Page 7 of Sick(ness)

She needed a plan.

The tap still ran, but the water came out brown now, reeking of rust and something worse. The filter pitcher she’d relied on wasn’t helping anymore. If she wanted clean water, she’d have to go out of her apartment.

Her hand trembled as she traced the outline of her door with her fingertips, feeling the solid weight. She imagined what might be on the other side—the odor, the silence, the stillness—and forced herself to step back.

Later, as she sat waiting for something, anything, she decided she needed to tap on the wall—once—to see if Sawyer remained.

She sat on the floor, staring at the thin stretch of paint and plaster that separated their apartments. For days, she’d tried to convince herself that the faint scraping she sometimes heard was proof enough. That he was alive, that someone else in this building was still breathing. But the silence had stretched too long now.

If he were gone too… she wasn’t sure she could take that.

Her fingers hesitated above the wall. The air was heavy, sour with the smell that had begun to cling to everything. She swallowed hard and rapped her knuckles softly against the drywall.

One tap.

Then another.

The sound seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet.

She held her breath and waited.

Nothing.

Her pulse quickened. She tried again, a little louder this time. “Sawyer?” she whispered. Her voice sounded strange, dry and unused. “Are you still there?”

For a long moment, only the soft hum of the building—the whisper of air through vents, the faint creak of settling wood. And then—

Tap. Tap.

Two short knocks in reply.

Addy’s breath caught. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the wall; the cold surface grounded her. “You’re still alive,” she murmured, relief washing over her so fast it left her dizzy.

She waited, half expecting him to speak. But only silence followed.

Addy leaned closer. “The odor is getting worse,” she said, voice low, as if afraid to be overheard by the dead. “It’s in the vents. I think… I think it’s them. The others.”

A pause. Then his voice came through—muffled, steady. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

She could almost picture him sitting on the other side of the wall, with that same expression she’d seen in passing—focused, detached, like he was already living in a different world than the rest of them.

“I’m running low on water. And food.”

“You’re not the only one,” he replied after a moment. “The stores were stripped bare the first day. If anything is left, it won’t be much.”

Addy rested her head back against the wall. “I can’t stay in here. The smell—it’s getting into everything. I can barely breathe.”

There was a rustle on his side, the sound of something metallic being set down. “We’ll need to leave soon,” he said quietly. “But not without a plan.”

Her chest tightened. “Do you have one?”

“I might.” He paused. “Give me until morning. I’ll figure something out.”

The faint scrape came again—a chair shifting, or boots against the floor. Then silence swallowed it whole. Addy remained in that spot, one hand pressed flat to the wall, reaching for something that wasn’t present. The plaster was cool against her skin. On the other side of that thin barrier was another person, breathing, thinking, surviving. It shouldn’t have been comforting, but it was.

Her throat ached. She hadn’t spoken that much in days, and the words she’d just said still lingered in the air, fragile things that didn’t belong in this new, ruined world. She wanted to say something else—to thank him, or ask what he meant—but the silence had closed in again. He was gone, or choosing not to answer. Either way, she couldn’t bring herself to break it.

Addy let her forehead rest against the wall and closed her eyes. For a moment, she pretended she could feel warmth radiating back, the presence of another human being instead of layers of plaster and emptiness. When she finally pushed herself upright, her legs trembled from hours of stillness. The air in her apartment seemed heavier than ever—thick with the stench of decay seeping through the vents, mingling with the faint chemical tang of duct tape and plastic. Her flashlight flickered, casting a thin, sickly light across the countertops and walls.