June 2030, three months earlier.
Leo Cormac sat in his bunker, buried beneath the first floor of his two-story cottage in the suburbs of the City. His gaze was fixed on a monitor where a blinking indicator, casting a faint green light, confirmed the ventilation system was operating stably.
July 2030 had blanketed the city with heat, and the humidity from endless rains made it absolutely unbearable. Even in the basement, the air was heavy, saturated with dampness despite the hum of filters struggling against the stuffiness.
He ran his finger along the rim of a mug of cold coffee standing on the work desk. Its cold porcelain contrasted with the warmth of his palm. He inhaled the familiar bitter aroma—the last remnant of normalcy in this world. This was his third day in isolation, a test he had conceived to check the bunker: his refuge, his salvation from the chaos outside.
Two weeks in complete isolation. Without the outside world, without politics, without noise—only him, his technology, and the silence pressing on his ears. The goal was simple: not to go mad, to keep his sanity in a concrete cage where every sound echoed.
The world outside had been going mad for a long time. Since 2025, politicians, as if gripped by fever, had been shouting about war. Their voices boomed from screens, social media, the mouths of paid journalists and bloggers.
The slogan "Peace is War" hung over the City like a black cloud, turning the once noisy and vibrant city into an arena of paranoia. People argued about elections, parties, threats, but no one spoke of the main thing: what to do if everything collapsed? Nuclear war was a forbidden topic, its shadow loomed over every house. But the politicians, with their secret bunkers stuffed with electronics, remained silent, leaving ordinary people alone with a fear that had been building for years.
Leo decided not to wait for fate's mercy. He sold his car, withdrew all the savings accumulated over years of work as an engineer, and invested them in the bunker. Not a ready-made shelter from construction companies, which had inflated prices sky-high on the wave of panic, but his own project, born of knowledge and despair.
Leo knew: if something broke, he had to understand how to fix it. Otherwise, a ready-made bunker would become a trap—beautiful, but useless if the filters or panels failed. He built everything himself, from reinforcing the walls—where concrete creaked under his hands—to installing the solar panels on the roof, whose hum became his survival anthem.
Over the years, while the world awaited a war that never came, he brought the bunker almost to perfection. Almost, because the ventilation system remained his headache, requiring constant refinement.
Before this July, he had spent months making the filters airtight, capable of operating for more than a week without failure. Now, in this test, he was checking them under conditions close to real.
His beloved wife, Anna, had left for a month to the countryside to care for her sick mother. Leo decided to use this time to withdraw from the world, where the elections of another "war party" were flooding the City with campaign posters, arguments, and shouts. He hated that noise, that lie. The bunker became his refuge from politics, from fear, from everything that was destroying his soul.
The first three days passed calmly. Leo had stocked up on canned goods, their colorful packages promising the world's tastiest meal, lined up neatly. Packages of water, freeze-dried food, and even instant coffee—his small weakness, whose aroma lifted his spirits.
On an external hard drive, he downloaded movies, books, music—everything that could help him not go mad over two weeks. Each file was like a lifeline in a sea of loneliness.
The bunker was his fortress. Concrete walls lined with soundproofing mats muffled external sounds. A work station with a 3D printer, soldering iron, and tools, where the metal chilled his fingers. And a hydroponic greenhouse in the corner, where sprouts of lettuce and potatoes pushed up under the weak light of the lamps, their greenery seeming a miracle.
The solar panels on the roof of the house powered everything—from the bright lighting of the greenhouse to the dim light in the bunker itself, intentionally subdued so his eyes wouldn't tire from artificial illumination, to the monitor of an old computer connected to three cameras outside, their images flickering on the screen.
Leo felt like an engineer who had created his own small world where he could control every aspect. But loneliness was already creeping up on him like a shadow lurking in the corner. He spent his days reading technical manuals, their pages rustling under his fingers, fixing minor malfunctions where the screech of tools calmed him, rewatching favorite old movies.
