What is life?

That is a heavy question.

Life is... well, a lot. There's a good reason this question is always asked.

A soft wind whispers between the buildings, washing over me with gibberish words and rustling my clothes.

It's better to start simpler, is life good? That depends on a ton of factors, or miles per freedom unit or milliliters per gallon of oil—whatever "a lot" means to people. What I’m getting at is, anything life-related isn’t easy to explain.

I look up, seeing a few clouds moving past. Huh? That one looks like Fluffy, I think to myself, catching a cloud roughly husk-shaped.

Is life good? Some will say no, some will say yes, and some will start rambling about how it’s all subjective. Do I think life is good? Right now I’d have to say no.

The sun baked down on me, giving me a much-needed tan and vitamin D while the Strangler Vines wrapped around my torso and neck, wet and sponge-like, they latched on me with a vacuum grip. These things don’t actually have an official name, there's no consensus or anything. It’s just what I started calling them. Even when talking to yourself, it’s good to have names for things to avoid confusion.

I have a few hours before I’m pulled to the beating heart of the vines and get crushed like a crab in an underwater pipe. More than enough time to ponder: is life good?

Life has its pros and cons.

The pros? I'm alive and get to experience things; the sun burning on my skin, eating good food, spending time with those I love.

And the cons? I was brought here against my will, nobody asked if I wanted to be born to a low-middle-class family. I wasn't given a chance to maybe reroll for a better start. Who knows? Maybe if I rolled the dice I could be a Saudi Arabian prince, living on the highest form of luxury at the measly cost of millions of lives.

Alas, I am an unwilling participant in this crumbling world—not due to capitalism, but something else that got to us first.

Cutting my musing, the sun flickers out.

No warning, no gradual dimming, no sound, no drop in temperature, I still feel the sun burning my skin—just sudden darkness.

"Shit."

Without much trouble, I unzip my pants and let out a dam I've been holding for a situation like this. I can only hope that most of the golden stream falls on the spongy tendrils. Like goosebumps, a wave runs over the vines, and they recoil, releasing me like I’m coated in planticide.

The fall is short, the wind barely picks up before I hit something hard. Thankfully it dents and crumples under my considerable weight before I'm too broken.

After a short moment, the alarm blares loudly.

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There should be light accompanying the car alarm, but the sun doesn’t only decide to take a break— It's much more complicated, it turns into an anti-sun of sorts that shines with darkness where no light is allowed to exist.

So not so complicated.

"Agh," I groan in pain, closing my flyer and swaying from side to side. Like wrapping paper, my whole body pops while trying to put my back back into place. "I'm too young to have back pain." Despite the pain and zero visibility, I roll off the roof of the car like a baguette.

The sound when I hit the ground is also like a water-filled baguette.

Water, warm and sparkly, sizzles as it fills the inside of my backpack before soaking the material and dripping down my back and my recently cleaned clothes.

Looking up at the darkness, I go back to the first question: is life good?

With a single pull, the tear-away straps fall away and I roll below the blaring car.

What makes a life good? Money? Certainly not. Even the rich fucks who controlled the world were unhappy. Their accumulation was theoretically enough to go to the moon and back; they owned the world, and still, they wanted more like a no-life farming a clicker game.

Tap... Tap... Tap...

If not money, then what else... Connections? The friends we made along the way? Then my life was decent, the apocalypse started intense, but I made a few new friends. Life was decent, but now not so much.

TAP, TAP, TAP...

It’s incredible how a few months of isolation can mess you up. I thought that after a pandemic humans would’ve adapted or whatever. But I guess the collapse of civilization as we know it is not comparable to a pandemic.

CRUNCH

The front of the car crunches and crumples loudly, silencing the annoying alarm. I instantly pull my legs closer to my body. The crushed metal almost touches my feet, its sharp edges tear slightly into my pants. If my leg or foot gets broken, I’m done for.

Humans have not adapted, but nature sure did, and quite quickly. In the silence, I can hear their sniffling, searching for the scent of prey—the only somewhat reliable sense, along with hearing. Eventually, they tear into my backpack, looking for food.

Unluckily for them, I learned my lesson and didn’t take more than a few hours worth of food on this short trip.

The lack of food angers them, it starts with them unhappily growling before escalating into a fight. One of them slams into the car, crushing half of it like a beer can and forcing me to drag myself away.

Something incredibly soft brushed my hand.

Staying here, a few feet from these creatures is my only option. Their fighting may look like a good opportunity to book it, my scent is even disguised by the Strangler Vines, but I know I can't walk quietly or run quickly enough to be safe. People made those assumptions before. They believed in themselves and took their chance.

I’m here, and they aren’t, so the better option is obvious.

It’s impossible to know what a Night Stalker looks like given that they hunt during the anti-day. One thing known about them, judging by the anguished screams of people caught unaware, is that they don't go for the head or neck first.

It’s hard to know what they go for first; little is left after they eat. They do have a distaste for colored hair—always leaving clumps of it near their victims—and feet.

Their fight continues, and judging by the sounds, they’re bouncing around like the street is a giant pinball machine. Yet, it doesn’t matter how many times they hit my car or how close I feel to being exposed and clawed to bits; my heart stays unwavering.

One of the greatest things a survivor needs is crushing apathy and the ability to act rationally. A perfect survivor has a heart of ice and the ability to rationalize like a machine.

I’m not that survivor, but thanks to modern medicine, I can get drugged up and it’s practically the same.

Hesitantly, I stretch my arm toward the general direction of my backpack, looking to drag its tetter to the thin safety of my car. If they’re gonna keep fighting, the least I want is the ability to lie down with some form of comfort.

After pulling the bits and pieces of the backpack, I Use them to form a rather good pillow, using it to rest while I wait to be found and eaten or for the sun to come back.

The duration of the anti-day is extremely irregular, so I could be here for one day, two weeks, maybe even months, or it could just...

Light comes back in a flash, potent and eye-searing. "Fuuck," I mutter, forced to close my watering eyes.

The Night Stalkers growl in pain and the sounds of their bodies sizzling fills the air. After a minute of blinking away the bright spots in my vision, I look around to see that I’m alone again.

"Sorry Mom," I say, rolling from below the car. "That was the last place with sparkling water. Normal water will have to do," After finishing talking to myself, I rummage through my zippered pockets, pulling out a handful of unidentified pills and downing them dry.

These aren’t just any pills—they’re a cocktail of anti-anxiety meds, painkillers, and whatever else I could scavenge or trade. The anxiety meds keep the panic at bay, the painkillers numb the constant aches, and the others... well, they help me sleep when sleep seems impossible.

As for the ratio of each? Fuck me if I know, I don't even know if half these meds are even real. They could be Tic-Tacs for all I know, most of them were found lying near crushed prescription bottles or sold loose.

"I need a break."