JOHN
John stood still in the empty shell of their container shelter, listening. Outside, the desolation was not just soundless—it was hollow, as if the world had lost its lungs. The dust motes danced in slow spirals where the last weak light filtered through gaps in the metal. They had slept fitfully, but the dark hours of the night felt heavier than any physical weight.
They were leaving the container now—Craig, Zak, Chris, Marco, and John—to follow the ruined road toward the nearby mall a few miles down what was once Ngong Road. In a world that had broken, that road was a memory of movement: four lanes that once carried traffic, commerce, people, and noise. Now it was quiet, strewn with wreckage, plant growth rising through cracks as if the earth itself was reclaiming it.
John moved with purpose, but his mind drifted back to Marco while they packed up. Marco wasn't always hardened. He'd told the group once—haltingly, almost as if he was afraid they might judge him—that he was from a small settlement north of the city. Before the collapse, he'd been a mechanic who fixed cars and motorcycles. In that world, he told someone, the roar of an engine meant life. Now engines were silent, and the world was dead. He lost his wife and little sister in a landslide triggered by one of the tremors, John remembered. Marco didn't use many words—never had—but enough had spilt out in late nights by the container fire, when the world felt too heavy to hold in silence. That was when you learned the truth about someone, not in big speeches, but in sorrowful pauses.
They stacked the few supplies they had into packs—water flasks scuffed, ration tins dented, rope worn thin. Craig coordinated quietly, like always: "Two in front, two behind. Stay sharp." Zak checked his bag methodically, Chris tightened straps on his boots, Marco adjusted a makeshift blade to his thigh, and John walked beside him, watching the sky turn pale.
The mall itself, The Junction, had once been a beacon of commerce and bustle along Ngong Road—a sprawling complex where shops and restaurants had stood side by side, parking lots filled with cars, families walking in to shop, dine, or catch a movie in the cinema there. It was a place that had symbolised normalcy, community, even leisure. Now it was a carcass, its glass cracked or missing, the interiors silent, echoes where voices used to linger. �
Occupi +1
As they stepped out onto the road, the wind hit them first—dry, abrasive, as if it had too much time and nowhere to go. The road was broken in places, asphalt lifted upward like wounds that refused to heal. Tall grass and weeds grew through the splits, and the occasional rusted shell of a car stood like a monument to a vanished time.
Scores of distant buildings had either fallen or hung at impossible angles—a reminder of what had once been. Here and there, the carcasses of human belongings lay scattered: a torn shoe, a cracked doll face, a newspaper yellowed and curled. No longer readable, but still haunting.
John led the group in silence. They passed open markets long since emptied and overgrown. A torn sign read "fresh produce," half-hidden beneath vines. A cracked billboard touted some long-forgotten product. The world around them seemed to hold its breath, waiting.
Craig kept them close, speaking only when necessary. Zak led at the front, his gait smooth and steady—every muscle tightened like a living weapon honed through years of disciplined training. His Olympic-level MMA background was evident not because he said so, but in the way he moved: all economy and force, no wasted effort. If any threat emerged, Zak would be the first to meet it.
Chris brought up the rear, eyes scanning every shadow and reflective surface. Hassan had stayed back at the container with Selma and Abdi—there was only so much manpower to spare, and Hassan argued that some needed to stay and watch the rear of their tenuous territory.
Marco walked with a quiet intensity beside John. They passed the tall skeletal frames of shops and offices that once fronted Kilimani's stretch of Ngong Road. A breeze blew past them and whistled through broken windows, making John's skin prickle. For all the horror the world had become, nothing prepared him for how empty it felt: no engines, no voices, just an oppressive stillness that seemed too heavy for the dust to bear.
Marco's story hung in the silence between them as they walked. It wasn't spoken aloud now; it didn't need to be. The universe had a way of putting a man's history on display without words—just as it had stripped this city down to its bones. John thought about how Marco had survived and how that survival had hardened him. A man who once fixed cars now carried a blade more often than a wrench.
Eventually, they reached a wide, flat space where the mall's parking lot had once been. The asphalt here was cracked, upheaved near the edges, and the painted lines that once marked parking stalls were faded beyond recognition. Piles of debris—concrete slabs, twisted metal—made the lot look like the bones of some gigantic creature scattered in decay.
But then, in the centre of that wasteland, they saw the van. Old and dented, dust-coated, the dark metal was barely distinguishable from the greying ruins around it. It was here, at this place that had once been vibrant and alive, that an empty vehicle now waited—a quiet promise of movement.
Craig halted a few meters away, gaze sweeping the ruined periphery. "Stay close," he murmured. "Watch each other's backs."
Zak approached the van first, moving cautiously like a tracker approaching a kill zone. John watched the faint rise and fall of Zak's shoulders, the tension in his jaw. This place should have felt safe, but nothing in this world was safe anymore.
John's instincts—a mixture of anticipation and raw focus—held tight as they fanned out. There had been no sign of creatures yet, no distant screech, no floating debris shaken by unseen forces. Just the inescapable sense of isolation.
Marco was checking the van's doors, his hand brushing over the cold metal, eyes darting over broken storefronts behind them. It was old enough that even in the old world it would have been unimpressive, but now it was precious. The keys sat in the ignition—a small detail that felt like magic in a world where almost nothing still worked.
"Fuel gauge?" Craig asked.
Marco shook his head. "Half," he said, voice low. "Might get us a few hundred kilometres if we're careful."
The words barely registered before a low hum began—a sound foreign enough that John's muscles tightened. It was not like the groan of collapsing concrete or the distant rumble of something heavy shifting under the surface. No, this was higher-pitched, deep, and rhythmic, like wings carving through the air.
John's breath hitched. His body seemed to register danger before his mind fully understood it, the tiny hairs on his arms standing on end. Goosebumps rippled all over his body as something primal whispered at the edges of his awareness.
Craig and Zak turned their heads at the same moment, eyes narrowing. Chris crouched, raising his makeshift spear, every instinct screaming caution.
And then John jolted his head around, looking behind them.
Zak's face was blank—unreadable, clueless—but as John's gaze swept across the skies and broken rooftops, something massive dropped into view with a terrifying fluidity.
The shadow fell first.
Then the wasp—giant beyond all rational measure, wings beating with a whir that shook the still air like distant thunder. Its body was thick and armoured, its legs curved like scythes, its eyes glinting with something hungry, something utterly alien.
Before any of them could react—
"ZAK!" John screamed.