It was a laboratory of silent death, as if nothing lived but this heavy weight of empty space. The dim emergency lights flickered on and off, casting brief shadows dancing upon the walls. Damaged machinery lay on the floor, while shattered glass on the ground reflected weak streaks of light, as if the very stars were falling down to Earth. The air was thick with fumes from the concoction of chemicals and rot; it clung to one's skin like the plague.
She stepped inside cautiously, deliberation in every movement. Her boots crunched on shattered glass and debris unrecognizable for anything; the sound was jarring against the eerie stillness. She paused, eyes darting around the room-the faint glint of curiosity betrayed her otherwise stoic expression.
The bodies came into view, strewn across the floor, contorted in unnatural positions. Each corpse was encapsulated in full protective gear; their suits now discolored and stained by time. She moved closer, her breathing shallow, as if not to disturb the quiet.
One body caught her eye-a man in a lab coat, his gloved hand clutched around a tiny glass vial. The liquid within was pale, greenish, and seemed to luminesce in the poor light. Her eyes clung to the label; the faded ink showed a single phrase:
Alongside the vial lay a torn piece of paper, its edges worn and blood-spotted. She picked it up; her fingers shuddered slightly, though her face did not alter. She read in that weak, false scrawl:
The government requires our success with this antiviral serum. If not, then this city shall know nuclear erasure. So far, three laboratories and eleven countries have been deleted.
She let the words settle in her brain as her face was impassive, unreadable, as if revelations of that nature no longer fazed her.
Her gaze slid to the wall near her striped in dried blood in broken symbols. A closer look revealed the markings were from a fragmented equation. Slightly tilting her head to one side, she looked at it-the faint flicker of comprehension flashing in her eyes.
Something stirred in her mind. Her gaze snapped back to the vial, and her pupils dilated in realization as she carefully picked it up, her grip firm, as if she was afraid to let it slip.
She turned to the scattered papers strewn across the lab, searching through the remnants of what was once a bustling hub of research. Among the debris, she found another document-this one carefully sealed in a protective sleeve. She pulled it free and began to read.
-Stage 1 [1-2 minutes post-infection]:Neural suppression begins. Symptom: skeleton emits a faint blue glow.
-Stage 2 [1-3 days]: Immune to all diseases. Symptom: skeleton emits a golden glow.
-Stage 3 [4-20 days]: Sensory nerves fail, and non-vital organs dissolve unnoticed. Symptom: skeleton emits a violet glow.
-Stage 4 [21+ days]: Vital organs liquefy; death is inevitable. No observable symptoms; death occurs before detection.>
Her eyes darkened as she read further:
>No cure exists.
Her hands clenched on the document at the end, while her body went very still. She parted her lips to say something, then nothing. The breathing faltered, and then she lowered the paper, her mind racing in disquiet and calculation.
When she finally emerged from the lab, her face was white as a ghost, her movements mechanical. The map she had carried with her before now felt useless, a relic of a world that no longer existed. She let it fall without a second thought, drawing from her bag a folded map that was a find within the lab.
She unfolded it with deliberate care, her brow furrowed in deep thought.
A map of the world, but this was no ordinary cartography. Whole nations were crossed out by symbols-black icons of mushroom clouds signifying nuclear annihilation-and there were few, if any, other remaining symbols-inverted hearts.
And beneath them, one word
Hope.
She traced the inverted hearts with her finger, her lips pressed into a thin line. Only nine were left in the entire world, and one of them was here, within her own borders.
Her eyes danced between the map and the research lab she had just left, something wordless stirring behind her eyes. She fisted the map in her hand, her face hardening as if to find the truth buried in those remaining symbols.
With steadfast determination, she started walking.
---
The sun, low in the sky, stretched long rays across the horizon in a landscape of orange and red hues. It grew cooler, and the long shadows of abandoned buildings crawled across the cracked roads.
Every step was a journey of desolation: carcasses of cars lined the roadsides, their rusting frames half-swallowed by the slow reclamation of nature, while bodies littered the ground, some reduced to ash and bone, others preserved as grotesque parodies of their final instants.
She walked with determination, but all that she had to do weighed upon her small body so. Her face said little, but in the reflection of her eyes shone deep the stirred resolution and sorrow, as in some twilight sky.
Then her legs buckled, and she sank to the ground, clutching at her stomach as sharp pains shot across her body. Her breaths turned shallow with every laboring inhalation. Shaking hands fumbled through her bag to bring out a piece of stale bread, which she bit into ravenously, but the relief did not last.
And then, her eyes flared into realization. Desperate, she flung at the vial from the laboratory. Shaking off her fingers, she uncorked and drank avidly.
the pain receded the shortness of breathing improved, steadied with hers. Then, on ajar, she stared, her wide horrified-and-yet hopefully-ridden gaze fixed to this, by now quite drained vial.
She stood and reset her body and mind. One step, then another, setting her eyes ahead to the horizon.
Before her lay her purpose, her mission. Inverted hearts marked the path-one glitter of hope in a dying world. She walked under the darkening sky, where silhouettes of ruin and death flanked her path.
Yet she went ahead in despair, but even at its very least bright flicker, hope did burn yet-to make something greater from the devastation.