Josie adjusted the strap of her backpack and pushed on the pedals. Her graying hair, tied messily under her helmet, stuck to her forehead. She was almost home.

The late afternoon light painted the city in sharp angles and long shadows. The scent of spring was in the air, everything was growing and getting greener. The air was getting warmer and the city busier.

The first noise hit when she was at a red light — a deep, mechanical thumping.

She glanced up and saw four dark green military helicopters, low and fast, carve across the sky in tight formation, their blades chopping the air into chaos.
Military drills over the city? Weird.
She smirked. "Maybe the mayor’s dog went missing."
The light went green and she pedalled on.

The second noise came shortly after. A rising howl, sirens, not police or ambulances, these were from the military. The old cold-war sirens, deep and mournful, shuddering over the rooftops.

Josie’s gut twisted. She knew those sirens were only supposed to sound for real emergencies. Real ones. What was going on ?!

Two blocks from her street, she was crossing an intersection when a man stumbled out between two parked cars. He was in his mid-forties, a dark and torn suit and tie, and he had bloodshot eyes. He was twitching, his hands were shaking, he looked wild. Like a rabid animal. Suddenly, he locked eyes with her — and charged.

Before she could even think, the man slammed into her.
The bike flew out from under her, Josie hit the asphalt hard, falling on her back. The air was knocked out of her. She couldn't scream, but her instinct kicked in instantly. She started kicking at him and grabbed his face in her hands and pressed her thumbs into his eyes. The wild man didn’t seem to mind at all.

He grabbed at her jacket, clawing mindlessly. His breath was foul, his fingers digging like hooks into her.
Josie was fuelled by pure survival impulses. She jammed her knee into his gut, and shoved hard, and scrambled free. She stood up quickly, but he came at her again fast, and snarling.

She was ready this time, and caught him with a punch under the chin. She put all her weight behind it and his head snapped back.
He collapsed onto the pavement, unconscious.

Josie staggered, gasping, full of adrenaline. Her hand felt like she had just punched a wall.
Blood trickled from her forearms. Her bike lay twisted in the street.

Around her, some people stared open-mouthed, others hurried past, but nobody helped. One guy had his phone out and was filming the whole thing.
Nobody seemed to know what was happening.

The sirens screamed again, louder this time. The helicopters swept past overhead again, black shadows against a bruised sky.

Josie stood there, stunned, for long seconds, watching the watchers.
Her mind struggled to catch up. But then her brain snapped and she thought, "The girls! Get home. Now!"

She fast limped to her bike, half-dragging it upright.
The front wheel was dented, the chain slipping, but it moved.

She pedalled hard for home, every muscle in her body burning and buzzing with adrenaline and fear.

---

The second Josie slammed the flat door behind her, she threw the locks and shoved the deadbolt into place.

The flat smelled of baked bread and laundry detergent — normal smells that punched her harder than anything.
It was warm and cosy in here. Cosy chaos: a laundry basket half-dumped near the washer, a pile of homework and crayons on the kitchen table, Sara's worn-out sneakers by the door.

It felt safe. But Josie's hands were still shaking and blood was slowly soaking her shirt.

"Josie!" a young voice called from the living room.

Two heads popped up over the back of the couch — Sara, her big sister, and Lena, Sara’s nine-year-old daughter.

Josie yanked off her helmet and dropped her bag with a heavy thud.

"You okay?" Sara asked, getting up. "Oh my god, what happened!" she exclaimed when she saw her sister's state.

Josie managed a crooked grin.
"I had a wrestling match with a junkie. Lost points on style, but I think I won."

Lena blinked at her. "What, like a real fight?"

Josie nodded, and grunted while sinking into the battered armchair. Her body was sore.
The worn cushions and the soft lamplight made her feel, for a second, like she might cry.

She told them everything — the helicopters, the sirens, the crazy who attacked her and how nobody helped.

While she talked, Lena turned on the TV, and Sara was cleaning her wounds. The girls didn’t say a word during the telling of the tale.

"You’re so badass, sis!" said Sara in awe of her little sister, finishing up the bandage.

There was silence for a few seconds after that, and they just now started listening to what the reporter said on the TV.

The city was in chaos. Shelter in place. Stay indoors. Authorities are responding.
They showed shaky footage of crowds rioting, ambulances stuck in traffic, police pushing people back with riot shields. In the background, cars were burning.

The two sisters murmured "what the fuck" at the same time. Lena, who normally would have said "Language!" to that, remained silent, and captivated by the TV reports.

