There was a sound — a crack like bone, sharp and deep — followed by the dragging thunder of something crashing down, limb by limb. Not like a tree falling all at once. No, this was slower, more deliberate. Like something was tearing it apart. I froze. My fire had gone out hours ago, just embers now, barely breathing in the wind. I was buried in a bundle of thrifted blankets, inside a cheap tent I found hanging half-off a fence outside the ruins of an old sporting goods store. It was supposed to be safe here — deep in the tree-thick Wilds east of what used to be Jersey. Then, ten minutes later, a scream. A man’s voice. Human, but barely. High and guttural, full of pain or madness. He yelled like something had dragged his soul out through his throat. I didn’t move. Not even to breathe. Was he being attacked? Or was something coming for me next? In the world before the Fall, I might’ve called out, checked on him. But now? Now, the woods were not just trees. They listened. Sometimes they answered. I stayed hidden beneath my blankets like they were armor, but I knew they weren’t. Nothing between me and the open night but two layers of nylon and a broken zipper. No guns. No dogs. Just me, my knife, and whatever was making that sick, pulpy dragging noise out there. The scream had stopped. The air was electric with silence — charged, like the breath before lightning hits. Even the night insects, the ones that had mutated to blink like tiny dying stars, had gone quiet. I whispered to myself: “It’s just the wind.” But it wasn’t. The wind didn’t shiver the ground. The wind didn’t breathe. Something was out there. And it had learned to wait. In the ashes of the old world, it wasn’t just radiation that twisted things. The dark did something worse. It evolved what was already broken. Turned grief into instinct. Turned hunger into something else. And in that moment, buried in synthetic warmth and cowardice, I realized: whatever had screamed… it hadn't been killed right away. It had seen something. And now, maybe it was watching me There was a sound — a crack like bone, sharp and deep — followed by the dragging thunder of something crashing down, limb by limb. Not like a tree falling all at once. No, this was slower, more deliberate. Like something was tearing it apart. I woke up with the kind of jolt you only get in the Wastes — the kind your body gives you when it’s still alive, but it isn’t sure why. The sky was a dead gray, filtered through the sagging ceiling of my tent. I hadn’t slept so much as blacked out from exhaustion. That scream — I don’t know if it had been real anymore. Dreams and memories blur when you’re on your own for too long. I unzipped the flap and stepped out into the cold morning air. The forest stank of damp rot and iron. Then I saw it: the cooler. Still right where I left it. But torn open — not shredded like a beast would do, but unlatched. Clean. Intentional.
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I froze. My fire had gone out hours ago, just embers now, barely breathing in the wind. I was buried in a bundle of thrifted blankets, inside a cheap tent I found hanging half-off a fence outside the ruins of an old sporting goods store. It was supposed to be safe here — deep in the tree-thick Wilds east of what used to be Jersey. In the world before the Fall, I might’ve called out, checked on him. But now? Now, the woods were not just trees. They listened. Sometimes they answered. I stayed hidden beneath my blankets like they were armor, but I knew they weren’t. Nothing between me and the open night but two layers of nylon and a broken zipper. No guns. No dogs. Just me, my knife, and whatever was making that sick, pulpy dragging noise out there. The scream had stopped. The air was electric with silence — charged, like the breath before lightning hits. Even the night insects, the ones that had mutated to blink like tiny dying stars, had gone quiet. Something was out there. And it had learned to wait. I could imagine the pitter-patter of leaves and rain falling off its sillhuoette, right outside. In the ashes of the old world, it wasn’t just radiation that twisted things. The dark did something worse. It evolved what was already broken. Turned grief into instinct. Turned hunger into something else. And in that moment, buried in synthetic warmth and cowardice, I realized: whatever had screamed… it hadn't been killed right away. It had seen something. And now, maybe it was watching me. I woke up with the kind of jolt you only get in the Wastes — the kind your body gives you when it’s still alive, but it isn’t sure why. The sky was a dead gray, filtered through the sagging ceiling of my tent. I hadn’t slept so much as blacked out from exhaustion. That scream — I don’t know if it had been real anymore. Dreams and memories blur when you’re on your own for too long. I unzipped the flap and stepped out into the cold morning