Shivansh's eyes peeled open, slow and reluctant. The first breath he took was warm, stale, like it had been sitting in the room all night with nowhere to go. His ears caught the faint hum of the ceiling fan above buzzing, grinding faintly but beyond that... nothing.
No honks. No barking dogs. No morning aarti from the old lady's speaker two floors below.
A stillness hung in the air that didn't belong in Delhi not even on the laziest summer morning. Shivansh blinked again, this time letting his senses stretch. The blackout curtains still covered the window behind him, bathing the room in a soft, coffin-like gloom. Sweat clung to his chest, and his cotton T-shirt stuck damply to his back.
He rolled over with a grunt and checked his phone. It felt hot to the touch. The screen glared back at him 5:43 AM and over 100 notifications. His thumb hovered for a moment but didn't press. Not yet.
He sat up, legs dangling off the bed, and listened. It was too quiet.
Usually by this time, the society would be alive: kids running around downstairs, steel vessels clanging in balconies, someone yelling across to the watchman. But today… the silence roared louder than any chaos.
"Vedant?" he called out groggily.
No answer.
He walked out of his room, barefoot on the cool marble floor. The living room felt untouched, frozen. The fan creaked overhead, spinning slower than usual. His younger brother sat on the sofa, knees folded, fingers flying across the screen of his tablet. Earbuds in. Eyes focused. Unbothered.
"Bro," Shivansh said, waving his hand in front of him. "Zombie mode again?"
Vedant popped one earbud out, smirking. "You're one to talk. You sleep like you've been tranquilized."
Shivansh snorted and walked to the window. He pulled the blackout curtain aside just a little and paused.
Outside, the sunlight seemed dimmer than usual. Not grey, not stormy… just dull, like the city had lost its color. He scanned the courtyard below. No guards. No walkers. No maids sweeping balconies. A child's tricycle lay abandoned near a pillar. Plastic wrappers rustled across the ground but there was no wind.
Something didn't feel right.
He moved to the kitchen where their mother, Ankita Sharma, was busy chopping vegetables. The gas was on, a pressure cooker whistling softly, and her phone was playing a bhajan on low volume.
"You boys are awake? I didn't want to disturb you," she said, without turning.
"You didn't hear anything weird outside?" Shivansh asked, scratching his head.
"Like what?" she replied, eyes focused on the knife.
He didn't answer.
Instead, he walked back, picked up the remote, and turned on the TV.
Flicker. Static. Then a channel. A headline.
"UNCONFIRMED OUTBREAK OF VIRAL INFECTION IN MULTIPLE CITIES."
"STAY INDOORS. AVOID CONTACT. DO NOT PANIC."
He flipped to another same warning. Another. Blank screen. Another footage of a hospital hallway flooded with injured people.
"Vedant… come look at this," he said, voice dry.
His brother leaned over as more headlines scrolled across.
'DELHI HOSPITALS SHUTTING DOWN.'
'CIVILIANS ADVISED TO LOCK DOORS AND STAY HOME.'
Shivansh stared at the screen, lips parting slowly. The fan above made one final squeaky revolution… then stopped. The fan above groaned once… then stopped completely.
A stillness heavier than sleep fell across the flat. Shivansh stood frozen, the remote loose in his hand, the television murmuring warnings in the background. No power. No backup. Not even the usual beep from the inverter kicking in.
His eyes flicked to the window. Curtains barely drawn. That washed-out daylight still leaking in like an old photo. He stepped toward it again and peeled the curtain back just enough to peek through the glass.
The scene outside was unchanged and that was the most terrifying part.
The towers stood like silent sentinels, their balconies empty. One window still had fairy lights from some forgotten birthday. Another had clothes pinned to a railing, unmoving in the windless air. The main park, usually flooded with sound even at this hour, was deserted. The swings didn't creak. The stray dogs that usually lounged near the gate were nowhere in sight.
No auto horns. No echo of slippers slapping concrete. Just the low mechanical hum from the society generator room, faint and distant, like a machine trying to breathe through a choke. Even the solar backup units, once proudly pitched by the RWA as future-proof, now struggled to keep basic lights on. Without direct sunlight or maintenance, they were quickly becoming useless.
Shivansh stepped back slowly, not wanting to disturb whatever fragile balance the morning held.
