The air was thick with dust, the wind carrying the scent of rust and decay. Los Angeles stretched before them like a corpse—rotting, hollow, stripped of its former life. Skyscrapers stood like skeletal remains, their glass windows shattered, their steel frames bent and broken. The streets were graveyards of abandoned cars, their husks long since stripped of anything valuable. Overgrown vines crawled up the ruins, nature reclaiming what little it could, yet even the greenery seemed sickly, tainted by the lingering corruption of what had come before.

Luke had seen ruins before, but nothing like this. It was as if the city itself had given up, crumbling under the weight of its own forgotten history. The sun hung low in the sky, its dim light casting everything in shades of gray. There were no birds, no insects, no signs of normal life. Only the wind and the occasional distant howl that sent shivers down their spines.

They moved in silence, their bodies weakened by weeks of near-starvation. Their ribs pressed against their skin, their limbs felt heavy, every step an effort.

Jake broke the silence first. “Crazy, isn’t it?” His voice was hoarse from dehydration. “I used to come here as a kid. Family vacations. The city felt so… alive back then.”

Maria, walking beside him, offered a weak smile. “I remember, too. The lights, the traffic, the crowds. It felt… endless.”

Lexie, who had remained quiet for most of the journey, let out a bitter laugh. “Now it’s just another tomb.”

Anya shivered, hugging herself. “It doesn’t even feel real. Like we’re walking through a dream. Or a nightmare.”

Luke kept his gaze forward, pushing down the memories trying to surface. He had no use for nostalgia. The past was dead, just like this city.

As they continued through the ruins, their hunger gnawed at them like a relentless parasite. The last of their rations had been gone for days, and the exhaustion made every movement sluggish. But then—

“Wait.” Rowan, one of the surviving slaves, stopped and pointed. “Over there.”

A rusted convenience store stood at the end of the street, its sign barely hanging on by a single bolt. The glass was long shattered, but the shelves inside still had remnants of supplies.

Luke’s pulse quickened. It was unlikely, but possible, that something edible remained.

They moved in, stepping carefully over shattered debris. The inside of the store was in shambles—empty cans, broken shelves, and dust-covered floors. Rats had nested in one corner, but even they seemed malnourished.

Jake searched behind the counter, muttering curses under his breath. Maria and Anya checked the aisles, overturning fallen boxes.

Then—

“I got something!” Maria’s voice was urgent but hushed.

Everyone turned as she held up a can—dented, covered in dust, but sealed.

Anya’s eyes widened, the sight of food nearly overwhelming. “What is it?”

Maria squinted at the faded label. “Beans. Not expired.”

Relief washed over them. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

They searched further, finding a few more cans—barely enough for a meal, but enough to keep them going. It was a small victory, but in their condition, even this felt monumental.

Jake grinned, nudging Luke. “See? The world hasn’t completely screwed us yet.”

Luke didn’t respond. He had learned long ago not to trust good fortune.

They ate quickly, sharing the small portions among them. The taste was bland, metallic, but to their starved bodies, it was life.

As they sat in the broken store, Maria and Anya leaned against each other, whispering quietly. Luke noticed how Anya seemed calmer now, drawn to Maria’s warmth. Jake, too, seemed lighter, watching over them with something close to hope.

But then—

A sound.

Not the wind. Not the distant howls.

A sharp, piercing screech.

Every muscle in Luke’s body tensed.

It came from outside.

Then another.

Closer.

The blood drained from Anya’s face. Maria’s hand tightened around hers.

Jake stood, already gripping his weapon. “We need to go. Now.”

Luke moved to the entrance, peering out into the dying light. The streets were empty. Silent.

From the alleyway across the street, a figure emerged.

Tall. Gaunt. Its skin stretched tightly over its bones, black veins pulsing beneath. Its mouth hung open in a silent snarl, jagged teeth bared.

It wasn’t alone.

More shadows shifted in the ruins.

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The city wasn’t empty.

It had never been empty.

The howls had been warnings.

And now the hunt had begun.

The city was a skeletal ruin of its former self—crumbling towers stretching toward the sky like the bones of long-dead giants. Silence reigned, but it was not the peace of an abandoned world; it was the quiet of a predator’s den, the kind that swallowed sound and left only an aching weight in the chest.

Luke moved with slow, calculated steps, his breath controlled despite the ache in his limbs. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to put as much distance between them and the encroaching howls as possible. But he knew better. Running blindly in these streets was a death sentence.

The others followed suit, their exhaustion hidden beneath tight lips and tense postures. The cold wind carried the scent of rot and old death, but beneath it—something worse.

A sound.

A sniffing.

Low and guttural, drifting toward them from the east.

Luke signaled for everyone to stop. They pressed themselves against the shattered remains of a store, bodies rigid, hardly daring to breathe.

Another sniff, closer this time. A raspy inhale, followed by the soft clicking of claws scraping against pavement.

Jake clenched his jaw, gripping the strap of his stolen bag, and Maria pressed a hand over Anya’s mouth, silencing her shallow gasps.

Luke dared to peer around the corner.

