2026-05-09 05:33:49Tightening the pipe around his injured hand, Cole kept walking and the thought of Tann.
He'd been failing at not thinking about him since he left the warehouse because Tann had become a constant presence in his new life. When the last of Tann had gone, his eyes turned flat white and the color of his skin were as pale as a Greys. Cole tried to speak to him, he tried to bring back pieces of his memories but Tann violently attacked him, lunging at him to claw out his eyeballs. After failing to see any form of sense or humanity in him, Cole did the only thing he could think of. No, he didn’t kill him. Instead, he used a length of heavy, metal chains to restrain Tann to the backup generator. He told himself it was necessary to keep Tann safe until the authorities get things in order and develop a cure for the plague. After all, situations like this were the reason why global institutions existed, the reason why people paid taxes, and followed rules. The citizens trusted that even when everything collapses, someone with more resources and better information would arrive and fix it. Abruptly, a faint mechanical hum flew high and steady and Cole stopped to scan above the rooftops. He saw a small, matte-black drone, descending and leveling off at eye height, six feet in front of him. The single lens at its center rotated once, orienting toward him as a thin ring of blue light pulsed. It hovered, patient and completely indifferent to everything that had happened in the last four hours. "Hello, can anyone hear me on this thing?" Cole said and the blue ring light pulsed, the lens readjusting. “People are dying, they’re scared and need help!” The drone whirred back and forth and the blue light pulsed again. "There is an infected man chained in a warehouse on Derell Street." Cole’s voice was steady but there was something underneath it, something that had been building since the railing suicide. "My colleague was bitten and needs to be treated by someone who knows what they're doing. There are still survivors in this city. I don't know how many but there are people alive and they need help and you are the first thing I have seen today that looks like it understands what on earth is happening." The blue light slowed. "So I need you to tell whoever is on the other end of this thing that there are people here. Can you do that?" He stepped closer. "Can you at least do that?" The blue light blinked thrice and then turned red. SCAN ID #00-4471 — CLASSIFICATION FAILURE — PATHOGEN RESPONSE: NULL — ANOMALY FLAG: PRIORITY REVIEW Cole looked at the drone. "Is that's it?" His voice dropped in disappointment. "That's all you've got?" The drone began to ascend and Cole’s chest clenched in an odd feeling that wasn't purely rage or grief as he picked up a brick from a cracked curb and threw it hard at the drone. The drone came apart in the air, its metal black case and lens spinning off and skipping across the asphalt before coming to rest against a car tire. Unbeknownst to Cole, a signal went dark in the P.A.X system that had sent it, logging his last map coordinates as he went along his journey to find Dana.
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Chapter Thirty Four: Hostage Situation
Cole pushed open the grocery door and stood still as six P.A.X officers had spread out in the store, pointing up their rifles at everyone. Dana stood opposite the cereal shelves, her one hand was raised in the air while Biscuit pressed to her chest in her other arm. Reck, who absentmindedly stepped into their trap, was beside Dana with his hands up. Brad stood in front of Aisha, shielding her from the gun pointed at their faces. Charlotte wrapped both arms around herself and Eli was by the shelving unit to Cole's left—small enough to slip out before the P.A.X officers locked the positions down. Keith wasn't in the store and Cole registered this immediately. "Leave them alone," Cole said. "I'm who you're here for." The head officer said to him. "Mr. Asher, Director Hale requests your presence at the consolidation camp." "You have my cooperation." Cole raised both hands. "Leave them and take me." The officer looked at him for a moment and looked at the others, calculating if
Chapter Thirty Three: The Tour
