"Agh.. My head is throbbing." 

Silas groaned, clutching his head as a sharp, relentless pain pulsed behind his left eye. The room tilted when he opened his eyes, his vision swimming in and out of focus. Disoriented, he forced himself to sit up, his limbs heavy and uncooperative. With a shaky breath, he pushed off the bed, only to stumble into the wall, its cool surface the only thing keeping him upright.

"What the hell…" He weakly muttered, his voice hoarse and rough. The room swayed slightly as he pushed himself off the wall, his legs unsteady beneath him. He stumbled into the kitchen, his fingers fumbling to find the small bottle of pain relief medicine tucked away in the corner of a cluttered cabinet.

He filled a glass with cold, cloudy water from the tap and downed the pills in one gulp, the liquid chilling as it slid down his throat. Leaning against the counter, Silas closed his eyes, counting the seconds as he waited for the pain to fade. 

The minutes stretched on, his thoughts scattered, until the sharp throbbing in his head finally dulled, leaving him with a fragile sense of peace.

Feeling comfort, He stood up from the counter he previously used for support and walked to his bathroom while rubbing his eyes. On his way to the bathroom, he grabbed his phone and checked the time. 

*6:47 AM*

His phone read as the light flashed. Opening the door to the bathroom he flicked the light on and pulled his shower curtains open. He removed his clothing and stepped into the shower, cleaning himself as he thought of what he may accomplish today.

Silas dried his body off as he placed the somewhat damp towel over his shoulders. He covered himself with a pair of boxers as he reached for his toothbrush and toothpaste. The slightly open window let in cool air that made Silas shiver when it grazed his lower back.

"Damn cold weather..." He said to himself as he checked his phone for the weather. The highest was 49 degrees. With a disappointed sigh Silas laid his phone down onto the sink before spitting the mixture of spit and toothpaste into the sink. Then he cupped his hands together to catch water which he used to get the minty taste from his mouth.

Shortly after Silas got dressed. His outfit consisted of dress shoes, a white button up with a tie, and a coat that would keep him cool from the 'hellish' weather he overreacted about.

The city hummed with its usual energy. Jazz spilled softly into his ears as he navigated the crowded sidewalk, blending with the distant chatter and footsteps. Across the street, students rushed into the school gates, their voices rising in a chaotic symphony. 

A wave of drowsiness struck like a truck, a reminder that he'd forgotten to make coffee. The pounding headache that woke Silas abruptly this morning made it easy for him to forget what he desired most—his one lifeline to surviving the day had slipped his mind entirely.

On the right side of the street stood a gas station. To Silas, it felt like a gift from the heavens. Of course, anyone else would see it as just a perfectly ordinary gas station, always there, always the same.

"Perfect timing!" The thought rushed through his head as he stepped inside. The familiar ding-dong of the door chime greeted him. A man with long, disheveled hair and a lanky frame crossed the threshold. That man was Silas, of course.

He made a beeline for the coffee machine, his steps quick and determined. "I can already taste it! Ah, coffee, humanity's greatest treasure. What did we ever do to deserve something so perfect?" he muttered, his voice dripping with anticipation.

But his excitement came to a screeching halt as he spotted the piece of paper taped to the machine. Three simple words stared back at him, mocking his hopes:

Out of Order.

For a moment, Silas stood frozen, as though those words had physically struck him. It was almost enough to bring a tear to his eye.

Now that he thought about it, this wasn't the first issue around the area. On his way here, he'd noticed a traffic light stuck on red, its glow dim and lifeless. He'd brushed it off at the time, but now, as he glanced around the gas station, the pattern became harder to ignore.

Several lights flickered erratically, casting uneven shadows across the walls. Others had gone dark entirely, their absence leaving odd patches of gloom. It didn't make sense—this station was a local hotspot, always buzzing with customers. With so much money coming in, it should've had no trouble keeping up with something as basic as working lights.

Silas bit back a sigh. The thought struck a familiar chord—one he'd rather ignore. Having enough money to make problems disappear? He envied them.

It wasn't time to mope around or examine the strange outrage that seemed to affect the area though! He had a place to be and coffee to buy. As he walked to a nearby fridge, Silas examined his options behind the glass door. 

"Hmm.. Caramel.. Chocolate.. Peppermint..? It's only November." He placed his hand on his chin as he opened the door to grab the Caramel coffee.

A couple of steps brung Silas to the front of the cashier. Placing the drink onto the table and then waited for a reply.

"2.50, Will that be all?"

The experienced man said. As Silas fumbled around in his pocket something caught his attention. When he listened closely, tuning out everything else his eyes widened in surprise..

"Good morning. Unexplained power outages are being reported across the country, leaving millions without electricity. What makes this unusual is that the outages are occurring in seemingly random areas and during daylight hours, with no storms or technical issues to explain the disruptions.

