17th April 2023.

A... night's sleep, without an adjective behind it. It was a hard night. Alarm noises, explosions, the lights outside gradually dimming while strange sounds emanated from the floor above, all in the space of a few hours. Me and Elliot fell asleep a few hours after... the flood. I'd never seen Elliot cry, but given the circumstances, it would have been stranger not to see him cry. As for me, my eyes were still swollen up like balloons, and to be honest they were hurting rather badly now. I struggled to my feet and looked out of the window. The sun was shining, it must have been something like nine o'clock, maybe a bit later. I've never been good at telling the time from the sun. The clock wasn't working any more, and looking at my phone, it said half past five. Which was obviously not true, or else the sun had decided to race the Earth, and I think the virus would be the least of our worries in that case. Glancing to my left, we unfolded the sofa and fell asleep there with Elliot, who always seemed to be asleep. Come to think of it, yesterday was a really terrible day. In the space of a few hours we'd discovered that the world had collapsed, that all our loved ones were potentially, probably, very probably no longer alive and that we were presumably stuck here, on pain of being attacked by... I don't know what, but something strange, for sure.

After a few minutes, finally, my movements had woken the other, as he slowly wiped his eyes.

"Hi. What's up? Recovered from the shock?"

In his nonchalant morning voice, he'd asked that, looking at me not without a visible... pity I think, in his eyes.

"You could say that, and you?"

"What do you mean, 'and me'?"

"You cried yesterday too! Don't try to be a big man!"

I said, laughing slightly.

"Hello? First of all, I'm not trying to 'play the big man', because I am one, so Mr Madeleine, you're going to shut up!"

Ooouh that's a strong attack. When he'd finished his sentence, we continued for a while throwing jibes at each other before finally looking up at the ceiling together, myself letting out a sigh.

"This isn't a dream, is it?"

I'd asked, glancing at Elliot on my right.

"It would be more like a nightmare, but no, indeed, it's not."

Staying like that for a few tens of seconds, Elliot had finally decided to get up, deliberately pushing and crushing me as he passed, reaching the kitchen, then deciding me to get up too. He started looking through my cupboards, then glanced at the fridge before turning to me.

"Tell me, have you done any shopping recently or not?"

"No, but there must be some tins and things like that left in the storeroom."

Yes, the storeroom. In fact, when I first moved in here, my parents had made me some food parcels, so tins, biscuits, basically anything that could be preserved, and I'd stored it all in my cupboard, which I then call the storeroom.

Elliot went over to it, exploring the various things in it. I'd gone to help him, taking everything out onto the modest table where we'd had dinner yesterday.

"So we've got... tinned ravioli, tinned vegetables,... peaches in syrup? Who seriously buys that?"

"Come on, it's good fruit salad!"

"I.. doubt it. There's also packets of instant pasta and bottles of water, not to mention milk and the basics."

Stopping for a few seconds, Elliot had thought about it before speaking again, not without a hint of perplexity in his voice.

"You're actually an old man."

Fatal blow, knockout by forfeit. Looking me straight in the eye, I hit him with a bottle of water, frowning.

"You're going to eat thanks to the old man, so don't get smart!"

Clearing his throat, Elliot had turned his gaze to my magnificent gas cooker, which must have been twenty years old, a gift from my parents when I'd moved here. He then checked to see if the gas was still working, while I sniggered.

Stolen story; please report.

"It's plugged into a bottle, so there's no need to worry about the gas being cut off."

I'd pointed out, pointing to the small cupboard next to the gas cooker where the gas bottle was located.

"For once old technology is useful! At my place we'd be in the dark and with no way of heating our food."

In fact, Elliot's house was more high-tech than anything else. Whereas I had my good old gas cooker and my shutters that you opened with a crank, he had connected lights, hotplates and electric shutters, which, in the event of a power cut, would leave you stuck in the dark. Not crazy when there was snow, I'd already paid the price, in fact.

"Old technology, old technology, it's not like it's ancient times either...".

I sighed, because we weren't at a flea market criticising my gas cooker.

