Chapter 7: This isn’t a date, right?

I fell to my knees after a wobble.

Is no one fucking normal anymore? No one??

I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing, frustration and despair boiling over me as Mrs. Graham’s body convulsed behind me. It sounded like she was dragging on with her last breath.

“Sweetie..”

Lila approached me as if I was the wounded animal. As if I was a child who lost their dog.

I hated it.

Her knees bent as she pulled me into a hug, her warm embrace replacing my sadness more than I could admit. I was ugly crying into her arms.

This marked the 100th time I’ve done this. I’m such a loser.

I hugged her back as my sobs went on. It was strange to me how she never seemed affected by any of this. Was she holding back…? To be strong for me?

Or maybe she just didn’t care.

Lila rested her chin on my shoulder as she hugged tighter. I didn’t move like last time. I just let it happen.

I realized a hug like this was long overdue for the both of us.

“You’re safe now, my love. We’re safe now.”

Her voice was steady—too steady.

Before I could say anything in response—

A wet rattle escaped Mrs. Graham’s throat.

Both of us turned.

She lay twisted on the floor, blood trickling in a slow, pulsing river from the hole in her neck. Her breaths were thin, shredding themselves apart on the way out. Her fingers twitched, reaching for nothing.

Then—

A laugh.

A thin, broken, bubbling laugh that froze my whole body.

“You…” she choked, blood foaming at the corner of her mouth, “aren’t gonna last a second out there.”

Her eyes were on me. Not Lila. My throat closed.

“Either you’re gonna die to those crazy fucks outside…” she wheezed, each word trembling with sick amusement,

“…or she’s gonna kill you.”

Those words burnt into me. I was never gonna see that Ivy League, was I?

I felt Lila’s arms tense around me. Felt her warmth turn to something else entirely.

Her eyes went ice-cold.

“Lila—”

She got up, raising her gun before putting 2 more bullets in her mother’s chest. My ears rang at that. She was officially done.

There was a moment of silence in the room as everything that had just transpired burnt itself into my brain.

“Lila, I—”

“Let’s go for a drive, shall we?”

The words died in my mouth as Lila turned towards me. Her expression was warm— almost happy. I couldnt understand it.

We took her mother’s G-Wagon only moments later—the same one that picked me up from the police station that night. The leather still smelled the same. Expensive. Pretentious. Graham-family coded.

A wave of bitter nostalgia slammed into me as Lila tapped a button and the doors unlocked with a soft, cheerful chime that didn’t belong in this nightmare.

She slid into the driver’s seat like she’d done it a thousand times. I sank into mine like I’d aged fifty years.

With another button, the garage door rumbled open.

And Hyde Park—spacious, peaceful, pretentious Hyde Park—revealed itself as something twisted.

All this happened in just a day and a few hours.

Heads on pikes, their faces stretched in screams.

Mutilated bodies dumped like trash bags.

Cars crushed or flipped, windows shattered like jagged mouths.

And across the wall of an expensive townhouse, smeared in red:

“God has abandoned us.”

My stomach dropped. It hurt more than I wanted to admit.

Like someone had written it specifically for me.

The streets were still a ghost town.

Except for them.

A cluster of infected huddled around something—someone.

Crunching. Pulling. Ripping. Distant laughs from them as they tortured their fellow man.

The sounds alone made my throat close.

I turned away, staring down at my knees, willing my brain to shut the hell up. I’d seen enough for the rest of my life.

My eyes flickered to Lila who had been humming through it all.

“Where are we going?”

Lila smiled without looking at me, her fingers tapping the wheel in time with her hum.

“That’s a secret.”

We rolled up to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, the G-Wagon’s tires crunching over broken glass and scattered debris. The building rose out of the chaos like some massive relic. It looked unscathed amongst the chaos surrounding it. Well, almost.

“We’re here!”

Lila practically bounced in her seat. Her demeanor was a stark contrast to everything around us.

It didn’t exactly pique my interest—some museum in the middle of the apocalypse—

but the gesture?

Yeah… it got to me a little.

Stupid.

I hadn’t been here since that awful middle school field trip where the chaperones lost two students and pretended everything was fine.

Who could’ve known the next time I went would’ve been when everything’s a disaster?

We turned into the main lot.

The museum wasn’t completely unscathed after all. At the far end, one of the giant glass panels had been shattered inward—jagged edges catching the light like teeth.

Blood smeared across the stone steps in long, desperate streaks.

A toppled stroller lay on its side near the entrance, its wheels still gently rocking from the wind.

Something had clawed through one of the metal trash bins, bending it like aluminum foil.

Compared to the rest of the neighborhood, this was paradise.

Lila threw the car into park and unbuckled herself with a grin.

“Come on, I wanna show you something.”

Show me something?

I sighed, mirroring her before reluctantly following. Was it even safe to be outside?

Lila pushed open the museum doors, and the quiet hit me first—

thick, still, almost peaceful.

Our footsteps echoed over marble floors. Dust floated in thin beams of light cutting down from the skylights, making everything look… softer somehow.

Calmer.

I kept expecting something to jump out—

an infected, a mutilated body, anything—

but instead Lila grabbed my sleeve like a kid dragging her friend toward a carnival ride.

“Come on, you’re walking like you’re going to your funeral,” she laughed, tugging harder. “It’s not scary. I promise.”

Her voice—light, almost musical—was the first thing all day that didn’t feel soaked in blood.

We turned down a corridor lined with posters of old exhibits.

Robots. Space shuttles. Dinosaurs.

Lila walked with a bounce in her step, hair swaying, humming under her breath again.

Like the world outside hadn’t fallen apart.

Like she wasn’t the same girl who just put two bullets in her mother.

Finally, she stopped in front of a dim hall.

“This,” she said, unable to hide her grin,

“was my favorite place when I was little.”

She flicked a switch.

The room lit up—

stars spiraled around us, glowing constellations blooming across the walls.

Tiny planets dangled from the ceiling, catching the light like floating jewels.

A projection of the Milky Way unfurled across the floor beneath our feet.

It was the space exhibit.

The kids’ one.

The one with fake astronaut helmets and constellation puzzles and a giant model of the solar system slowly rotating in the middle.

But right now?

Right now it looked magical.

Lila walked into the center of the room, spinning once beneath the slow-turning planets.

She looked softer here.

Smaller.

Like the apocalypse hadn’t touched this part of her.

“I used to beg my dad to bring me here every weekend,” she said, her smile turning nostalgic. “I’d sit right under Saturn and pretend it was watching over me. Stupid, right?”

I shook my head before I even realized.

“No. It’s… actually kinda cool.”

She beamed—really beamed—and for a second she wasn’t the unpredictable, sharp-edged girl dragging me through chaos.

She was just Lila.

A girl who loved stars.

She sat down beneath the rotating planets and patted the spot next to her.

“Sit with me, Adrian. You deserve one calm thing today.”

I hesitated.

Then I sat.

The planets hummed softly overhead, spinning in their endless tracks.

Lila leaned her head on my shoulder, her warmth seeping into me.

For the first time since everything fell apart, something inside my chest loosened.

And for a moment—

just a small, fragile moment—

it felt like the world wasn’t ending at all.

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