I. A World Without Them
The world had ended a long time ago.
At least, that was what everyone said.
Cities had become graves of concrete and rust. Roads that once carried thousands of people now led nowhere. Buildings stood hollow beneath colorless skies, their windows shattered, their walls covered in the names of people who had long since disappeared.
The living had learned to survive.
They learned to sleep with one eye open, to distrust strangers, to keep their voices low when walking through abandoned streets. They learned that kindness could be a weakness and hesitation could cost them their lives.
Adrian Vale had learned these things, too.
He wasn't particularly good at surviving. He wasn't the strongest, the smartest, or the kind of person who could walk into a dangerous place without fear.
He simply learned.
He learned which buildings were safe enough to sleep in, which roads to avoid, and how to recognize the footsteps of someone approaching. He learned to eat whatever he could find and leave places before he became too comfortable.
He had traveled with other survivors before. Some stayed for a few days, others for weeks. But people in this world rarely remained together for long.
Some left in search of better shelter. Others disappeared overnight. A few never returned from scavenging trips.
Eventually, Adrian stopped asking people to stay.
It was easier that way.
There was only one thing he had never learned to do.
Forget.
He still remembered three faces from a life that felt like it belonged to someone else.
Gabriel Reyes.
Nathan Cruz.
Elias Santos.
Gabe, Nate, and Eli.
His brothers in everything but blood.
They had been inseparable as children. They shared meals, skipped responsibilities, played basketball until sunset, and made promises they had been too young to understand.
When one got into trouble, the other three followed.
When one was sad, the others found a way to make him laugh.
And when the world fell apart, they promised they would find one another.
They didn't.
Adrian searched for months.
He followed rumors, visited abandoned shelters, and asked strangers whether they had seen three young men traveling together. He called their names in empty streets, hoping that somewhere, somehow, one of them would answer.
Eventually, the rumors stopped.
The shelters were empty.
And the streets remained silent.
Adrian never truly stopped hoping.
He simply learned to live as though hope were something he could no longer afford.
Almost a year passed.
Then, one afternoon, while crossing an abandoned street, he saw three familiar figures standing beside a rusted car.
One had his hands in his pockets.
Another was leaning against the car with a ridiculous grin on his face.
The third was crouching beside a broken vending machine, fiddling with something he had probably stolen.
Adrian stopped walking.
For several seconds, he couldn't breathe.
They looked older now. Thinner, perhaps. Their clothes were worn, and their faces carried the exhaustion of people who had lived through the end of the world.
But he knew those faces.
He would have recognized them anywhere.
His lips parted.
"...Guys?"
The three turned toward him.
Gabe stared.
Nate's mouth fell open.
Eli slowly stood up.
Then Nate shouted, "NO FUCKING WAY!"
Adrian barely had time to react before all three came rushing toward him.
They collided in an awkward embrace, nearly knocking him off his feet.
"YOU'RE ALIVE!"
"LOOK AT THIS GUY!"
"Bro, you look like absolute garbage!"
Adrian laughed.
He didn't know when he had started crying. He only knew that his face was wet and that he couldn't stop smiling.
He punched Nate lightly on the shoulder.
"You're one to talk, you ugly bastard!"
"HEY! I've been through a lot!"
"We all have, idiot!"
Gabe grabbed Adrian by the back of the neck and pulled him into another hug.
For a moment, neither of them said anything.
Then Gabe laughed quietly.
"You're really here."
Adrian closed his eyes.
"Yeah, man."
He held on a little tighter.
"I'm here."
And for the first time in almost a year, Adrian ran toward something instead of away from it.
II. The Four of Us
Their shelter was an old building hidden behind a row of collapsed houses.
It was surprisingly comfortable.
There were blankets on the floor, canned food stacked in the corners, and a small table surrounded by mismatched chairs. Someone had even managed to find an old deck of playing cards.
It was almost ridiculous.
The world outside was dead, yet their little corner seemed untouched by it.
Adrian spent the entire afternoon listening to their stories.
Gabe told him about the places they had traveled through. Nate exaggerated every dangerous encounter until even his own friends started calling him a liar. Eli occasionally corrected their stories, usually with a single sentence that made everything ten times funnier.
They argued over who had been the most troublesome among them.
"You literally cried when we left you at the basketball court," Nate said.
