Chapter 8: Heat and Hunger Beneath the Dark Blackout Sky
The blackout started just after sundown.
At first, people assumed it was a blown transformer or an overworked power grid. Apartment windows glowed briefly with phone flashlights and battery - powered candles.
In the convenience store across from Aria's building, the clerk handed out change by the light of a single tea candle stuck in a coffee cup.
But as the hours stretched on, the mood shifted. The hum of refrigerators and vending machines was gone. Elevators were dead. Streetlights didn't flicker back to life. Even the traffic signals stayed black.
Aria sat at her kitchen table with her phone plugged into a small portable charger, watching the little battery icon creep up. She scrolled through social media, but the feeds were a jumble — shaky videos of dark streets, angry posts about the outage, wild theories blaming hackers, the weather, or foreign governments.
Jules came in from the balcony, sliding the glass door shut. "It's the whole city," she said. "I can't even see the glow from downtown anymore."
They tried the radio next. A tinny emergency broadcast looped the same line every fifteen minutes: "Please remain indoors. Avoid unnecessary travel.
Further updates will follow." No details, no reassurance, just the same calm, clipped voice repeating over static.
Around midnight, Aria saw movement on the street below. Two figures stumbled across the intersection, their steps jerky and uneven. At first, she thought they were drunk. Then one of them tilted its head back in a way that made her stomach turn — like it was sniffing the air.
A dog somewhere down the block barked once, sharp and urgent, then fell silent.
"Don't," Jules said when she saw Aria reaching for the balcony door again. "Just… don't."
By two in the morning, the sounds outside had changed. Less human. Low, ragged noises drifted up from the alley — not shouting, not talking. More like breathing mixed with a faint, wet rasp.
Aria's phone buzzed in her hand. Unknown number. No text, just a video file.
She tapped it open. The footage was grainy, shot in the dark. Figures lurched in and out of the frame, their clothes torn, faces slack and pale. Someone off - camera whispered urgently, the words swallowed by static.
Then the camera jolted violently, and the view filled with a single, bloodshot eye before the screen went black.
Her stomach tightened. That wasn't a hoax. She didn't know how she knew — she just did.
The broadcast cut back in without warning, interrupting her screen. The same calm voice labeled the video "malicious misinformation" and urged residents to "disregard unverified content."
Jules touched her arm. "We should stay put. Wait it out."
But Aria couldn't shake the feeling that something had already slipped past the waiting point. That whatever was happening out there was moving too fast for them to catch up.
And by morning, she'd be right.
The news was silent on the true story. Official statements said the blackout was caused by a regional power failure. People accepted the explanation without question.
After all, the government controlled the narrative tightly, locking down all sources that hinted otherwise. No one outside a few top circles knew what really happened.
Patient EVO was confirmed dead in a private facility, buried in secrecy. The truth behind that death was locked away, erased from public records and media. But what the public didn't know was worse — Patient EVO had been consumed from the inside by something no one understood.
A figure known only as Subject Zero, a shadow lurking in the corners of the outbreak, had devoured Patient EVO's brain, leaving nothing but horror behind. The grotesque act was witnessed by no one except those trapped in the underground complex, and even their memories were soon scrubbed.
Mrs. Yune, the mysterious figure tied to the outbreak's origin, was still alive but missing. Her disappearance was barely noted by the press, dismissed as a minor residence issue.
But those who followed the whispers knew that the entire chaos had begun with her waking — bloodshot eyes opening after days of silence, a hunger that no human should possess. From that moment, the "roamers" had spread.
Roamers — what the public assumed were just violent looters or desperate people — were actually zombies. Ordinary citizens transformed into something else, driven by an insatiable need, minds lost to hunger. The first roamer had been Mrs. Yune herself, and from her awakening, the infection silently passed into the city's veins.
Kai had tried to capture evidence, hoping to expose the truth before it was too late. His handheld device recorded shaky footage of the outbreak's early moments. But he was caught. An agent appeared — calm, efficient, unyielding — intent on terminating him to erase any trace of the truth. Kai struggled, but there was no escape.
Then, Project Zero arrived.
