EXTINCTION EVENT | CARL GRIMES

p r o l o g u e

My makeshift lock-pick once again fails to work, and instead snaps inside the keyhole.

With a sigh, I stand to my feet and pull out whatever I can of the thin coil from the lock. The underwire of Gianna's old bra being yet another unreliable method of our escape.

"Why don't we just try to bust through it?" Rosa asks, her desperate eyes meeting my angry ones, before quickening her tone. "Maybe we could jam someth—"

"Save it." I cut her off. "There's no use. It's supposed to keep us in here." I start, with a pause.

"And too much noise makes them act up." Gianna says, her voice raspy as she's not used it all day.

The unidentified creatures are once again talked around, considering that we still have no idea what they are. We've been living with the idea that the things in the tombs have something to do with the riots at the start of all of this.

"She's right." I say with a shrug, looking a frightened Rosa in the eyes. "There's nothing we can do."

"There has to be someth—" She stops talking when she sees the bothered look in my eyes.

"We'll just have to wait it out."

2 9 4  D A Y S  A F T E R

The heat blares around the stone walls of the room, hitting me from every uncomfortable angle.

Our usual, lingering silence consumes us as we all stay in our assumed corners of the room. A metal chair sits in my corner, while Rosa lies on a mat and Gianna sits next to a sleeping bag.

I watch the ends of my hair brush against the dusty floor as I lie upside down on my chair, dangling my head over the edge of the seat.

An everlasting boredom casts itself over my corner of the room, considering I've already done my one activity for the day: scratching another tally mark into the wall.

As of now, counting the days is the simple task that seems to get me by.

And I often do it over and over again.

Most days, I spend my time double—even triple—checking exactly how long we've been in this stale room. It's only occasionally that I total the number wrong, which somehow gives me the most thrill when going back and counting again, knowing that the number will be different.

It's a pitiful little game.

I think that the three of us each have our own little senseless habits, though we never talk about them. The depths of our minds can only be explored so much before we start to drive ourselves mad.

Our dwindling sanity leaves no more words to be said.

My empty thoughts slowly drown out when I manage to convince myself that I hear a distant, echoing scream. After waiting for a few moments with anticipatory ears, I hear nothing more and decide to continue dangling my hair about.

My senses messing up recently became another symptom of whatever it is that's happening to my mind.

It all started with a few different smells: warm food, freshly cut grass, laundry detergent. Nothing but a faint waft of imaginary air to reinforce my starvation and discomfort.