Officials are investigating, but so far, no cause has been identified. Some residents have described odd flickering lights and power surges just before the outages begin. Authorities are urging calm and asking people to prepare for potential prolonged blackouts as they work to understand the situation.

We'll provide updates as more information becomes available."

A young blonde woman announced on the TV behind the register. This raised new questions in his head. This sudden.. outage if you can even call it that was happening around the country.

"Oh, don't worry, they'll 'provide updates'—like they actually know what's going on. Sure, just sit tight and wait for the big reveal, right?" The cashier's voice dripped with mockery as he gestured toward the flickering TV.

He leaned forward, lowering his voice as if sharing some grand secret. "Let me tell ya somethin', son. This world is run by corrupted people with power! You're a fool if you think they ain't controlling the power, the weather, even the food we eat!"

The man rambled on, his voice rising with each word. It reminded Silas of a coworker who couldn't stop spouting conspiracy theories after a few too many drinks. People like this always seemed to have a theory about everything. Silas had developed a special talent for tuning them out—an essential skill when dealing with old-timers who thought they knew it all. He secretly feared becoming one of them when he got older.

"Tsk… Don't listen now, and you'll regret it later!" the old man persisted, his tone almost accusatory.

Silas sighed, pulling a five-dollar bill from his pocket and dropping it onto the counter. Without a word, he grabbed the drink he'd paid for and walked toward the door. When the cashier called after him, he waved dismissively—part thank you, part please don't follow me.

As the glass door swung shut behind him, Silas cracked open the bottle of coffee, savoring the first sip. Whatever conspiracy theories the cashier believed, at least this drink was real—and it was his only solace in an otherwise confusing morning.

His office was just a block away, a cramped gray building wedged between a laundromat and a hardware store. He hated it, but work was work. At least it gave him something to do while the rest of the world slowly fell apart.

A sigh escaped him as he approached the building, taking slow sips from the cool glass bottle in his hand. The bitter taste barely cut through the morning haze clouding his mind, but it kept him moving. Turning the corner, he stopped in his tracks.

A small group of people stood near the entrance—his coworkers. They were all there, wearing their usual uniforms, but none of them looked like they were in any rush to go inside. Instead, they just stood there, silent and motionless, their backs to him.

Something about the way they lingered sent a chill creeping up his spine. No one was chatting or scrolling through their phones like usual. Their heads were slightly tilted, eyes fixed on the glass doors ahead as if waiting for something—or someone.

Silas's brow furrowed. He glanced at the entrance. The doors didn't look locked, but no one was trying to open them. The only sound was the faint hum of the street behind him, as though the building itself was holding its breath.

He tightened his grip on the bottle. "What the hell is going on?" he muttered under his breath, taking a hesitant step forward.

Silas tapped the shoulder of a nearby worker. The man's body jerked slightly, a sharp twitch of confusion, as though his very skin was unfamiliar with movement. Slowly, almost unwillingly, he turned to face Silas. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, as if he had to piece together the image of another person standing before him—like he'd forgotten what it was to share space with anyone. For a heartbeat, he simply stared, unblinking. The silence between them stretched too long, suffocating.

"What's everyone stopping for?" The question fell from the man's lips with an eerie hesitance, as though he was asking not for an answer, but because he feared the one he would receive. There was a tightness in his voice, a fragile edge that made Silas wonder if he, too, could feel it—the wrongness in the air.

Before Silas could respond, a sharp, ear-piercing ringing sliced through the air. It was sudden, harsh, and cold, as if the very atmosphere had been pierced by something unnatural. It was the kind of sound that made the skin crawl, the kind that gnawed at the edges of your thoughts, filling every corner of your mind with an unsettling dread.

The ringing didn't stop. It seemed to echo, vibrating deep in his chest, like it was coming from the very marrow of his bones.

Then, as if in response to the noise, a tremor of sensation jolted through Silas's body—a deep, almost nauseating vibration on his left side. Instinctively, his hand went to his pocket, his fingers trembling slightly as they brushed against his phone. His eyes locked onto the screen, along with the others who had also reached for their devices, faces blank, unsure, the ringing still pulsing in their ears.

An alert.

The words appeared in stark black and white across the screen. Silas muttered under his breath, barely hearing his own words over the deafening pulse of his heartbeat. "An alert…"

At first, he thought it was just a local warning—a signal, perhaps a regional malfunction. But when he looked closer, the text seemed to grow, stretch, until it consumed him.

It wasn't an alert for this area. It wasn't an alert for the city. Or even for the country.

It was an alert for the entire world.

Something was coming. Something that had no place here, and he wasn't ready to meet it.

But it wasn't what he expected at all.