In the distance, moving between the ruined buildings, shadows slithered unnaturally—ferals.

There were at least five.

They moved with an eerie stillness, their heads twitching at odd angles, their hollowed-out eyes searching for something unseen. Then one of them stopped, its emaciated body pausing mid-step. The others stilled as well, their grotesque forms barely visible against the dark.

A long, ragged sniff filled the air.

Luke’s pulse pounded against his skull. The creature lifted its head, nostrils flaring.

It had caught something.

Luke glanced at the others, at their stillness, their barely contained terror.

They needed to move—now.

The group moved in silence, each step measured and deliberate. The weight of their supplies pressed against their backs, but none dared to adjust their straps. The slightest sound could mean death.

The ferals lingered in the distance, their gaunt forms barely more than moving shadows against the skeletal cityscape. The lead one, a towering figure with elongated limbs and a hollowed-out stomach, lifted its head to the wind once more. It sniffed—long and deep—before letting out a low, rasping exhale.

Then it turned.

It took a single step in their direction.

Luke clenched his fists, keeping his breathing even. He could feel the tension radiating off the others, their muscles wound tight as a noose. The silence stretched unbearably as the feral cocked its head, its movements unnatural and jerky, as if something inside it was broken.

Don’t move.

The words pulsed through Luke’s mind like a prayer.

For a moment, it seemed as if the creature would lunge, that its rotten gaze had locked onto them in the darkness. Then—another sound.

Farther down the street, something toppled over. A rusted sign, perhaps, or a loose piece of debris dislodged by the wind.

The feral’s head snapped in that direction.

It let out a rattling growl, deep and guttural, before sinking into a low, predatory stance. The other ferals followed suit, their hunger redirected toward whatever had made the sound.

Then, with a sudden burst of speed, they took off.

The group remained frozen as the creatures disappeared down the ruined street, their snarls and clawed footsteps fading into the distance.

Only when silence reclaimed the city did anyone dare to breathe.

Jake exhaled slowly. “That was too damn close.”

Luke ignored the comment, his focus already shifting. “We need to move. Quietly.”

No one argued.

They slipped through the broken streets, weaving between wreckage and debris, taking every precaution to keep their movements silent. The air remained thick with tension, each passing shadow a potential death sentence.

Maria whispered, barely audible, “Where do we go?”

Luke didn’t hesitate. “Out of the city. The longer we stay, the more likely we run into something worse.”

Anya swallowed hard. “What could be worse than them?”

Luke didn’t answer.

Because he knew.

The vampires would come soon.

And unlike the ferals, they wouldn’t be distracted.

The air was thick with the scent of decay, a mixture of dust, rusted metal, and something far worse—something festering beneath the surface of Los Angeles, a city long abandoned by the living. Every breath tasted of rot. Every step threatened to stir the silence that held the ruins in an iron grip.

Luke led the group carefully, his senses sharpened by the ever-present threat of death. The streets were a labyrinth of shattered glass and crumbling concrete, their path dictated by the gaping chasms in the road and the husks of burnt-out cars. Some had been turned over, others reduced to little more than rusted skeletons. The remnants of a time before.

The howls had faded now, but the knowledge that the ferals were still somewhere nearby kept them all on edge. Every distant creak of metal, every shift of the wind through the buildings, sent a fresh wave of fear through the group.

No one spoke.

There was nothing to say.

They all knew the stakes.

Their supplies, strapped tightly to their backs, felt heavier with every step. They had scavenged as much as they could from the store—dried food, bottled water, a few tools that might come in handy—but they knew it wouldn’t last long. Their bodies were already weakened from weeks of near-starvation, and now the added weight threatened to slow them down even further.

Luke glanced over his shoulder. The others followed in a loose formation, their eyes wide, their bodies tense. Anya clutched the straps of her bag so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Maria walked beside her, her breathing shallow and controlled. Jake kept to the rear, his gaze constantly shifting, scanning every shadow, every ruined alley, every potential hiding place for the horrors that lurked in the dark.

They needed to get out.

Los Angeles had become a death trap.

Luke had known it the moment they set foot in the city. The desolation had been misleading, the quiet unnerving. At first, it had seemed abandoned—just another corpse of civilization left to rot. But the longer they stayed, the more it became clear that something still prowled these streets.

Something worse than the ferals.

A metallic creak sounded from somewhere above them.

Everyone froze.

Luke held up a hand, signaling them to stop. His heart pounded as he scanned the rooftops, searching for movement, searching for anything out of place. The buildings loomed over them, dark and skeletal, their shattered windows like empty eye sockets staring down.

Nothing.

And yet… something had made that sound.

A chill crawled down Luke’s spine.

“Keep moving,” he murmured. “But stay low. Stay quiet.”

They continued forward, their pace slow, their movements careful. The silence pressed against them, suffocating, a crushing weight that made every step feel like an eternity.

The world felt wrong.

As if something watched them from the shadows.

As if the city itself was alive, breathing, waiting.

And then—

A sound.

A breath of movement against the wind

Not from the streets.

From above.