The reports were conflicting: "Infection?" "Violence?" "Panic in multiple districts."

A news anchor, pale and sweating, tried to read from a Teleprompter, but the screen glitched and cut to a colour bar test pattern.

Silence fell over the flat, thick and choking.

Josie leaned back in the chair, breathing hard. She could still taste blood at the back of her throat.
This is really happening.

"You think it’s terrorists?" Lena said finally.

Josie shrugged. "I think we need to stay the hell inside, that’s what I think. Bunker Time baby!"

Lena tugged at Josie's sleeve. "Are there... monsters?"
Josie glanced down at her big green eyes, her lips were trembling. She forced a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, "No monsters, peanut. Just idiots."

But deep inside, she wasn’t so sure.

---

By nightfall, the world outside had changed. Fires lit the horizon like a setting sun that engulfed the whole city, Gunshots cracked in the distance like breaking twigs, sirens screaming in the distance, a helicopter once, then came the silence.

The phone signals were dead, same for the internet. No news, except for garbled emergency messages that mostly said: "Stay where you are."

Josie, Sara, and Lena slept in the living room, barricaded in with furniture and heavy blankets over the windows. They stacked canned food and bottled water in a corner of the living room. Using Josie's old climbing rope, they rigged a crude alarm system across the balcony.

Josie sat cross-legged on the floor, tapping a pen nervously against a notebook she wasn't really writing in. Lena clutched a battered teddy bear and watched cartoons on a battery-powered DVD player they dug out of a closet.

Every few minutes, someone would glance at the blank TV screen, as if hoping the news would suddenly blink back on.

"Mum says if the apocalypse happens, we should have a code word," Lena whispered from her makeshift bed.

Josie chuckled. "Ok, good idea! What’s our code word, peanut?"

Lena thought for a second and murmured, "Amadeus."

Josie grinned in the darkness. "Yeah, that’s perfect. Fancy and unpronounceable." They both chuckled quietly and went to sleep.

Still, despite the jokes, Josie didn't sleep much and neither did Sara. They listened to every creak in the building. Every noise from the street below was like a caffeine shot to the heart, keeping them awake and tense. At some point, hurried footsteps echoed from somewhere below, and the two sisters sat bolt upright in their sleeping bags until it faded.

At 3 in the morning, a neighbour banged frantically on a door down the hall, screaming for help, begging the person living there to open the door. No one opened.
Not even them.

Too risky.

---

By the third day, the boredom was almost worse than the fear, it gnawed at the edges of everything. It was like living in an ugly dream.

Food was running low. Josie counted the remaining cans three times in one afternoon, just to be sure she hadn't made a mistake.
4 cans of soup, 2 boxes of crackers, half a jar of peanut butter, some chocolate,1 torch with half a battery life, pasta, rice, and two six packs of water.

The power flickered more often, each time leaving them sitting in the heavy dark, listening to the sounds of a dying city beyond their barricades: distant screams, crashes, the occasional inhuman snarl that none of them wanted to think about too hard.

Sara became restless.
“We can't just rot here,” she whispered late one night, pacing by the front door. Lena was napping in the next room.
Josie stayed seated by the window, watching the empty street with hollow eyes. “Better to rot than to get eaten.”

But they both knew it couldn't last.

The water pressure had dropped to a sickly trickle. The last of the batteries were dying.
And Lena, brave as she was, had started asking if the bad men outside would come for them next.
"Why doesn’t anyone help us?" or
"Will Grandma be okay?" or
"Are there monsters?”

Josie kept lying to her, smiling, showing calm, and confidence, but Inside, she felt like someone had cracked open her ribs and replaced her heart with a lead weight.

---

By the fourth night, it was clear: they couldn’t stay much longer.
The food wouldn’t last, the water was almost gone, and the air smelled wrong — a sour, metallic taint drifting through the windows.

"Jo, You're thinking what I'm thinking?" Sara asked.

Josie nodded grimly. "Yeah…we pack”.

It was time to move.

They packed fast and light and were ready in under half an hour.
The remaining water bottles and snacks, first aid kit, and a few painkillers were at the top of the list. A few Kitchen knives wrapped in dish towels were packed on top of everything, and Josie had her old baseball bat leaning against the wall near the door.

Lena carried a little stuffed fox in her backpack and a book about insects. Josie didn’t say anything about it. She just tightened the straps for her and winked.

