Irvin watched the group fracture before his eyes. The women huddled together behind a cluster of trees, whispering in hushed, anxious tones. The men stood awkwardly in small groups, trying to maintain eye contact during conversations while their hands instinctively covered their groins.

  His own body made him cringe. The pot belly he'd always meant to work off hung exposed, and his skinny arms looked even more pathetic without sleeves to hide them. Worse, his backpack was gone—probably torn apart with his clothes during whatever the hell had happened while he slept. His throat burned with thirst. When was the last time he'd had water? The convenience store seemed like ages ago.

  Tom scratched his head. "Well, at least we're all in this together, right? Could be worse—could be raining."

  "It's October, it will be cold soon." Irvin muttered, scanning the treeline. The shadows between the trees seemed deeper now, perfect hiding spots for whatever mutated horrors might come next.

  You need to get a grip, the group is cool and all, but without food and water we are dead, he thought. But how do you convince people to work together when they can't even look at each other?

  The sun hung low on the horizon. In a few hours, they'd be naked in the dark, exposed to whatever nightmares came hunting. No weapons, no shelter, not even shoes to protect their feet.

  A woman's voice rose above the others. "We need to find clothes or something to cover ourselves!"

  "With what?" Another woman shot back. "Everything's falling apart!"

  The argument sparked others, voices rising in a cacophony of fear and frustration. Irvin noticed how the women kept glancing at the men with suspicion, drawing closer together. The fragile trust they'd built during the escape was evaporating.

  This is bad, Irvin thought. We need shelter before dark, but nobody's going to work together like this. The longer we wait, the harder it'll get.

  His stomach growled. Food first, everything else later. He looked at Tom standing next to him.

  "We need to do something before it gets dark," Irvin said, keeping his voice low. "That monster we killed earlier - it's meat. Not ideal, but better than nothing. Plus, my backpack had water bottles."

  Tom nodded, his puffy face serious. "Makes sense. Better than standing around waiting to freeze or starve."

  "Count me in," Alex said, stepping closer. He'd been hovering nearby, clearly listening. "Rather do something useful than watch everyone lose it."

  Another man standing with Alex joined their huddle. "Name's Peter. I worked in maintenance, know my way around the buildings here. Could help navigate."

  Irvin noticed Mike watching them from across the park, his expression dark. The man's shoulders tensed as he realized what they were planning.

  "We can't split up," Mike called out, loud enough for others to hear. "Night's coming. We need to stick together, find shelter."

  "Right, you do that." Irvin kept his voice steady. "We've got no food, no water. You can start fire or get a shelter going."

  "Help's not coming," Tom added. "Look around. Whatever happened, it's bigger than just us. There is no shelter to be found, everything is falling apart."

  Mike stepped forward, muscles tight. "So your solution is to run off? Leave everyone here while you play hero?"

  "We're not playing anything," Irvin said. "We're trying to survive. That means taking calculated risks."

  Several others had listened in, the earlier arguments forgotten in face of this new tension. Irvin saw the conflict in their faces, but numbers meant nothing if they all starved.

  "Four people, we go quickly back to see what we can salvage," Irvin said. "We know where the monster fell. We know where my pack dropped. In and out before dark."

  Mike opened his mouth to argue further, but Irvin turned away. He'd made his case. Either others would see the logic or they wouldn't. Right now, he needed to focus on the practical aspects of their scavenging run.

  "We should move soon," Tom said quietly. "Losing daylight."

  The city had transformed into an alien landscape. Irvin's feet padded across cracked pavement, now threaded with thick vines that pulsed with an unsettling vitality. Buildings that had stood proud that morning now crumbled, their steel bones rusted to powder.

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  A car dissolved into orange dust as they passed, its frame collapsing under the weight of twisted vegetation. The sight made Irvin's stomach clench. If metal can rot that fast, what else might change?

  "Watch your step," Tom whispered, pointing at a patch of mushrooms that seemed to glow faintly. "Everything's different now. Can't trust anything to be what it was."

  They moved in silence for a while, staying close to what remained of the buildings. Most structures had been reduced to their first few floors, wrapped in a suffocating blanket of alien plant life.

  "At least these augments give us a fighting chance," Tom said, carefully stepping over a fallen lamppost that crumbled at his touch. "My agility saved my ass back there with that monster. Never moved so fast in my life."

  Alex nodded. "Got some points in both agility and strength myself. Picked up a few more during that rat fight too."

  Tom's eyes fixed on Irvin. "What about you? Went all in on strength, didn't you? Saw how you handled that creature earlier."

  "Yeah." Irvin saw no reason to lie. "Seemed the most practical choice at the time."