It was no longer just rumors. Project Zero was something else — an unstoppable force. The agent tasked with eliminating Kai was swiftly overpowered. What followed was savage, brutal, incomprehensible. Project Zero consumed the agent and then Kai himself, erasing the witnesses in a gruesome act that defied explanation.
Back in her apartment, Aria felt it before she understood it. Something was wrong. Not loud or obvious, but a quiet disturbance beneath her skin, an itch in the back of her mind she couldn't reach. The city outside was dark, blacked out, like the world itself was holding its breath.
Her phone vibrated with a message from Jules, but Aria ignored it, her thoughts tangled and restless.
Jules shifted closer, catching the distant look in Aria's eyes. She brushed a hand softly over Aria's arm. "You're miles away," she said. "Talk to me."
Aria tried to shake off the feeling, forcing a smile. "I don't know. It's nothing. Just… something I can't explain."
Jules didn't push. Instead, she leaned in, lips brushing Aria's cheek, then pressed a kiss to her mouth. The warmth chased away the cold creeping at the edges of Aria's thoughts, grounding her. Her hands found Jules's waist instinctively, pulling her closer.
The kiss deepened, urgent and real. But beneath it all, the undercurrent of tension stayed, unrelenting.
A sudden noise broke the moment — a loud crash from the street below. Their bodies pulled apart, hearts pounding.
"Did you hear that?" Aria whispered.
Jules nodded, voice low. "Yeah. Something's out there. It's not just the blackout."
The blackout was no accident anymore. It was the calm before a storm.
Aria's mind raced, trying to connect the dots she didn't have. The city's silence was growing heavier. Emergency broadcasts flickered on low - power radios, the usual upbeat voices replaced by static and vague warnings.
The government had ordered a lockdown of all public information. Social media was saturated with misinformation, photos of empty streets, people blaming each other, fear spreading faster than facts.
Nobody could explain the true cause of the blackout or the strange behavior of those "roamers" slipping through the shadows.
Aria's phone buzzed again, this time with an alert from a local news app she barely trusted. The message was cryptic — "Emergency measures in place. Avoid travel. Stay indoors." No details, no reassurance.
Jules pulled Aria toward the window. The street was dark, but faint movement caught their eyes — figures stumbling aimlessly, faces blank, eyes wild. The roamers were out. Their ragged breaths hung in the cold night air, a soft sound beneath the distant sirens.
Aria's heart hammered. She wanted to believe it was just people scared and desperate. But she knew better. The hunger behind those eyes was something else — something primal and unrelenting.
Her phone vibrated with another message, this time from an unknown number. No text, just a video file. Hesitating, she opened it.
The footage was grainy and unstable, taken from Kai's perspective. It showed flickering images of people turning violent, collapsing, or attacking each other with desperate ferocity. The sound was distorted, but faint whispers and cries for help bled through the static. Then, the camera jerked violently as an unseen force grabbed it.
The last frames were chaos — screams, a struggle, then darkness.
Almost instantly, a government broadcast interrupted her screen. A crisp, uniformed spokesperson dismissed the footage as "malicious fabrication by a known extremist," claiming Kai was "spreading falsehoods to incite panic and destabilize public order." The words rolled out with polished calm, but Aria could hear the rehearsed edge beneath them.
Her breath caught. This wasn't propaganda from a stranger. This was Kai. And if the government was calling him a terrorist, it meant they were burying something far worse.
Jules reached for her hand, steadying her. "We need to stay safe," she said quietly. "Figure out what's happening before it's too late."
Outside, the city groaned beneath the weight of the blackout. Beneath the surface, something hungered.
Aria's chest tightened with a slow, burning anxiety that refused to settle. The city outside her window was a silhouette of broken lights and silent streets.
The blackout had swallowed everything — street lamps, billboards, even the dull hum of distant traffic. Only the occasional flicker of emergency signs offered faint, trembling glimmers of life. Somewhere far off, a siren wailed, slicing through the heavy silence like a knife.
Jules sat beside her on the worn couch, fingers tracing idle patterns on Aria's arm, trying to anchor her in the moment. But the knot in Aria's stomach grew tighter. The noise from below — the crash, the scuffle — still echoed in her ears, sharp and unfamiliar, like something wild had brushed past their fragile bubble.
"Do you think it's just looters?" Jules whispered, voice low and tight.