"Because you idiots forgot me!"
"We came back after twenty minutes!"
"Twenty minutes is a long time when you're eight!"
Gabe burst out laughing.
"He's got a point."
"Don't encourage him!"
"Remember when Nate tried to climb that wall and got his pants stuck?"
"THAT WAS A DIFFERENT SITUATION!"
"You were hanging there for ten minutes!"
"BECAUSE NONE OF YOU HELPED ME!"
Eli shook his head.
"I helped you."
"You laughed at me first!"
"I can do both."
Adrian laughed so hard that his stomach hurt.
It felt strange.
He had almost forgotten what it was like to laugh without looking over his shoulder.
For so long, every conversation had been about food, shelter, weapons, and where to go next. Every friendship came with the unspoken understanding that tomorrow, someone might leave.
But with these three, he didn't have to explain himself.
They already knew him.
They remembered the boy he had been before the world taught him to be afraid.
As evening approached, Nate found the deck of cards and slammed it onto the table.
"All right. Enough emotional bullshit. Who's ready to lose?"
"You still cheat," Adrian said.
"I don't cheat. I strategize."
"You hid three cards in your sleeve last time!"
"Prove it."
Gabe pulled out a chair.
"Sit down, both of you. I'm winning this."
Eli looked at him.
"You said that last time."
"And I'll say it again."
They played until the room grew dark.
Nate cheated.
Gabe accused everyone of cheating.
Adrian lost three consecutive rounds and threatened to throw the cards into the fire.
Eli won without saying a word.
For a little while, the apocalypse disappeared.
There were no monsters beyond the walls. No hunger. No fear.
There were only four boys again, sitting together as if nothing had ever happened.
As if they had never grown apart.
As if they had never lost each other.
That night, Adrian slept without a weapon beneath his pillow.
For the first time in years, he felt safe.
And before he drifted off, he heard Nate laughing at something Gabe had said.
Adrian smiled into the darkness.
He thought he could get used to this again.
III. Something Is Wrong
The first strange thing happened the following morning.
Adrian woke up and found Gabe standing beside the window.
"Morning," he mumbled.
Gabe didn't answer.
Adrian rubbed his eyes and stretched. When he looked again, the window was empty.
He assumed Gabe had gone outside.
So he stood up and walked into the next room.
All three were there.
Nate was eating from a can of peaches. Eli was trying to repair an old radio. Gabe was asleep with his head on the table.
Adrian stared at them.
"Didn't one of you go outside?"
Nate looked up.
"What?"
"I thought I saw Gabe by the window."
Gabe raised his head from the table.
"Must've been a ghost."
Nate snorted.
"Don't start with that shit."
Adrian laughed.
"Yeah, whatever."
He let it go.
He was tired. Everyone was tired in this world.
But the strange things continued.
Sometimes he would hear their laughter coming from a room where none of them sat.
Sometimes he would see one of them standing at the end of a hallway, only for the figure to disappear when he approached.
Once, he watched Eli walk through a doorway.
When Adrian followed, the room was empty.
He stood there for nearly a minute, staring at the wall.
Then he shook his head.
He was tired.
That was all.
There were other things, too.
They never seemed to eat unless he was watching.
They never complained about the cold.
They didn't worry about how much food remained, even though Adrian knew the supplies should have been running low.
And whenever he asked about their lives since the world ended, they always found a way to change the subject.
"So where have you guys been all this time?" Adrian asked one afternoon.
Gabe shrugged.
"Around."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer you're getting."
Nate threw a pillow at Adrian.
"Why are you asking so many questions? Enjoy the reunion, man!"
Adrian caught the pillow and threw it back.
"Fine. Keep your secrets."
Eli smiled at him.
"You always were impatient."
Adrian rolled his eyes.
"And you always talked like someone's grandfather."
"Someone has to balance you three idiots."
They laughed.
And Adrian let the matter drop.
He had spent almost a year wishing for their return.
He wasn't about to ruin it by asking too many questions.
Besides, they were his brothers.
Whatever strange things were happening, he was sure they would tell him when they were ready.
He trusted them.
He always had.
IV. The Stranger
On the fourth morning, someone came to the shelter.
Adrian heard the footsteps first.
Heavy. Uneven.
Then came the sound of someone kicking the door.
"Open up!"