  A distant roar echoed through the transformed streets. They froze, pressing against a vine-covered wall. This city isn't ours anymore, Irvin thought.

  The group wandered through streets that had morphed into an unrecognizable maze. Buildings melted into each other, their forms distorted by aggressive plant growth that defied natural laws.

  "This can't be right." Tom paused at an intersection. "The park should be two blocks that way, but..."

  Irvin studied the warped landscape. The familiar grid of city streets had dissolved into organic curves and spirals. Even the sun seemed to cast wrong shadows across the transformed terrain.

  "Wait." Alex pointed ahead. "See that red shape through the vines? Looks like a store sign."

  They approached cautiously. Through a lattice of writhing vegetation, Irvin made out the faded remains of a supermarket logo. The building's lower floor disappeared beneath a mass of thick, rope-like vines that wrapped around its foundation like supporting columns. Strange, bulbous plants pulsed with an inner light where they clustered around the entrance.

  "Those plants," Irvin said. "They're holding it together."

  The upper floors of the supermarket tilted at an impossible angle, but instead of collapsing, they remained suspended by the alien flora.

  As they approached the entrance of the transformed supermarket, an eerie silence fell over them. The air felt thick with tension, and Irvin's skin prickled with an unsettling sensation. He paused, holding up a hand to stop the others.

  "Wait," he whispered, his eyes scanning the twisted vines and pulsating flora around them. "Something's not right."

  Before anyone could respond, a bone-chilling howl pierced the air. From the shadows of the ruined building, a pack of monstrous creatures emerged. They were unlike anything Irvin had ever seen - wolf-like in shape, but with grotesquely elongated limbs and skin that seemed to shift and ripple like water. Their eyes glowed an unnatural green, fixed hungrily on the group of naked humans.

  "Run!" Irvin screamed, his heart pounding in his chest.

  But as they turned to flee, another pack of beasts burst from the undergrowth behind them. These were different - more reptilian, with scales that glinted like metal and jaws that dripped with a sizzling, acidic saliva.

  Were they following us? Irvin trembled at the realization of what was happening unbeknown to them the whole time. How long?

  Chaos erupted as the two packs collided, their focus split between the human prey and their new enemy. Irvin's mind went blank. He glanced at his companions, seeing the panic in their eyes.

  Alex stumbled, his feet tangled in a mass of writhing vines. "Help!" he cried out, reaching for Irvin.

  For a split second, Irvin considered grabbing his hand. But self-preservation won out. He darted to the side. The wolf-like creatures descended on Alex, his screams cutting through the air before being abruptly silenced.

  The guy whose name Irvin missed had already disappeared into the fray, his fate unknown. Irvin caught a glimpse of Tom, desperately climbing a warped tree.

  Irvin's eyes darted around, searching for an escape route. He spotted a small crevice in the twisted structure of the supermarket, just large enough for him to squeeze into. Without hesitation, he dove for it, wedging himself into the tight space.

  From his hidden vantage point, Irvin watched the brutal battle unfold. The two packs tore into each other with savage fury, their inhuman shrieks and growls filling the air. Blood - some red, some blue - splattered across the mutated landscape.

  As the fight raged on, Irvin's stared frantically around his immediate area. He needed a weapon, something to defend himself if discovered. His eyes landed on a warped branch, part of the new fauna claiming the structure.

  Move, you got to move. But he couldn't force himself to leave the safe space.

  The battle seemed to last an eternity, but gradually, the sounds of combat died down. Irvin peered out from his hiding spot, surveying the carnage. Bodies of the monstrous creatures lay strewn about, many still twitching with residual life.

  The reptiles dragged couple corpses into the building continuing their hunt.

  Irvin felt his skin crawl with realization and mix of thrill with dread. If not now then never.

  Hastily, Irvin crawled from his hiding place, snapping a branch from nearby tree. Clutching the weapon tightly in his hand. He moved quickly towards the fallen beasts, his eyes sharp for any sign of movement.

  A low growl caught his attention. One of the wolf-like creatures, badly injured but still alive, struggled to its feet. Without hesitation, Irvin brought his weapon down on its head, bringing it down. The wood snapped in half, he continued with stab into the monster multiple times before finishing it off with a sickening crunch.

  He repeated the process with a few more of the wounded monsters, each strike leaving him splattered with their strange blood. The wood in his hands covered in grime and sickly liquid.

  As the last of the injured beasts fell silent, Irvin stood alone amidst the carnage. His breath came in short gasps, adrenaline still coursing through his veins.

  He looked around at the bodies of the monsters, then at the spots where someone had fallen. His body laid dead, unrecognizable.

  Irvin noticed Tom watching him from the tree. Irvin gripped his blood-stained wooden weapon tightly, before his stomach turned, retching its content on the floor.