"You okay?" she asked, not even turning her head. Her voice was flat, like someone reading instructions.
"No," I unexpectedly snapped. "No, I'm not. There's something wrong out there. Something's happening, people are people are eating people. My parents are gone. I saw it with my own eyes, this guy just ripped into someone's neck like it was normal!"
She didn't react.
Just took another drag, eyes still on the tracks.
"You don't look surprised," I said, breath shaking. "Why aren't you reacting? You've seen it too, haven't you?"
She blew out a thin stream of smoke and shrugged. "Yeah."
That was it. Just yeah.
I stared at her, jaw clenched. "Then why the hell are you just sitting here?"
Finally, she looked at me like I was the one being unreasonable.
"What do you want me to do? Scream?"
There was no sarcasm in her voice. Just coldness.
"I want—" I stopped. I didn't even know what I wanted.
Answers? Help? Someone who cared?
"Don't you get it? People are turning into monsters. Cannibals or worse. Something's happening and no one's saying anything. No cops. No news. Nothing. Just blood and silence. You're acting like it's a normal Tuesday."
She looked away again, flicked ash onto the tracks.
"I already screamed," she muttered. "Didn't do shit."
Something about that hit me in the chest.
I stood there, cold sweat down my back, breathing hard. She looked like a ghost. A person too tired to be afraid anymore. The complete opposite of me shaking, furious, helpless.
"Why are you here?" I asked again, quieter this time.
She didn't answer right away. Just stared into the fog like it was going to swallow her whole.
"I'm waiting."
"For what?" I asked, voice hoarse.
She looked at me again.
"For it to come back."
And I didn't know if she meant the train or something else entirely.
"I'm not waiting for a ride," she said, that cigarette still burning low between her fingers. "I'm waiting to see how long it takes before people admit it's not coming."
I stared at her. "You mean the train?"
She turned to me slowly, pale eyes glinting in the gray light.
"No. I mean anything. Rescue, help, normal. Take your pick."
Her voice was low, detached. She wasn't rich, her clothes were faded, the sleeves of her jacket fraying at the cuffs, mud crusted on her shoes but she spoke like someone who'd already accepted something the rest of us hadn't caught up to yet.
I felt my chest tightening again.
"Do you even know what's happening out there? People are there's something wrong. They're attacking each other, biting, like animals—"
She raised her brows, amused. "Yeah. That part started a while ago."
My blood ran cold.
"What do you mean 'a while ago'?"
She gave a half-shrug. "It didn't happen all at once. First, it was just news from rural places. A body here, a missing kid there. Then they stopped reporting it. You didn't notice?"
"No one said anything," I said, frustrated. "No government alert, no news—"
She snorted a laugh. "You really think they'd tell us? People panic over the word 'outbreak.' Try dropping the word cannibalism in a press conference. See how long the city lasts."
I stared at her.
"You're not scared?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
"No? Fear takes energy. I ran out of that weeks ago because of some zombies."
I stared at her, heart pounding. "No," I said, shaking my head too fast. "That's not, that's not real. Zombies aren't real, that's just movies. Games. Fiction."
She tilted her head slightly, lips twitching into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Is that what keeps you calm? Thinking it's fiction?"
I felt like throwing up. "What I saw It was just some lunatic. Cannibalism exists. I've read about it. It's psychosis, desperation, sickness. But zombies?" I scoffed.
"Come on. There's no virus that makes someone… dead and still moving."
She flicked ash from her cigarette, the ember glowing in the fog. "Doesn't really matter what you name it," she said. "They move. They bite. They don't stop. Call it whatever makes you feel smart."
I glanced at the train tracks stretching into the mist. The metal was rusted, warped like it hadn't seen a train in decades. My hands were still trembling. "I need proof."
"Don't worry. Proof always shows up. Just hope it doesn't show up hungry."
I turned back to her sharply. "Are you even listening to yourself? You're talking like this is normal!"
She looked me dead in the eyes. "Normal's a corpse. This? This is what's left."
"If it makes it easier to call them zombies, go ahead. But that doesn't make it real."
"It's not about what I call it," I said. "It's what's happening. No news alerts. No warnings."
"You think something's happening?"
I nodded. "I know something's happening and if no one's saying it out loud, it's because they're covering it up."