Author's Preface
3rd March 2022
I met the rest of the group today. There aren't many of them only seven of them now nine, if you count me and the unblinking weirdo in the corner.
First, there's young Zach. He's only sixteen, but he's our Food Wizard. He's the fastest runner I've ever seen, moving through the aisles like a blur. He told me he can find anything; I just have to tell him what my heart desires and he'll track it down. I wanted to say a new arm or my old life but I just smiled and told him he was doing a great job. He's got that teenage energy that feels almost offensive in a world this dead.
Then there's Sam. She's twenty-one and Zach's girlfriend, which... honestly, good for him, I guess. She's the radio tech for the group, always fiddling with wires and trying to pull voices out of the static. And the big news? She's pregnant. I looked at her stomach and felt a cold pit in my own. Bringing a baby into a world where the sky is the color of a bruise and things whisper through the cracks... it feels like a death sentence. But Sam just keeps working on her radios, her face set in a look of quiet determination that makes me feel like even more of a Twizzler-armed mess.
Then there's Rachael 24-the bitch. Honestly, that's the only word for her. I get that she's grieving, and I get that Thomas is gone, but she treats every request like you're asking for her kidney. She stalks around the aisles with that permanent scowl, making sure we all know exactly how much of a burden we are.
To balance her out, we have Cairn 30ish the sexy soldier. My hero. Every time he walks into the office to check on me, the air just feels... different. He's got that calm, disciplined energy that makes you think maybe, just maybe, we aren't all going to die in a grocery store.
And then there's Christine 54, our makeshift doc. She was a science teacher in the before, which I guess is close enough when your arm looks like a snack from a 90s lunchbox. She's patient and kind, even when I'm being a brat about the bandages.
It's a weird little kingdom they've built here. A bitch, a hero, a teacher, and a pregnant techie, all hiding from the yellow sky and the unblinking freak in the corner. If this was a movie, we'd be the ragtag group that saves the world but looking at my arm and the way the lights flicker, I think we're just the ones waiting for the credits to roll.Then there's Martin 67 and Katie 68. They're husband and wife, ex-PE teachers, and officially my worst nightmare. You can tell they used to spend their days blowing whistles and shouting at kids to do laps in the rain. They have that terrifyingly upbeat energy that makes you want to crawl under a shelf and hide.
Katie cornered me today and told me we'd be starting PT, Physical Training, starting tomorrow. She looked at my sling and my lead-heavy legs and had the nerve to smile. She said it's going to hurt, but that it's for my own good if I want to stay agile enough to outrun the Fluids.
Great. Absolutely brilliant. As if having a mangled arm and being hunted by unblinking freaks wasn't enough, now I have to do star-jumps in the frozen food aisle while a woman in a tracksuit barks orders at me. I survived a literal alien invasion just to end up back in Year 11 PE. If the Fluids don't kill me, I'm pretty sure Katie's training regime will finish the job.
10th March 2022
I am officially declaring it: PT has ruined my life.
Katie and Martin are relentless. They had me lunging down the cereal aisle today, and honestly, the physical pain is nothing compared to the humiliation. I'm stuck wearing this bloody Lycra set from the discount aisle-it's that cheap, shiny material that clings in all the wrong places and does absolutely zero favors for my arse.
I'm trying so hard to project sexy survivor vibes for Cairn, but it's impossible when you're sweaty, red-faced, and struggling to balance with one arm that looks like processed meat.
Every time he walks past with that calm, soldierly stroll, I just want the floorboards to swallow me whole. I'm screaming sexy teenager in my head, but I'm pretty sure I'm actually screaming wounded neon flamingo.
Cairn just gave me a small, polite nod as he went to check the perimeter, and I nearly died right there next to the tinned tomatoes. How am I supposed to be a femme fatale when I can't even do a jumping jack without sounding like a broken accordion?The weirdo spoke to me today.
I was sitting on the edge of my cot, trying to peel off that horrible purple Lycra without snapping my Twizzler arm, when the silence from the other side of the coat rack just... broke. It wasn't a loud voice. It was flat, dry, and sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.
"Mike," he said.
I froze. I didn't even breathe. I just stared at the gap between two winter parkas, waiting for the rest of the sentence. But there wasn't any. Just that one word hanging in the stale office air.
"What?" I finally whispered, my heart thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"My name," the voice came back.
"It's Mike"
He didn't say anything else. No hello, no sorry for staring at you for a fortnight, nothing. Just Mike. It was the most normal name in the world, but coming from him, it sounded like a threat. I looked at the door, desperate for Cairn or even the bitch Rachael to walk in, but I was alone with him. Just me and Mike. And for the first time, I realized that the only thing scarier than him not talking... is him finally having something to say.
14th March 2022
I can't believe I'm actually writing this, but... PT might be a bitch, but I'm starting to feel so much better. The lead in my legs is finally starting to lift, and the fuzzy feeling in my head has cleared out, leaving me feeling more like the nineteen-year-old I'm actually supposed to be. I managed to do ten minutes of cardio today without feeling like I was going to pass out in the middle of the canned goods, and for the first time in forever, I didn't wake up feeling like a walking bruise.
I even caught myself checking my reflection in a polished freezer door and thinking I didn't look half bad-even in the discount Lycra. My skin is losing that grey, sickly look, and I've got a bit of color back in my cheeks. I might have a Turkey Twizzler for an arm and be living in a world that's literally rotting around me, but today, for the first time, I felt like I was actually alive instead of just surviving. I think even Cairn noticed; he gave me a proper smile today, not just a polite soldier-nod.
Take that, yellow sky. I'm still here.Christine fully unbandaged my arm today. I held my breath while the last layer of gauze fell away, bracing myself for something out of a horror flick. It's not as bad as I thought, though good is definitely a stretch. It's set at this bizarre, permanent angle, and the skin is all wrinkled and puckered in places like I've aged fifty years in that one spot. But I'm trying to be realistic. It could be worse. I could have lost the whole limb, or worse, my life. I'm a Twizzler now, but at least I'm a living one.
It's the nights that are the problem.
The store gets so quiet when the generators hum low, and every time I close my eyes, I'm back at the docks. I see the blue light bleeding off the crane, staining the air. I see that knife slicing into the Fluid that wet, unnatural sound that haunts my ears. It's like my brain is on a loop, replaying the chaos over and over the second the lights go out. I lay here behind my wall of coats, staring at the yellow ceiling, terrified that if I fall asleep, Blue will finally catch up to me.I woke up in a dazed, cold sweat, the memory of the blue crane still burning in my eyes. But the nightmare didn't end when I opened them.
Mike was there.
He was standing right at the edge of my cot, watching me like a hawk. He didn't say anything, didn't move an inchhe was just there, a dark silhouette against the sickly yellow glow of the office. His black eyes piercing my own soul in the half-light, his eyes looked wider than usual, fixed on my face as if he were trying to read the dreams I'd just escaped.
I scrambled back against the head of the cot, my Twizzler arm thumping painfully against the metal frame. My breath was coming in short, jagged gasps, and for a second, I couldn't even find my voice. He didn't flinch. He didn't apologize. He just kept that predatory focus on me, his body perfectly still, while the silence of the supermarket felt like it was crushing the air out of my lungs. I've never felt more like a specimen than I did in that moment trapped in a discount-Lycra skin while a man named Mike watched me struggle to breathe.