It remembers warmth.
Not a name. Not a face. Just warmth. A flickering kind that danced on fingertips and lived in the chest like a second heartbeat.
That's gone now.
The thing lurches forward, bare feet dragging across cracked pavement. There's a limp in the left leg — bone grinding wetly against bone with every step. The skin around the hip has torn, exposing gray muscle and fibers that twitch when the weight shifts wrong. It doesn't notice. It doesn't care.
It is hungry.
Not the kind of hunger it once knew. Not for bread, or salt, or meat. Not even for comfort. This hunger is deeper — cellular, instinctual, gnawing. It twists beneath rotted ribs and behind cloudy eyes. It drives the body forward when everything else has forgotten why.
Above, smoke chokes out the sun. A helicopter, or what's left of one, is speared through the side of a parking garage, its tail bent like a broken finger. The streets are quiet now. No more sirens. No more screaming. Just the hush of flame devouring forgotten things.
The thing passes the remains of a gas station. Flames lick the edges of the ruined storefront. Glass warps and pops. It steps through the fire, unflinching.
The flesh on its right arm blackens and splits. Fat sizzles. No reaction. Its body should be screaming — but it does not feel pain. Not anymore.
It never did. Not from fire.
The memory of warmth flickers again, deeper this time. Somewhere behind the eyes, behind the rot, there is a shape. A woman. No — a girl. Laughing. Holding a candle between her fingers. Playing with it. The memory feels... safe.
The flame vanishes. The hunger tightens. The body twitches. The memory fades.
It moves on.
At some point — time doesn't work anymore — the thing hears movement. Not wind. Not rats. Something else.
Heartbeat.
It stops. Head tilts. Jaw slack.
There. Across the street. Behind the broken shell of a pharmacy.
Someone is alive.
The hunger howls inside. It takes over everything — even the false memory of warmth. The head jerks upright. The muscles tense. The limbs lurch faster. The stuttered walk becomes a broken run.
One shoulder collides with a rusted sedan. The door peels away in a shriek of metal. It doesn't stop. The mind no longer processes obstacles. Only the pull. The need. The warmth of blood. Of living skin.
It bursts through the pharmacy's door — or what's left of it — glass crunching beneath its feet. The sound echoes. Shelves are scattered, bottles shattered. The smell of alcohol and bleach hangs thick in the air.
But no one's here.
It stumbles through the aisles, knocking over a stand of gauze and expired painkillers. Nothing moves. No heartbeat. No heat.
It snarls, jaw twitching, teeth clacking.
The scent's still fresh. It was close.
It stumbles back outside. The world is red and gray and spinning. The smoke is thicker now, painting the sky in chemical haze. Somewhere, a building groans and collapses.
The hunger doesn't care.
It turns — blindly, instinctually — and begins walking again.
South.
How long has it been walking?
It doesn't know. There is no clock in its mind. No thoughts to track time, just... drive.
It walks until the city thins. Buildings shrink. The air changes — less smoke, more grass. Trees. Fences. A school bus turned sideways in the middle of a two-lane road. Empty houses, windows smashed.
It sees a dog once. Or what's left of one.
The hunger stirs. But it isn't what it wants. It steps over the carcass.
The sun is gone. Or maybe it never rose. It's hard to tell. Time is nothing.
Then it stops.
There it is again. Heartbeat.
Close this time. So close.
Behind the house. Wooden fence. The scent is sharp. Bright. Alive.
The hunger pulses like a second heart.
It doesn't hesitate. It throws its body at the fence — once, twice — wood splinters. On the third impact, the boards give way, and the thing tumbles through.
There.
A figure.
Back turned. Hoodie pulled up. The figure looks over their shoulder — startled. Their hand goes to something at their side.
The hunger surges.
The zombie lunges.
And then—
A sharp hiss.
The air snaps.
Something small — a nail, or screw, or pebble — hurtles forward with impossible speed. Launched by pressure, by force, by something the dead can't comprehend.
It strikes the zombie cleanly between the eyes.
There's no explosion. No flash.
Just a crack.
The skull caves inward.
Its body falters mid-stride, momentum breaking. Knees buckle. The corpse collapses onto the porch, lifeless.
One eye remains intact. Locked forward. Twitched. Still trying to see.
The warmth is right there.
A shadow moves.
The figure steps forward — cautious, controlled. In one hand, they hold a piece of rebar. In the other — nothing at all.
Just a whisper of motion in the air around their fingers.
They don't speak. Don't celebrate.
Just lower the weapon. Exhale.
The corpse doesn't move again.
It remembers nothing after that.
No warmth.
No hunger.
No fire.
Just
silence.