Another flicker of memory. This one sharper, more painful, like a shard of glass pressing into the fragile remnants of my mind.

  I’m standing in a church, the pews stretching out like rows of gravestones, their polished wood coated in a thin layer of ash. The air is stifling, heavy with the mingling scents of old smoke, burnt wood, and something darker—something that carries the tang of fear and decay.

  Charlie is beside me, his flashlight cutting jagged paths through the gloom. The narrow beam of light dances over broken hymnals, shattered glass from the once-beautiful windows, and splintered fragments of the altar. Even in the chaos, I can see the faint outline of prayers etched into the wood, now lost to time and ruin.

  “We can’t stay here,” he says, his voice tight and low. There’s urgency in his tone, but it’s tempered by exhaustion.

  “I know,” I reply, though my throat feels constricted. My fingers tighten around the strap of my backpack, the weight of it pulling at my shoulders. It’s a ridiculous thing, really—filled with items that no longer matter, relics of a life that feels so impossibly distant.

  But where can we go?

  I glance toward the stained-glass windows lining the walls. Their once-vivid colors—reds, blues, golds—are muted now, dulled by the ash-filled light seeping in from the outside. I can’t make out the stories they were meant to tell, only fractured images that no longer seem divine. Beyond the glass, shadows twist and shift, moving with that eerie, jerky rhythm I’ve come to recognize all too well. They’re out there. Watching. Waiting.

  “Isabel.” Charlie’s voice pulls me back, snapping me out of the trance. He’s staring at me, his expression stern but tinged with concern. “We need to move.”

  I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. My chest feels tight, like the weight of the entire church is pressing down on me. We can’t stay, but leaving feels just as dangerous.

  We descend the stairs together, our steps careful but hurried. The wooden steps creak under our weight, each sound echoing through the empty halls like a whispered warning. Debris litters the floor—fragments of shattered glass, broken pieces of plaster, and the occasional scorched remnant of someone’s belongings.

  The church feels like a tomb.

  Its silence is oppressive, heavy, as if the building itself knows what’s waiting for us beyond its doors. My flashlight flickers as we pass what’s left of the altar, the beam catching on a silver cross that still hangs crookedly on the wall. I wonder, briefly, if faith ever helped anyone who sought refuge here.

  And then we’re outside.

  The cold air hits me like a slap, sharp and biting against my skin. It’s colder than it should be for October, or maybe that’s just the way the world feels now—frozen, lifeless. Charlie is already a few steps ahead, his flashlight bouncing erratically as he scans the cracked pavement and twisted wreckage around us.

  We move quickly but carefully, our breaths visible in the chill, our footfalls muted against the ash-covered ground. The ruins of the city loom around us, skeletal remains of buildings reaching skyward like broken fingers.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  And then it happens.

  A sound cuts through the silence, low and guttural, sending a shiver down my spine. We freeze, our eyes meeting in a moment of shared understanding. It’s close. Too close.

  Charlie raises his flashlight, aiming it toward the source of the noise. The beam trembles slightly, and for the first time, I notice how tightly he’s gripping the handle. The growl comes again, louder this time, reverberating through the empty streets.

  My pulse quickens. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to run, but my feet are rooted in place, as if the cold has seeped into my bones.

  “Stay close,” Charlie whispers, his voice barely audible.

  We press on, our movements slower now, more deliberate. Every sound feels amplified—the crunch of ash underfoot, the distant crackle of a fire still burning somewhere, the steady rhythm of my own breathing.

  The memory begins to fracture, like a fragile piece of glass splintering under pressure. The growl echoes in my ears, even as the scene around me begins to dissolve.

  It wasn’t long after that moment in the church that everything fell apart.

  Charlie…

  No. I can’t think about that.

  The memory shatters completely, leaving me back in the present, wandering aimlessly through the ruins. The hunger pulls at me, relentless and unyielding, demanding my focus. But the echoes of that night linger, a haunting refrain that I can’t escape.

  Charlie’s face, his voice, his steady presence—they’re all fading now, slipping through my grasp like sand through my fingers. The hunger takes everything. It always does.

  I keep moving, my body a puppet to the hunger, my mind ensnared in the fragmented echoes of my past. I was Isabel Anderson once. A person with a life, a name, a story. I had people who cared about me, who fought for me, who believed I mattered. I was more than this shambling thing, more than this hollow existence.

  But now… now, I’m nothing. A shell. A shadow. Whatever spark of humanity I once held has been buried, smothered by the relentless gnawing of the hunger.

  The beast inside me is insatiable, roaring louder with every passing moment, clawing at my insides, driving me forward. It grows stronger, more demanding, until it feels like it might split me apart. My legs buckle, and I collapse to my knees, the impact sending a dull jolt through my body. My hands claw at the ground, grasping at nothing. The ash clings to my fingers, cold and gritty, coating them in a fine, gray dust.

  I can’t breathe. Or maybe I can, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the hunger.

  And then I hear it—a sound in the distance, faint but unmistakable. Footsteps.

  It’s soft at first, the shuffle of soles against debris-littered pavement. But as it grows louder, sharper, it becomes impossible to ignore. The sound cuts through the haze in my mind like a blade, igniting something primal and terrible within me.

  The hunger surges.

  It grips me with iron claws, dragging me to my feet. My limbs feel disconnected, moving of their own accord, lurching toward the sound with unnatural determination. My body trembles with anticipation, my movements jerky and uncoordinated, but unstoppable.

  The beast in me roars. Find them. Feed.

  But somewhere deep inside, buried beneath layers of ash and hunger, there’s another voice. Smaller. Fainter. A whisper barely audible over the cacophony of my instincts.

  Run. Hide. Don’t let me find you.

  It’s a plea, fragile and desperate, an echo of the person I used to be. That tiny shred of Isabel Anderson—the woman who once had a name, a story, and people who cared about her—still exists, clinging to the edges of my fractured mind.

  For a moment, the whisper grows stronger, cutting through the fog. Memories rise unbidden, vivid and painful. The face of someone I loved. The sound of laughter that felt like sunlight. The touch of a hand in mine, warm and steady.

  Don’t let me find you. Please.

  But the hunger is stronger. It always is.

  My head snaps up, the motion sharp and unnatural, and my focus narrows to a pinpoint. The sound of footsteps is closer now, louder, reverberating through the emptiness like a beacon. My breath—or what passes for it—comes faster, harsh and ragged. The world around me blurs, reduced to shadows and shapes, as the hunger sharpens my senses to a razor’s edge.

  Somewhere, in the depths of my mind, Isabel is screaming. Fighting. Begging.

  But the hunger doesn’t care. It consumes everything.