I don’t think people realize how terrifying peace can be until they’ve lived without it long enough.

That was the strange thing about the dream.

Not the fact that I was dreaming at all. Not the fact that my body felt weightless or that my mind felt drowned beneath warm water.

It was how normal everything was.

No screaming.

No blood.

No smell of rot.

Just Englewood.

Whole.

Alive.

I stood outside the convenience store near the apartment blocks with a drink sweating in my hand while summer heat baked the pavement beneath my shoes. Cars crawled through the streets. Music played somewhere distant. Somebody argued over a basketball game nearby.

And none of it was real.

I knew that immediately.

Dreams never get the silence right.

There’s always something missing.

Still... my legs moved anyway.

People passed me without fear in their eyes. Nobody carried rifles. Nobody checked corners before turning them. Nobody looked hungry enough to kill.

A little girl ran past me laughing.

I watched her go with a strange feeling in my chest.

Then I saw Lila.

She sat on the hood of a beat-up car near the curb with one leg folded beneath her, sunglasses resting on top of her head while she ate chips from a crumpled bag.

Healthy.

Clean.

Human.

The sight of her almost hurt more than anything else.

She looked up and smiled when she noticed me staring.

"You gonna stand there all day?"

My throat tightened.

I walked toward her slowly.

Not because I was scared.

Because some part of me already understood this wasn’t for me. This was my brain showing me something cruel.

Lila crunched another chip between her teeth.

"You look exhausted."

"You don’t," I muttered.

"Maybe because I actually sleep."

I huffed out something close to a laugh.

God.

I missed her voice.

Not the infected version. Not the obsessive thing the disease twisted her into. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Just...her.

Wind moved through the street softly.

No gunshots.

No infected.

No smell of death.

Just people living.

Lila tilted her head slightly as she looked at me.

"You okay?"

Such a simple question.

I almost hated it.

Because people only asked that before the world ended.

Afterward, nobody cared about okay anymore. Only alive.

I looked around the street again.

At the people.

At the normalcy.

Then back at her.

"You ever think people were happier before because they were distracted?" I asked quietly.

Lila frowned a little.

"What?"

"Before all this."

"There is no all this."

I stared at her.

Right.

This version of her didn’t know.

Didn’t know about infected tearing through throats. Didn’t know about Crucible. Didn’t know about Annie dying. Didn’t know about me.

The realization hollowed me out.

My eyes drifted toward the skyline.

No smoke.

No ash.

No walls.

It looked wrong.

Like the world had forgotten what it really was.

Lila hopped off the hood of the car.

"You’re being weird."

"I am weird."

"Yeah, but usually in a more annoying way."

That got another laugh out of me.

Small.

Broken.

But real.

Then I noticed something.

People were starting to stop.

Not all at once.

Just slowly.

Like background actors forgetting what scene they were in.

One woman stood motionless in the middle of the sidewalk.

A man near a bus stop stared directly at me.

Then another.

And another.

My stomach tightened.

Lila kept talking but her voice started sounding distant.

The people kept staring.

Their smiles looked stretched now.

Wrong.

"You left me."

I blinked.

Lila hadn’t said that.

At least...I didn’t think she had.

Her mouth hadn’t moved.

But I heard it anyway.

"You left me."

The people around us started twitching subtly.

Their eyes reddened.

One by one.

Like infection bleeding through film.

I stepped back instinctively.

"Adrian?"

Lila’s voice sounded afraid now.

Not accusing.

Afraid.

I looked at her.

Blood crept from beneath her nose.

Then her eyes slowly turned red too.

"No," I whispered.

The street darkened.

The sky dimmed.

The sounds of the city began distorting into screaming.

Lila grabbed my wrist suddenly.

Hard.

Too hard.

"You left me."

This time she definitely said it.

Her face started changing.

Not melting.

Not monstrous.

Worse.

She looked exactly like herself while tears streamed from bloodshot eyes.

Like she knew what she was becoming while it happened.

I tried pulling away.

Couldn’t.

The people around us started walking closer.

Not running.

Walking.

Slowly.

Calmly.

Like death already knew it would catch me eventually.

—

Outside the massive council tower windows, civilians flooded the streets below in waves.

Angry.

Terrified.

Signs slammed against barricades while soldiers struggled to hold lines together.

"This was supposed to be a sanctuary!"

"You lied to us!"

"You said the infection could never get down here!"

"Look what your soldiers brought in!"

