The wind never stopped. Not once. It tore through the land, scraping against the earth with a ferocity that seemed to stretch on for eternity. The endless typhoon had consumed everything, inch by inch, its might unstoppable.
No one could remember when it had begun, or how long it had been raging. It felt like it had always been there, like the world itself had become tangled in its fury.
A lone figure moved through the wreckage, staggering with each step. Her name was Jae, and she had once thought herself a survivor. Now, she wasn't sure if survival meant anything at all.
The landscape was unrecognizable. Cities that had once stood proudly were now nothing but broken skeletons of steel and concrete, bent under the crushing weight of the storm. The once vibrant countryside was now a wasteland, its trees twisted and shattered, roots ripped out of the ground.
The skies above were a churning mass of dark clouds, swirling in a constant, violent motion. No sunlight broke through. There was no day, no night. There was only this endless storm.
Jae wrapped her arms around herself, trying to block out the wind that whipped at her skin. Her clothes were torn, soaked through with rain, and her hair had been ripped from its ties, tangled and wild. She had lost track of how many days it had been since the storm had started. It didn't matter anymore. Time had become irrelevant.
She had been a part of a group once. She could still remember their faces, their voices, their laughter. But that was before the storm began to eat away at everything. The first sign of its arrival had been subtle—a strange, unsettling pressure in the air.
Then came the rain, thick and heavy, falling in sheets that seemed to smother everything beneath them. The winds picked up soon after, sharp and biting, tearing apart anything they touched.
And then, it had never stopped. The storm didn't give you the chance to run. It didn't care if you begged or pleaded or tried to hide. It kept coming. No matter where you went, it found you. Jae had seen it with her own eyes—the helplessness in the faces of those she had once known.
The storm tore through the group, one by one, taking them without mercy. They had tried to fight, to make it to shelter, but the wind was too powerful, the rain too relentless. In the end, it had been just her.
Jae had wandered since, hoping—though she no longer knew for what. She had no destination. The world was too far gone for that. She didn't know why she kept moving, why she kept putting one foot in front of the other.
There was nothing left but ruin. Still, she couldn't stop. The wind howled in her ears, and the world felt like it was closing in around her. Every corner she turned seemed to bring more desolation.
She stumbled over the wreckage of a fallen building, the remains of what had once been a grocery store. The shelves had long since emptied, the windows shattered, the door torn from its frame. There was no sign of life here. Not that there had ever been much life left in this place. The storm had taken everyone, and in the chaos that had followed, the survivors had either fled or fallen.
Jae's throat was dry, her stomach empty. She hadn't eaten in what felt like days. Her body ached, her limbs weak from exhaustion. But even then, she kept walking. What else was there to do?
She paused, eyes scanning the wreckage around her. The wind howled louder, as though the storm itself were watching her, waiting for her to slip. There was no sound of birds. No insects. Just the relentless roar of the wind and the crashing of debris.
The sky above was as black as ink, the storm clouds swirling like a vast, unseen maw. It felt like the world was dying around her.
Jae felt a chill crawl up her spine. She wasn't alone.
Her breath caught in her throat, but she didn't turn. There was no point in looking. She had learned long ago that whatever it was—if it even had a form—was something she could never outrun. She just had to keep moving, keep hoping. If she didn't, she would be consumed like everyone else.
The wind howled again, and for a moment, Jae thought she saw something in the distance. A figure, barely visible against the raging storm. It was moving toward her, slow and deliberate. Her pulse quickened, her heart pounding in her chest. She could feel the pressure building, an unsettling weight in the air. But the figure wasn't moving like a person.
It was wrong.
Her instincts screamed at her to run, but her legs refused to obey. Her feet were glued to the ground as she watched the figure approach. It wasn't human. There was no form, no shape, only the sense of something… waiting. Watching.
Jae tried to swallow, her throat dry and tight. She opened her mouth to scream, but the wind drowned her out. She turned, stumbling back through the debris, but the figure followed. There was nowhere to go. No way to escape.
And then it was there. The wind stopped.
Jae blinked, confused. The storm still raged in the distance, but here, in this tiny pocket of silence, it was almost as if the world had paused. The figure stood before her, its shape a blur against the storm's edge. It didn't have a face. There were no eyes, no mouth. Just a presence. A terrible, oppressive presence that filled the air with an unbearable weight.
Jae's body trembled, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her. She wanted to scream again, but no sound escaped. The figure loomed closer, until it was just inches from her. Jae could feel it now. The cold, suffocating chill that clung to her skin, the taste of something rotten in the air.
Her vision began to blur. The figure reached out a hand. No fingers, just a swirling mass of dark energy. As it touched her, a terrible cold seeped into her, turning her veins to ice. She could feel it inside her, like a poison spreading from her chest to the rest of her body. It was taking her. It was going to swallow her whole.
Jae gasped, her mouth opening wide, but no scream came out. She tried to run again, but her legs no longer moved. She was frozen, her body stiffening, her heart slowing.
And then, the wind picked up again. It howled louder than ever, crashing around her, as though the storm were alive, as though it were feeding on her fear. The figure was gone, but the chill remained, eating away at her insides, numbing her thoughts.
Jae's vision grew dimmer, her breath shallow. She collapsed to her knees, the ground hard and cold beneath her. The storm was all around her, an endless wall of sound and fury. But it wasn't the wind that scared her anymore. It was the silence. The silence that came after. The silence that would be her last.