Before the world died, Marlowe Gray believed monsters only lived in stories.
She was fifteen, stuck in a half-sleep haze as her alarm clock rattled her dresser. The ceiling fan hummed lazily above her, blades wobbling with a metallic groan. She swatted the clock into silence, dragging herself upright. Outside her window, the Georgia heat had already begun its slow chokehold, painting the horizon in pale gold.
It was an ordinary Tuesday. Or it was supposed to be.
She brushed her hair in front of the mirror, tying it back into a messy braid. A comic book lay face-down on her desk where she'd fallen asleep reading—pages full of costumed heroes that always found a way to win. Heroes who never hesitated. She envied them.
Downstairs, her mom was frying eggs, humming off-key to an old Fleetwood Mac song. Her little brother, Isaac, was already whining about wanting the TV remote. The smell of breakfast, the low drone of the news in the background, the squeak of sneakers on linoleum—it all felt so normal that later, Marlowe would replay it over and over in her head, wishing she could burn it into her memory before the world tore it away.
The TV anchors' voices carried into the kitchen. Something about a "violent outbreak" in Atlanta. Riots. Hospitals shutting down. But no one paid much attention. Not yet.
Marlowe's dad glanced at the screen while buttering toast.
"People lose their damn minds anytime there's a heatwave," he muttered. "It'll blow over."
If only it had.
---
That afternoon, the first cracks showed. At school, kids whispered about someone's uncle being bitten downtown. Rumors of quarantine zones. Teachers tried to keep order, but their eyes kept flicking to their phones, jaws tightening. By the final bell, half the parents had already arrived early, yanking their children into cars with wild urgency.
Marlowe's bus ride home felt like the world was holding its breath. Sirens screamed somewhere distant. Helicopters thundered overhead. And in front yards, neighbors stood clustered in uneasy silence, clutching radios or staring at the horizon as though waiting for something to arrive.
By the time she got home, her father had locked the doors. The news was all emergency broadcasts now. People being told to stay inside. Hospitals overflowing. Some kind of sickness spreading "faster than containment could manage."
But the footage told the truth the anchors couldn't say aloud.
A man tearing into a paramedic's throat, his mouth slick red. A woman collapsing in the street, only to rise again with eyes empty and jaws gnashing. Officers firing, and the bodies not staying down.
Her little brother asked why the people on the TV were "pretending."
No one answered him.
---
That night, the screaming began.
From her bedroom window, Marlowe saw figures staggering through the street, moving like broken marionettes. Some neighbors ran, others fought, but most just froze until the things were on top of them. The air filled with gunshots, shrieks, and the wet, tearing sounds she would never forget.
Her dad pulled her from the window.
"Pack a bag. Now."
Her mom already had Isaac bundled in her arms, pale and trembling. The house shook with a pounding at the front door, fists slamming against it hard enough to rattle the frame. Whoever—whatever—was outside moaned like they had no breath left in their lungs, only hunger.
The world wasn't normal anymore. It wasn't safe.
That was the last day Marlowe Gray lived in the world she recognized.
Tomorrow, she would learn what it meant to survive.