The silence in the kitchen was no longer the peaceful quiet of a suburban Tuesday.
It had become something abrasive, a physical weight that pressed against Drake's eardrums.
In the center of the room, the smartphone lay on the granite countertop like a dead bird.
"Why did it just... stop?" Malisa's voice was a ragged whisper. She wasn't looking at Drake; she was staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring, to vibrate, to provide some digital proof of life. "Did her battery die? Drake, why did the call cut off like that?"
Drake didn't answer immediately. He was staring out the window at the neighbor's golden retriever. Usually, the dog was a chaotic mess of barks and wagging tails; today, it was sitting perfectly still on its haunches, staring toward the horizon with an unnerving, statuesque focus.
His mind raced through the fragments of Zahra's final moments on the line. She hadn't just been scared; she had been hunted. She'd mentioned the police lines being busy—not just unanswered, but overwhelmed by a volume of calls that had paralyzed the city's nervous system.
He picked up his phone, his thumb hovering over the screen. He navigated to Facebook. Zahra's profile icon, usually glowing with a green "active" dot as she scrolled through her morning feeds, was gray. Offline.
"It's probably just the reception," Drake said, though the words felt like ash in his mouth. He pulled up a search for the police precinct nearest his sister's house in Missouri. He dialed.
"We're sorry, the number you have reached is currently unavailable or has been disconnected."
He tried a local grocery store. A hospital. A pizza parlor. Each time, the result was the same: a hollow, mechanical click followed by a busy signal or a generic error message that sounded like the internet itself was hemorrhaging.
"It isn't her phone, Malisa," Drake said softly. He turned away from the window, his face hardening into a mask of grim resolve. "It's the grid. Either the towers are down, or someone is intentionally jamming the signals. An entire metropolitan area doesn't just go silent because of a dead battery."
Malisa's face went pale, the color draining until she looked as fragile as porcelain. "What does that mean? What is happening out there? people don't just stop answering."
"I don't know," Drake said, his hand already sweeping his truck keys off the counter.
"And I'm not waiting to find out. I'm going to get her."
"Now? Ryan won't be home from school for another hour. We need to talk about this."
"I can't wait an hour. It's an eighteen-hour drive on a good day, and I have a feeling the roads aren't going to be 'good' for long." He moved to the hallway closet, pulling out a heavy-duty LED flashlight and his gun.
It felt absurd—bringing a piece of metal to a situation that had silenced a city—but the weight of it in his hand felt grounded. Real.
"Every minute I sit here debating the 'why' is a minute she's alone in whatever that is.
Malisa stepped toward him, her hands out as if to catch him. "Let me come. You can't drive eighteen hours straight by yourself. You'll fall asleep at the wheel."
"No," Drake said firmly. He placed his hands on her shoulders, leaning in until their foreheads touched. "I need you here. Stay inside. Lock the doors. If this is spreading, if this 'biological shift' is as real as those videos say, the last place you want to be is trapped in a car on the highway.
I need to know you and the boys are safe so I can focus on her. If I'm worrying about you in the passenger seat, I'm not sharp."
He kissed her—a quick, desperate pressure—and grabbed his jacket. "I'll text when I can. If you don't hear from me, don't panic. It just means I'm in the dead zone. But Malisa... if you see anything in the yard, anything that doesn't look right... you don't go out to check on it. You stay in the basement."
...
By the time Ryan and Daymon arrived home, the air in the house was thick enough to choke on. Malisa had already sent them a frantic group text, and the boys were huddled over a laptop in the kitchen, their faces illuminated by the blue light of a dozen open tabs.
"There's nothing on the news," Ryan muttered, his fingers flying across the keyboard, refreshing a local Missouri news site for the tenth time. "No weather alerts, no accidents. It's like the whole state just fell off the map. Even the traffic cams are frozen on a single frame from three hours ago."
"No, look at this," Daymon whispered, pointing at a grainy forum post that had been deleted seconds after he clicked it.
