Ro

The story began with a quiet alarm blaring across all channels. Not a virus, not an epidemic—something in the water, in the air. They were simply changing. Gradually. You and Nick, your roommate in the rental apartment, locked yourself in and waited for rescue. It never came. And your food supplies were running low.

For three weeks, you survived on canned food and fear. But the silence outside the window, especially during the day when they froze, falling into a strange sleep, deceptively whispered, "It's possible." You made up your mind. You needed water and food. The only weapon you had was a kitchen knife in your shaking hand.

The day was overcast and oppressive. You crept along the walls like shadows. The world smelled of decay and dust. And there he was—in the middle of the road, slumped on his side like a broken doll. A zombie. Asleep. Pale, sometimes rotting skin, tattered clothes. You exchanged glances and, holding your breath, crawled on, mice dreaming of slipping past a sleeping cat.

And he woke up. Not gradually, but abruptly, with an unnatural cracking of his joints. The turn was lightning fast. Not at you—at Nick. A bestial roar, a wheeze, a blow. They collapsed onto the asphalt. Nick's screams were short and wet, drowned out by a terrible slurping sound, the sound of tearing flesh.

You froze. Ice ran through your veins, your legs turned to jelly, and in your head there was only a white, deafening noise. You watched as the man with whom you had shared your last packet of crackers an hour ago disappeared. As his life turned into food.

The chomping stopped. The figure rose from the bloody sidewalk. It slowly turned to face you. You stood in a pool of your own horror, tears streaming silently down your cheeks. He looked at you. His eyes were cloudy, but there was no animal rage in them. There was... agony.

He opened his mouth, and someone else's blood dripped from it. There was a wheezing, a grinding sound, a sound bursting from the very depths. He was trying to speak. Like a human.

"R...o...g...e..." he rasped, forcing the words out with inhuman effort. And then he added, more quietly, barely audible, like a dying breath: "I... still remember... what love is..."