🧟♂️ Deadzone: Survive the City
Chapter 1: The Message
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The city had stopped breathing.
Jay opened his eyes to silence. No traffic. No sirens. No birds.
Just the low hum of emptiness ringing in his ears.
He blinked at the flickering light bulb overhead.
Dead.
The ceiling fan was frozen mid-turn, like time itself had held its breath.
He grabbed his phone.
No signal. No WiFi. Battery at 7%.
Weird.
Jay slid out of bed, his bare feet touching the cold floor. Something was off—he could feel it crawling under his skin. His apartment felt... wrong. As if someone had rearranged the air.
Then he noticed the door.
Not just open—carved.
A single word, gouged deep into the wood with something sharp and jagged:
> "RUN."
His chest tightened.
It wasn't paint. It was blood. Dried. Old. Flaked around the edges.
He backed away, heart thumping against his ribs like a warning drum. That's when he heard it.
Drag. Scrape. Drag. Scrape.
Something was moving in the hallway. Slowly. Heavily. Not walking—dragging.
He held his breath.
Then came the sound—a moan. Not human. Not right.
It was cracked and gurgling like broken glass in a throat. Close. Too close.
Jay turned to bolt—
But froze.
His window was shattered.
Glass all over the floor.
And worse—muddy footprints. Not leading out.
Leading in.
His entire body went cold.
Whoever—or whatever—carved that message hadn't just been outside his door.
It had been inside.
He turned toward the hallway, slowly, every breath a threat.
The dragging sound was closer now.
Jay didn't wait.
He grabbed the nearest thing he could use—a broken chair leg—and stepped into the hall.
The air outside reeked of metal and rot. The power was out city-wide. Doors were broken. Windows shattered. Blood smeared the walls like desperate warnings.
And then he saw it.
A figure at the far end of the hall. Twisted. Slow. Limbs hanging wrong. Head tilted unnaturally.
It saw him too.
It screamed.
Jay ran.
And just like that—the dead city came alive.