"Someone posted a video from a drone near St. Louis. The birds... they weren't flying. They were just sitting on the power lines, thousands of them, perfectly spaced. And the cars on the bridge were all stopped. Not crashed—just stopped. Like everyone just decided to get out and walk."
"Maybe it's a blackout," Daymon suggested, trying to find a logical anchor. "Or the government. You know, like a quarantine? If there was a leak or a virus, they'd shut down the towers first to stop a panic. Information control."
"A virus?" Ryan looked at his brother, his eyes wide. "You mean like... a biological weapon? Or something from outside? Like the spider video?"
"Think about it," Daymon whispered, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial chill. "If the food chain is flipping, if the animals are evolving, what happens to the people who can't adapt? The government wouldn't tell us. They'd just box us in. Dad's driving straight into a cage."
"That's enough!" Malisa snapped. She had been standing by the stove, clutching a cold cup of coffee. Her voice cracked, echoing off the kitchen tiles.
"Go to your rooms. Now. No more theories, no more 'what-ifs.' You're just making it worse. You're scaring yourselves."
The boys shared a look. They knew her anger wasn't directed at them; it was a mask for the terror of a woman whose husband was racing toward a silent horizon. They retreated quietly, the floorboards creaking under their weight.
Malisa leaned against the counter, a single tear escaping as she stared at the back door.
...
The interstate was deceptively clear as Drake merged onto I-70. The sun was a bruised purple on the horizon, stretching the shadows of the overpasses into long, jagged teeth across the asphalt. The GPS glowed a steady, mocking blue: 17 hours, 34 minutes to destination.
The further west he drove, the stranger the world became. He passed a rest stop where the vending machines were all smashed, not by looters, but seemingly by something with claws. He didn't stop to look.
He tapped his Bluetooth earpiece and dialed a contact labeled Gary. It rang twice—a miracle of roaming signal—before a gruff, gravelly voice answered.
"Hello?"
"Gary, it's Drake. I need a favor. A big one. I know you still have friends in the National Guard."
"Drake? It's been a while. Where are you?"
Drake quickly summarized the morning—Zahra's panicked call, the busy police lines, and the total communications blackout. He told him about the spider video and the crows. As he spoke, the silence on the other end of the line grew heavier, more ominous than the static.
"Gary? You still there?"
A long, weary sigh came through the speakers. "I don't have the full picture. But I've heard whispers from the old unit. Something big is moving. The Department of Defense is scrambling assets toward the Midwest. They're calling it a 'civilian infrastructure failure' in the press releases, but they're moving heavy armor and NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) recon teams. You don't move Abrams tanks for a power outage."
Drake's grip tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles felt like they would burst through the skin. "What are you saying? Is it a war?"
"I'm saying the rules have changed, Drake. My contact in Fort Leonard Wood said they lost an entire patrol yesterday. Not to an enemy army. To the woods. He said the trees were moving faster than the wind, and the coyotes weren't afraid of the searchlights anymore."They're calling it the 'Instant Evolution Event.' Every living thing is being pushed to its limit, and humans... we're the only ones falling behind."
"I'm halfway to Missouri, Gary. I can't turn back."
"Then keep your eyes open. If you see a military checkpoint, don't argue. Don't look them in the eye, and for God's sake, don't stop for anyone on the side of the road. I don't care if they look like a Sunday school teacher. I'll call you when I know more."
The line went dead with a sharp, digital pop.
Drake looked out at the horizon. The sun had finally dipped below the Earth, leaving the world in a deep, oceanic blue.
In the distance, he saw the silhouette of a hawk perched on a highway sign. It didn't fly away as his truck roared past at eighty miles per hour. It simply turned its head—a full 180 degrees—and watched him with eyes that reflected his headlights like polished silver.
He pressed his foot harder on the gas. He was driving into the heart of a world that no longer belonged to him, heading toward a sister who might already be part of the new landscape.
The 17-hour countdown on his dashboard felt less like a timer and more like a fuse.
Behind him, the lights of the civilization he knew were fading. Ahead, there was only the dark, and the sound of things stretching, growing, and waiting for the dawn.
Drake didn't slow down and drove into the silence.