A soft humming filled the air, gentle and sweet, like the lullabies of a distant memory. Silas froze, his pulse slowing as the sound reached him, weaving into the corners of his mind. The melody wasn't just pleasant—it was intoxicating, its warmth cradling his thoughts like a pair of loving arms. It felt as if the humming itself whispered to him, a reminder of something long lost, yet somehow deeply familiar.

He thought of his mother, her voice carrying soft, sweet melodies that filled the cracks of their old, crumbling home. Her voice always carried a promise: that no matter how cruel the world could be, there was still love, still solace, still something to hold onto. Silas's eyes fluttered shut. He wanted to curl into a ball, to let that melody carry him back to those tender moments.

More than anything, he wanted to share that feeling. He wanted to cradle someone close, to pour out all the love he had buried, to let himself be vulnerable, open, whole. It was surreal. It was heavenly.

But all good things must come to an end.

The melody shifted, an imperceptible crack running through its purity. At first, Silas tried to ignore it, to cling to the fleeting warmth. But the humming grew louder, no longer gentle or inviting. It rose in pitch, turning sharp, jagged, wrong. What had once felt like a soft embrace now clawed at his mind, digging deep, burrowing into every nerve.

It was unbearable.

It was like needles—thousands of them—thrusting into his brain, piercing his skull, grinding against the delicate tissue behind his eyes. The pain was raw, searing, as if his very thoughts were being pulled apart. He clutched at his head, his fingers trembling, his nails digging into his scalp as though he could tear the sound out.

And then—something warm splashed against his face.

Silas froze, his breath catching in his throat. The sensation was sticky, clinging to his skin, sliding down his cheeks and over his lips. It wasn't water. It was too thick, too warm.

Slowly, shakily, he raised a hand to his face. His fingers trembled as they brushed against wetness. Chunks of something soft, something gelatinous, slid against his fingertips. For a moment, his mind refused to process it.

His eyes creaked open.

The world came into focus, blurred and smeared with red. Blood. Dark crimson streaked his vision, dripping from his lashes.

And then he saw it.

The coworker he'd tapped just moments ago was still standing, though not entirely. What remained of his head was a gruesome ruin, an empty, jagged stump where his skull had been. Pieces of it painted the ground, splattered across nearby walls. Brain matter, pale and meaty, clung to Silas's face like a grotesque mask.

His stomach lurched, the taste of iron and bile rising to his throat. He stumbled back, his legs threatening to give out beneath him. The humming had stopped now. No, he was wrong. So disturbed and confused by what he was looking at he toned out the ringing.

The coworker's body swayed for a moment, as though deciding whether it still belonged to the world of the living. Then it collapsed, crumpling to the ground with a lifeless thud.

Silas couldn't move. His knees locked in place, his breath coming in short, shallow gasps. He stared at the blood soaking into the concrete, at the chunks of flesh clinging to his hands, unable to comprehend the horror that had just unfolded.

A harsh, guttural HUUUURGH ripped from his throat, echoing in the air like an animalistic cry. His entire body convulsed as the contents of his stomach forced their way up, burning his throat with acidic bile. The wet splatter hit the pavement with a sickening slap, pooling at his feet in a dark, steaming mess.

The bitter tang of coffee mixed with the acrid taste of vomit, lingering on his tongue and in the back of his throat. In some cruel way, the coffee made it slightly more tolerable as its liquid consistency easing the wretched process, allowing the mess to flow out more smoothly.

But that twisted sense of relief lingered as more heads burst, spraying blood in arcs that splattered like crushed water bottles. The sound of it, wet and final, mingled with the screech of colliding cars. Silas couldn't tell if the drivers were dead or simply too panicked to steer, and he didn't want to know.

Then the humming returned, sharper now, piercing his skull like jagged needles. He clutched his head, stumbling forward only to round the corner into a scene of even greater horror.

The street was painted in crimson. Headless bodies slumped in doorways or sprawled on the pavement. The living convulsed, clawing at their faces, nails carving bloody streaks as they begged for the music to stop.

But it didn't stop. It only grew louder.

Silas ran. Anywhere but here, his mind screamed, though he knew it didn't matter. This wasn't just here—it was everywhere. His legs burned, muscles screaming, but he didn't stop until the music finally cut out.

Relief flooded him, but it was fleeting. His legs buckled, and he collapsed, curling into himself as exhaustion overwhelmed him. His arms shielded his head instinctively, though nothing came. The silence was deafening, almost worse than the sound.

Just before sleep claimed him, a voice pierced the stillness, chilling him to his core:

"Cleanse this world of filth. Only the worthy shall remain."

Eight billion lives were snuffed out in an instant, leaving only 7,000 survivors to witness the aftermath. November 17, 2024, became the day the world fell—when civilization crumbled and chaos claimed the remnants of humanity.

…

"Is he still alive?" A voice broke the oppressive quiet, low and sharp. The crunch of leaves and twigs followed as someone approached.

"His head's intact," another voice answered, this one flat and emotionless. "So, probably."

