I followed that echo, I thought I still heard it as I ran through the streets, and maybe I had but that didn’t seem reasonable. I thought I had kept  up on exercise from when everyone disappeared but this seemed to say otherwise. Each block seemed so large. Each step felt like ten, I could feel it in my ears, my chest hurt and my jaw felt like it needed to pop. I wanted water. I needed water but I really needed to find the source of that scream. I didn’t want to be alone, no matter how nice I had thought it was. The possibility of someone else being stuck in the same situation as me was horrible but maybe I wasn’t alone anymore and that would be nice. 

Two blocks down. 

I tripped over my own feet and scraped my hands on the concrete. I pushed myself up and kept running. I couldn’t find any words, anything to yell back and I hated myself for it. It felt as if I had lost the ability to speak after being alone so long. I just needed to find the source. The sun’s reflection off of the buildings was distracting. I knew that I had to be close by. 

Three blocks down.

I had to stop to breathe. Why hadn’t I grabbed a bike? I wish I had gone about this a different way but I don’t think I could. I didn’t even have a weapon. A bike would have made noise. I probably made too much noise, If it was something that wanted me dead it probably already knew where I was. I couldn’t think like that. I needed to keep going. So I did.

Five blocks down.

I heard something else, I couldn’t tell what it was as I hadn’t heard it in so long.

Sobbing? A tantrum? The sound of breaking glass put me off. I slowed so my breathing wasn’t a heavy pant. I came upon the scene of the noises I hadn’t heard in so long. A car’s window was broken and there was no one there.

Why was there no one there? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I looked in the car. There was nothing special about it, nothing that should have caused a tantrum. As I shut the door in defeat I noticed something on the broken glass of the window.

Blood.