Sometimes I wake up forgetting the world is gone.
Just for a second.

My eyelids are heavy. My neck’s stiff. I turn and reach for the warmth that used to be beside me. The shape of him. That laugh. The scar on his collarbone.
Then I remember he’s dead.
Eaten.
Gone.

And I’m still here.

I get up before the sun rises, pull on my boots, and slip outside to the roof where the cold burns clean through my hoodie. I like it up here. No one asks questions. No one stares.

Below me, Saint Hollow still sleeps in ash and fog. The wind carries a soft groan from far off. One of the dead. Or someone dying. Sometimes the difference is small.

The door creaks behind me.

I don’t turn around. “You walk loud as hell, Dez.”

He chuckles, rubbing his arms and stepping up beside me. “Sorry, boss. Didn’t mean to ruin your brooding time.”

I sigh. “What do you want?”

He shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d check on you.”

He always does that. Pretends like it’s nothing. But I know he’s hurting. It’s in the way he laughs too fast. The way he picks at his cuticles until they bleed.

“You dreaming again?” I ask.

He nods. Doesn’t look at me.

“I saw my mom last night. She was alive. Making rice. You know that pot she used to -” His voice cracks. “Anyway. I went to hug her, and her jaw came off. Just... fell into my hands.”

I don't say anything. What is there to say?

“My little brother’s face was in the oven. Smiling like he liked it.”

My stomach turns. I put a hand on his shoulder. Not to comfort. Just so he doesn’t float away.

“I haven’t dreamed of anyone I love in years,” I tell him. “I think that part of me died already.”

He swallows. “Guess I’m lucky, then.”

By midmorning, the others are awake. Karla’s boiling water over a jerry-rigged burner, Mateo’s checking our perimeter traps. Dez is sorting bullets and humming again same song as yesterday. Some pop tune about lovers on fire.

“Stop singing that damn song,” Karla snaps.

He holds up his hands, smirking. “What? It’s catchy.”

Karla glares at him, eyes rimmed with red. She hasn’t slept, and it shows. I walk over slowly, crouch beside her.

“How long’s it been since your last nightmare?” I ask, quiet.

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

“I didn’t ask if you wanted to.”

She stares at the flame. “Four nights. Maybe five. I keep seeing my sister in the tree.”

I blink. “What tree?”

She shakes her head fast, like she hates herself for saying anything. “When the outbreak hit our neighborhood, we tried to run. But she... she wasn’t fast. They caught her. I climbed a tree and stayed there for two days. I watched them rip her open, Mercy. She was calling for me. Screaming. For me.”

My chest burns. Not because it’s surprising. But because that kind of guilt it carves itself into your bones. And it never really goes away.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

Karla nods once. “You think we’re cursed?”

“Not cursed,” I say. “Just left behind.”

Later, Mateo calls us to the northwest barricade. He’s found one of our traps sprung and nothing in it.

That means one of two things: a person took the kill… or a smarter kind of dead thing did.

He looks to me, quiet like always. His face unreadable. His left hand clenches the way it does when he’s anxious.

“Was it fresh?” I ask.

He nods. “Still dripping when I found it. Something dragged it off.”

“Blood trail?”

“Stops at the corner. Could be someone covering tracks.”

Dez frowns. “Think it’s the gang? The ones we heard over the radio?”

“Could be,” I say. “The ones with the green armbands. The ones that hang people upside down for fun.”

Karla crosses her arms. “We should move base. This place ain’t safe anymore.”

“No place is safe,” Mateo mutters. “It just stops being quiet.”

He’s right. It’s always quiet before it turns to hell.

That night, I eat half a can of beans and give the other half to Karla. She doesn’t thank me, but she holds the can like it’s holy.

Before bed, I sit in the hallway by the window and clean my machete.

Mateo walks up and stands in the doorway.

“You ever sleep?” he asks.

“Not if I can help it.”

He nods, eyes on me. “You know what day it is?”

I pause. “No.”

“Your brother’s birthday.”

I freeze. My throat tightens.

“I remember,” he says quietly. “He gave me his last protein bar before the breach.”

My vision blurs.

“Don’t,” I whisper. “Please don’t.”

Mateo walks over. Sits beside me. His hand brushes mine.

“He was good,” he says. “You are too. Even if you hate yourself for surviving.”

I don’t reply. I just lean my head against the wall and let the tears fall where he can’t see them.

I don’t know it yet.

But this is the last quiet night I’ll ever have.

In four days, we’ll go on a mission we can’t afford to skip.