Still Breathing

The silence scared me more than the screams ever did. I used to think that was impossible. Before all this, silence meant peace. It meant class was over, the streets were calm, and I could finally breathe. But after days of running, hiding, and surviving on whatever scraps we could find, I had learned the truth. Silence meant something was waiting. It meant they were close. Mas hinigpitan ko ang hawak ko sa metal pipe. Nanlamig ang palad ko kahit pinagpapawisan na ako. Hindi ko alam kung kaya ba talaga akong ipagtanggol nito, pero ito lang ang meron ako. Dahan-dahan kaming naglakad sa gitna ng abandonadong kalsada. Abandoned cars lined the road like dead bodies. Broken windows stared back at us amd open doorways looked like mouths waiting to swallow us whole. I hated how every shadow made my heart jump. "Don't wander too far." Mahina lang ang boses niya pero narinig ko ito. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. If someone had told me days ago that this guy—the same guy who accused me of vandalizing his car on the last normal day of our lives—would be the one walking beside me now, I would have laughed in their face or maybe I would have cried. Hm...probably both. Ang weird talaga ng mundo. Isang araw, strangers kayo. Then the next thing happen, siya na yung taong pinagkakatiwalaan mong magbabantay sa likod mo. I stopped when I heard shattered glass beneath me. The sound hit me like a slap and I froze. My shoe had nudged off a broken bottle, and the tiny sound seemed way too loud in the dead street. My stomach dropped so fast I thought I might throw up. "... Sunny." The way he said my name made my skin go cold. May umalingawngaw na mababang ungol mula sa loob ng abandonadong convenience store sa tabi namin. Isa. Dalawa. Hanggang sa sunod-sunod na. Parang tumigil ang paghinga ko at ang lakas na ng kabog ng aking dibdib.. "Run." Nanuyo ang lalamunan ko. "Oh, God..." "They found us." Or should I say that we found them? Before I could even think, he grabbed my wrist. His grip was so tight it almost hurt, but I didn't care. The pain was nothing compared to the terror clawing up my chest. "Sunny!" That was enough to snap me back. We ran. My lungs burned almost immediately, like I had swallowed fire instead of air. My legs felt heavy, weak, like they might give out at any second, but I forced them to keep moving. We sprinted past rusted-abandoned vehicles in the middle of the road, our footsteps echoing very loudly in the empty streets. Behind us, the creatures chased with a speed that made my blood run cold. "Don't look back!" he shouted. My chest tightened so hard it felt like something inside me was breaking. I wasn't thinking about tomorrow anymore or thinking about rescue. I wasn't even thinking about whether my friends were still alive. All I could think was if we stopped running... .......We would become one of them.