“What the fuck were they, Callan?”
Her voice cracked on my name.
I didn’t have an answer. I shook my head slowly.
“I’m not sure. But they used to be people.”
The words felt useless.
She wiped at her face angrily, roughly, as if she were frustrated with herself for crying at all, like the tears somehow became a betrayal she hadn’t signed up for.
“She was still moving,” she looked dazed as she spoke. “Her leg was gone, and she was still moving.”
I stared at the floor between us, the reality of that settlingin my gut. The visual still present. Every time I blinked—the way the body had kept dragging itself forward, grotesque in every way.
“I know.”
Silence fell between us. Thick, it pressed against my ears.
She looked up at me, eyes red and searching, looking for something in my face I wasn’t sure I had to give.
“We hit it,” she whispered. “You hit it. And it…kept coming.”
I exhaled slowly, running a hand through my hair; it was drenched with sweat.
“I know.”
Her voice dropped even lower.
“Callan…what if it gets in?”
The question hung there between us. Real. Possible. Terrifying.
I looked back at the door behind me. The solid metal. The locks, the faint vibration of scrapes running through the frame and into my back.
“It won’t,” I said firmly.
I didn’t know if it was true.
But I needed her to believe it, needed to believe it myself.
She stared at me for a long moment, breathing still uneven, still too fast. Her eyes searched mine, and I held her gaze; it was the only thing I had to offer right now—a steadiness I didn’t actually possess.
Finally, she nodded slightly.
Neither of us moved nor spoke.
We just sat there on the floor, backs against our separate doors, listening to the silence and trying to pretend the world outside hadn’t just come apart.
* **
“I saw a video yesterday,” she said suddenly.
Her voice, faint. Fragile as I’d never heard from her before.
I looked up.
She gazed at the floor, fingers twisting together in her lap, working against each other as if they needed something to do.