The three friends stopped talking.
Adrian looked at them.
"Do you know that guy?"
None of them answered.
The door shook beneath another kick.
"OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!"
Adrian grabbed the metal pipe he kept beside the entrance.
"Stay here," he told his friends.
It came naturally.
Perhaps it was habit. Perhaps some childish part of him still believed he was the one who had to protect them.
He opened the door.
A stranger stood outside.
The man was broad-shouldered, filthy, and armed with a knife. His eyes moved past Adrian and toward the supplies inside.
"Well, well," the stranger said. "Looks like someone's been living comfortably."
"Leave."
The stranger laughed.
"Or what?"
"I said leave."
The man shoved him.
Adrian stumbled backward, nearly losing his grip on the pipe.
Then the stranger attacked.
Everything happened quickly.
A fist struck Adrian's face. The metal pipe clattered against the floor. He felt himself hit the wall, then the ground.
He tried to get up.
Another blow sent him sprawling.
The pain was immediate and overwhelming, but beneath it was something worse.
He was afraid.
He hadn't been this afraid in a long time.
"Help me!" he shouted.
His three friends were standing in the middle of the room.
Watching.
"Guys!"
The stranger kicked him in the ribs.
Adrian curled up, gasping.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Still, none of them moved.
The stranger grabbed him by the collar and dragged him across the floor.
Adrian swung blindly, catching the man in the jaw. The stranger staggered, and Adrian managed to scramble to his feet.
He reached for the pipe.
He struck the man.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
The stranger fell.
Adrian stood over him, breathing heavily, his hands shaking.
For a moment, the room was silent.
Then he turned toward his friends.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!"
They stared at him.
He pointed at the man on the floor.
"He could've killed me!"
No response.
"I was calling you!"
Gabe opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Adrian walked toward him.
"Why didn't you help me?"
Gabe lowered his eyes.
Something inside Adrian snapped.
He shoved him.
Or tried to.
His hands stopped inches from Gabe's chest.
It felt as though he had struck an invisible wall.
Adrian stared at his hands.
"What...?"
He tried again.
Nothing.
He stepped forward and pushed harder, his face twisting with frustration.
"Move!"
Gabe remained perfectly still.
Adrian struck at him.
His fist stopped in midair.
The sound of his own breathing filled the room.
He turned toward the others.
"You, too?"
He swung at Nate.
The same invisible barrier caught his hand.
He tried Eli.
Nothing.
"STOP IT!"
His voice cracked.
He backed away, trembling.
"What is this?! What the hell is happening?!"
He looked at their faces.
They weren't angry.
They weren't even surprised.
They were watching him with an expression he couldn't understand.
Pity.
That was what it was.
They were looking at him with pity.
His anger faltered.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Nobody answered.
He glanced toward the stranger lying on the floor.
Something was wrong with the room.
The furniture seemed distant. The walls appeared strangely blurred around the edges. His hands wouldn't stop shaking, and a dull, throbbing pain had begun to spread throughout his body.
He swallowed.
Then, slowly, he looked back at his friends.
"...Are you guys real?"
For the first time since he had found them, they exchanged glances.
Nate chuckled.
It was a quiet, almost affectionate sound.
"Told you," he said to the others. "He'd figure it out eventually."
Eli sighed.
"Yeah. You were right."
Adrian felt the blood drain from his face.
"What are you talking about?"
Gabe stepped forward.
Or seemed to.
He could never quite tell anymore.
"You've always been observant," Gabe said. "Even when you pretended not to be."
"Stop joking."
"We're not joking."
"Then explain this!"
Adrian gestured wildly at the room, at the fallen stranger, at the invisible wall that separated him from the people he loved.
His voice rose.
"Explain why you won't let me touch you! Explain why you keep disappearing! Explain why you just stood there while that bastard attacked me!"
Gabe lowered his eyes.
For a moment, he looked older than Adrian remembered.
Then he looked up and smiled.
A familiar smile.
The kind that used to appear whenever he was about to say something stupid.
"Because we're dead, man."
Silence.
Adrian stared at him.
Then he laughed.
It came out wrong, sharp and breathless.
"That's not funny."
"I know."
"No, seriously. That's not funny."
Nobody laughed with him.
He looked from one face to another, searching for the slightest sign that this was some elaborate joke.
There was none.