"That doesn't mean anything," the first voice replied, colder now. "If he heard it and survived, he's either lucky or broken. If he does anything strange, I'll kill him."

The words should've been terrifying, but the casual tone made them even worse. Like taking a life was a simple errand.

Silas Grayson lay still, his mind sluggish as their words seeped in. A creeping awareness told him they were talking about him.

He was still alive.

Summoning what little strength remained in his trembling limbs, Silas forced himself upright. Pain rippled through his body as he pried open his heavy eyelids, the world around him coming into focus in fragments. Trees. Endless trees, their twisted branches clawing at the sky.

A forest? How the hell did he end up in a forest?

Leaning against a nearby trunk for support, he turned slowly, his gaze falling on two figures standing a short distance away. They looked similar—same dark hair, same sharp features. Brothers, probably.

But more importantly, they were alive. Not headless. Not clawing at their faces. Not crumpled in agony. Relief washed over Silas, threatening to buckle his knees all over again.

He opened his mouth to speak, to break the suffocating silence, but one of the men beat him to it.

"Are you sane?"

The bluntness of the question knocked Silas off balance. His lips parted in confusion before twisting into a frown. How rude.

"Uh… yeah? I think so." His voice wavered, strained. "Listen, I've got a lot of questions about what just happened—"

"So do we," the other brother interrupted, his monotone slicing through Silas's thoughts.

"What was that sound? How did it kill so many? And why are we still here?"

It was like the man had reached into Silas's head and plucked out the exact thoughts circling in frantic loops. The questions lingered in the air, heavy and unanswered.

But it confirmed what had been gnawing at the edges of his mind: this wasn't a dream, a hallucination, or some fleeting nightmare. This was real. People had died—countless people. And the thought of it made him sick to his stomach. 

"Thomas Redfield," the taller, monotone man finally introduced himself. He nodded toward the shorter one beside him. "And that's my younger brother, Keith Redfield."

At last, an introduction—and confirmation that they were, indeed, brothers. Thomas was the stoic, measured one, while Keith, the shorter of the two, was the one who'd so casually mentioned killing Silas earlier, should he do anything suspicious.

Now… where the hell was he?

Silas's hand instinctively patted his pocket, brushing against the familiar shape of his phone. Once a vital lifeline to the modern world, now it was little more than a useless slab of glass, metal, and circuitry—a relic of a world that no longer existed.

Still, old habits lingered. He pulled it out, the faint hope of information driving him to check the screen. The time glared back at him: 11:24 AM. Nearly five hours had passed. It was still November 17th. The date provided a fragile anchor to reality, but beyond that, it meant little.

The brothers, standing nearby, caught sight of the phone. Their eyes lingered, a flicker of recognition tempered by loss. They didn't have their phones anymore. They'd been lost—just like everything else. Lost in… whatever this was.

What could they even call it? Was something almighty at work? Something beyond understanding? If such a force truly existed, was this its work? People often said everything happens for a reason, but what reason could there possibly be for a massacre like this?

And if there was a reason… did any of them truly want to know what it was?

"You two have any idea where we are? Anything at all could be useful." Silas's voice carried the weight of exhaustion, but there was a thread of desperate hope clinging to his words. In truth, he wasn't sure why he even asked. He had always told himself that if the world ever ended—truly ended—he wouldn't hesitate to end his own life rather than drag himself through the ashes.

Keith raised his hand, and the movement caught both Silas and Thomas's attention. "Uh… yeah, actually. Just a little ahead, there's a city. If we're alive, then—then maybe there's others like us!" His tone was hopeful, almost too hopeful. It hung in the air like a fragile thing, trying to convince them of something he didn't fully believe.

Good for him, Silas thought bitterly. It was better to cling to hope, even if it was a flimsy illusion.

Because deep down, all three of them knew the truth. That hopeful tone? That suggestion of salvation? It was just a mask. A thin, fragile mask barely holding back the despair clawing at their insides.

The faint outlines of buildings peeked through the thick cover of trees, their shapes barely visible against the backdrop of a broken world. Silas, Thomas, and Keith began their slow march forward, their footsteps crunching against the forest floor. It wasn't like they had a destination in mind—just an instinct to keep moving.

Why did they even bother clinging to life? The thought lingered, unspoken but shared between them. Could this hollow existence truly be called living? It felt more like… delaying the inevitable. Prolonging their deaths, step by step, through a landscape that offered no promises of redemption.

And yet, as much as the world seemed drowned in despair, there were still those who hadn't given in to its pull. A handful of people—though scattered and rare—harbored a fragile, flickering hope. A hope for something better. A hope for a future.

Perhaps it was foolish. Perhaps it was futile. But that faint glimmer of hope was all that separated survival from surrender. And so, with nothing else to hold on to, the trio walked toward the unknown.