Darius walked back through the park with a wide grin plastered across his face, the chili cheese fries in one hand and the strawberry milkshake in the other. His heart was soaring, practically beating out of his chest. Just minutes ago, he'd learned he was going to be a father. He could still hear Sophie's voice saying it—"We're having a baby." The words echoed like a hymn in his mind, steady and warm, pulsing with a joy he never thought he'd feel again.
He was practically floating, untouchable, until his world shattered in an instant.
His footsteps suddenly faltered.
The paper bag slipped from his fingers and hit the ground with a dull thud, the fries spilling out onto the grass, the milkshake toppling, rolling, then coming to a messy stop. He didn't even notice. He couldn't.
His eyes were locked ahead.
A shape… hunched… dark… twitching.
It was crouched over Sophie.
No.
No, no, no—
This couldn't be real.
His mind screamed denial, a thousand thoughts clashing in a storm of dread, but his body refused to move. He stood frozen.
The thing was munching over Sophie's belly.
The same belly she had just told him not to put too much weight on, because she was carrying their child. Their future.
Sophie lay motionless beneath it, limp and bloodied.
Darius's thoughts went blank. The breath left his lungs. Everything inside him hollowed out in a single second. He couldn't think. He couldn't breathe.
Then the silence broke.
Screams.
Every kind of scream erupted across the park, raw, agonized, panicked. Chaos flooded in all at once. People running in every direction. Some were chased. Others mauled. Others... changing.
The once peaceful park had become a bloodbath in the blink of an eye.
Darius's heart jolted back to life.
"No—SOPHIE!" he screamed, the name ripping out of him like a wound.
He sprinted toward her, rage and terror merging in his chest. With all the force he could muster, he kicked the creature off her, sending it tumbling backwards with a sickening thud. It skidded across the grass like a ragdoll. But Sophie… Sophie wasn't moving.
He dropped to his knees beside her. Her face was pale, her lips slightly parted, blood soaked through her shirt, pooling around her like a dying flower.
"Baby—no, no, no—stay with me," he begged, his voice shaking as he cradled her in his arms. "Sophie! You're okay, you're okay, stay awake! I'll get you to a hospital, just hold on. You and our baby, you're gonna be alright."
Tears streamed down his face. His whole body trembled as he held her close, rocking gently, as if the motion might keep her tethered to life, might keep her soul from slipping away.
A low, wet growl behind him made him freeze.
The creature was rising.
Darius turned to face it, fists clenched, blood roaring in his ears.
No, not a creature. It had once been a man. But now its skin was sickly gray, its eyes clouded with a milky white film. Blood dripped from its mouth. The thing let out a gurgling snarl, twitching unnaturally as it crawled on all fours toward him, faster than anything that size should move.
Darius stood, fury boiling in his chest. "You bastard…"
The thing lunged.
Darius dodged, barely. He punched it hard, then drove his knee into its side. It only paused, then came again, snarling louder, more feral. He kicked, elbowed, slammed it against the bench, but it kept coming. It didn't feel pain. It didn't stop. It was insatiable.
Darius screamed in fury and desperation, grappling the thing to the ground. His hand scrambled for anything, and found a loose piece of brick beside the path.
With all his strength, he brought it down on the thing's skull.
Once.
Twice.
CRACK.
It stopped moving.
Blood pooled beneath it, steaming in the warm grass.
Darius staggered back, panting, his hands trembling, coated in red. He didn't even pause to catch his breath. He ran to Sophie, gathered her gently in his arms, whispering shakily, "Hold on, baby. Please. I'll get you help. Everything's going to be okay. You're going to be fine. Our baby's going to be fine."
She didn't respond. But he held onto hope like it was oxygen.
He carried her past the chaos, the park now a full-blown scene of nightmares. People screamed. Others were torn apart by snarling, twitching monsters. Some bodies were already being fed on. The air reeked of blood, smoke, and death.
Darius didn't look. He couldn't afford to.
He reached his car, fumbled the door open, and gently laid Sophie on the passenger seat. She was cold. Too cold. He started the engine with shaking hands and pulled out, tires screeching as he sped down the road.
"Stay with me, Sophie… stay with me," he muttered over and over, gripping the wheel tight, eyes flicking between her and the road, driving blindly, tears streaming down his face.
But then—
A strange, gurgling sound.
He turned his head.
Sophie was twitching.
"Sophie?"
She began making the same strange cry he'd heard from the creature. Her head jerked to the side, then back again. Her fingers curled unnaturally against the seatbelt.
Then her eyes opened.
Milky. Clouded. Inhuman.
"Sophie…?"
She growled and lunged at him, her teeth snapping inches from his face, only the seatbelt holding her back. She snarled and twisted violently in place, hands clawing at the belt, trying to get free.
"No—no no no—SOPHIE!!" Darius screamed, disbelief and horror flooding him.
In the chaos, the car veered.
CRASH.
The vehicle smashed through a wall at the side of the road, crumpling in on itself like a paper shell.
Everything went black.
Then—
Darius shot upright, gasping, drenched in sweat. His chest heaved. He was in bed. It was still dark outside.
It had been a dream.
Just a dream.
He blinked wildly, his heart pounding.
The room was silent.
But the echo of that final scream, Sophie's snarl still rang in his ears.
He reached for the space beside him.
Empty.
His hands trembled.
"…Sophie?" he whispered.
---
It had always been like this. Nightmares.
Since the day he left that cursed island, sleep had never come peacefully. Not once.
Every time he closed his eyes, he was dragged back there, to the screams, the blood, the unbearable weight of memory. Like chains pulling him under.
How could he rest?
He lost everything that ever mattered to him on that island.
His family.
His love.
His friends.
His home.
Gone.
Ripped from him in the most brutal way imaginable.
And the worst part?
He hadn't just lost them.
He ended them.
With his own hands.
What fate could be more cruel than that?
To be forced to pull the trigger on the very people who once gave his life purpose.
The people who made him laugh.
The ones he fought for, dreamed with, lived for.
The ones whose faces haunted every second of silence.
Now, there was nothing left inside him.
No love.
No light.
No hope.
Just the echo of who he used to be.
He moved, he breathed, he existed, but there was no soul behind his eyes anymore.
No meaning.
No fire.
He was just like those Cravings now.
Empty.
Numb.
A hollow shell wearing human skin.
A living dead.
A walking corpse.
And some nights… he wondered if it might've been kinder to have stayed behind on that island.
To die with them.
To let it all end.
To never wake up again.
Because waking meant remembering.
And remembering…
hurt more than dying ever could.