Day…well that doesn’t even matter anymore because…well….everything comes to an end.


    I didn’t stop running until I was off the junkyard.


    But the sound didn’t leave me. That horrible, wet chewing. The slow, rhythmic tear of flesh. The snap of bone. It followed me like a curse, slithering into my ears, crawling under my skin. I could still hear it. Feel it. A sick, sticky noise chewing through my thoughts, gnawing at my skull.


    I ran blind, feet pounding pavement, breath burning in my throat. My legs felt like lead, every muscle screaming, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. If I stopped, the sound would catch up. The memory would pull me back. I’d see it again—the crawler on the ground, struggling, twitching. The thing on top of it, tearing into its belly, hands pushing deep, pulling apart, stuffing shredded meat into its sagging mouth. Not even looking at me. Not even caring. Like I wasn’t there. Like I was already dead.


    I don’t know how far I went. I don’t know where I am. The streets twist and blend together, a maze of broken fences, sagging rooftops, and roads cracked like old skin. Houses stand like forgotten gravestones, their windows dark and hollow, empty eyes watching. A neighborhood? Maybe. But it feels more like a graveyard. A place where life used to be. Where life stopped. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except moving. Keep moving. Keep going until I’ve outrun the echoes in my head. Keep going until there’s nothing left of me to run.


    But I can’t.


    My body is breaking down. My lungs feel like fire, every breath like swallowing glass. My stomach twists, empty, growling, a hollow pit eating itself. My throat is cracked and dry, my tongue like sandpaper. My hands shake so bad I can barely hold them still. My vision wavers, the world blurring at the edges, dark spots creeping in, spreading like ink in water. My legs feel like they aren’t mine anymore, barely holding me up, moving on their own. I don’t know how much farther I can go. I don’t know if I care.


    I can’t do this anymore.


    A house. The closest one. My legs barely listen as I stumble toward it. The back window is open just a crack—just enough. I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. I grip the frame with trembling fingers and drag myself inside. My arms nearly give out, my legs buckle as I hit the floor. The dust rises around me, thick, choking. The air is stale, dead.


    I can’t rest. Not yet.


    I push forward. One step at a time, my legs screaming, my body swaying. The house is hollow, stripped bare. No food. No water. Nothing. Just walls. Just dust. Just silence. The kind of silence that isn’t empty but waiting, thick and heavy, pressing down on my skin like something alive. Every step kicks up dust that swirls in the dim light, hanging in the air like ghosts of whoever lived here before. The floor creaks under my weight, a sound too loud in the dead stillness. My breath echoes in my own ears, shaky, uneven, ragged. The air is stale, untouched for God knows how long. Forgotten. Like this place. Like me.


    But no. there''s no silence.


    I hear them.


    At first, it’s just a whisper. A shuffle. A slow, dragging groan that barely registers past the blood pounding in my ears. Like the sound of a loose paper caught in the wind, nothing but a ghost of noise. Then it grows. Another step. Another breath. Then another. A chain reaction, spreading, swelling, rising. A chorus of them, a wave, pressing in from the front of the house, spilling into the streets. Slow. Heavy. Unstoppable. The groans stretch, thick with hunger, dripping with something old and rotten. The air feels tighter, the walls smaller. They are everywhere.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    I make it to the window, force myself to look.


    And my stomach turns to ice.


    Too many.


    They move like broken puppets, heads twitching, bodies lurching, arms hanging like dead weight. Some drag shattered limbs, some crawl on raw, exposed bone. They bump into one another, mindless, unseeing, a wave of rotting flesh that stretches down the street. There’s no end to them, no gaps, no way through. Just an ocean of death, shifting, groaning, reaching.


    Their mouths hang open, slack, waiting. But when I move—when the floor creaks beneath me—they change. Heads snap toward the house. Empty eyes fix on the window. And the groans rise, deep and hungry.


    A ripple moves through the horde. A shift. A pull.


    They see me.


    And they’re coming.


    I step back too fast. My shoulder hits the wall. A thud. A sound. Too loud.


    I need to move. I need to hide.


    I stumble through the house, each step clumsy and weak, my limbs buzzing with exhaustion. My heart slams against my ribs, hammering so hard it drowns out everything else. A painful drumbeat in my skull, a reminder that I’m still alive. My hands are slick with sweat, shaking, useless. My breath comes in sharp, uneven gasps, burning my throat, tearing at my chest. I reach for a door—any door—blindly, desperately, my fingers slipping on the handle before I manage to shove it open and push myself inside.


    Bathroom.


    Small. Cramped. Safe.


    I twist the lock. A flimsy thing. Barely anything at all. But it’s something. It’s all I have.


    I back into the corner, sink to the floor, pull my knees to my chest. My whole body is trembling, my fingers digging into my arms, gripping so hard it hurts. My breath stutters, shallow and weak, shaking like the rest of me. I can’t stop it. My vision wavers, blurring, swimming, darkness creeping in at the edges. My heart is pounding so loud I can hear it in my skull, a frantic, uneven drumbeat that drowns out everything else. The air feels thick, too heavy to breathe. I feel like I’m sinking, folding in on myself, getting smaller and smaller. Like if I just curl up tight enough, maybe I’ll disappear. Maybe I’ll be gone before they get to me.


    The groans outside get louder. The walls feel thinner.


    Then—


    A THUD.


    The front door.


    I suck in a breath, my fingers clenching.


    Another THUD. Harder.


    The sound is coming closer.


    My pulse pounds, hard, painful. The blood rushes to my ears, deafening. The door rattles. Then—


    CRACK.


    They’re inside.


    I squeeze my eyes shut. My whole body shakes, trembling so hard I can feel my bones rattling. My breath is sharp and uneven, gasping, choking, like I can''t pull in enough air. The weight of it all crushes me, presses down, heavy, suffocating.


    The junkyard. The crawler. The wet sound of teeth tearing through flesh. Hands pushing deep, pulling apart, stuffing shredded meat into a mouth that never stopped chewing. The smell, thick and rancid, coating my throat, my lungs. The way it didn’t even glance at me.


    Like I wasn’t there.


    Like I was already gone.


    Maybe I was.


    The bathroom door shudders.


    I freeze. My breath sticks in my throat. My muscles coil tight, locked, useless.


    A shadow moves under the crack. A shape. A foot. A hand.


    Fingernails scrape against the wood. Slow. Dragging. Feeling. Searching.


    I press my forehead to my knees, squeeze my hands into fists so tight my nails dig into my palms. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to see this. I want to disappear, sink into the floor, vanish into the dark where nothing can find me.


    The lock rattles.


    The fingers curl against the wood, testing, pressing.


    The groans on the other side grow louder, thick and hungry, vibrating through the thin walls.


    Then—


    The door bursts open.


    And i didn’t even scream.


    <hr>


    Johnny Sinner


    Days Survived: Nearly 2 weeks


    Cause of Death: Ripped apart—teeth and claws


    Nothing special. Just another dead man in a dead world. He ran, he fought, he broke, and when the time came, he fell like all the others. No grand ending, no last-minute escape—just torn flesh and fading breath. He tried to fight death, and well...he lost