Morning comes like an apology.
A pale sun crawls up behind the cracked skyline, turning the smog into pink smoke. I wake up on the roof, wrapped in an old sleeping bag that smells faintly of gasoline and regret.
For a second, I forget where I am. I half expect to hear car horns, the rumble of the subway, some guy yelling about rent.
Instead, I get silence — that heavy, permanent kind that sticks to your bones.
Then it all comes back:
The Collapse.
The Jeep.
Nova.
And the badge she threw me — Echelon.
I take it from my pocket, rubbing the metal with my thumb. It's cold, heavier than it looks, engraved with a strange triangular symbol.
If she was right, if there really are more people out there, I might not be the last idiot alive after all.
But I also remember what she said before she left.
"There's a storm coming. The kind that hunts."
I didn't ask what that meant last night.
This morning, I'm starting to wish I had.
Inside the store, my world smells of dust and expired snacks. My "pantry" shelf looks sad — two cans of beans, a jar of peanut butter, and half a bottle of flat soda.
Even the rats seem unimpressed.
"Breakfast of champions," I mutter, spooning peanut butter straight from the jar. "And by champions, I mean emotionally unstable survivors."
The air outside feels heavier than usual — thick, charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.
The pigeons are gone.
They never leave the roof.
I take that as a bad sign.
Around noon, I hear it — a low hum, like static under my skin.
The ground trembles.
Somewhere in the distance, a siren wails — one of those old emergency alarms that should've died with the power grid. The sound echoes between the broken buildings, eerie and metallic.
"What the hell…" I whisper, climbing up to the roof.
Then I see it — a dark line on the horizon.
Not clouds.
Something bigger.
The air twists and shimmers, like the world's bending in on itself. From that distortion rises a rolling wall of dust and ash, crawling toward the city.
It's not wind.
It's… alive.
Flashes spark inside the storm — bursts of lightning, and shapes.
Moving shapes.
Tall, spindly, wrong.
"Okay," I say to no one. "That's not normal. Definitely not weather."
The storm howls. The noise is unbearable, a mix of wind and screaming metal. Windows shatter across the street.
I grab my bag, stuff what food I can find inside, and bolt.
By the time I hit the street, the storm's crawling between the buildings.
The air tastes like copper.
Paper and ash swirl around me like angry ghosts.
I sprint toward the subway entrance — one of the few places still offering shelter from whatever nightmare is rolling in. As I run, something catches my eye: a shadow flickering against a wall, tall and thin, like a person stretched too far.
Then it moves.
My heart slams into my throat.
I duck into the subway stairs, nearly tripping on the way down. The underground reeks of mold and damp concrete, but at least it's quiet. My flashlight flickers weakly as I move deeper in.
That's when I hear another sound — footsteps.
Not mine.
"Who's there?" I call out, gripping Karen the baseball bat tight in my hands. My voice echoes off the tiled walls.
Silence.
Then — a familiar voice.
"Relax, Dorito Boy. It's me."
I nearly drop the bat. "Nova?!"
She steps out from behind a pillar, goggles hanging around her neck, dust covering her jacket. She looks like she's been driving through hell — which, honestly, might not be far from the truth.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, half relieved, half terrified.
She shrugs. "Told you a storm was coming. Didn't think you'd actually wait to see it."
"You mean that thing?" I point back up the stairs. "Yeah, I noticed."
She looks serious now. "It's not a storm. It's a purge wave."
"That… sounds friendly."
"It's not."
She gestures for me to follow. "It's the aftermath of the labs. The air carries nano-particles from the Collapse. They're unstable — they consume anything organic, rewrite it, and move on."
"So, uh… zombie tornado?"
"Close enough."
Fantastic. The apocalypse found a sequel.
We move deeper into the subway tunnels. The hum of the purge wave vibrates through the walls. Every few seconds, dust rains from the ceiling. I keep my flashlight on the ground because I don't want to know what's behind us.
After a while, we reach an old maintenance room. Nova seals the door behind us and sets down a small device that starts humming softly.
"What's that?" I ask.
"Signal scrambler. Keeps the wave from tracking organic heat signatures."
"Cool, cool… totally makes sense."
(Long pause.)
"I have no idea what that means."
She almost smiles. "It means we're safe. For now."
We sit in the dark, listening to the world die above us.
The storm's roar fades slowly into nothing.
For a while, it's just the sound of our breathing.
"You've done this before," I say quietly. "You've seen it."
"Too many times," she replies. "Echelon caused it. Or tried to control it. I don't even know anymore."
I hold up the badge she gave me. "This thing — it's connected, isn't it?"
Nova looks at it like it's something poisonous. "Where'd you find that?"
"You gave it to me, remember?"
She curses under her breath. "Then you need to listen carefully, Milo. Echelon isn't just a group of survivors. It's what started the Collapse."
I blink. "You mean the lab that sneezed on humanity?"
"Exactly. Only it wasn't an accident."
The silence that follows could swallow a city.
Eventually, I manage to speak. "You're saying they released it… on purpose?"
She nods. "They wanted control. The virus was meant to erase human flaws — rage, greed, fear. Rewrite the genome. But it rewrote everything."
"And you… how do you know all this?"
Nova looks away.
"I was one of them."
That hits harder than the storm.
I don't know what to say. For once, my sarcasm fails me. The world ends, and I find the one person left who helped destroy it.
She sighs. "I didn't want this. I tried to stop them. But when it broke loose, I ran. I've been running ever since."
The look in her eyes — guilt, grief, exhaustion — it's too familiar.
We're both ghosts, in our own way.
Hours pass before the rumble above finally fades. The purge wave has moved on. The air feels lighter, though I doubt it's truly safe.
Nova checks her gear. "We need to move. There's a safe zone west of the river — old research bunker. Might still have power."
"'Might' isn't the most comforting word," I say.
"Neither is 'alone.'"
Touché.
We emerge from the tunnels at dusk.
The sky's bruised purple, full of floating ash.
Buildings are half-dissolved — steel warped, glass melted, entire streets erased like chalk lines in rain. Whatever the purge wave touches, it eats.
Nova surveys the destruction with cold precision. "This was only a scouting front. The main wave will follow soon."
I glance around the ruins, then back at her. "And you want to run toward it?"
"I want to stop it."
I blink. "You do realize we barely survived the warm-up round?"
She loads her rifle and smirks faintly. "You coming or not, Dorito Boy?"
I stare at her for a long second. The old me — the one before the Collapse — would've said no. He liked comfort, Netflix, and not dying.
But now?
Now I'm the last idiot on Earth. And for the first time, I'm not alone.
"Yeah," I say finally. "Let's go save what's left of dawn"
As we walk west through the glowing ruins, the last light of the day fades.
Above us, the storm crackles on the horizon — alive, watching, hungry.
And for the first time since the world ended, I feel something strange inside me.
Hope.
Or maybe just madness.
But in this world, maybe they're the same thing.