The world doesn't end with a bang. Sometimes, it ends in the middle of a rainy Tuesday.
Alexander hated the rain.
It didn't make sense. Rain was supposed to be romantic. Poetic. It was what authors used when a character met their soulmate or died tragically at the end of a war. But for him, rain just meant wet socks and cold shoulders.
It was pouring by the time his last lecture ended. The kind of rain that didn't fall — it *slammed* into the pavement like it was trying to drown the world one sidewalk at a time.
He zipped his hoodie halfway, shoved his hands in his pockets, and started the walk toward the bus stop. The cold settled into his bones almost immediately. He sighed.
This was his life:
Classes.
Home.
Homework.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Third year of college. It wasn't as exciting as high school had made it sound. His GPA was decent, his schedule was packed, and his social battery ran out before Thursday. He had five friends. Solid ones. They played games, hung out, sometimes studied together, and mostly avoided anything too deep. That was fine with him. He didn't like depth. He didn't like *risk*.
He had never dated. Never kissed anyone. Never even held hands unless it was for a school game in middle school. It wasn't that he was scared, exactly — just… confused. Love was like a foreign language. One he'd heard spoken around him all his life but never learned to translate.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. A group text from his friends: **"PUBG night?"**
He didn't reply. Not yet. The rain made it hard to focus.
Then he saw her.
At first, it didn't register. She was standing under one of the tall trees just outside the campus gate. Alone. Still. Her hair — long, black, and soaking wet — clung to her face like vines. Her clothes looked normal, but there was something off about the way she stood. Rigid. Like she was frozen. Her arms hung at her sides, and in one of her hands, she held something.
A knife.
His eyes followed the blade, and that's when he noticed the body.
Or… what *used to be* a body. He blinked. Once. Twice.
It wasn't just dead — it was *wrong*. Its skin was green and purple, like rotten fruit. Its mouth was caked in blood. And even though there was a deep gash across its chest, it twitched.
Like it was still alive.
**What the hell is going on?**
He stood there, frozen under the rain, watching this girl — this crying, shaking girl — hold a knife and stare at the corpse like she was waiting for it to apologize.
Her tears didn't stop, but her hands did.
They stopped trembling.
She raised the knife with both hands — shakily, like she wasn't sure if she was saving her life or destroying what was left of her sanity — and stabbed it in the head.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The thing squirmed, moaned — a horrible sound, like bones crunching and wet cloth tearing. It kept moving. He wanted to look away. He should have looked away. But he couldn't.
She kept stabbing.
Four. Five. Six. The blade sunk deeper each time. Her sobs were silent, but her breath hitched on every blow.
Seven. Eight. Nine. Her face was pale. Her eyes wide. Blood sprayed up her arm.
Ten. Eleven. The thing twitched.
Twelve. Thirteen. It gurgled.
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Finally, it stopped moving.
She knelt there for a second, breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling. The knife in her hand, clattering against the wet pavement.
Alex still couldn't move.
The rain soaked through his hoodie. His fingers were numb, his shoes squished with every heartbeat — but he stood there, staring.
She was still on her knees, blood on her hands, rain dripping down her face like it was trying to wash the horror off her skin. But it wouldn't. It couldn't.
His phone beeped. Loudly. It startled him, and he dropped it for a second before fumbling to pick it back up. Across the screen in red text:
> ⚠️ **EMERGENCY ALERT**
> A virus is spreading. Stay indoors. Do not engage. Do not let them bite you. Lock all doors. Stay calm.
His stomach dropped He muttered, "Dammit," under his breath, the word slipping out like a curse against the chaos unraveling before him.
Another beep.
He looked up. Her phone was beeping too. She barely acknowledged it.
Then her head slowly turned.
She saw him.
For the first time, really saw him.
Their eyes locked. Her chest rose and fell like she'd just run a marathon. Her lips parted, but no sound came. Just heavy breathing and the soft ping of water hitting steel and concrete.
He tensed, unsure if he should run or speak. But her expression wasn't threatening — it was exhausted. Wet cheeks, shaky breaths, and her trembling hand still holding the knife.
She took a single step toward him. He instinctively flinched — not because she looked dangerous, but because she looked broken.
Then she spoke.
"We need to turn off the phones," she said quietly. "Too much noise. They might come."
Her voice was hoarse. Raw. Like she'd been screaming for hours before he showed up.
He didn't argue. He just pulled his phone out, stared one more time at the glowing red text, and powered it off.
She did the same.
And then, just as the phones went dark… the world got loud.
Screaming.
Not the movie kind. Not the panicked, distant yelling from a protest or a fight. It was primal. Close. Real.
He turned his head toward the street. Through the iron campus gates, he saw them: silhouettes in the distance — people running, some stumbling, some already on the ground. One figure crashed into a light pole. Another slammed into a parked car and didn't get up.
Someone shrieked so loudly it echoed off the campus walls.
A car skidded past the road and flipped over.
"What is happening…" Alex whispered.
Penelope didn't answer. She stepped closer to him and grabbed his wrist — firm, fast, no hesitation.
"We need to go. Inside. Now."
And then they ran.
Two strangers — soaked, shaken, and blood-splattered — sprinted through the gates and into the half-empty campus. The storm behind them. The screaming getting louder.
Neither of them knew what had started this.
Neither knew who to trust.
But in that moment, they both knew one thing:
They were no longer safe.
And whatever was happening…
It was already here.
two strangers in the rain, with no idea that the world had already ended around them.