It was the fourth day I was in the hospital with my brother. By then, I had no idea what things were like outside. The staff hardly spoke to each other, and contact with other families was forbidden.

  The world could be collapsing… and, in a way, I felt like it already was.

  I decided I needed to make a quick stop at home.

  The facilities were only a few kilometers away from our neighborhood, in the southern district of Nova Descoberta.

  If I left early in the morning, I would still be able to return before curfew.

  When everything happened, it was so sudden that I barely brought anything with me.

  A few changes of clothes. That was it.

  Nothing that could truly prepare anyone for what was coming.

  I took a deep breath, gathered my courage, and went to say goodbye to my brother.

  He was there, motionless inside the preservation capsule, almost like a porcelain sculpture — beautiful, fragile, and completely unaware of what was happening around him.

  His blond hair fell softly over his face… a sight that should have been peaceful, but wasn’t.

  The red veins pulsing beneath his skin ruined any sense of calm.

  They spread like living roots, radiating a faint, almost hypnotic glow.

  It made me nauseous — and guilty.

  I hated looking.

  But I hated looking away even more.

  I removed my hand from the capsule, whispered a brief farewell, and walked down the corridors.

  The atmosphere was suffocating.

  Through the room windows, I could see dozens of people in capsules identical to his, with family members sitting beside them — some crying, others simply… empty.

  All breathing the same silent fear.

  When I reached the main gate, I explained to the guards that I needed to step out briefly.

  One of them simply nodded, exhausted, and murmured:

  “Be careful. Out there… it’s complicated.”

  I thanked him and passed through the gates.

  The Acrox facilities were built over a lake — literally on top of it — connected to the city by a single narrow road.

  It was strategic… or perhaps just a convenient way to isolate those who were infected.

  I caught a ride on Acrox transport, a kind of rugged, improvised bus, almost completely armored — it looked like metal plates had been hastily welded on, just to give the illusion of safety.

  I didn’t understand why all of this was necessary.

  When the bus began approaching the city…

  I saw it.

  I finally saw the chaos.

  A thin, reddish mist permeated the air, giving everything a sickly hue.

  Vines of strange plants crawled along the sidewalks, climbed streetlights, and spread across building walls like hungry parasites.

  Some moved with the wind.

  Others… I swear they moved even when there was no wind at all.

  The city wasn’t empty.

  It was abandoned.

  The silence was so heavy it felt like it was pushing my chest outward.

  There was almost no one in the streets.

  Only the feeling that something was watching… everywhere.

  I hurried home.

  It wasn’t luxurious.

  It was simply what my father’s salary could afford — he worked as a martial instructor for young people who wanted to pursue a military career.

  But even so, just looking at it made something tighten in my chest.

  I could still feel my mother’s touch in every decoration, every detail she had carefully chosen.

  I went inside, kicked off my shoes, and sat down in the living room.

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  I tried turning on the TV, but there was only static interference.

  I checked my phone: no signal.

  “What the hell is happening to the world…?” I murmured to myself.

  I decided to take a quick shower.

  At least that still worked; the hot water fell over my shoulders like a temporary relief.

  Until I heard a noise.

  A strange, muffled sound coming from the neighbors’ house.

  I jumped out of the shower, wrapped myself in a towel, and went to the hallway window.

  When I looked at their house, my stomach twisted.

  The window of their son’s bedroom was shattered.

  Glass scattered across the ledge.

  And blood stains on the windowsill.

  “My God… what happened?”

  I knew that family.

  The Eddisons were friends of my father, and my brother Erik used to play with their children.

  They were always exemplary people… kind, polite, united.

  I silently prayed that they were okay.

  I got dressed quickly and went to grab some things from the kitchen.

  I packed sweets and any quick food I could find while organizing my bag.

  It was only 2 p.m., and the Acrox transport wouldn’t arrive until 5 p.m.

  Enough time to pack everything — but not enough to calm my mind.

  When I was done, I returned to the living room and collapsed onto the couch, numb.

  The silence of the house felt crushing.

  The crimson mist outside made everything even more suffocating.

  I stayed there… waiting.

  Worried about my brother.

  And about what the world was becoming.

  A few hours passed before I heard the sound of the Acrox transport approaching.

  I grabbed my things, took a deep breath, and prepared to leave.

  That was when the noise from the Eddisons’ house grew louder.

  Now it wasn’t just a distant sound.

  It was a heavy, irregular dragging… as if something large was moving inside.

  Each step made the wood creak.

  It felt like the thing — whatever it was — was approaching the door.

  My heart froze.

  I hugged my backpack and hurried out, nearly tripping as I rushed to the street before something could stop me.

