined streets toward the next pharmacy, passing the skeletal remains of what had once been everyday life. A coffee shop with chairs still neatly tucked under tables. A movie theater with posters for films that would never premiere. A playground where no children would ever laugh again.
Jason found himself thinking about all the post-apocalyptic movies he'd watched before the Collapse. Zombie outbreaks. Alien invasions. Nuclear winters. The imagery had always been dramatic—cities in flames, monuments crumbling, dramatic showdowns in iconic locations.
Reality was quieter. Subtler. And somehow more devastating in its ordinariness.
"Funny, isn't it?" he said, breaking the silence. "Those movies got so much wrong... but somehow, they nailed the people."
"How so?" Nia asked.
"The visuals were always over the top. But the way people behaved—the desperation, the power plays, the manipulation—that part they got right. People turning on each other. Strong preying on weak. Building little kingdoms out of the ashes."
"You shouldn't be so surprised, Jason," Nia said, her voice smooth, almost reflective. "Imagination has always outrun reality. Everything you depend on now—drones, implants, even me—was once just a dream scribbled in notebooks or flickering on screens. Science fiction, they used to call it. And now look at us."
Jason raised an eyebrow, still walking, eyes scanning the buildings. "So you're saying we're just living in someone else's story?"
"In a way, yes," she replied. "But long before humans built machines, they used imagination for something else—understanding what they feared. What they couldn't control. Take this: two ancient kingdoms, armies ready to clash. Just as the battle's about to begin, the sun goes dark—total eclipse. Neither side knew what it meant. They thought it was a message from the gods. And just like that, they turned back. No war. No bloodshed. One shadow across the sky changed everything."
Jason slowed his pace, listening.
"Now think about what's left of the world," Nia continued. "To the survivors out here, A.M.O.N. is that eclipse. They don't know what it is. They don't understand it. But they feel its reach. It's invisible, untouchable… and that makes it sacred. Or monstrous. Doesn't matter which. Either way, it controls them."
There was a pause. Jason exhaled slowly, the weight of her words sinking in.
"And fear," Nia added softly, "has a way of turning anyone into a believer."
Jason walked in silence, imagining those ancient soldiers staring at the darkened sky, terrified and awestruck. Not so different from the people he'd encountered since leaving the bunker—desperate, confused, clinging to whatever made sense in a senseless world. He stepped around a rusted bicycle, its frame twisted and half-buried in rubble, wondering about the child who once rode it.
"So don't be shocked when people do irrational, brutal things," Nia continued. "When they hoard, steal, or kill. It's not just about survival—it's about making sense of a world that stopped making sense. They're writing their own myths now, with whatever scraps of understanding they can salvage."
Jason sighed. "Doesn't make it any easier to stomach. But yeah... I get it." He felt the weight of the gun at his hip—a reality he never would have imagined for himself before. How quickly adaptation came when there was no alternative.
Their conversation lingered as they approached the next pharmacy, heavier with the weight of that shared understanding. The building's faded green cross hung crooked above the entrance, a symbol from another time that now promised either salvation or disappointment.
———————❖———————
Something felt wrong.
Jason stopped abruptly, twenty feet from the pharmacy entrance. Nothing moved. No sound broke the silence. But something deep and primal—an instinct older than language—screamed danger.
"What is it?" Nia asked, her voice suddenly alert in his mind.
"I don't know," he whispered. "Something's off."
"Your heart rate has elevated. Adrenaline increasing. If your instincts sense danger, I recommend heeding them."
Jason crouched, scanning the entrance. Nothing seemed obviously wrong. The glass doors were intact. No movement inside. But the feeling persisted—a cold certainty that death waited just ahead.
He edged closer, moving in a low crouch. His boot nudged something—barely a shift beneath his sole. A second too late, he looked down and spotted it. A thin wire, stretched across the doorway, just inches above the ground. Almost invisible unless you were looking for it.
"Shit—" was all he could mutter.
"MOVE BACK NOW!" Nia's voice exploded in his mind with unprecedented urgency.
Jason threw himself backward, instinctively folding his arms up to protect his head. The explosion came a split second later—not massive, but focused and deadly. Glass and metal shrapnel tore through the space where he'd just been standing. Something hot grazed his ear. Pain lanced through his shoulder.
The concussion slammed him to the ground. His ears rang with a high-pitched whine. The world spun sickeningly. He tasted blood.
"Jason! Jason, respond!" Nia's voice sounded distant, muffled by the ringing.
He touched his ear. His fingers came away bloody. More blood trickled from his nose.
"I'm... alive," he managed, his voice sounding strange in his damaged ears.
"Perforated eardrums. Mild concussion. Lacerations to right shoulder and left ear. Initiating nanovirus healing protocols."