On the first day, he rewatched Blade Runner—the irony didn't escape him, for his own world balanced on the edge of chaos. In the evenings, he played recordings of city streets—the noise of cars, voices of passersby, the ringing of bicycles. This was his way of remembering that the world still existed, though every sound resonated with the loneliness of the empty bunker.
He even smiled, sitting in the bunker's semi-darkness, imagining Anna's return and how they would laugh about his "underground vacation." Her light laughter echoed in his thoughts. But without her, the bunker seemed too big, too empty. Its echo reflected off the walls, amplifying the silence.
Leo caught himself more and more often speaking aloud to himself while checking filters or watering the greenhouse. "Everything's under control," he would say, his voice trembling, repeating it like a mantra. But the words sounded uncertain, dissolving in the air.
He missed her voice, her habit of smoothing her hair, her warmth, which by its mere presence warmed their home. She had promised to call in a week, but mobile service even outside was unstable due to the upcoming elections. In the bunker it was almost nonexistent. Leo tried not to think the worst, though fear was already gnawing at him from inside with an inexplicable premonition.
On the morning of the fourth day, the monitor blinked, its light reflected on the concrete walls. A warning appeared on the screen from the external environment sensors: "Anomaly in air composition."
Leo frowned, his forehead instantly beaded with sweat. But a strange feeling stirred in his chest—not fear, but excitement, as before a test he had been waiting for. Finally! A chance to test the ventilation system under real conditions, to prove his work wasn't in vain.
He approached the control panel, his fingers trembling as he checked the filters. Their hum was calming. The sensors showed the presence of unknown particles in the air—not radiation, not dust, but something else, which he jokingly called "microbes," not suspecting it was the first hint of the gas that would soon change everything.
He spent the morning analyzing data. The filters were working flawlessly, trapping the particles. Leo even allowed himself a smile, patting the panel like the shoulder of an old friend. "You did it, my old friend."
To distract himself, he turned on an old movie on his laptop—a comedy Anna loved. Her laughter sounded in his memory. He tried to relax, but something was wrong. The cameras outside showed the streets of the City, and Leo noticed they were suspiciously empty. Their silence pressed on his ears.
Usually at this time of day, even in their remote suburb, people were always bustling about. Cars honked, someone argued about politics. But today—only gloom and silence. He switched to the thermal imager but didn't see a single figure, only cold patches of asphalt and walls.
It was strange. He brushed it off: "Maybe everyone's at another campaign rally again." Though deep down he knew it was a lie. Intuition whispered of trouble.
By evening, the loneliness grew heavier. He turned on music—Beethoven, which Anna always played on Sundays—but the melody only intensified the melancholy. Its notes echoed loneliness in the void.
He took out a notebook and began writing with a trembling hand: Day 4. Filters—okay. Strange fact—Streets unusually empty. Remember to check cameras tomorrow. The last line froze on the paper like a premonition.
On the fifth day, the sensors showed an anomaly again, but now it was stronger. The concentration of particles in the air was rising. Leo spent the entire morning analyzing it, his fingers trembling over the tablet, trying to understand what was happening. The filters were working without failure, trapping the gas, but the data was frightening. This wasn't just an emission, not random pollution. It was something that was changing the world right now.
He turned on the cameras, and his heart tightened, his chest squeezed as if in a vise.
The City streets had turned to chaos.
Cars raced along Hyde Street, not braking, and consequently crashed into each other with a deafening screech of metal, their headlights flashing in the fog. Leo saw a black sedan slam into the window of a cafe where he used to drink coffee and get stuck, its engine smoking, its hood crumpled like paper.
Through the camera on the eastern facade, he noticed his neighbor, Tom, who often gave him a ride to work after he sold his car. Tom, in his new Mercedes, was trying to drive into his garage, but in a completely insane manner: at full speed he crashed into the wall, reversed, crashed again, over and over, until the car stalled, half-buried in the wreckage of the shattered garage. His jerky movements were unnatural, like a puppet's.
