They stretch endlessly in every direction, skeletal ruins of buildings clawing at a sky heavy with soot and despair. Shattered windows gape like empty eyes, and twisted metal beams reach upward as if begging for salvation that will never come. Thick black smoke coils from the charred remnants of lives, obscuring the sun and casting the world in an ashen twilight. The acrid stench of burning fills what’s left of my senses—a cruel reminder of what once was. It burns in my throat, lingers on my skin, an odor that feels as if it has seeped into my very bones.

  Everything is gray—roads, cars, walls, trees. A monochrome world robbed of color and life, blanketed in a fine, ashy snow that falls without end. It settles on broken streets and crushed bodies alike, rendering them indistinguishable in the gloom. The flakes land on my skin, soft and mocking, reminding me of winter mornings long gone when snow was something to marvel at, to reach for, to taste. But now, even the memory of that innocence feels tainted.

  I wander through the wreckage without purpose, my movements dictated not by choice but by something deeper, darker—a primal instinct that has taken hold of whatever I am now. My arms hang at awkward angles, swinging limply as I stagger forward, my steps uneven and dragging. A bone in my left ankle feels wrong, bent or shattered, but I don’t stop to examine it. Pain doesn’t register the way it used to. Nothing does, not really.

  And yet, somewhere deep inside, something stirs. A flicker, faint and fleeting, like a memory slipping through my fingers before I can grasp it. An echo of what I used to be—a person, a name, a soul. It whispers faintly, a voice calling from the bottom of a well, muffled and distant. I can almost hear it, almost remember, but then the hunger comes, and it drowns out everything else.

  The hunger.

  It’s relentless, a clawing, gnawing thing that twists my insides into unbearable knots. It isn’t like being hungry when I was alive, that gentle rumble that could be ignored or sated with food. This is something else entirely, a ravenous beast that consumes every thought, every action, every shred of will. It claws at the edges of my mind, urging me forward, always forward, searching for…something.

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  I clutch at my middle as if I can quiet it, pressing my hands against my hollow stomach. My fingers graze the jagged edge of a broken rib jutting beneath my tattered shirt, but it’s a hollow gesture. The hunger doesn’t ease, doesn’t care. It never does. Nothing ever does.

  It is always there, a constant companion in this cursed half-existence. I stumble over a chunk of broken concrete, catching myself against a scorched lamppost. The metal is cold beneath my touch, its surface roughened by fire and ash. For a moment, I stop, tilting my head upward to the sky.

  The clouds churn above, thick and oppressive, swallowing the sun. I can’t remember the last time I saw blue, can’t remember what warmth feels like on my skin. It’s all faded now, like an old photograph left in the sun too long.

  I try to breathe in deeply, out of habit more than necessity. The air rasps through my throat, thick with smoke and grit. Somewhere, far off, I hear a faint sound—a distant crash, maybe, or the echo of something falling. It should send a jolt of fear through me, the way loud noises once did. But instead, I feel nothing.

  Nothing but the hunger.

  It urges me onward, my steps dragging but determined, guided by an invisible force I can’t resist. My legs carry me over piles of rubble, past the twisted skeletons of cars frozen in their last desperate attempts to escape. Windows are shattered, doors flung open, seats smeared with blood now blackened by time and ash.

  The world is silent except for the faint scrape of my footsteps against the broken ground. It’s a suffocating, oppressive silence that feels alive, pressing in on me from all sides. But there’s a strange comfort in it, too—a familiarity I can’t quite explain. This silence is all I’ve known since…since…

  A flash of memory sparks, bright and sharp. Laughter. My own, mingling with another’s—a voice I recognize but can’t name. A warm hand brushing against mine, the scent of coffee drifting between us. The world felt alive then, vibrant and full of color.

  The memory fades almost as quickly as it came, leaving behind an ache that feels worse than the hunger.

  I was someone once. I had a name. I had people who loved me, who knew me. I had a life.

  But now, I am nothing.

  I keep moving, my body propelled by a need I can’t control, my mind spiraling into fragments of what was. The hunger demands that I press on, though there’s no destination, no relief waiting for me at the end of this journey.

  And yet, I walk.