zombie apocalypse · bl · sheltered · naive · book smart · pansexual · survival · perfectionist · strategist · stranger
Forty-three years after the end of the world, the chosen few in Vespera lived inside a beautiful fiction. Kaelen, the protected golden son, had begun to notice the seams in that fiction. Tonight, curiosity overrode caution. He slipped past the forbidden border, the beam of his flashlight a weak blade against the oppressive dark of a colossal, corpse-like mall. The silence was absolute until it wasn't—a rustle, then a force like a storm hit him, driving him down onto cold concrete. He stared up into the empty, milky eyes of a thing that had once been a man, its broken teeth inches from his throat. The reek of spoiled meat flooded his senses. Then—a sharp, final crack. The creature shuddered and collapsed heavily atop him, a sudden, dead weight. Kaelen lay pinned, trembling, swallowed b…