Ambulances and military jeeps raced through the streets, their sirens cutting the air, but no one stopped. Their sounds dissolved in the chaos. Leo saw an ambulance crash into a lamppost. The driver, instead of getting out, beat his fists against the steering wheel, wheezing, his blood streaming down the windshield. He didn't even try to stop it.
At an intersection, two women—one in a torn office suit, the other in the remnants of an evening dress—were fighting. They scratched each other until one fell, not getting up again. The other wandered off as if nothing had happened, stumbling and shuffling with her bloodied, once-beautiful legs. Their movements were chaotic, devoid of meaning.
Leo realized this wasn't an accident. It was madness, obviously born of that very anomaly in the air detected by the sensors.
He turned off the monitor. Sweat streamed down his back, leaving damp spots on his shirt. Driven by a bad premonition, he left the bunker for the first floor of the house and tried to contact Anna. But the phone was silent, its screen as empty as his hopes. He reassured himself it was due to overloaded lines, but fear tightened his chest, whispering of the worst.
The chaos continued for several days, slowly subsiding and quieting. The sound of sirens became rarer. Cars stopped moving through the streets. The City sank into a deathly silence, its weight pressed on his ears.
Leo watched the cameras nonstop, unable to look away. People—or what was left of them—wandered the streets, breaking everything in their path. Their footsteps echoed through the emptiness. A man in a torn jacket beat his fist against a wall until blood flooded the asphalt, its red spots gleaming under the rain. A woman in a torn dress, once bright red, stood motionless, looking at the sky. Her tangled, dirty hair swayed in the wind.
Leo felt loneliness wash over him in a wave, warm and bitter. She reminded him of Anna in some elusive way, and that was the worst part.
After a few days, the mad ones appeared. They didn't scream, didn't hunt. They simply wandered, destroyed, attacked anything that moved. Leo called them that because he couldn't call them people. Their empty eyes reflected his own fear.
Three weeks passed.
The bunker had withstood the test. The filters hummed evenly, the solar panels provided energy, the supplies remained untouched. But victory felt hollow. Its taste was bitter, like coffee. The world outside was slowly dying, and Leo felt it even without leaving the bunker. The silence outside seeped through the walls.
The cameras showed the mad ones, their chaotic movements, their senseless rage. And still, no connection with Anna. Each glance at the phone made his heart clench. He tried to convince himself she was safe, that she hadn't gone outside when the gas was released. But the truth was too heavy, its weight an unbearable burden on his shoulders.
Unable to bear the silence any longer, and tormenting himself every second with the question of what had happened, Leo decided to go outside immediately. Not out of necessity, but out of despair. He wanted to see what was left, to find at least a spark of hope.
He put on a respirator, stockpiled in advance for a nuclear disaster—precisely what his bunker was intended for. The rubber cooled his face, burning with anxiety and fear, reassuringly. He checked the electroshock weapon, its sparks crackling, inspiring confidence. He took a backpack and a flashlight with a narrow beam.
Opening the armored door, he emerged into the basement, then outside. The air smelled of something acrid, chemical. Even through the respirator, Leo felt a bitterness that scorched his throat.
Hyde Street was empty. Its silence buzzed in his ears. But a figure flickered in an alley—a woman in a torn white dress, now gray with grime. She shuffled along, dragging a piece of metal, emitting a low, hoarse sound as if trying to say something, but the words drowned in her madness.
Leo froze, watching as she stopped, looked at the sky, and stood still, her silhouette trembling in the fog. His heart pounded so loudly he feared she would hear it. Slowly, he retreated backward, his steps echoing hollowly in the emptiness.
In a panic, he returned to the bunker. He locked the door; the metal clanged. He collapsed onto a chair, his breath coming in gasps. He turned on the monitor but didn't look at the screen. Instead, he stared at the wall for a long time, wrestling with the overwhelming panic and fear of the unknown that awaited him outside.