Looking through the dusty windows, we quickly judged that the place was completely deserted. As it right well should have been – anyone with any smarts would had cleared out months ago when the warnings came.

I jumped as Jake threw a rock through one of the windows, covered his hands with his shirt, and broke away the jagged pieces of glass from the window frame. He climbed through the opening and unlocked the door for me.

It took most of the morning for us to barricade ourselves in one of the smaller rooms on the second floor, after finding a vending machine and looting it for food.

“I can’t,” I said, as Jake offered me a Snickers bar. My stomach churned just at the sight of it. My eyes moved instinctively to the window, and beyond, where nothing moved.

It seemed as though, these days, the earth was holding its breath.

Jake moved closer to me and brushed a few sticky pieces of hair out of my eyes.

“You have to eat. You’ll die.”

I looked him in the eye. “Isn’t that the eventual end, either way?”