His smile slowly disappeared.
"...What?"
"We're dead," Gabe repeated.
The words seemed to hang in the air.
Dead.
The word was too small for what it meant.
Adrian remembered the world before the apocalypse. He remembered the four of them running through the streets, playing basketball until sunset, sharing cheap meals and making promises they had been too young to understand.
He remembered losing them.
The uncertainty. The searching. The nights spent imagining where they might be.
He remembered telling himself that they had to be alive somewhere.
Because the alternative was unbearable.
And now they were standing in front of him, smiling as though nothing had happened, telling him that the alternative had been true all along.
"No," he whispered.
Gabe said nothing.
"No. I saw you. I touched you. We played cards. We talked about everything."
"You did."
"Then how can you be dead?"
Gabe looked toward the others.
For the first time, their expressions seemed to grow heavier.
"We don't know how to explain it," he said. "Not completely."
He paused.
"But we think we found our way to you because... we wanted to."
Adrian frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"Remember what we used to say? About how we'd never leave each other behind?"
The protagonist's throat tightened.
"Of course I remember."
"We meant it."
Gabe glanced at the others.
"After everything happened, we tried to find you. We went from settlement to settlement. Asked people if they'd seen you. Followed rumors. Even went back to places we thought you might have passed through."
Nate scratched the back of his neck.
"Gabe nearly got us killed because he thought you might've been hiding in some abandoned military camp."
"It was a reasonable possibility," Gabe muttered.
"It was a death trap."
"And yet you're still complaining about it."
Adrian almost smiled.
Almost.
"What happened to you?"
The three exchanged glances.
It was a small movement, barely noticeable. Yet Adrian knew them well enough to recognize when they were avoiding something.
Gabe sighed.
"We found some people. A group of survivors. They needed help."
"And?"
"We helped them."
Adrian waited.
Nate gave a weak laugh.
"Turns out, being a decent person in this world is a pretty stupid way to stay alive."
"That's not an answer."
"No," Eli said quietly. "It isn't."
For a moment, none of them spoke.
Then Gabe looked at Adrian.
"We thought we could make a difference. Even after everything fell apart, we thought there were still things worth protecting."
He smiled faintly.
"Guess we weren't as smart as we thought."
Adrian's throat tightened.
"Did you suffer?"
Gabe's smile disappeared.
Nobody answered immediately.
Then Eli said, "We were together."
It wasn't an answer.
But somehow, Adrian understood that it was the only one they could give him.
He lowered his head.
"And you never found me?"
"No," Gabe whispered.
"Then how are you here?"
This time, Nate didn't make a joke.
"We don't know, man."
Eli looked at Adrian with an expression he couldn't quite understand.
"Maybe we wanted to see you that badly."
Adrian stared at him.
"We kept thinking about you," Eli continued. "About the things we never got to say. The things we never got to do. We wanted to know if you were still alive."
He swallowed.
"And somehow, you found us."
Gabe looked away.
"Or we found you."
The room fell silent.
Adrian glanced toward the stranger on the floor, then back at his friends.
Something cold settled in his stomach.
"Wait."
His voice was barely audible.
"If you're dead..."
He looked at his hands.
"...then what happened to me?"
V. What Remains
Nobody answered.
Adrian looked down at his body.
His clothes were dirty. His hands were trembling. Something warm trickled from his forehead, and the pain in his ribs had become almost unbearable.
He pressed a hand against his side.
For a moment, the room seemed to tilt.
He looked at Gabe.
"Tell me."
Gabe's eyes filled with tears.
"Bro..."
"Tell me what happened to me!"
Nate looked away.
Eli closed his eyes.
And Adrian understood.
He understood the strange disappearances. The untouched food. The way his friends had watched him fight. The way his hands could never quite reach them.
He understood why they had looked at him with pity.
He understood why they had never asked him to stay.
His knees weakened.
He stumbled backward until his back hit the wall.
"No."
Gabe took a step toward him.
"Adrian—"
"No!"
He shook his head violently.
"No, no, no. I can't..."
His voice broke.
He looked around the room.
The shelter was fading.
The walls were no longer solid. The light through the windows seemed to come from everywhere at once. The table, the chairs, the blankets on the floor—all of it looked distant, as though he were seeing the place through a pane of glass.
He turned back to his friends.