One bottle flew upward and exploded against the reinforced glass with a violent crack.

A man standing by the window barely flinched.

Only his finger twitched once.

Then he slowly turned around.

Rage sat on his face so heavily it almost looked physical.

Jennifer calmly sipped her tea across the room.

The contrast was absurd.

The man strode toward her and swept plates, papers, and coffee ingredients violently off the table.

Ceramic shattered across the floor.

Jennifer didn’t react.

"Well?" he snapped. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS?"

Outside, the riots only grew louder.

Jennifer lowered her cup carefully onto its saucer.

"A functioning society will always experience unrest eventually," she said calmly. "Even if you remove poverty from the equation."

The man stared at her like he wanted to strangle her.

"This unrest is happening because of you."

Jennifer said nothing.

"Your patient tears through my borough, your soldiers turn entire districts upside down trying to catch him, and now there’s an infected loose inside the city."

Still calm.

Still composed.

Like the screaming outside belonged to another universe.

"You told us Crucible had containment under control."

"We do."

"BULLSHIT."

His voice echoed through the office.

"When the Britain borough collapsed, we relocated civilians successfully," Jennifer said evenly. "We can repeat that process if necessary."

The man looked genuinely horrified.

"That’ll destroy the supply structure."

Jennifer stayed silent.

"Overcrowding leads to shortages. Shortages lead to panic. Panic leads to violence." His voice lowered slightly. "You know what happens after that."

For the first time, Jennifer’s expression shifted.

Only slightly.

Like she knew exactly what happened after that.

The man laughed bitterly under his breath.

"I should’ve never trusted Crucible involvement in civilian affairs."

Jennifer’s eyes lifted toward him slowly.

Cold enough to stop most people from speaking further.

He still did.

"You people act like you own the world just because you knew it was ending first."

Silence.

Heavy silence.

Then his eyes drifted toward the secured door across the room.

Toward Adrian.

Toward the room Jennifer had practically built a war around.

He started walking toward it.

Jennifer’s calm cracked instantly.

She stood up.

"Don’t."

The man ignored her.

Her voice sharpened.

"I said don’t touch that door."

He looked back at her.

And finally saw it.

Not professionalism.

Not control.

Fear.

Real fear.

—

Cherie leaned against the wall quietly while Saul stood several feet away speaking to a woman.

His mother.

Even from a distance, the warmth between them was obvious.

The way she touched his face.

The way Saul smiled without realizing it.

The way her shoulders shook when she laughed softly at something he said.

It looked...safe.

Cherie stared harder than she meant to.

Because she couldn’t remember ever having something that looked like that.

Not really.

Her parents existed.

That was about it.

Crucible raised her more than they ever did.

Vivian trained her.

Fed her.

Taught her.

And for a long time, Cherie thought that counted as love.

Then Adrian happened.

Then Hale.

Terri.

Peter.

Jane.

Isabella.

Even Aubrey, somehow.

Messy people.

Loud people.

People that argued and fought and screwed things up constantly.

But people who still looked for each other anyway.

That had felt more like family than anything before it.

Until Texas.

After that, everything broke apart so fast she still hadn’t caught up to it.

Now Adrian was somewhere in this city probably hating her.

Terri barely looked at her anymore.

Aubrey tolerated her at best.

And every time Cherie tried to think about Vivian, her stomach twisted.

Because part of her still missed her.

That was the worst part.

Missing people who ruined you.

"Cherie?"

She blinked.

Saul stood nearby now.

The softness returned to her face automatically like instinct.

"You okay?"

Cherie nodded once.

Too quickly.

Saul studied her for a second before gesturing toward the woman beside him.

"Mom, this is Cherie. We met her on the way to Canada."

The woman smiled gently.

"Sheryl. Nice to meet you."

Her hand stretched out.

Cherie stared at it.

Actually stared.

Like her brain stopped understanding what she was supposed to do.

Sheryl’s smile faltered slightly.

So did Saul’s.

Cherie finally shook her hand, but her movements felt delayed.

Disconnected.

"...you sure you’re okay?" Saul asked quietly.

Cherie looked between them.

Mother and son.

Something in her chest suddenly hurt so badly she thought she might throw up.

"I..." Her voice caught.

Then she looked away.

"...I think I need to take a walk."

Nobody stopped her.

Cherie turned the corner quickly before either of them could see her expression collapse.

And once she was alone—

She finally looked like someone who realized they didn’t belong anywhere anymore.