Chapter 1: The Silence Before
Something went wrong with the birds.
Elara Pass stood at her bedroom window, her hands pushed against the cool glass, gazing out into the lonely sky. Every morning for the previous three years, a swarm of sparrows soared past her apartment, their wings catching the first rays of sunrise. However, the soft orange horizon remains intact.
Silence squeezed against her ears like thick cotton wool.
A dull pain throbbed at the back of her temples. The remainder of the night seemed... weird. Fractured, as if she'd missed a few crucial moments. She remembered going to bed, but everything before that swirled like water down a drain, leaving only the sense of urgency. Of something crucial sliding through her fingertips.
The digital clock on her nightstand displayed 6:47 a.m.
"whats up?" Her thin, faltering voice broke the silence. There were no distant visitors. No hum from air conditioners. There were no muffled sounds from a neighbor's television streaming through the barriers.
Her phone lay lifeless on the bedside table, resistant to any concerted attempt to turn it on. The landline just supplied silence—no dial tone. Through the window, the road below extended empty, with vehicles abandoned at normal angles. A toddler's bicycle lay on its side, one wheel spinning gently in a breeze she couldn't feel.
The word "evacuation" popped into her head, but she couldn't seem to remember any warnings, sirens, or frightened news reports. Just... nothing.
Her survival instincts kicked in before her conscious mind could catch up. Years of preparation for failure — which had garnered her innumerable teasings from friends — were later deemed warranted. Elara put on her sturdy boots and took her pre-packed emergency backpack from the closet. The familiar weight of it across her shoulders offered little comfort, but it was something.
In the kitchen, the tap flickered and only produced a few drops. She grasped the preserved water bottles, thankful for her anxious foresight. As she entered them into her percentage, her reflection on the microwave's dark display panel attracted her attention. Something about her face appeared weird. It became her own, but not by hook or crook. Her eyes cast an incomprehensible glance, as if they knew something she didn't.
Crash broke the silence.
Elara froze, her heart beating against her ribcage. It arrived from outside, perhaps three blocks distant. Every instinct told her to stay still, to conceal, and to anticipate help. However, the nothingness around her whispered a different, more dreadful reality: aid would not arrive.
She approached her apartment door, her hand hovering over the deal with. The previous hallway was pitch black; the emergency lighting fixtures were out of commission. She eased the door open, and the hinges groaned low and deep.
The sound that responded was not human.
It came from somewhere beneath, a wet, guttural chirp that set her teeth on edge. Like something attempting to replicate human speaking without understanding how throats functioned. The stairwell amplified the noise, distorting it until it appeared to come back from everywhere at once.
Her body moved before her mind was ready to fully process the phobia. Her backpack smacked the ground as she pushed the door shut, flinging the deadbolt with shaky hands. She crushed her back into it, her breath coming in short, harsh gasps.
Think, presume, and assume.
The chirping became louder, and was now accompanied by a new sound: claws scraping on concrete, clicking their way up the steps. A couple of sets that shift with cause.
Fire breaks out. Her only choice.
Elara grabbed her laptop and dashed to the window, shoving it open quietly as she could. The steel platform outside shook beneath her weight. As she began her descent, something caught her eye.
Three recollections beneath, a figure stood completely still in the middle of the road, face turned upwards in her direction. At first look, it appeared human—but the proportions were off. Its hands hung abnormally long, with fingertips almost touching the floor. And the neck...
The component's head twisted a full 180 degrees, the pores and skin stretching impossibly as it tracked her movement.
Bile shot through her throat, and he or she scrambled back up, but the chirping from the stairway had reached her ground. Scratching sounds came from her front door, accentuated by the harsh crack of splintered wood.
Trapped.
A remembrance surfaced, crisp and clear against the murk of her mind. A familiar and demanding voice says, "Move underground while it starts. Find me where the past sleeps."
The subway station is two blocks distant.
Elara appeared among the creatures beneath her failing door. Neither option provided security, but the voice in her memory tugged at something deep within her, something that felt just like the truth.
The door shattered with a splintering bang.
She moved.
The fireplace break out shook as she flew down, metal shrieking in protest. The long-armed father downstairs charged at her with incredible speed, but she had already swung around the corner to the building's lower back alley.
Her boots hit the concrete hard, causing pain in her legs, but adrenaline propelled her forward. Multiple footsteps pounded behind her, some on the floor, others crawling through the building's barriers.
She ran.
The subway entrance loomed ahead, gaping like the maw of a giant beast, with emergency lighting throwing a sickly greenish hue from below. As she stumbled down the steps, her foot landed on something tender. She nearly toppled, grasping the handrail to keep herself steady.
A scream was trapped in her throat.
A man lay sprawled on the steps, his limbs bent at unattractive angles. Most of his face's pores and skin remained smooth, featureless.
The chirping came from above, closer now.
Elara pulled herself past the body and deeper into the station's shadows. Her flashlight beam swung wildly through the barriers, showing more faceless corpses sprawled across the platform, each body twisted as if they'd died in mid-movement, their limbs stretched in a terrifying dance.
The voice in her recollection spoke again, this time more clearly: "Follow the White Rabbit."
And there, painted on the tunnel wall, transformed into a rough white bunny. Clean paint shone in her flashlight beam, pointing deeper into the darkness.
Someone had left it recently. Someone who is still alive.
The chittering animals had reached the top of the subway stairs.
Elara dived into the tube, and the darkness swallowed her whole. The sound of countless footsteps bounced off the partitions behind her, swelling to a crescendo like a crashing wave.
She ran faster.
A fresh air stroked her face, clean and effortless, and carried a fragrance she nearly recognized. Along with that came any other memory, as sharp and jagged as broken glass:
"W
hile you look for me, you will ponder everything. However, Elara "You may wish you hadn't."