The sun was brutal outside, burning through the small window of the room I'd taken shelter in, a white-hot blade slicing across the dusty floor. Cobwebs thick in every corner swayed lazily in the dead air, the room itself feeling like something that had stopped moving days ago—stale, suffocating, heavy with the smell of old rot and dried blood.
Sweat had long since dried to a crust on my skin, leaving salt tracks that burned like acid. Even the infected couldn't hold themselves upright in it. I watched them through the cracked glass, staggering, slowing, skin blistering under the relentless heat, the sun doing what I hadn't been able to do myself.
I was in a small town where everyone had turned. Every single person. Houses stood silent with doors hanging open, bodies—some still moving—littering the streets like discarded puppets.
