We stood with a relieving sigh in a complicated manner. Knowing it that they're safe but the anger side was now getting out of control.
The silence broke.
Not from our side.
From the room next to us—the one where the elite survivors had locked their doors in our faces hours ago.
We heard it. The screaming. The begging. The chaos.
Zayn stood slowly, his jaw tightening. "Wait… that's them."
Aaron moved to the wall, pressing his ear against the cracked concrete. "Yup. Room 103. It's burning down."
A crash. Then shrieks—panicked, frenzied.
And then we understood.
The guy who barked at us earlier—the one trying to hijack our food mission—he hadn't made it out clean.
He got bit.
Somewhere in that stampede, one of those monsters must've grazed him. And instead of warning his crew, he ran back to them. Hid the truth.
And now? He brought the apocalypse with him.
From the other side of that wall, we could hear the infected rampaging—flesh hitting drywall, fists on metal, bodies being dragged.
The same door they once slammed in our face... was now their coffin lid.
It was brutal. It was tragic.
But mostly… it was poetic.
They shut us out when we needed them. Now, no one was coming to open their door.
And we?
We just listened.
Because sometimes, silence isn't guilt. It's survival.
The screaming died down.
Not suddenly—like a switch flipped—but slowly, like a candle struggling in the wind before finally snuffing out. The kind of silence that leaves behind a ringing in your ears. A weight in your chest.
And then—through the cracked windows, past the smog, fire, and shattered skyline—we saw it.
The sunset.
Filtered through smoke and ash, it painted the sky in golds and bruised purples. Broken light bled through shattered glass, casting long shadows on the floor where our makeshift barricade held strong. For a second, the whole world looked… still. Not peaceful—but paused.
We sat down. No one spoke.
Zayn reached into the bag they'd risked their lives for and tossed us each something. Biscuits. Juice. A squished energy bar. The little things that meant everything now.
"Insha," I said softly, breaking a biscuit in half and passing it to her. "You pulled it off."
She didn't smile. Just nodded, eyes fixed on the horizon.
"They shut the door on us," Aaron muttered, unwrapping a candy bar slowly. "And now…"
"They got locked in with a monster they raised," Zayn finished. "Karma ate first."
The silence wasn't empty anymore. It was full—of justice, of grief, of something too heavy for words.
As we sat there, chewing slowly under the thunder-hued sky, we realized something brutal and beautiful:
This was revenge. But it didn't taste like victory.
It tasted like survival.
And that was enough
We finished what little we had—our so-called dinner—a mix of broken crackers, half-flattened snacks, and juice boxes that tasted like metal. But tonight, it felt like a feast. Not because of what we ate, but because we were still here to eat it.
No one said much after that. Our eyes were heavy. Our minds heavier.
Insha laid back first, using her bag as a pillow, arms folded behind her head, eyes fixed on the ceiling like it held answers. Zayn and Aaron followed, sinking onto the dusty mattresses we'd claimed earlier.
I stayed up a moment longer, glancing at each of them. The people I didn't expect would mean so much in the end. The people who didn't run. Who fought. Who stayed.
Outside, the last streak of sunlight faded into cold ash. Inside, we curled up in silence, not from comfort—but exhaustion.
Maybe someone would come. Maybe help was on its way.
Or maybe not.
Still—we let our eyes close, holding on to one thought like a fragile prayer:
"We made it through today."
And maybe—just maybe—we'd make it through tomorrow too.
Suddenly Zayn's phone beeped once, the tone that we missed from like ages.....