air. The forest stank of damp rot and iron. Then I saw it: the cooler. Still right where I left it. But torn open — not shredded like a beast would do, but unlatched. Clean. Intentional. The cans of reprocessed beans were open, some spilled. The foil-wrapped jerky was peeled like a candy bar. Even the water jug had been tilted upright, as if someone had poured it carefully. I stood there, heart in my throat. It wasn’t an animal. I circled the camp once, slowly. No footprints I could see. No blood. No gear missing. But I wasn’t alone last night. That made up my mind. I had to move. The woods weren’t safe. Not anymore. By noon, I was pushing through the edges of the city. Or what was left of it. The old road signs were choked in vines. Rusted-out cars sat where they'd died decades ago. Buildings leaned on each other like drunks, all bone and concrete. Nature had taken it back, but not kindly. The worst part? The wildlife. Mutated turtles the size of trash bins crawled along the crumbled sidewalks. Their shells were jagged, barnacled things — like hunks of rebar and melted slag. One had what looked like a door fused to its back. Another had eyes. Not turtle eyes. Human eyes — too many of them — blinking, watching. I skirted wide around those. Then came the horses. If you could call them that. They were tall, wrong-legged, with joints that bent backwards and flesh like smoke-stained leather. Their faces were covered in bone masks, tusked and stitched. And on their backs rode the Searchers. Wrapped in black rags, with glinting goggles and rifles across their backs, they swept the roads like phantoms. Organized. Intent. Scouting for something. For someone. I ducked behind the shell of a burned-out school bus, holding my breath. The wind shifted. One of them turned, sniffing. They could smell fear. Or something worse. The horse twitched its grotesque head. The rider leaned low, listening to a device — not quite radio, not quite alive. And then, mercifully, they passed. I exhaled, but not relief. Just preparation. Something was happening here. Something was waking up in the bones of this dead place. The road into the city was overrun — not just by growth, but by design. The plants here weren’t natural anymore. Vines thick as cables hung between buildings like sinew, and the moss glowed faintly with bioluminescence — not the gentle kind from deep-sea documentaries, but a sickly, alert green. I stepped lightly. This was a Godless world. No divine silence. No infernal punishment. Just absence. After the Fall, the churches were the first to go. Not from fire or war — from emptiness. People went looking for salvation and found only locked doors and long-decayed altars. Whatever had kept the order of things — moral, physical, even biological — had quit the job. Now nightmares ruled I followed the remnants of an overpass until I found shelter: a half-collapsed mechanics shop. Still had a roof. Still had a lock. That made it sacred. Inside, I found tools, half-eaten batteries, and a cracked solar panel leaning against the skeleton of an old dune buggy. The wiring was intact, but the capacitor bank was toast. I scavenged the fuse box from the wall, rigged a bypass through copper stripped from the lighting fixtures, and fed it into my power cell. Just enough juice to charge the receiver unit on my wrist — a pre-Fall scanner I’d cobbled together from drone parts. It couldn’t talk, but it could listen. You had to learn to see different now. Aluminum cans became reflectors to ward off night-things that hated their own image. Water bottles became pressure traps when rigged with springs and nails. Ductwork could channel heat from burning fungus into safe rooms. Even the mutated turtles? Their shells could be ground down for circuit-safe silica powder. Survival was a slow kind of engineering. That night, I stayed awake, listening to the scanner pulse. The city sounded alive. But not with life. More like… motion. Mechanical clicking. Guttural whispering. The faint, wet sound of flesh sliding over brick. And then a shape passed by the cracked storefront. It was tall, maybe eight feet. Cloaked in bone — not wearing it. Grown into it. Its face was smooth, eyeless, but its mouth was open, breathing like it was tasting the memory of heat. I didn’t move. Not even to blink. It lingered for too long. Then shuffled off. I whispered: “Demon?” But I didn’t expect an answer. The next morning, I climbed up to the roof. The view was worse than I remembered. The river was black. The skyline, jagged. But then I saw something — blinking. A radio tower, deep in the heart of the dead zone. Still active. Still broadcasting. No one had transmitted in years. A chill ran down my spine. Maybe it was a trap. Maybe it was a remnant AI still running protocols from before the Fall. Or maybe… maybe someone had survived. Someone who still remembered how to build things. Maybe someone worse.