Rough, tar tears at my knees and palms. I don’t remember turning around, don’t remember running but I’m here, in the middle of the sunbathed roof. The whole world, a horrifying moving picture of pitiless carnage, now spins into a sickening, frozen stillness. My arms, legs, suddenly boneless, give out entirely, and I collapse, sprawling onto the gritty black expanse and profound, icy shock seizes me, a cold so deep it steals my breath and leaves my lungs burning, hollow.

  I curl into a tight ball, palms pressed into my eyes and fingers in my ears, the vivid, grotesque images searing behind my eyelids like a brand. The raw, tearing sounds of flesh, the crack of bone, and the guttural growl of dogs as they rip and gnaw and devour is in my very mind, echoing and undulating like a nauseating symphony; drowning out everything, even the frantic, hollow drumbeat of my own heart. My stomach is a knot inside me, clenched so tight that I can barely breathe; the bile, bubbling up like lava, has nowhere to go. I want to throw up, my head is pounding, throbbing but there is nothing left, it’s imaginary. I’m empty.

  Agony. It’s all I feel, just agony. I’m nothing in this world. The still shapes, the silent, sad statues of that once upon a time; the faces that filled my world, are not just gone; they are meat; they are food for the crows. But the world is not empty, not dead, not like them. Far from it; far from quiet, far from… still; it is a brutal, starving maw, open and ready to swallow us all whole. It is a truth too big, too ugly, to fit inside of me.

  A different kind of cold begins to seep through me – not from the air, not from the outside, but from inside my body; permeating every inch of me, from my very core. It’s a chilling realization in the depths of my heart; solidifying, crystalizing, hard and sharp as glass, deep in the roots of my mind. The still shapes aren't just people who stopped moving. They didn’t just die, not like grandma, not like the others from before. There’s no one to take care of them, no one to take them away; they’re just here. Doomed… to decay… to sleep in the rain and the wind and… to be consumed. And I’m just like them; just a step away from their fate; to lie in the rain and be eaten; to be unmourned and unburied, unmissed… out there under the sky. If they can become that... then so can I. I’m just like them.

  That one little thought is all there is in my mind, a gigantic weight pressing down on my chest, on all of me, forcing the air from my lungs with its paralysing weight. I can smell it – that cloying, sweet, rotten smell that clings to the back of my throat and fills my body with disgust; the taste of death, it’s everywhere now. Everywhere. And there’s no escaping it. It’s not just below, not just in the staff room, the halls, the lobby… but seeping in from every crack, spilling from every still shape, every street and silent house in the city, from everywhere. This is not a school anymore, it's a tomb. Not a city but a cemetery; a garden of corpses that stretches out forever in every direction. All the same, all of it, and I'm trapped in the middle with the dead, with no way out… nowhere to go.

  My breath comes in ragged, shallow gasps. My eyes, still squeezed shut, feel gritty, burning, throbbing; the vomit in my nostrils, acid, making them pour. I don’t want to be here. I just want to go home. Home. I want my mom! I want my mom… but she’s… gone. I’m never going to see her again. Never. I’m going to be all alone until I join the still shapes out there. I’m going to be all alone until I’m torn and shredded and devoured just like them. I’m so small in this world. I’m nothing, but I want to shrink and shrink until I’m invisible, until they can’t find me, can’t hurt me… can’t eat me. The dogs, those gnawing, ripping fangs are down there still. I can feel them. I can feel the flesh tearing in the air itself, the bones crunching and cracking, a gnawing fear that curls in my guts. They are hungry. They are everywhere. And I am just… me. Alone.

  Time stretches, thin and meaningless. Minutes? hours? I don't know. The sun moves across the sky; silent, indifferent, watching as my misery overflows, drowning me. My body aches, my head peeling open… but it’s nothing close to the pain in my heart, the fear that grips every thread of me with ferocious, needlelike fangs. My throat is raw, my lips cracked. I'm thirsty, but the thought of moving, of opening my eyes, of facing the world again, is too much. I just want to stay here forever, where I’m safe from the dogs. I want to lie here until I become a still shape myself, until this all goes away and I can stop seeing; stop hearing; stop smelling, all this. Until I can stop feeling.

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  But the cold, the deep cold inside me, is relentless. Its claws rip at my flesh and hook into my bones; pulling, tugging at my body like a physical thing. Lying here is the same as going out there. It means becoming one of them; and it means becoming meat. I shiver, another bubble of fear bursting inside my chest with such force that it drives the wind from my lungs, but in the deepest depths of despair, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.

  “Squeak?” Such a strange sound. “Squeak?” The world is flooding in again, the smell, the sound, the warm kiss of sun on my skin. The feel of something soft against my chest. My ears are ringing and the sky seems far too bright as I pull my hands from my face but when I look around, I’m still here. Still safe. And I’m not alone. The world is still here, still silent, still filled with the stench of decay, still waiting for nothing. But now, as my eyes adapt, I see a small, white shape huddled against me. Waiting for me.

  I stare at her, my mind slow, sluggish. A cat. A living thing. Not a still shape, not meat, but a pure white vision of life, brilliant in the sunshine, her eyes, wide and yellow, fixed on my face. She lets out another soft, questioning squeak, such a strange, tiny sound in the vast, empty silence. It’s a sound that doesn’t belong here, a sound that doesn’t belong to a cat, but it’s something. It’s a sound of life in a world overrun with death.

  Slowly, carefully, I lift a trembling hand. Slowly, carefully, like the vision might shatter at the slightest errant touch. That I… might shatter. Her yellow eyes watch me, unblinking as I reach out, hesitant, towards her. My hands are stiff, cold but as my fingertips brush her soft fur, a jolt, tiny but undeniable, shoots through me. It’s warm, so warm, a living fire against my aching skin.

  My fingers pull back, almost automatically, startled by the sensation, by the sheer unexpected heat of her. It can’t be real. Not in this place, not here amidst all this pain and death, it can’t be. She squeaks again, louder this time, and then, with a surprising boldness, pushes her head into my palm, purring. The low, rumbling vibration against my body is something else, something inconceivable. It’s not comfort, not yet, not like Mom’s hugs. Not even close. But it’s... something. Something that isn't this horrifying nightmare. Something that isn't… all of this. Something that isn't me, alone.

  Gently, I pull her closer, curling into a little ball around her, cuddling her, watching her for a long, long time. The purr is a steady, soft rumble against my body, kneading out the rigid, sickening pressure inside. My breathing gets a little easier, just a little, and the knot in my stomach loosens, just a bit. The dogs are still down there, I know. The smell is still everywhere, inside and out, but for this moment, right here, on this rooftop, there is a small, warm, purring thing against my chest that makes it all feel just a little bit further away, just a little bit more bearable. A living thing, here, with me, that chose to stay.

  Finally, slowly, I uncurl, pushing myself up into a sitting position, wincing as my stiff muscles grind to life; as the tight, stinging skin on my palms and knees pulls taught. Buttermilk gets up and moves to my lap where she remains, nestled against me, her purr a constant, quiet presence. I gently stroke her head, feeling the soft fur, the tiny bones beneath, and she leans into my touch, her eyes half-closed in contentment. It’s a strange feeling, this tiny connection. It doesn’t make any sense. The horror doesn’t go away, the fear doesn’t let go, not really. But having her here, with me, just for this moment, it’s enough, enough just to breathe.

  The sun climbs high into the sky, casting long, winter shadows across the empty city. The world is still broken, still dead. But for the first time since it happened, I don’t feel completely alone in the middle of it all.

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