Aria shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek. "No. It's… different. It's like something's hunting out there. Not people looking for stuff. Something else."
Jules looked at her, brows furrowed. "What do you mean? Like, what?"
Aria swallowed hard. "I don't know exactly. But there's this feeling, like the air itself is heavier, like the city's holding its breath. And those sounds… they don't sound human. Not really."
The cell towers weren't completely dead — just crippled. Inside the city, calls still went through, as long as you weren't reaching beyond its borders. But try dialing the police, a hospital, any public emergency line… and the signal died mid - ring, like someone had cut the wire. News sites wouldn't load either, as if the entire city had been walled off from the truth. It felt deliberate.
Jules's fingers froze over her phone, her face paling. "Maybe we should call someone. The police, emergency services —"
Aria shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Even if the towers were working, they wouldn't help us. Not now. Not with everything… shutting down."
They sat in silence for a moment, the room thick with tension and unsaid fears. Aria's phone buzzed again. She glanced at it — another message from Jules, light and casual, but it didn't reach her. Her mind was elsewhere, tangled in shadows.
Outside, the city groaned. A distant crash, a low guttural noise, something like a growl, made her heart spike. Her gaze snapped to the window. The street below was empty — or at least, nothing she could see.
But the feeling stayed. The hunger lurking beneath the blackout sky.
Jules squeezed her hand. "We should get ready. Just in case."
Aria nodded, finally pulling herself up. They moved to the small kitchen, gathering whatever they could: bottled water, canned food, a flashlight with dying batteries, and a pocket knife Jules kept for emergencies.
The apartment was cramped but clean. The kind of place you kept neat because chaos was waiting just outside the walls. Aria felt the weight of it, the uneasy knowledge that normal life was gone, replaced by a darker reality she couldn't name.
They set up near the window, watching the street, listening. Time blurred as the city held its breath with them.
A sudden, guttural moan rolled from the alley beside the building, low and hungry. Aria froze. Jules's eyes were wide.
"That's not right," Jules breathed.
Aria nodded, heart pounding. The stories she had heard in whispers on the news about "riots" and "civil unrest" didn't prepare her for this. This was something worse. Something… alive but wrong.
The noise grew louder, closer. Shuffling footsteps, dragging, scraping on concrete.
Aria's breath hitched as a shadow appeared briefly under the flickering streetlamp — a figure moving awkwardly, jerking like it wasn't fully in control of its own body.
The roamers.
She had heard the word in rumors but never believed it. Now, she saw it with her own eyes: a pale, bloodshot face, vacant eyes, and a desperate, starving hunger driving it forward.
Jules stepped back, whispering, "We need to lock the door."
Hands trembling, Aria moved fast, sliding the bolt across the old wooden frame. The deadbolt clicked into place.
Outside, the growls turned to snarls, and more footsteps shuffled into view. The shadows multiplied.
They were coming.
Aria's mind raced. No police, no help. Only them, trapped in the dark with whatever those things were. The power was out everywhere. The city had fallen silent, except for the sounds of hunger and desperation creeping closer.
Jules pressed herself against Aria, voice barely audible. "We need a plan."
Aria's eyes scanned the room. The kitchen knife felt small and useless. The flashlight flickered weakly. Their phones were dead, useless bricks.
"We hold the door," Aria said. "Try to stay quiet. Wait for the power to come back. We wait."
Jules nodded, biting her lip. "And if they get in?"
Aria's throat tightened. She didn't want to think about that.
"We don't let them," she said, voice steady even though her hands shook. "We fight."
Outside, the sounds grew louder, more frantic. Scratches on the door. A sudden thud against the wall.
Aria gripped the knife tight, feeling the cold metal bite into her palm. Her mind flashed back to every survival show, every horror story she'd ever dismissed as fiction.
This was real. And there was no one coming to save them.
The night stretched on with only the sound of their ragged breathing and the relentless hunger pressing against the walls.
Time lost meaning. Minutes felt like hours. Every noise jolted Aria awake, every shadow twisted into threats.
But somewhere deep inside, a stubborn fire burned. She refused to give up. Refused to let the darkness win.
Because in the silence beneath the blackout sky, the only thing louder than the hunger was their will to survive.