The path through the forest was normal at first, but the deeper she went, the more nature changed. The trees, initially healthy spruces, began to twist. Their bark fell off in chunks; they were covered in a grayish fungus. The air cooled by ten degrees.
Finally, the trees thinned out.
Ema stood on a rocky outcrop. A rusted railing hung over the abyss here.
The full moon illuminated the valley below her.
She held her breath.
It was there.
The City.
She remembered it full of lights, life, smoke from chimneys. Now it looked like a graveyard after a war.
No lights. Houses had smashed windows that stared into the darkness like empty skulls. Cars lay on the streets—some on their sides, some flipped onto their roofs, rusted to the bone. Everything was covered in dust and silence.
She pulled out her phone. No signal. She opened the map—the arrow spun in circles.
"I'm home," she whispered, her voice breaking.
And then it happened.
She felt a twitch in her face. The muscles around her mouth contracted involuntarily, the corners flying upward in a spasmodic, painful sneer. Her chest heaved, and from her throat, without her permission, an enthusiastic, almost manic scream flew out:
"HOLY SHIT, I'M ACTUALLY HOME! HAHAHA"
Her own voice echoed off the rocks and flew into the dead valley.
Ema immediately pressed her hands to her mouth. Her eyes were wide with horror. Why did I say that? Why like that?
Ema reached into her hoodie pocket panically, with almost feverish urgency. She had to make sure.
What if she had overdosed on the way? What if, on the bus, in one of her memory lapses, she had been popping one pill after another unknowingly, and now her brain was burning in a chemical storm?
In that moment, she actually hoped for it. It would be a merciful lie. A hallucination could be explained.
She pulled out the blister pack and ran her fingers over the aluminum foil.
She froze.
It was untouched. Not a single pill was missing since morning.
Cold sweat washed over her. This wasn't chemicals. This wasn't an overdosed mind.
Either what she was seeing was real... or she had gone crazy long ago, all on her own, and her brain was now projecting hell into reality.
The thought was terrifying, but at the same time, it ignited a spark of defiance in her. I have to get to the bottom of this,flashed through her head. Whether it's madness or truth, I have to see it up close.
She clenched her hand into a fist until her knuckles turned white, hid the pills again, and stepped firmly down into the darkness. She walked all the way to the river. The bridge before her was old, wooden. The beams were rotten, soaked with moisture, collapsed into the black water below in many places.
In the riverbed, where only a little water flowed, lay more cars.
Ema stepped onto the bridge. The wood groaned. She carefully stepped over the holes. Halfway across, a water bottle slipped out of her backpack pocket.
It hit a beam, bounced off, and plopped into the water.
Splash.
The sound echoed into the silence. Ema froze.
Silence.
And then it sounded.
From the depths of the city.
Sssss... hkhkhkh...
It wasn't the wind. It was a mass wheezing and croaking rolling out of the darkness. And then stomping. Rapid, irregular stomping of bare feet on asphalt.
"God," Ema exhaled.
She ran. The wood cracked beneath her, but she didn't register it. She jumped onto the embankment and looked around.
The roaring grew louder.
She saw an old van parked by the wall of a dilapidated warehouse.
She threw herself toward it. She slid on her stomach into the dust and squeezed herself under the chassis.
A deer ran past the car. Its skin was grazed, it was limping. A few meters from the van, its legs gave way, and it fell. It was shaking, blood coming from its mouth.
Ema pressed her hands to her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Shadows rushed out of the darkness of the street.
There weren't a few of them. There were dozens.
They weren't animals. They were figures. Once humans. Now just gaunt silhouettes covered in gray skin. Some had no hair; on others, it hung in clumps. They had long limbs and keratinized claws.
They converged around the deer.
Silence fell.
And then one of them laughed. It was a dry, croaking sound, like dragging a stone over concrete. The others joined in.
They started to eat.
It wasn't quick. It was slow, disgusting tearing. Ema heard the smacking, the cracking of bones, the tearing of tendons. She saw the bare, dirty feet of the figures stomping in a puddle of blood.
It lasted an eternity.
When only white, gnawed bones remained of the deer, silence fell. A long, heavy silence.
Ema exhaled weakly under the car. It's over, went through her head with desperate hope. They'll go away.
But the figures didn't even move. They stood over the carcass like statues of flesh and bone. And then they started to shake.
A sound began to tear from their throats. They were trying to laugh. But they couldn't. It sounded like crushing dry leaves, as if their vocal cords were long destroyed, non-functional. It was a mute, spasmodic laughter, the wheezing of empty lungs trying to mimic an emotion they no longer had.
Then it happened.
One of the figures—it was smaller, barely reaching the others' waists, looking like... a child—reached out for a piece of meat held by another, taller figure.
The taller figure turned slowly.
And drove its claws into the small one's neck.
The others immediately threw themselves at them.
The small figure didn't even have time to scream; it only let out a quiet gurgle. The crowd engulfed it. They began tearing it to pieces with the same ferocity with which they had eaten the animal before.
Ema closed her eyes under the car and prayed not to vomit. Because she knew that any sound would be her end.
Ema's stress skyrocketed. Her chest tightened as if someone were crushing her ribs in a vise. In a spasm, with hands that barely obeyed her, she fished the blister pack of antidepressants from her sweatshirt pocket.
She didn't care about the dosage. She popped several at once—three, four, maybe five. She threw them into her mouth and swallowed them dry.
An unbearable chemical bitterness stuck in her throat, beginning to spread burningly down her esophagus. The asphalt beneath her body seemed to grow colder, as if she were lying on a block of ice.
She waited for relief.
After a while, the emotions dulled. The fear receded into the background, covered by a heavy, gray blanket of indifference. She felt no dread, she felt nothing.
But it was only a false relief. The calm before the storm.
What suddenly began to shake her wasn't the cold from the street. It was an electric discharge that shot through her muscles like lightning. Ema began to shake uncontrollably, her teeth chattering in a frantic clack-clack-clack rhythm. Unbearable heat flushed over her, sweat running down her temples and mixing with the dust on her face.
Her heart pounded against her ribcage in a rhythm that had nothing to do with reality—it was like techno on a broken radio.
She opened her eyes. The asphalt under her eyes began to ripple and twist, as if it were liquid.
She no longer felt fear. Instead, she felt a strange, ticklish urge. In that chemical haze, she heard the crowd of "people" nearby dispersing with laughter. That sound was no longer terrifying. It was... alluring. She wanted to smile with them. She wanted to get up and go laugh too.
Fortunately, her body couldn't take it. She fell into a heavy, unconscious sleep.