The door opened with a quiet creak. Edie stepped outside and let it shut behind him, muffling the hollow sound of the wind slipping through the broken windows of the house.
The street was just as he saw every single day behind the window - empty, colorless, swallowed by fog. Buildings leaned like tired giants, their windows shattered or boarded up, their walls marked by time and decay. Streetlights stood crooked, long since dead, and the faint scent of rust and wet concrete filled the air.
Edie adjusted the straps of his worn backpack and stood there for a long moment, staring down the deserted road ahead. The city felt frozen, but not in the way snow or ice would freeze it. This was different. The silence had weight. The kind that made every small sound feel so loud, too sharp.
He crossed the cracked pavement, stepping carefully around a half-sunken car that had been there as long as he could remember. Beyond it, the buildings stood taller, pressing in from both sides. Fog curled between the alleyways and doorways like it was alive, watching.
A dog barked somewhere far off, sharp and sudden. Then nothing. Only the wind and the soft shuffle of Edie's footsteps.
As he moved deeper into the city, past a rusted bus stop and an overturned mailbox, he kept his eyes low. He hadn't been outside in nearly four years, not since the day his father...
The weight in his bag shifted as he walked. He didn't realize how heavy it was until he fell... Dizzy, He was dizzy, he was weak. He could've just stayed like that, motionless, and still. But he got up.Right now, it was all he cared about... getting up and moving forward. It was about time to put one foot in front of the other. About leaving that house behind, finally.
Edie finally found a place to sit. He looked around lazily. That place was... familiar. Yeah...it was the park, he thought. He could see the swings from afar... The wind stirred the empty swings, their rusted chains whispering faint protests. Edie sat there, motionless, staring at the hollow shells of what used to be. The world around him felt blurred, muted, like someone had drained all the color out of the park.
He remembered this place. Not just the shapes, but the feeling it used to carry-the warmth of summer evenings, the smell of cut grass, the sound of his sister's laughter echoing between the trees.
But now, it was quiet. Too quiet. Like the earth itself had forgotten how to make noise.
Edie's fingers traced the fraying edge of his sleeve, pulling at the loose thread until it snapped. The bag at his feet, heavy and silent, felt like a reminder: "You have to go, you gotta leave it here... let the memories go...".
But he didn't move. Couldn't, not yet.
His chest ached, a hollow weight pressing from inside as he watched the swings sway, slower now, as if they, too, were growing tired. He could almost see her, small and bright-eyed, urging him to push her higher, higher, until it felt like she might fly away.
He blinked hard, and the vision of his sister melted back into the rust and ruin. Edie lowered his head, pressing his palms into his eyes as if he could hold back the years, but the memories seeped through anyway. He gotta find her. He must find Edna... because she is the only one left, his only family.
Suddenly, he heard a scream. The sound floated in air, like a ghost whimpering. Edie tensed up, maybe... she was...
Edie ran, ran as fast as he could. His lungs were betraying him, his legs were giving in... But he held on. The only living part of him was urging him to run... . His heart kept pushing him forward. The love and the sarrow it held encouraged Edie to go on and never stop... he had to see... to see if she was really Edna...
Edie's breath came in sharp bursts as he sprinted through the crumbling streets, the skeletal remains of buildings looming over him like silent sentinels. Windows gaped like hollow eyes, graffiti-covered bricks crumbling under the weight of time.
His feet pounded the cracked pavement, dodging debris-rusted cars, collapsed beams, shards of glass glinting like teeth under the pale moonlight. The scream still rang in his ears, haunting him. It had to be her.
"Edna!" he shouted, voice bouncing off the ruins.
No response. Just the wind howling through the deserted streets...
Edie pushed forward, muscles burning, lungs on fire. His mind screamed to keep going, to tear through the rotten city and find her-but his body was betraying him. He sprinted down a narrow alley, feet slipping on the rubble-strewn asphalt.
Then-snap-his boot caught on twisted rebar hidden beneath the dust.
He was airborne for a heartbeat before crashing hard onto the unforgiving ground. The impact knocked the wind from his chest, pain blooming across his ribs, elbows scraped raw by shattered glass and grit.
The world spun wildly.
As he struggled to lift his head, vision swimming, he caught sight of her... just meters away.
She stood in the middle of the ruined street, drenched in the eerie green flicker of a broken streetlight. her body standing barely... he could tell by her trembling legs...
His hand twitched, barely lifting, reaching toward her.
"E-Edna..." he croaked.
But then the shadows behind her stretched, twisting unnaturally as if reaching to pull her under again. The light flickered once... twice... and then snapped off.
Everything plunged into blackness.
The last thing Edie heard was the pounding of his own pulse before the world swallowed him whole, and his body gave in, dragging him into unconsciousness.