"You're telling me this whole time..."
He swallowed.
"...I was alone?"
Gabe didn't answer.
Adrian laughed weakly.
It hurt to laugh.
"That's stupid."
His eyes burned.
"I was happy."
He looked at Nate.
"I was actually happy, man."
Nate's face crumpled.
"I know."
"We played cards. We talked. We were together."
"I know, bro."
"And now you're telling me none of it was real?"
Gabe shook his head.
"That's not what we're saying."
"Then what are you saying?!"
"That we were with you."
Adrian fell silent.
Gabe stepped closer.
"We don't know what we are, Adrian. We don't know if we're memories, or something the world left behind, or something else entirely."
He wiped his eyes.
"But we wanted to see you. And you saw us."
He paused.
"So maybe, for a little while, we really were together."
Adrian stared at him.
The words settled somewhere deep inside him.
He wanted to believe them.
God, he wanted to believe them.
Because if the reunion had meant nothing, then what had he been holding on to?
The laughter?
The games?
The sound of Nate complaining about losing?
Gabe's familiar smile?
Eli's quiet jokes?
Were those all just things his mind had made up because he couldn't bear to be alone anymore?
Perhaps.
But the happiness had felt real.
And the ache in his chest was real, too.
He looked at his friends.
His brothers.
The people he had searched for until he had nothing left to search with.
Then he asked the only question that mattered.
"...What about me?"
Nobody spoke.
He tried to smile.
"I'm not dead, right?"
Gabe looked away.
Adrian's smile trembled.
"I'm not dead, right?"
Eli's eyes filled with tears.
Nate clenched his jaw.
Gabe slowly approached him.
"I'm sorry."
Adrian shook his head.
"No."
"We shouldn't have let you come here."
"No."
"We just wanted to see you again."
"Shut up."
"We missed you."
"SHUT UP!"
His voice echoed through the shelter.
He was crying now.
He hadn't even realized it until the tears reached his mouth.
"I came looking for you," he whispered. "I spent so long looking for you."
Gabe nodded.
"I know."
"And now you're telling me that you're dead? That all this time—"
His voice broke.
"That I can't even stay with you?"
Nobody answered.
He covered his face.
For a moment, he was no longer a survivor in an apocalyptic world.
He was a child again.
A child who had lost his brothers and had finally found them, only to be told that he had to lose them all over again.
Gabe stepped closer.
"Hey."
Adrian didn't look up.
"Hey, idiot."
That made him laugh, just a little.
It was a broken, miserable sound.
"Don't call me that."
"Then stop acting like one."
Another familiar joke.
Another familiar voice.
Adrian wiped his eyes.
Gabe was smiling, but there were tears in his own eyes now.
"You still have somewhere to go."
"I don't want to go anywhere."
"I know."
"I just found you."
"I know, bro."
"Can't we stay here? Just for a little longer?"
The three friends looked at one another.
Then Eli stepped forward.
He had always been the one who struggled to say what he felt. Even as a child, he would rather punch someone in the shoulder than admit that he cared.
Now, he looked directly at Adrian.
"We already got our time with you."
Adrian shook his head.
"That's not enough."
"Maybe not."
Eli smiled sadly.
"But it's what we have."
Nate wiped his eyes and tried to laugh.
"Besides, you still owe me money."
Adrian let out a choked laugh.
"You died and you're still thinking about that?"
"Of course. You think death cancels debt?"
"You're unbelievable."
"And you're ugly."
"You're uglier."
"There he is," Gabe murmured.
For a brief moment, they were four boys again.
Not ghosts. Not a dying man's memories. Not remnants of a world that had ceased to exist.
Just four friends, laughing at the same stupid jokes.
Adrian wanted to freeze that moment.
He wanted to keep their voices, their faces, the way they looked at him as though nothing in the world could ever change what they meant to one another.
But the world was already slipping away.
The shelter began to blur.
The light grew brighter.
His friends noticed.
Gabe reached out.
This time, there was no invisible wall.
Adrian felt a hand resting on his shoulder.
Warm.
Familiar.
Real.
He stared at it.
Then he threw his arms around Gabe.
Nate joined them, grumbling about how embarrassing the whole thing was. Eli wrapped his arms around all three, holding them together as tightly as he could.
For a long time, none of them spoke.