Jason felt a strange warmth spread through his head and shoulder as the nanovirus began repairing the damage. His vision cleared slowly. The ringing in his ears faded.
"Motherfucking cocksucking son of a bitch!" he roared, suddenly finding his voice. "What kind of fucking sick bastards set a goddamn bomb in a pharmacy? Jesus fucking Christ! I'll rip their fucking throats out if I find them!"
He staggered to his feet, rage burning through the pain. His legs wobbled beneath him, but adrenaline steadied his stance as blood continued to trickle down his neck.
"Goddamn it! Those fucking psychopaths nearly blew my head off! Fucking cowards! Can't even face me like men—gotta set traps like fucking animals! Who does that? Who booby-traps medicine people need to survive?"
"Jason, you need to lower your voice," Nia cautioned. "The explosion was loud enough. Your shouting may attract unwanted attention. Hostiles could be within earshot."
"Let them come!" he snarled, spitting blood onto the debris-covered floor. "I'll fucking end every last one of them! They nearly made me break my promise to Elaine, to Lily, to Marissa... even to Aiko! I promised I'd come back. I promised I'd help them."
He paced back and forth, hands shaking with fury, blood still trickling from his ear despite the nanovirus's efforts. Each step crunched on broken glass and plaster. His fingernails dug crescents into his palms as he fought to contain the violent impulses surging through him.
"Moments like this make me question whether emotions are worth the cost," Nia said, a rare tinge of resignation in her tone. "Perhaps staying purely analytical would've been wiser. Simpler. More efficient. Your anger clouds judgment, increases blood pressure, and diverts resources from healing."
Jason glanced upward, as if addressing her directly. His breathing steadied slightly. The initial wave of rage began to recede like a tide pulling back from shore.
"Don't focus so much on the downsides. Emotions come with pain, yeah, but they also give you everything that matters. You're better off with them. Anger keeps me moving when I should be broken."
They waited nearly an hour, Jason positioned with a clear view of the surrounding streets, rifle ready. His finger rested just outside the trigger guard, muscles tense with anticipation. The sun shifted position, casting longer shadows across the ruined storefront, but no one came to investigate the explosion.
"Whoever set that trap isn't monitoring it," Nia observed. "They likely have multiple traps throughout the area—set and forget. Primitive but effective area denial tactics."
"Lucky for them," Jason muttered, finally lowering his weapon. "Let's move on. We still need those antibiotics, one way or another."
———————❖———————
The medical supply depot was exactly where Nia had indicated—an unmarked building with reinforced doors and small, high windows. Unlike the pharmacies, it showed no signs of forced entry.
"How do we get in?" Jason asked, examining the electronic lock.
"The security system would have defaulted to mechanical backup when power failed. I can guide you through bypassing it."
Following Nia's instructions, Jason worked methodically with tools from his pack. Twenty minutes later, the lock clicked open.
Inside was a treasure trove—shelves of untouched medical supplies, organized and pristine. Surgical equipment. Specialized medications. Advanced diagnostic tools. And, most importantly, several boxes of broad-spectrum antibiotics.
"Found it," Jason said, holding up a package labeled for typhoid treatment. "This will help Aiko."
He methodically gathered supplies, filling his pack with antibiotics, painkillers, surgical tools, and other essentials. The weight of the medicine in his hands brought the first genuine relief he'd felt since leaving the bunker. Each item represented a chance—for Aiko, for their group's survival—and he carefully organized them by priority and fragility.
"You know, Nia... maybe those idiot brothers I killed weren't so bad after all. Maybe I've been cursed ever since. Like some twisted cosmic payback." His fingers lingered on a vial of morphine, the glass cool against his skin.
Nia responded with dry amusement, her voice playful: "Please, Jason. Those three made pond scum look morally superior. If you're cursed, blame your zodiac sign. Perhaps Mercury's in retrograde." The gentle sarcasm in her tone was evident, her way of pulling him back from darker thoughts.
Jason chuckled, shaking his head. "You're right. Could be the stars. Maybe I'll read the constellations tonight, ask the universe if I'm screwed." He zipped the pack closed and hefted it onto his shoulders, feeling its reassuring weight. The depot's sterile silence wrapped around him as he took one final glance around, ensuring nothing vital had been overlooked.
With his pack full, Jason stepped outside into the midday sun. He stood at a literal crossroads—one street leading back toward the house where Aiko and her family waited, the other continuing toward the Ascension Lab.
He checked his watch. Time was precious. The lab mission was critical—not just for his family, but potentially for whatever remained of humanity. But Aiko's fever wouldn't wait. Without treatment, she might not survive another few days.
"You have a decision to make," Nia said quietly. "Either road matters, Jason. But only one can be walked today."
Jason stared into the rising sun, weighing lives and promises against the fate of a world.