"Now all set," Noren whispered.
The words vanished into the oppressive silence of the mini-mart, swallowed whole by the towering shelves of untouched goods. Cans of soup, bags of chips, and glossy magazines stood in neat, mocking rows, a testament to a world that had simply stopped. Their bright labels were a jarring counterpoint to the gloom that pooled in the aisles.
"I can finally get a proper rest after all of this," he added, the statement meant more for himself than the empty store. It was a ritual, a spoken charm to ward off the creeping dread.
He had done everything a man could do to secure his temporary sanctuary. The front door was barricaded not just with a shelf unit, but with the weight of his own desperation, a fortress against the stillness outside. The bank of camera feeds flickered with a monotonous, green-tinged emptiness, showing nothing but the wind-blown debris of a world in stasis. In the windowless stockroom, he had fashioned a makeshift bed from discarded packing blankets, a thin island of supposed safety in a sea of the unknown. Finally, exhaustion, a leaden weight heavier than any sack of grain he had hauled, dragged him down into a deep and dreamless sleep.
For a time, there was only the void of true sleep, and the silence was absolute.
But slowly, inevitably, that silence began to fray.
It started not as a sound, but as a sensation. A faint, unnatural chill seeped into the room, a cold that had nothing to do with the broken air conditioning. It was the damp of a deep cellar, the gelid touch of a tomb. Then, a pale, grey mist began to coil from the very pores of the concrete walls. This was no natural fog. It was a living exhalation, thick and silent, slithering across the floor to swallow the world in a deathly shroud. In his sleep, Noren shivered, his subconscious mind screaming a warning long before his conscious self could awaken.
From the heart of the thickening mist, a figure condensed. It was a shadow darker than the mere absence of light, a tear in the fabric of reality. It leaned over his sleeping form, a presence of pure anguish.
A hand emerged.
It was not whole, not entirely real. It was a construct of memory and nightmare, translucent in parts like fading smoke, yet horrifyingly solid where it mattered. The skin was torn and slick with fresh, crimson blood that dripped onto the concrete floor without making a sound, each drop a silent accusation. It reached for him, moving with a terrible, aching slowness that stretched seconds into eternities.
The cold, bloody fingers closed around Noren's wrist.
The touch was an electric shock of absolute wrongness. It was cold as the grave, a deep bone chill, yet the blood that smeared his skin was unnaturally, sickly warm. A voice, cracked and ragged, filled the air. It did not seem to come from the figure's mouth, but from the mist itself, from the very blood staining his skin, a whisper woven from despair.
"My son..."
Noren's eyes flew open. A scream tore from his throat, not a sound of fear, but a raw, animal sound of pure, unadulterated agony and terror that shattered the fragile silence to pieces. He wrenched his body backward, scrambling crablike away from the spot until his back slammed against a cold metal shelf, sending a jarring vibration through his spine. His chest heaved, each breath a ragged sob.
He was alone.
Frantically, his eyes wide and wild, he scanned the stockroom. His hands patted down his own body, searching for the evidence he knew must be there. There was no blood, no mist, no shadowy figure. The stockroom was exactly as he had left it: silent, still, and terribly ordinary. Yet the phantom sensation of that icy, bloody grip still clung to his wrist like a brand, a ghostly tattoo of terror.
It was a dream.
A vicious,hyper realistic dream. His mind's own betrayal.
He let out a long, shaky breath, the sound whistling through his clenched teeth. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs, a frantic rhythm of survival. He rubbed his wrist, the skin unmarred, yet the memory of the touch so vivid it felt like a physical wound.
"Just a dream," he muttered to the silent, listening room. The words were hollow, a flimsy shield against the primal fear that had taken root in his gut.
Driven by a surge of adrenaline and a desperate, clawing need for the mundane, he kicked off the damp blankets, their clamminess now feeling sinister. He stumbled out of the stockroom and into the main store. The fluorescent lights hummed a low, steady note that was somehow comforting. He found his toothbrush and toothpaste in his go-bag, his movements hurried. He brushed his teeth with frantic, almost violent intensity. The sharp, minty taste was a stinging anchor in a reality that had just proven itself to be terrifyingly fluid.
Then, he began his routine. It was the same series of exercises he had done every morning for years, a liturgy of normalcy. He jogged in place for a full minute, his breath coming in sharp pants. He followed with precise neck rotations, arm cycles, side stretches, and hamstring stretches. His movements were sharp and mechanical, a performance for an audience of one. He clung to this script of a life that was gone. He believed that by perfectly executing these familiar motions, he could rebuild the walls of his sanity and erase the haunting echo of that voice.
Still not ready to face the outside world or review the camera feeds, to seek the confirmation he dreaded, he moved toward a corner of the store he had designated as his gym. Heavy bags of rice and cases of bottled water served as makeshift weights. He began his sets. His muscles burned with a clean, familiar strain. He welcomed the physical pain, focusing on the fire in his biceps and the ache in his shoulders. He used it as a scalpel to cut out the chilling memory of the voice that still whispered, just on the edge of hearing, in the silent spaces of his mind.
The burn in his muscles was a good pain, a clean feeling that slowly scrubbed away the lingering filth of the nightmare. The frantic energy that had driven his routine had settled into a weary, post-exertion calm. He felt refreshed, or at least as close to it as he could get. His body was tired in a simple, honest way, a stark contrast to the complex terror of before.
He pulled a can of peaches and a protein bar from the shelves, eating without tasting, his mind focused only on the mechanics of fuel. The silence of the store, once a comfort, now felt like a held breath. The barricaded door loomed, a challenge he could no longer ignore. He had to know. He had to see.
With a deep, steadying breath that did little to calm the tremor in his hands, he began the laborious task of moving the heavy shelf unit away from the entrance. The grating sound of metal on linoleum was unnaturally loud in the stillness. Finally, a sliver of daylight appeared, widening into a full view of the world outside.
He stepped out, the morning air cool on his skin. And then he stopped. His mind, still groggy from sleep and numb from the shock of the dream, simply refused to process the information his eyes were sending.
"Whaaaaat!!?"
The scream was ripped from his throat, a strangled sound of pure, uncomprehending disbelief. But the sound seemed small, swallowed by the immense, yawning space before him. The world had been stretched. The parking lot, which should have been a confined area of asphalt, now stretched into a vast, empty plain. The cars that had been parked nearby were now tiny, ant-like specks on a grey horizon. It was as if he were looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Everything was there, but it was impossibly far away, separated from him by a colossal, silent distance.
He stood there, his jaw slack, his mind reeling. The barricaded door, the camera feeds showing empty stillness, the dream... it all clicked into a horrifying new configuration. Another event had occurred while he slept. An event on the same impossible scale as the color ray incidents that had shattered the world a day ago.