He turned to his phone, finally unlocking it. The screen lit up with a stutter, revealing a flood of missed alerts. News apps, Twitter threads, family WhatsApp groups messages tumbling in all night.
"New viral outbreak in Delhi?"
"Is this real?? Hospitals turning people away??"
"Block your doors. Stay inside. This isn't just flu."
He tapped open a video. It was shot from a hospital corridor chaotic, blurry. A woman screaming. Doctors running. Then a man lunging at a nurse, biting into her neck like an animal. The footage cut off in static.
His pulse quickened. This wasn't a prank. This wasn't just hype.
He scrolled faster now. Images of barricades. Ambulances overturned. Fires. Panic. And always that same word repeating:
"Infected."
Behind him, Vedant noticed the silence too. "Bhaiya?" he asked, pulling out his earbuds. "Why is it so quiet outside?"
Shivansh didn't reply immediately. He walked to the main door, placing one hand on the latch, but didn't open it. Instead, he looked through the peephole.
Nothing.
The hallway outside their flat was dim, washed in golden-yellow early morning light seeping from a single corridor bulb. The other doors were shut. Shoes lined up neatly, doormats still in place. All looked untouched.
He stepped back, heart knocking against his ribs.
Their mother was still in the kitchen, unaware. The smell of boiling tea now filled the flat, strangely grounding. She was humming again, but it sounded more like a habit than a comfort.
"Something's happened, maa," he finally said.
She turned. "What now?"
"Not sure yet. But it's not just another virus. People are saying... strange things."
She gave him a tired look. "Beta, don't believe everything on social media. It's probably exaggerated."
Shivansh didn't argue. He just looked back toward the silent window and realized something.
The birds hadn't sung that morning. Not one. Not a single chirp.
Shivansh stood there for a moment longer, his phone still glowing faintly in his hand, casting a ghostly blue across his palm. The silence outside was no longer peaceful it was wrong. It was the kind of silence you feel in graveyards, or abandoned stations long after the last train has left.
He turned toward the balcony again, almost drawn to it. Something had shifted.
"Maa," he called, his voice lower this time. "Come here. Right now."
Ankita frowned, wiping her hands on the edge of her dupatta. "What now?" she sighed, stepping out of the kitchen. The smell of tea lingered behind her like a fading memory. "You'll scare Vedant with all this 'something's wrong' drama."
But she followed him. And the moment she looked through the glass with him her face changed.
Down by the society's front gate, something moved.
It was a man. No, a figure. Dressed in beige. A guard. Shivansh narrowed his eyes. It was Manoj. The same familiar face who smiled every morning, who saluted Ankita with a slight bow of his cap. But this… wasn't that man.
He was limping, dragging one foot behind, his head lolling unnaturally to the side like it had no bones to support it. His right arm hung loose, disjointed, the elbow bent in the wrong direction. His face was partially obscured, but even from the distance, Shivansh could see the deep crimson streaks smeared across his neck and chest.
"Is he... drunk?" Ankita whispered.
Shivansh didn't answer.
As Manoj reached the gate, his movements grew more erratic. He stumbled into the grill, slamming into it with a metallic thud that echoed across the compound. But he didn't flinch. He gripped the bars and pulled himself forward, pressing his face to the iron rods.
It was then they saw his eyes.
Bloodshot. Glazed. Hollow.
"Bhaiya..." Vedant called from the living room, "the internet's not working."
Neither of them moved. Shivansh stepped back slowly, his hand instinctively reaching for the latch on the sliding balcony door.
Then another sound cut through the silence a scream. It came from Tower B. A woman's voice. High-pitched, brief and suddenly cut off.
Ankita gasped, covering her mouth. "What was that?"
Shivansh didn't know. He rushed to the front door, looked through the peephole. The corridor was still empty.
He opened the lock just a crack and listened. Somewhere downstairs, footsteps ran. A man was yelling. Doors were being slammed shut. From outside, more screams. Distant thuds. Glass shattering.
"Maa," he said, urgency building in his throat. "Get Vedant. Now."
"What's going on?" her voice shook, breaking out of denial.
"There's blood on Manoj. He's not right. He looked at me but didn't see me. And someone's screaming downstairs."
