After the Fall, Us.

Before The first man died alone on the floor of a convenience store. No one noticed at first. The bell above the door chimed cheerfully when customers came and went, and the radio behind the counter kept playing the same song on repeat. The man had collapsed near the refrigerators, his body half-blocked by a rack of discounted chips. People assumed he was drunk, sleeping, or someone else's problem. He had complained of a headache minutes earlier. A sharp pain behind his eyes. Nausea and confusion. The clerk suggested water. A woman in line rolled her eyes. Then the man stopped breathing. When he started again, no one was ready for what was about to happen in that little convenience store. Across the city, similar moments unfolded—quiet, unremarkable, easy to dismiss. A woman slumped over her steering wheel at a red light. A hospital patient flatlined and didn't stay that way. A child spiked a fever that burned too hot, too fast. Emergency rooms are filled. Phones rang unanswered. Doctors used words like unknown, unprecedented, and we're still gathering information. By the time officials told people to stay indoors, the streets were already full of screaming. By the time they used the word containment, there was nothing left to contain. The dead didn't rise all at once. They came back unevenly, unpredictably—one here, three there, dozens somewhere else entirely. Panic spread faster than infection. Cars crashed, and crowds trampled themselves trying to flee danger they couldn't understand. Civilization didn't collapse in an explosion. It unraveled slowly, but within three days. Electricity flickered, then failed. Emergency broadcasts looped until there was no one left to update them. Families barricaded doors and waited for help that never came. Others ran, believing movement meant survival. Somewhere in the chaos, Chandler Riggs packed a bag without knowing why he chose the things he did. Somewhere else, Emily Everett locked a classroom door and told her students everything would be okay—even as she knew it wouldn't. They didn't know each other yet. They didn't see that the world was already gone. All they knew was fear, and the instinct to keep breathing. The apocalypse didn't announce itself with fire or thunder. It began quietly. And once it did, there was no going back.