Control
Try not to crash into anything, otherwise you will gouge your car very quickly.
c
The engine screams as you slam the pedal down, weaving through the corpse-choked arteries of the city. Abandoned cars claw at your peripheral vision—shattered windshields glinting like broken teeth, doors hanging open like invitations to die. Your knuckles bleach white around the wheel. A overturned truck blocks the intersection ahead. You jerk the steering left, tires screeching, side-swiping a delivery van as rotting hands scramble across your passenger window. The rearview mirror fills with stumbling shadows. Doesn’t matter. Forward. Always forward. A traffic light dangles by a wire, swinging red over a corridor of crumpled sedans. You thread the needle, metal grinding metal, sparks kissing the hood. Something thumps under the chassis—could’ve been debris. Could’ve been a body. No time to care. The bridge looms half a mile north, its skeletal frame the only exit still standing. You floor it, swerving around a gutted bus, fishtailing past a crater where the road’s been shelled. Movement ahead—three figures lurching from a looted convenience store. Too close. No room to dodge. Impact shudders through the frame. The windshield spiders as a blood-streaked face smears the glass, jaw unhinged, fingers clawing for purchase. You stomp the brakes. It tumbles over the roof. No pause. No mercy. The bridge’s on-ramp curves into view, clogged with a tangle of motorcycles and charred debris. You downshift, muscles coiled, and gun straight for the narrowest gap. Metal screams. The mirror shears off. But you’re through, speedometer climbing as the city shrinks behind you. Alive. For now. The highway ahead’s no cleaner, but the gas gauge hovers near empty, and the growls echoing from the overpass shadows sound hungrier than the engine’s roar.