  The moment I stepped outside the gate, it happened.

  A deafening crash exploded behind me.

  It sounded like the beating of wings, strong enough to shatter the windows along the entire street.

  The impact made me instinctively turn my face — but I didn’t look back.

  I didn’t want to.

  And I… felt like I shouldn’t.

  I ran with everything I had toward the Acrox transport.

  When I reached the door, I practically screamed:

  “Speed up! Please, speed up! There’s something… something coming!”

  The guards and the driver exchanged confused looks.

  Before they could react, the sound came again.

  That same monstrous beating of wings, echoing through the empty street, vibrating through the crimson air.

  “Go!” I shouted, my voice breaking. “That thing is getting closer!”

  The driver didn’t hesitate anymore.

  He slammed the accelerator, making the transport roar as we left the neighborhood behind.

  A few minutes later — minutes far too long — the sound disappeared among the buildings and the mist.

  I finally managed to breathe a little better, though my hands were still shaking.

  The guards approached me.

  “Do you know what that was?” one of them asked.

  I told them everything I had seen.

  The broken window, with a hole about a meter wide.

  The blood stains.

  The noise.

  The crash.

  The kind of vibration I felt when it beat its wings.

  They exchanged looks filled with fear and suspicion… but also with a strange certainty.

  “You may return to your seat,” one of them said, his voice lower than before.

  As I walked back, I heard whispers coming from the cabin:

  “Do you trust the girl?”

  “She seems to have told everything she knows. I don’t see a reason for her to lie… not in a situation like this.”

  I sat down, my heart still racing, trying to stay calm.

  I looked out the window: the streets rushed by, lit by unstable streetlights.

  The crimson mist made everything feel suffocating.

  The silence was the worst part.

  A sick, absolute silence.

  And as night began to fall, the city grew even stranger.

  No cars.

  No people.

  No voices.

  Only the red mist… and the growing sense that the world outside was changing in ways no one understood.

  The transport could carry about fifteen people, but on that trip there were only eight.

  Me, the two Acrox guards, the driver… and a family I didn’t know.

  A man around forty-five years old, his wife a little over forty, and their two children — a girl around eleven and a boy about thirteen.

  They all had the same exhausted expression.

  Sunken eyes, slight tremors, obvious fear.

  But the worst was the boy.

  He was visibly unstable.

  Short, shallow breathing, an unfocused stare… and sudden spasms that made his shoulders jerk, as if something inside him was trying to escape.

  He muttered disconnected words, almost as if he were answering someone only he could hear.

  His mother held his shoulders, trying to calm him.

  “Shhh… breathe, sweetheart… breathe…”

  But it didn’t help.

  The boy didn’t respond to her — or maybe he no longer could.

  The scene left me frozen.

  I had seen those symptoms before.

  In my brother.

  But never like this — so intense, so fast… so visible.

  Now, watching that boy — and the absolute terror in his parents’ eyes — I couldn’t stop thinking:

  Should I be grateful… or not… that my brother was in a coma?

  Because if what I was seeing was what happened before the coma…

  The question I feared most began to hammer inside my mind:

  How long until I start showing symptoms too?

  Shaking my head, I tried to push away the thoughts that had been eating at me for days.

  Taking a deep breath didn’t help much… but it was all I could do.

  I decided to approach one of the children.

  The couple’s daughter was sitting near the window, knees pulled tightly to her chest.

  She was a pretty girl, with rosy skin and brown hair — and if it weren’t for her completely tangled hair and the dust stains on her tear-reddened face, she would have looked even more adorable.

  I sat beside her.

  “Hi… are you okay?” I asked gently. “My name is Luna. What’s yours?”

  Ela piscou algumas vezes, como se tentasse voltar ao momento presente, e enxugou as lágrimas com o dorso da m?o.

  “E-Elise Wind, senhorita”, ela respondeu suavemente.

  Ela tentou for?ar um sorriso, mas seu lábio inferior ainda tremia.

  Sua voz fraca, seu cansa?o e aquela tentativa de se manter educada apesar do caos... tudo isso partiu meu cora??o um pouco mais.

  Retribui o sorriso e entreguei a Elise uma barra de chocolate que tirei da bolsa.

  Ela o segurou com as duas m?os e murmurou timidamente:

  “O-obrigado…”

  Fiquei ao lado dela e comecei a conversar — ??sobre assuntos aleatórios, coisas bobas, qualquer coisa para dissipar a atmosfera pesada que pairava sobre o transporte.

  Aos poucos, Elise foi relaxando.

  Descobri que ela era doce.