July 6, 2023 – Evening
Dear Journal,
We made it.
We reached the edge of the city just before sundown.
If you can even call this place a city anymore.
From a distance, South Station's skyline looked like the spine of a corpse—jagged, broken, and half-sunken into the haze. The buildings leaned like they'd been wounded, steel skeletons exposed beneath burned skin. The sky above it was gray, not from clouds but ash. Constant, swirling, drifting down in tiny flakes.
The road into the city was worse than we imagined.
A crater—probably from a bombing run early in the outbreak—split the highway in two. We had to ditch the truck after its back tires got caught in a pothole as deep as my chest. Marcus and I tried to free it, but Naomi called it: the noise was drawing attention.
So we carried Clara.
Wrapped in blankets, she was light—too light. Her breathing was shallow, but her humming had stopped. Nora saw that as a good sign.
I'm not sure.
We traveled on foot through the outer ruins.
Nothing moved. No birds. No rodents. No infected.
Only signs that something had come before us and wiped the slate clean.
Cars crushed under debris. Storefronts with windows blown out from the inside. Graffiti scrawled in charcoal and blood. Some of it familiar.
"Don't follow the signal."
"No one lives here."
"It speaks in your voice."
"RUN."
And still… the radio tower stood in the distance. Tilted. Flickering red light blinking every few seconds like a slow, tired heartbeat.
Naomi said, "That's South Station."
No one cheered. No one spoke.
We moved carefully. Quietly.
The air burned our throats. Everything smelled like rust and soot. Ash clung to our skin. Clara whimpered once but didn't wake.
We passed through what used to be a shopping district. Benches melted to the sidewalk. Statues decapitated. A toppled streetcar with corpses still buckled in place, skeletal now, mouths agape like they'd died mid-scream.
Then we saw the children.
Six of them. Standing in a perfect line near a burned-out bakery. Too still. Too clean.
We stopped dead in our tracks.
Nora whispered, "They're not real."
She was right.
They weren't breathing.
They weren't even blinking.
Just life-sized mannequins. Burned at the feet. Faces painted in wide, forced smiles.
A message? A warning?
Or a joke told by something that doesn't understand humor?
We moved on.
South Station grew larger as we approached—a looming monolith of cracked stone and shattered glass. It used to be grand. Marble steps. Tall columns. A clock above the archway, forever frozen at 3:33.
The gates were open.
No guards.
No signs of life.
Only that voice, now faint but constant, whispering from a nearby speaker half-buried in dust:
"Welcome to South Station… Shelter… Safe…"
Over and over.
We stepped inside.
The main terminal was a cathedral of echoes. Benches overturned. Luggage strewn everywhere. Blood streaks leading to broken turnstiles. An old FEMA banner still fluttered near the ceiling.
Marcus muttered, "There was a fight here."
Naomi added, "And nobody won."
Then the humming returned.
Not from Clara.
From beneath us.
We all froze.
The floor trembled—just slightly, like something shifting far underground. A mechanical pulse. A machine that shouldn't still be running.
And then the lights flickered.
Dim. Yellow. One row at a time.
Leading deeper into the station.
We followed them.
Not because we wanted to—but because it felt like if we didn't, we'd be left in the dark forever.
The hallway narrowed.
We passed doors labeled "Command Center," "Decontamination," and "Survivor Intake." All locked. All scratched from the inside.
Finally, we reached a stairwell leading down. Far down.
The lights stopped there.
Everything beyond that threshold was black.
Naomi raised her flashlight.
It flickered.
Died.
We tested two more.
Same result.
Something down there doesn't want to be seen.
Nora clutched Clara tightly and whispered, "Please… don't make us go down there."
Naomi said nothing.
Marcus looked at me.
And I—
I felt it.
Something brushing the edge of my thoughts. Like cold fingers sliding over the back of my skull.
"You've arrived, J.K."
I dropped my journal. My vision blurred. My legs buckled.
Naomi caught me.
The voice was inside my head again.
But this time, it didn't sound like a stranger.
It sounded like me.
"Come downstairs. We've been waiting."
I don't know what's down there.
But I think the real South Station—the one still breathing, still pulsing, still calling—is below.
And we're going to have to face it.
Tomorrow.
Because if we go now… I don't think we'll come back up.
Yours under the ash sky,
J.K.