Cole and Reck left the others inside and sat on the kerb outside the grocery store. “Man, this weather is crazy hot.” Reck sighed and shrugged off his jacket off, cracking open a can of soda. The street was empty in every direction. The Grey zone was quiet but Cole knew further down would be lurking with bloodthirsty Greys. Those creatures didn’t attack mindlessly anymore, they now hunted as a pack. It was almost as though they were evolving. "I can’t believe I’m staring at the end of the world." Reck said. “I can’t believe people can actually lose their minds and become monsters.” “People have always been monsters.” Cole snapped his knuckles. “The Plague only created a different kind.” Reck turned to him and smirked. "And you're the cure for these monsters…Did you know? Before all this." "No, I didn’t." How could he have known? It’s not like he signed up to be the last immune in an apocalypse. "Really? Not even a feeling?" "No." Reck nodded slowly. "Alright, I
Chapter Thirty Two: New Leader
Dana dragged a chair across the floor and sat legs open. “Listen here people.” She started. "P.A.X's consolidation camp runs on a ranking system." “Ranking system?” Brad’s thick brows furrowed in confusion. “Yes, keep up.” She leaned forward. “P.A.X scans everyone before entering the gate. S and A rankers are the highest and get section one privileges, such as double food portions, and clean water station. B and C are in section two. D and E in section three." “The lower your ranking, the lower your privileges and basic human right.” Cole clarified. Dana nodded. "And for the Unawakened like me, we get section four, where we receive the bottom-of-pot portions." Brad frowned. "That’s impossible." "Oooh, but it is," Dana said. "We watched it happen for a week. An unawakened child eats scraps while an adult with an Awakened cell gets fruits with his breakfast." She looked at Aisha. "Your baby will be scanned the moment it’s born. Whatever rank P.A.X assigns it determines h
Chapter Thirty One: Reck
"Well, I’ll be damned.” Reck whistled. Cole was half-prepared for the version of Reck that the end of the world might have produced but Reck stood the same way with his arms crossed, his head tilted and a lopsided grin on his face. “The universe has a genuine sense of humor.” He lowered the gun. "Of all the grocery stores in the city." “You probably prayed for this day to come.” Cole made an attempt to tease him. "I did, actually." Reck spread his arms wide open. "Come here." He crossed over in three steps and grabbed Cole by the back of the neck, pulling him into an embrace. Cole put his arm around him and they hugged each other for a long moment without saying anything. Reck pulled back and held Cole at arm's length to observe him properly—P.A.X uniform, dried blood, the weight he'd lost and the expression on his face that said everything since the last time they spoke. "You look terrible," Reck said warmly. "The P.A.X uniform helps but underneath it you look like dun
Chapter Thirty: Old Friend
The afternoon sun was unbearable. Even after the Grey Plague took everything alive— the people, the air, the smell of a city—the scorching sun stayed relentless. Underneath Cole's P.A.X uniform the heat smite his skin as the fabric was designed for people who had access to climate-controlled facilities. For Dana, it certainly wasn’t the best option for traveling through a dead city in with a bullet wound in her abdomen and no water since dawn. “I’m gonna have to drink piss if I don’t get water to drink soon.” Dana groaned for the hundredth time in an hour. "Look… over there," Cole pointed at a grocery store half a block ahead. “ The front windows were still intact, the door were pushed in rather than broken, and Cole guessed the threat level inside was probably low. "We need to survey.” Cole tried to check around the block but Dana grabbed his jacket and stopped him. “Water first," She said. "You can’t run or fight and I don’t want a Grey to attack us by surprise.” Cole said.
Chapter Twenty Nine: No Signal
When the first wave wiped out 40% of the world’s population, it gave no warning. The humans didn’t get bitten, but they got infected by simply inhaling the putrid Grey’s air and Cole pondered if his blood could stand a chance against the second wave.Or maybe… he’d randomly wake up one day and see Dana turning into a bloodthirsty creature.“Hellooo, earth to Cole,” Dana waved a hand in his face as he’d spaced out in his thoughts. “What were you thinking about?” “Nothing.” Cole lied. “I’m just a bit tired.”“Well, it’s time to stitch me up.” Dana picked up the suture kit and handed it over to him.Cole arranged the items and donned on his gloves, working carefully in full concentration. The wound was clean without fragments of bullets and luckily the bleeding had slowed significantly.Dana held completely still, breathing through her nostrils as Cole closed together the edges of the wound."All done," He said, tying off the last sutures and applying the bandage strip."Thank God." Da
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