I used to measure my days by small things.
The whistle of the 7 a.m. kettle. The neighbor's radio was crackling through the wall. The way sunlight crept across the kitchen tiles was like it had all the time in the world.
Graduation.
I was supposed to walk across a stage next month. Wear that stupid gown. Complain about the heat. Take pictures with my friends.
That was before the sky turned the color of spoiled moss.
At first, we thought it was smoke, some kind of industrial fire out near the Capitol. People gathered on rooftops, pointing, guessing. Someone laughed, said it looked like the city was brewing poison.
We didn't know how right they were.
The mist didn't rush in like a storm. It spilled. Slow. Heavy. Like it had weight, like it wanted to touch everything. Buildings disappeared from the ground up, swallowed floor by floor. The Capitol dome vanished last. I remember that… like it was holding its breath before giving up.
They told us to stay inside.
Close the windows. Seal the doors. Wait for instructions.
So we did what people always do: we listened, we hoped.
By the second day, the broadcasts stopped.
By the third, the screams started.
Not all at once. Not dramatic. Just… here and there. A shout from the street. A crash from upstairs. Then silence, as if the city were swallowing its own voice.
My brother said it was panic. Said people were losing their minds.
He was wrong.
I saw the first one from our window. Mrs. Hossain from across the street. She was standing still, too still, right in the middle of the road. The mist curled around her ankles like it knew her name.
Then she bent.
Not like a person bends. Like something inside her pulled the strings wrong.
When she looked up… I knew.
We locked the door after that. Boulted and used my bookshelf to make the barrier stronger.
We were hiding together back then. In our apartment. Curtains drawn, doors locked, the television still flickering with emergency broadcasts that kept repeating the same useless instructions: Stay inside. Avoid exposure. Wait for rescue.
Rescue never came.
On the fifth day, my brother started coughing. Because we had one mask, we used it alternatively.
At first, it was small. Easy to ignore. He even joked about it—said the air was just dry. But by night, his hands were shaking. By morning, his eyes… his eyes weren't right.
There was a moment, just a moment, when he looked at me like himself again.
"Don't let me-" he started.
He didn't finish.
I remember backing away. I remember my hands gripping the kitchen knife so tightly they went numb. I remember telling myself it wasn't him anymore.
But when he lunged-
God, I can still hear the sound.
Not a scream. Not really. More like something breaking from the inside out.
I didn't aim. I just… pushed.
Once. Twice. Thrice...
That was all it took. He collapsed right there on the floor we used to sit on while eating instant noodles and arguing about stupid things- movies, music, who'd wash the dishes. I stayed with him for a long time. I took his body, dragging it inside our closet, and I tried to call mom and dad to tell them what I had done. They didn't answer the phone.
Long enough for the mist to creep under the door.
Long enough for me to realize that if I didn't leave, I'd join him.
So I ran.
They said Dr. Nier saved the world once. That he cured diseases no one else could touch. My brother used to admire him; he kept articles about his work folded neatly in his books. Said he wanted to be like him someday.
Funny how heroes rot.
Now his name is carved into everything we fear. The Doom Legion moves like soldiers, not monsters. Organized. Controlled. Like there's a mind behind every dead pair of eyes. There is. The night I ran, I saw them herding trucks with those deformed humans.
You can't outrun something that's already inside the air.
I've been running ever since.