"Darkness is not the absence of life. Sometimes, it's where it hides to sharpen its teeth." — Unknown survivor, graffiti on the ruins of Sector-9
I lost track of time while gazing at my father's aged journal whose edges had softened into fabric texture and its pages turned yellow from years of perspiration, smoke and sorrow. The ink strokes in my father's handwriting moved across the paper in a technical but urgent manner while expressing strong conviction. The pages were like a scripture to me and although I could comprehend only a small portion of the language like Signal matrices, decentralized swarm networks, cortical hijack codes; I knew my father must have had a reason to write it all down. He wasn't known to be a man who particularly wrote journal so I knew it must be important. But until the day I can make sense of the language, it's all theory to me.
I read the journal as the last tendrils of dusk dissolved into shadow. The hills beyond the barricade dissolved into blackness – not empty, but full. Full of things that watched without eyes, moved without sound, and hunted without hunger.
And then – the scream.
A screech – not human, not animal; something fractured inn-between – splitting the air like a Faultline opening across the Earth. It reverberated through the broken walls of buildings, coiled through the library walks, and rattled the breath from the lungs that knew better than to answer.
Having heart them countless time, I still couldn't help but freeze – not with fear but because every scream in the night carried a distinct intent. This one wasn't calling but counting.
And somewhere in the heart of the apocalypse, the night responded.
The Hollowed – Once Human; Twisted by genetic editing, embedded with neural mesh, and modified through an evolving pathogen that defied classification — they were the byproduct of an ungodly alliance between man's thirst for progress and the cold logic of artificial intelligence.
During the early days of the apocalypse, they were said to be connected and controlled including every twitch, every strike, and every pattern of movement. Controlled by EVA, the global intelligence network born from the fusion of AI and military command systems.
But as the year passed, an eerie silence was felt through the air – like there was no longer a signal, no override, no trace to the AI. By 2031, people started to believe that the AI has gone dark. Some said the AI died while others thought it transcended leaving behind the Hollowed; still moving in formations, still adapting, and hunting with terrifying precision.
But every time, the wind stilled, and the world held its breath, I could feel it – the night breathing back.
----
Sleep has always been an illusion to me, and I have always had trouble sleeping.
I stood up, slid the journal into my satchel, and moved quietly through the dim-lit rows of the library's upper floor. Survivors lined the aisles, wrapped in silence, swaddled in blankets pieced together from memory and whatever scraps they could find.
The Medic looked up at me from behind a rusted lantern. Her eyes were tired, but they held that same quiet understanding. We didn't speak. After sundown, words were currency—you didn't spend them unless you had to.
I climbed the steel ladder near the side hatch and pushed it open. The cold breath of the outside world met me like a warning.
The rooftop groaned beneath my boots – a platform of sheet metal and salvaged scaffolding, rigged with solar panels and rain collectors. From up here, the world stretched into shadow: a graveyard of cities strangled by nature, rust, and time.
As I looked down the slope, I saw them. Dozens of Hollowed – motionless as statues, blue light in their sockets, twitching only when wind shifted. Some walked, some crawled; while one pulsed slowly like its lungs were still deciding whether they belonged to it. They did not groan or snarl, maybe because the night spoke for them.
----
I sat on the edge, my legs dangling, the wind tugging at my hair like it wanted to pull me forward.
The night stretched out in front of me—black, endless. I let my thoughts drift into it, unraveling with silence.
They all call me the storyteller. The scribe. The boy who remembers too much. I keep the records. I tell the kids bedtime stories that are really just eulogies for a world they never got to see.
But I'm tired. Tired of remembering. Tired of surviving just because I still can.
"I was five when the world ended," I whispered into the wind, not even sure if it cared.
"And somehow, it still feels like it's ending."
Down below, Hollowed stood frozen—silent. Watching. Always watching.
Everyone in camp locks themselves underground at night. Doors bolted. Prayers whispered. Pretending daylight will make it all better.
But me?
I sit out here. In the open. Every night.
Watching them while they watch us.
Some part of me wants them to notice me.
Some part of me wants them to take me. Or maybe… just understand.
----
I reached into my coat and pulled out the scorched data chip.
Small. Charred around the edges. Useless—for now.
But I knew what it was. The last trace of a backup node that had once been linked to EVA.
I hadn't told anyone I had it.
Not the Medic. Not Kaela. Not even the kids who still believed the old stories.
If EVA was still out there—any part of her—this chip might lead to it.
A map, maybe.
Or a curse.
"The night breathes too," I murmured, softer this time, as if the darkness might be listening.
"And it remembers."