Chapter 143: Proof

Chapter 143: Chapter 143: Proof

Persephone made it to the hallway on legs that still didn’t feel entirely her own, one hand braced against the wall as she moved, the world tilting gently with every few steps before settling again.

Harold. Vanya. The names surfaced together, clearer than anything else in the fog — the elevator, the day they’d moved in, the woman who’d introduced herself and her younger cousin so plainly Persephone had actually remembered both names afterward, unusual for her with new neighbors. Then, layered over that first meeting, something more recent and blurred: Harold’s voice at her door, telling her to stay out of the sunlight, something about a phenomenon she’d been too groggy to fully absorb at the time.

She knocked on the door across from her own.

It opened after a moment, and Harold stood on the other side — young, a little startled to see her upright, his expression shifting fast from confusion into something like relief.

"You’re awake," he said. "Oh, thank god, you’re actually—" He turned, calling back into the apartment. "Nya, she’s awake!"

Vanya appeared behind him a moment later — blonde, sharp-featured, green eyes that assessed Persephone head to foot in the span of a single breath, the particular efficient scan of someone checking for injury before anything else registered.

"You should sit down," Vanya said, stepping back to let her inside. "You’ve been unconscious a long time. Standing too soon isn’t wise."

Persephone hesitated only a second before following, some instinct telling her these two, whoever they were, meant her no harm — the same instinct, maybe, that had let a stranger check on her unafraid while she couldn’t defend herself at all.

"You checked on me," Persephone said slowly, sinking onto the edge of the couch. "More than once, I think. I remember pieces of it. Harold’s voice, mostly, from the door."

"You developed a fever shortly after I warned you," Harold said. "High enough that we checked on you regularly since."

"How long was I out?"

"Five days," Vanya said.

Persephone’s stomach dropped. "Five—" She pressed a hand to her temple, the number too large to fully absorb. "I feel like I ran a marathon in my sleep."

Vanya nodded slowly, crossing toward the kitchen without further comment, and returned a moment later with a small glass of something dark red.

Persephone stared at it.

"Drink this," Vanya said, holding it out. "It should help with the weakness."

"What is it?"

"RH-negative." Vanya said it plainly, like the words should mean something reassuring rather than immediately alarming.

Persephone blinked. "I’m sorry — what?"

"Blood," Vanya clarified, still entirely matter-of-fact. "I have O-positive as well, if you’d prefer that instead."

The room went very quiet.

Persephone looked at the glass, then at Vanya’s face, searching for any sign this was some kind of joke she wasn’t understanding. She found none. Vanya’s expression remained calm, patient, entirely serious.

"I — no. No, thank you." Persephone’s voice had gone careful, distant in a way it hadn’t been a moment ago. "I don’t drink blood."

"You don’t have to be picky about the type," Vanya said, misreading the refusal entirely. "Either should work for what your body needs right now."

"I’m not being picky." Persephone’s hands twisted together in her lap. "I don’t — why would I need to drink blood at all?"

Something in Vanya’s expression shifted, faint reassessment. "You’ve been unconscious with a fever for five days. I assumed—" She paused. "It doesn’t matter what I assumed. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to have it."

Persephone sat very still, the polite refusal from a moment ago cooling into something quieter, more careful. She didn’t understand the assumption. She didn’t understand any of this — the missing days, the strange hum still living beneath her skin, and now a woman offering her blood like it was orange juice.

"I think," Persephone said slowly, "I’m missing a lot of context."

"You are." Vanya set the untouched glass down on the table between them, apparently unbothered by the refusal, and settled into the chair across from her with the particular economy of someone who’d delivered difficult news enough times now to have stopped softening it much. "The world ended a week ago. Not figuratively. The dead started getting up and attacking the living. It’s called a zombie apocalypse, and I’m aware of exactly how insane that sounds."

Persephone stared at her.

"That’s not funny," she finally said.

"I’m not joking."

"That’s — no. That’s not possible. That’s not a real thing that happens." Persephone let out a short, disbelieving laugh, the sound cracking halfway through. "Is this some kind of — did I hit my head? Am I still dreaming?"

Harold, who’d been standing quietly near the kitchen doorway, stepped forward, phone already in his hand.

"I filmed this the first night we went out for supplies," he said, quiet, apologetic in a way that suggested he understood exactly how much this was about to change everything for her. "I know I can’t post it anywhere. Signal’s been down since before all this started. I just — I figured, if you woke up before we could explain it properly, you’d need something you could actually see."

He crossed the room and held the phone out to her.

Persephone took it with trembling hands and pressed play.

The footage was shaky, dark, lit only by a flashlight beam — and unmistakable. A figure, human-shaped, moving wrong, lurching toward the camera with a speed that didn’t match its ruined, twisted gait. A voice off-screen, tense, warning someone to aim for the head. The sickening crack of impact. The figure collapsing, still, and staying that way.

Persephone watched it twice before she lowered the phone, her hands shaking so badly Harold gently took it back from her.

"That’s not—" Her voice broke entirely. "That’s not real. That can’t be real."

"It’s real," Vanya said, quiet but unflinching. "I know it’s a lot to accept all at once."

"My dad." Persephone’s breath came faster now, the panic she’d felt in her own apartment roaring back all at once, worse this time, sharpened by confirmation instead of uncertainty. "My dad, my sister — Dahlia, is she— I need to know if they’re—" She stood too fast, the room spinning violently, and had to catch herself against the arm of the couch. "Penny. Victor. I need to try again, I need to know if anyone’s—"

"Persephone." Vanya’s voice stayed level, but there was something almost gentle underneath it now. "Sit down before you hurt yourself."

"I can’t sit down!" The words came out sharper than she intended, raw with rising hysteria. "You just told me the world ended and everyone I love might be dead, I can’t just — I need to go. I need to try the satellite phone again, I need to—"

She was already moving toward the door before Vanya could say anything else, stumbling slightly, refusing the hand Harold reached out to steady her.

"I’m sorry," she said, not entirely sure who she was apologizing to. "I just — I need to be alone. I need to try."

She made it back to her own apartment on unsteady legs, slamming the door behind her, sliding down against it until she hit the floor, chest heaving, tears finally breaking free now that there was no one left to see them.

Dad. Dahlia. Victor. Penny.

Please. Please let someone still be alive.

She crawled toward the nightstand once the worst of the crying passed, yanking the drawer open with unsteady hands. The black satellite phone sat exactly where she’d left it after that last, frantic call to Dahlia — the one where her sister’s voice had cracked with fear over something about the sun, about staying indoors, about a phenomenon neither of them had understood yet.

She’d tried calling back after, more than once, in the blurred hours before the fever took her under completely. No answer. Just the same hollow silence every time.

She stared at the phone now, willing it to do something, anything, and jumped violently when it actually did.

It rang.

Dahlia.

Her hands shook so badly she nearly dropped it twice before she managed to answer.

"Dahlia?" Her voice cracked entirely on the single word. "Dahlia, are you there? Please, please be there—"