At dawn, the girls were buzzing with excitement and weighed down with fear. It was such an Insane move, trying to cross town to get to their mother’s place. Getting passed all the craziness was a dreadful thought, but the only way to stay alive at the same time. Get out. Get away.

Get safe.

Josie cracked the door open to the hallway. She could see a corpse slumped near the stairwell — fresh. Blood pooled around it like a black halo. She turned back inside to talk to her sister, but she had had the same idea and was already drilling her daughter.

“Baby whatever happens you keep your eyes on me, not the street, not the people and the mess, just me. We can hold hands if you want, but if I say run, I need you to run. It might be very dangerous outside, so I need you to listen to us and do as we say. We won't let anything happen to you, ok baby?”

Lena just looked at them with fear in her eyes and nodded. Josie realized that Lena had no real idea what they were to find, but seeing her mum and aunt so scared and tense made her worry. She was scared because they were scared. This gave Josie some strength, some courage. She would to be more than just Josie when they leave the flat, she would protect her. She would show as little fear as possible, she would be strong. For them.

The city was dying fast, and there was no law left to stop it. There were cars abandoned everywhere, broken windows, robbed stores, rubbish, fires, and soot in the air. Strangely, the city felt quieter than usual, like a library or more likely a cemetery. Here and there were bodies, lying on the pavement, some bloody, some half hidden under cars. It was gruesome, but the two women and the girl didn’t let that get to their head.

Sara shielded Lena with her body, blocking her view whenever they passed a shattered car or a bloody smear on a wall.

Josie's bike was still chained outside. The scene of her fight flashed in her head, and she gripped her baseball bat tighter. They'd make for Mum’s house on the edge of town and everything is going to be alright!

Halfway across the block, a growl snapped her head around.

A figure — a woman, once — lurched toward them, one arm dragging uselessly.

Josie shoved Lena and Sara behind her, not leaving the approaching woman out of sight for a second.

The oncoming woman was so pale and looked sad. One of her jumper sleeves was missing, and her bare arm was bloodied and bruised, and hung limply at her side. She limped slowly, coughing and breathing hard, like she was choking. Josie was mentally preparing herself to hit her hard. She felt like a lioness protecting her cubs. Nothing could stop her, and at the same time the fear and the thought of this confrontation alone was sending shivers down her spine.
Like a baseball player, she had her bat ready. She was breathing hard. Heart hammering.

The thing suddenly started running, and it ran faster than it should have.
Josie swung wide — missed.
It tackled her — heavy, snarling, teeth snapping an inch from her neck.

Sara screamed, and took her daughter into a shielding hug.
The scream distracted the attacking woman, buying Josie half a second.
She swung her bat again, but because the woman was too close, she aimed for the legs. The thing crumpled like it had been folded in two. Her head hit the pavement violently and she was still. A pool of gooey black blood formed quickly around her skull on the floor.

Josie turned to the girls and said with all the courage she had left, “Stay close. No matter what, and don’t look!”

They sprinted for the nearest alley.

---

By the time the sun rose, the city was unrecognizable. Ash rained down like dirty snow. The air stank of burning rubber, blood, and fear.
They moved through the apocalypse like shadows, Sara covering their rear. Every little sound made their hearts jump. Every flicker of movement twisted their guts into knots.
It was like crawling through the last moments of the world.

They pushed on, foot by foot, toward the edge of it all, without another incident. They managed to stay hidden and silent, not staying in one place more than a few minutes.

By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, all three of them were soaked in sweat and trembling with exhaustion. Their legs hollow and weightless. The sun was already descending on the horizon.

At a traffic light, long dead, Josie paused.
Hands on her knees. Gasping. Laughing a little — manic, helpless.

"This is the worst Friday ever," she muttered.

Sara shoved her gently with one hand. Her other arm was busy holding Lena. She had become light in her mother's arms — too light — and had fallen silent an hour ago, burying her face against Sara's shoulder. At Josie’s word she rose her head and Sara pushed it gently back down, shushing.

They turned a final corner, stumbling out onto a side street littered with abandoned cars and broken glass.

Somewhere, past the wreckage and the smoke, there, in the distance, framed by the dimming light of the setting sun, was their mother's house — squat, familiar, untouched by the chaos so far.

Josie stopped for a heartbeat, she just stared. Then she grinned through cracked lips. Sara adjusted Lena higher in her arms, and whispered:
“Almost home.”

Time to move. Time to survive.