Another bang. Closer now. He shut the door and locked it fully, backing away from it as if it might burst open any second. Ankita pulled Vedant into the hallway, gripping his arm tightly. "Shivansh... are we safe?" "I don't know."
He walked to the window again, peeking out. Manoj was no longer at the gate.
The spot where he stood was empty except for a single, dark smear of blood trailing toward the building. Shivansh froze by the window, eyes fixed on the figure swaying near the apartment gate Manoj, the watchman. His posture was unnatural. One leg dragged, shoulders drooped, head tilted at an angle no human should casually carry. Blood stained the front of his shirt, dark and crusted, and there was something in his movement... slow, twitchy, directionless. Not drunk. Not hurt. Just wrong.
The curtain brushed back into place as Shivansh stepped away, his hands clammy. He turned toward the living room, now cast in the yellow hush of morning. It was 6:40 a.m., but the sky was still grey, the sun tucked behind smog and monsoon haze.
"Maa," he called, voice low. "Come here."
Ankita emerged from the kitchen, holding a damp towel. Her hair was tied back, eyes still swollen with sleep. "What happened?"
Shivansh's tone was sharper than he intended. "Just come. Don't go near the windows."
That caught Vedant's attention too. The eleven-year-old stood up from the couch, the blanket slumping around his feet. "What is it, Bhaiya?"
Shivansh didn't answer. He walked to the main door, quietly threw the top bolt, then the bottom one. The metallic clicks echoed too loudly in the silent flat. He looked around, then dragged the shoe rack across the floor and leaned it sideways against the door. Not a real barricade, but a start. "Shivansh?" Ankita asked again, now more tense. "Tell me." He finally turned to them. "It's Manoj. He's outside. At the gate."
Ankita frowned. "So?" "He's not okay."
Vedant walked closer, voice tight. "What did he do?"
"He was just… standing there. Covered in blood. I shined the torch on him. He didn't even flinch. Didn't say anything. He looked straight through the grill, like he couldn't see it. Like he didn't even recognize where he was."
Ankita's face darkened. "Do you think he's injured?"
"I don't know." Shivansh shook his head. "Something about the way he moved it wasn't normal. He wasn't trying to walk. He was just drifting. Like a puppet."
Vedant stepped toward the curtain, gently peeled back a corner, and peeked through. His breath hitched. "That's not just blood," he muttered. "That's… his jaw, Bhaiya. It's hanging. Like something tore it loose."
Ankita gasped. "What?"
"Don't look," Shivansh said firmly. "Keep the curtain shut."
The boy slowly stepped back, face pale. "His skin's turning grey." A pause. Long. Heavy.
Shivansh crossed the room, pulled the main chair across the floor and wedged it beneath the latch.
"Maa, Vedant, we're not opening that door for anyone," he said. "Not unless we hear a familiar voice. Not unless we know who's on the other side."
"But what's happening?" Ankita asked, hugging herself. "Could it be... drugs? Or maybe a head injury? Should we call the police?"
"I tried. No one picked up last night." Shivansh glanced at the landline. "Try again now if you want. But I doubt they're answering."
Vedant stood stiffly by the curtain. Then, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, he said, "It's just like those shows."
"What shows?" Ankita asked, distracted.
"You know…" he swallowed. "The Walking Dead."
Ankita turned, alarmed. "Vedant "
"No, Maa. I mean it," he said. "You saw his mouth, right? His eyes? His walk? That's not a drunk man. That's not even someone in pain. That's... something else."
Shivansh didn't speak. He stared at his brother, jaw clenched. He wanted to argue, say it wasn't real, say they were panicking over nothing. But the word stuck in the air like a stain.
"Zombie."
Ankita inhaled sharply. A moment later, the phone buzzed. Shivansh picked it up. Caller ID: Zoya S. He answered immediately. "Zoya?"
Her voice was breathless, terrified. "Shivansh… don't open your door. I just saw Manoj. He tried to come up Tower C. Someone shouted he bit Dinesh."
The line crackled. Shivansh's fingers tightened around the phone. Zoya's voice dropped to a whisper. "Something's happening. This… this isn't an accident." The call cut off. For a long second, Shivansh didn't move. Then he turned to his family, eyes cold and focused. "We're staying put for now."