Title: a hungry chorus
Fandom: Original
Length: 949 words
Rating: PG-13
Content notes: it's an apocalypse: there are people who are not quite zombies, a lone survivor and an unhappy ending.
Authors Notes: I hope I did this right, I already put int he wrong header once, so hopefully everything else is okay now.
Summary: Your world is nothing but the music in your headphones.

You live your life between a pair of headphones. You push the music into your head, blast the sound into your skull because it's either that or listen to what people are saying and you can't do that, it's not safe anymore.

There are people outside, slamming their fists in a rhythm that makes your heart pound in your chest. You can feel it, the ground trembles as the weight of a hundred hungry hands slam into the building. They're desperate to get in but too out of their minds to comprehend how to open a door or break a window.

They want you but they don't get you, not now at least.

You know that if you take off your headphones you'll hear the chanting. They are crying out, a blending of voices singing awful songs of hunger, of blood and violence. They don't know what they're saying anymore but you know you are still able to process words in a way that means you can still be pulled in.

It's when the words stop making sense, when everything feels like it's clogged in your brain and all thoughts are sluggish and creeping, that's when you're done for.

Sometimes you think about praying, about whispering words to any deity who can hear you, but you're sure that it won't make a difference. Other people, people with stronger connections to the gods, have been trying and failing and you know you won't be the voice that tips the volume just loud enough so they might pay attention.

You want to scream, to cry out and be loud. You want to slam your feet on the ground, dance and sing and make noise to remind yourself you are still here. You are still alive, you are still going to persist in being a thinking person until they rip the headphones from your ears, tear the words from your throat and eave you bleeding on the floor.

Instead, your feet take you to the roof of the building, slow steps moving in a way that feels like you're trying to pretend to be casual and really just want to run as fast as you possibly can. No matter how fast or slow you go though, you know what will be up there, you know she's waiting for you.

Pushing the door open, you see the girl, she's maybe about twelve and she's moving her lips but you can't hear her. She's been out here for days and you're a little surprised she didn't just jump. But maybe her brain can't make the connection that over the edge of the roof lies freedom. She was already too far gone when you found her in the building, there was no saving her.

But there was no killing her either. You didn't know how she got in and you weren't sure if there were others waiting for you but you knew you couldn't shoot her. She was someone's child, someone's granddaughter. You were never a violent person and the end of the world didn't change that. SO, instead of killing her, of putting her out of her misery maybe, you leave her here, check on her every few days and then go back down into the building and hope to any god above that this is a nightmare and you'll awaken soon enough.

You never do and your faith in dreams is running low.

You wave at her as she lurches towards you, awkward and weak but still as hungry and craving violence as any of them. You step back, shaking your head and shutting the door. You'll check on her again in a few days.

You descent the stairs and you feel yourself growing tired. You don't know why, whether it's seeing the girl, knowing the people below or just realizing that when you reach your apartment, there wont' be anyone there. There won't be anyone anywhere, at least not anyone you know, or anyone who knows and recognizes you as a human and not a form of food.

Your head rings with the sound of your music and just for a moment you entertain the idea of taking off the headphones, letting the silence was h over you for a few minutes. You don't remember what silence feels like, not anymore, and you want to remember.

Your hands move to push the headphones away.

Just for a few minutes.

They hang around your neck and you realize that you can still hear the music. You pull out your iPod and press pause.

Silence.

Except not. You knew it wouldn't be completely quiet, you knew that you would hear them.

And you do, you do hear them, words clearer than you thought they would ever be. They echo in your head, carry their weight with them and wrap around you, strangling the words in your own throat, all those prayers you never said, all the promises you never offered.

It's not a peace that washes over you but a slow, almost crawling, understanding.

It was always going to be this way, you were always going to give in. It's coming for all of you, every last being that it can inhabit, it will take.

Something whispers in your head, a gentle sound, unlike the tingling in your hands, the hunger in your belly. It soothes, it promises you that you are not alone.

And as you go to the doors of the building, opening them and stepping into the closer of people, all chanting the same words over and over again, you realize it's not a chant at all.

It's a sing, a beautiful song, and you've just been recruited into the chorus.