137

One Week Later

The apartment complex felt eerily quiet, except for the occasional groan of hunger and whispered conversations in the dead of night. The residents looked thinner, their faces pale, their eyes hollow. The little food they had left was rationed to the extreme—crackers split into quarters, canned goods stretched to last days, water measured to the last drop.

Karl observed it all in silence. He had expected this.

From his window, he could see the empty streets below, abandoned cars rusting under the sun. The outside world had become a graveyard. The power had flickered out two days ago, leaving them in darkness. Now, the only sources of light at night were candles and weak flashlights running on borrowed batteries.

And the food situation was only getting worse.

It was inevitable.

Another meeting was called.