I sit in the control room, tapping my fingers lightly on the desk. Sometimes the truth doesn't need my help at all. People will tear each other's masks off all on their own.
Just then, a low growl echoes in the distance. Several dark shapes have already been drawn in by their arguing.
I give a warning. "You have thirty seconds left."
Derek's expression shifts. He pounds on the door again. "Ethan, open it. Open it now, and I'll still promise you won't end up frozen."
I don't answer. Even now, he's still trying to posture.
Vivien's legs give out, and she collapses into the snow. She tries to push herself up, but her hands and feet are too numb with cold. She can only sob, staring up at the camera. "Ethan, please. I don't want it to end like this. I really do know I was wrong."
I watch her. There's no satisfaction in me, and no pity either. Only a quiet sense of finality.
"Vivien, I gave you chances. But every single time, you chose someone else. This time, I'm choosing myself."
She completely breaks down. "Ethan, please give me one more chance."
I don't answer again.
The dark shapes in the distance draw closer and closer. Derek finally panics. He glances back, then his eyes fix on the emergency kit in Vivien's hands, the one I just dropped out through the outer delivery slot. Inside are a few ration bars, two heat packs, and a hand-drawn map to a nearby emergency shelter. Vivien clutches it tightly, holding on like it's her very last lifeline.
Suddenly, Derek lunges at her, snatching the kit right out of her hands.
Vivien freezes. "Derek, what are you doing?"
Derek doesn't even look at her. He turns and runs.
Only now does Vivien truly understand. Even to the very last moment, the only person Derek ever wanted to save was himself.
She staggers after him, grabbing hold of his coat. "Derek, you can't leave me behind."
He turns back, his face twisted with cruelty. "Get off me." He shakes her off violently.
Vivien falls hard into the snow. The emergency kit clutched in her arms is torn away from her completely. She stares, stunned. "Derek, that was given to me by Ethan."
Derek doesn't even slow down. He bolts around the street corner, kit in hand. The ration bars, the heat packs, and the shelter map inside it were the only things that might have kept them alive after leaving here. But he doesn't even spare Vivien a single backward glance.
She lies face down in the snow, watching Derek's figure grow smaller and smaller in the distance. In that moment, something finally seems to click. Derek was never trying to save her. All he ever wanted was whatever could keep himself alive. And she had only ever been a tool for him to use to force this door open.
She didn't lose to the apocalypse. She didn't lose to the infected. She lost to her own greed, and to her own betrayal.
Vivien struggles to lift her head, catching sight of the camera. Her mouth opens as if trying to say something more, but the storm is too loud. I can no longer make out the words.
The camera feed flickers a few times. Several dark shapes close in through the curtain of snow.
I don't keep watching. I simply switch off that camera feed.
A few minutes later, all that comes through the outdoor mic is the wind.
Derek never sends another message. Vivien's chat window never lights up again.
The next morning, I pull up the entrance security camera once more. All that remains outside the door is the thermal suit I once gave to Vivien, half buried in the snow.
I look at it for a long time, and switch off the screen.
It's only now that the resentment weighing on my chest for an entire lifetime finally lifts.
That same morning, I pull up the backup camera feed at the street corner.
Derek didn't get far. After snatching the emergency kit, he'd meant to head for the shelter marked on the map, but he was too afraid someone might steal his supplies. He clutched the kit tightly the entire way. Trying to avoid other survivors, he ignored the safe route I'd marked and ducked into a shorter side alley instead. The very alley that, in my past life, had been one of the most infected-dense spots in the entire city.
On camera, Derek barely takes a few steps in before several dark shapes deep in the alley slowly turn around. He seems to sense something's wrong and immediately stops, trying to turn back, but it's already too late. More and more infected close in from behind the storm and abandoned cars. Derek stumbles backward, clutching the kit, but dark shapes have already appeared at the alley's entrance, too. His escape route is completely cut off.
On the camera feed, he pounds desperately on a nearby rolling shutter, then turns and shouts something toward the underground mall. The distance is too great. I can't make out the words.
The next instant, several dark shapes lunge at him all at once. Derek's figure vanishes beneath the infected in an instant. The storm quickly buries the mouth of the alley, swallowing whatever remained of his final struggle.
From that point on, Derek never appears again.
I switch off that camera feed. The control room falls quiet once more.
Outside is the storm, the low growls of the infected, the sound of a world that has utterly collapsed. Meanwhile, here in my bunker, the heat runs steady. The lights burn bright.
I walk to the kitchen and ladle myself a bowl of hot soup. As I take the first sip, the scalding warmth slides down my throat and settles into my stomach. And it finally hits me. Truly hits me.
This time, I've survived.
From that day forward, no one ever dares to openly force my door again the way Gary and Derek did. Gary vanishes without a trace. Derek never resurfaces, and Vivien is lost forever within that great snowfall.
But I know this doesn't mean the danger is over. If anything, the true cruelty of the apocalypse has only just begun.