"Who is he?" Samir asked, glancing at the rearview mirror while keeping one eye on the debris-strewn road ahead.
"The baker," Reyan said, still trying to catch his breath. "From my neighborhood. Arjun, this is Samir—he's driving. That's Vikram next to you, and Taj with the glasses."
"Hi," Taj said, pushing his cracked frames up his nose. "Welcome to the apocalypse. It's exactly as terrible as you'd imagine."
Despite everything—the fear, the exhaustion, the blood on his apron—Arjun felt something like a laugh trying to escape. It came out as more of a choked sob.
"Thank you," he managed. "Thank you for stopping. I thought—I didn't think anyone would—"
"We don't leave people behind," Reyan said quietly.
Arjun looked at him properly for the first time. This man who used to come into his bakery every morning.
That world felt like a lifetime ago.
Vikram shifted in his seat, making room even though there wasn't much to spare. "You're alive. That's what matters now."
Arjun wanted to argue. Wanted to say that being alive wasn't the same as living, that survival without purpose was just delaying the inevitable. But he looked at the little girl in Reyan's lap—no older than seven, clutching a stuffed rabbit like it was the only real thing left in the world—and kept his mouth shut.
The car hit a pothole and everyone jolted. The girl didn't make a sound. Just held her rabbit tighter.
Reyan's hand moved to her head automatically. Protective.
After a moment of hesitation, he asked, "Your wife? Meena?"
Arjun's chest tightened. His vision blurred at the edges. He shook his head once. Sharp. Final. He couldn't talk about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Reyan understood. He didn't push. Didn't offer empty condolences that wouldn't change anything.
The silence that followed was thick with shared grief. With all the things they'd lost and couldn't get back.
Taj reached over and put a hand on Arjun's shoulder. It was a simple gesture, but in that moment, it meant everything.
"I'm sorry," Taj said quietly.
"Yeah," Arjun whispered. "Me too."
He let himself sit with that for a moment. Let the weight of it settle. Then he looked up at Reyan, at the little girl in his lap, at the careful way Reyan was avoiding meeting his eyes.
"Your family?" Arjun asked gently. "Your daughter's here, but your wife—"
He didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to.
Reyan's jaw tightened. His hand moved to his daughter's hair, fingers running through it in a gesture that seemed more for his comfort than hers.
"She's safe," he said, and the way he said it—carefully, deliberately—told Arjun everything he needed to know.
The girl looked at Arjun with eyes that had seen too much for someone her age. Eyes that understood loss even if she didn't have the words for it yet.
"You made the cinnamon rolls," she said softly. "Papa used to bring them home on Sundays."
Arjun felt his throat close up. "I did," he managed. "Every Sunday morning."
"They were very good."
"Thank you, beta." He tried to smile. It probably looked more like a grimace, but she seemed to accept it anyway.
She nodded once, solemn and serious, then turned back to stare out the window at the burning city.
They drove in silence for a while after that.
Outside the windows, Niraya continued its slow death. Smoke rose from at least a dozen fires scattered across the skyline. Some buildings were fully engulfed, flames licking out of broken windows. Others just smoldered, sending up lazy columns of black smoke that merged with the haze hanging over everything.
Bodies littered the streets. Some were clearly infected—gray skin, black veins, twisted into unnatural positions. Others were just people. Regular people who'd been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Some of the infected still moved, shambling aimlessly through the debris. But most had scattered, following sounds or scents or whatever internal compass drove them now. Hunting.
"How far?" Reyan asked, breaking the silence.
"Close," Samir said. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. "Two kilometers, maybe less. We should be able to see the shipyard soon."
"Your sister," Arjun said, desperate for something to focus on besides his own grief. "You're going to find her?"
"Nisha." Samir said her name like a prayer. Like speaking it out loud would somehow make it true. "She lives near the old shipyard. Apartment building, fourth floor. We haven't been able to reach her since this started. But she's smart. She'll have found somewhere to hide. Somewhere safe."
"She sounds resourceful," Arjun offered.
"She is." Taj leaned forward slightly. "Nisha's probably the smartest person I know. If anyone could survive this, it's her."
"Yeah," Samir said, but his voice was hollow. Empty of the conviction his words tried to convey.
Nobody pointed out that being smart didn't always matter anymore. That survival was as much luck as anything else. That resourceful people died just as easily as everyone else.
Arjun cleared his throat. "The truck behind us. Who are they?"
"More survivors," Reyan said. "Karan and his group. Four of them—Karan, Meera, Ravi, and Dev. They saved Taj earlier when we got separated. We're traveling together now. Safety in numbers."
"More people means better odds," Vikram said thoughtfully.
The convoy kept moving through Niraya's devastated streets.
Then Samir's foot hit the brake.
The car jerked to a stop. Behind them, the truck did the same.
"No," Samir whispered. "No, no, no—"
Arjun leaned forward to see what had made him stop, and his breath caught in his throat.
VAISHALI DISTRICT - THE EMPTY HOUSE
The house fell silent again.
Sunlight continued to slip through the gaps in the boarded windows, laying thick, golden bars across the rooms. Dust drifted through the air, stirred briefly by the open door before settling once more.
In the kitchen, an empty can of beans sat on the counter beside the others. Its lid was still attached, bent back where it had been pulled open in haste. Seven unopened cans remained lined up nearby, counted and spared. Evidence of restraint. Of planning.
A half-empty water bottle stood beside them, the cap resting on the counter. A faint ring marked where condensation had dripped and dried.
The fishing-line tripwire across the back door was still taut. The cans tied to it hung motionless, waiting to rattle if anyone crossed the threshold the wrong way.
Near the front door, the revolver lay on the floor where it had fallen. Black grip turned slightly toward the wall. One bullet still in the cylinder. Unused.
Beside it, the chef's knife rested on the tile. Eight inches of steel, clean, sharp, abandoned not by choice but by shock. Sunlight caught the blade and flashed briefly before fading as a cloud passed overhead.
The door itself stood closed again. No voices. No footsteps. No explanation left behind.
In the living room, a mobile phone lay dark on the coffee table. The screen was cracked, spiderwebbing from one corner. Inside it were days of recordings—observations, patterns, attempts at understanding—left unwatched, paused mid-thought.
On the kitchen table, weighed down by a coffee mug stained with a permanent ring, lay a map of Niraya.
The paper was old and creased, its folds softened by repeated use. Black marker lines cut across the city's faded streets. Vaishali District circled thickly.
An X marked the shopping complex on the western edge—the last place that had been ruled out.
Farther east, where the city thinned and older structures gave way to larger plots of land, a different symbol had been drawn.
Not an X.
A square.
Clean lines. Measured. Drawn carefully, then traced once more to make it darker than the rest. Larger than any other mark on the map.
A short line extended from it, like an entrance.
Beside the symbol, a small check mark had been added. Not bold. Not decorative. Just enough to mean something.
No name. No explanation.
Only two words, written smaller than the rest, almost as an afterthought:
Still lit.
The map lay open, exposed. Not a memory. Not a relic. A plan interrupted.
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the boards over the windows. Somewhere in the distance, an infected groaned—low, hollow, indifferent.
The sound slipped into the house and passed through it without resistance.
Nothing had been taken.Nothing put away.Nothing finished.
The house remained exactly as it had been left.
Not abandoned.Just empty.
As if someone had stepped outside for a moment—and the world was waiting to see whether they would come back.