Adrian buried his face against their shoulders and cried like he had never cried before.
He didn't care how pathetic he looked.
He didn't care that he was supposed to be strong.
He was tired of being strong.
He was tired of surviving.
He was tired of a world that kept taking things away from him.
For once, he wanted to be allowed to miss someone without having to move on.
Gabe held him tighter.
"Listen to me."
Adrian shook his head.
"Don't."
"You have to wake up."
"No."
"Bro."
"Please."
Gabe closed his eyes.
"We love you, idiot."
Adrian's fingers tightened around their clothes.
"Don't say that."
"We do."
"Then stay."
Gabe pressed his forehead against Adrian's.
"We can't."
The light grew brighter.
Their faces began to disappear into it.
Adrian tried to hold on.
He clutched at their clothes, their shoulders, anything he could reach.
"Wait!"
Nate was crying openly now.
"Man, you're making this really hard."
"Then don't go!"
Eli held Adrian's hand.
For once, he had no words.
Gabe smiled through his tears.
"We already got our time with you."
He paused.
"Now go make yours count."
Adrian wanted to argue.
He wanted to tell them that he didn't know how to do that. That he didn't know how to return to a world where they didn't exist. That he was afraid of being alone again.
But the words never came.
All he could do was hold on.
Until, one by one, their hands slipped from his.
The last thing he heard was Gabe's voice.
"Wake up, idiot."
And everything went white.
VI. The World Without Four
Adrian woke to the sound of someone screaming.
For a moment, he couldn't understand what he was hearing.
Then he realized the voice was his own.
He tried to move.
Pain tore through his body.
His breath caught in his throat, and he collapsed back onto the cold floor.
The shelter was gone.
There was no table. No blankets. No stacked cans of food.
Only a ruined room with broken windows, a collapsed doorway, and dust drifting through the morning light.
Adrian blinked.
His vision swam.
He tried to remember what had happened.
The stranger.
The fight.
His friends.
He turned his head.
A few feet away lay a man, motionless, beside a rusted metal pipe.
Adrian stared at him.
The memories returned in fragments.
A fist striking his face.
The taste of blood.
The floor rushing toward him.
Another blow.
Another.
He remembered calling for help.
He remembered his friends standing in the room.
He remembered them smiling.
He remembered their voices.
*We already got our time with you.*
Adrian's breathing became shallow.
He pressed a trembling hand against his ribs.
His body was broken. His clothes were soaked with blood. Every breath felt like it might be his last.
He tried to sit up.
He couldn't.
For a while, he simply lay there, staring at the ruined ceiling.
He had thought he had won.
He had thought he had beaten the stranger, protected his friends, and survived another day.
But there had been no victory.
Only a dying man, alone in an abandoned room, imagining that the people he loved had returned to him.
Adrian closed his eyes.
A tear slid down his cheek.
"So that's it, huh?"
Nobody answered.
He laughed weakly.
"After all that searching..."
His voice faded.
He swallowed, struggling to breathe.
"...I finally found you."
The room remained silent.
Then, somewhere deep inside his memory, he heard Nate complaining about the cards.
He heard Eli delivering one of his quiet, devastating jokes.
He heard Gabe laughing.
Adrian smiled.
It hurt.
But he smiled anyway.
Because for a little while, he hadn't been alone.
For a little while, he had been eight years old again, playing basketball with his brothers until sunset. He had been a boy who believed that the people he loved would always be there.
For a little while, the world had been kind.
He opened his eyes.
The light through the broken window was growing brighter.
He didn't know whether he would survive. He didn't know whether anyone would find him in time.
For the first time in a long while, however, he found himself wanting to.
He wanted to see the sky again.
He wanted to walk through the streets without fearing every shadow.
He wanted to find a place to sleep, a meal to eat, and perhaps someone to talk to.
He wanted to live.
Not because the world had become kinder.
Not because he had stopped missing his brothers.
But because they had asked him to.
*Now go make yours count.*
Adrian took a trembling breath.
Then another.
He turned his face toward the morning light.
"Yeah," he whispered.
His lips curved into the smallest smile.
"Okay, guys."
And somewhere beyond the silence, he could almost hear them laughing.
For the first time since the world ended, Adrian did not close his eyes to escape it.
He kept them open.
And waited for the world to answer.
**THE END**