Suddenly, in the distance, a noise had begun to be heard. The windows weren't very well insulated, so you could pretty much hear everything that went on in the neighbourhood in normal times, even when there were dozens of cars a day, so noises in a deserted neighbourhood were easy to hear. Raising an eyebrow, I made my way over to the bay window, stretching out on the unfolded sofa, waving Elliot over while he inspected the tins, peering through the window.

Outside, a group of what appeared to be humans and not strange black things, in two cars patched together with what appeared to be iron plates. As if, people here were either ready before the disease broke out or really quick to tinker.

"Wow... they don't waste any time.."

Several people had got out of the cars. Fortunately, we were on the second floor so we weren't too visible from the outside. The group, as seen from here, was made up of four women, two of whom looked more like mountains than anything else, and as many men, who also seemed to have at least a background as body-building instructors. After a few minutes, they'd finally entered the building opposite ours and I'd sighed loudly, turning to Elliot who was to one side as I stood up.

"Phew! It's a good thing they decided to go that way, they don't look very friendly..."

"Get down!"

As I got to my feet, Elliot urged me to get down, and as I looked through the glass, my eyes met those of one of the people who'd stayed behind and was about to go inside, who frowned before Elliot finally came and pulled me by the arm.

"Ahh but it's getting on with you for crying out loud!"

Another glance out of the window and the woman had started heading towards our building, unlike her colleagues who were still on the other side, my friend on my right now clearly having murderous urges.

"I think I'm going to end up tying you up so you don't do any more stupid things, but seriously, what are you, five years and three months old?"

He said in a tone of voice filled with annoyance and anger, rubbing his chin.

"Right, come on, let's try and bou-" BANG

But as Elliot spoke, a noise, obviously a gunshot, was heard on the other side of the street, then a second BANG before it stopped, the street falling back into silence.

"If... if it came from the group she came with, we'd better... hide."

I said, not without panic, as we had absolutely no idea how the woman would react when she saw us.

It was at this point that we began to hear footsteps in the corridor behind my door, the footsteps being slow and cautious as she seemed to be checking that the flat doors were closed. Whispering, me and Elliot had started to get off the sofa before heading for the front door, looking for my keys.

"Where the fuck are your keys?"

Elliot asked, his keys having disappeared from the door.

"Er... if they're not on the door... I'd... say..."

"Yeah, you don't know, actually."

"Yeah, well! I'm not a magician, I don't remember everything, especially when humanity was being wiped off the map by something weird, OK?!"

"All right, all right, come and help me block the door."

Elliot had asked me, as he went to fetch my table and the woman's footsteps came closer and closer.

Positioning the table and various things in front of the door in an attempt to block the handle, suddenly another shot was heard, but next to us, suddenly blocking my ears as the sound of a door slamming had followed.

"I think... she's here.."

Elliot had whispered, both of us hiding behind the large pile of odds and ends with a knife each in hand, waiting for the door to open. Gradually, the footsteps came closer until they stopped in front of our door. Then there was a long silence. The woman didn't seem to be opening the door, and we were too scared to even move a toe. After a good minute, however, the woman had finally decided to open the door, pressing down on the handle which jammed shut, leaving me and Elliot to breathe a sigh of relief, still whispering.

"Okay... she can't come in-"

Then all of a sudden she'd started kicking the door in, and started talking in between, her voice both deep and threatening.

"I know where you're hiding, come here so I can kill you motherfucker!

Raising an eyebrow, I glanced at Elliot from the side as the door and furniture in front of her shook, a little doubtfully. She'd just mentioned the scene with Philip in Hitman the Cobra, hadn't she? Continuing to bang on the door, she finally stopped, before a few seconds later she simply decided to shoot the lock of the door, a huge noise being heard as the bullet passed through it and lodged in the floor of the flat, passing through the various things in front of the door.

We'd exchanged terrified glances before she continued kicking, until the handle popped off, the door opening with a loud creak from the things piled up in front of it, me and Elliot getting up with our two knives, the woman entering the room, gun in hand.

"So we like to hide, do we?"

She said, pointing her pistol at Elliot, looking more menacing than me, a big smile on her face.