The Apocalypse Is Him

“Why the hell is there blood all over my kitchen floor, Elise? Somebody better explain this mess before I lose my mind!”

Nina Calloway woke with a jerk, her blanket tangled around one leg as Rebecca Mercer’s voice thundered through the house, loud enough to make the window beside her bed rattle. For a few confused seconds, she lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering what she had done now, because Rebecca could turn a missing spoon into a full investigation when she was in one of her moods.

Then Elise started laughing downstairs.

Of course she was laughing. That girl could probably set the house on fire and giggle while everyone else burned.

Nina dragged herself out of bed, pulled on the oversized shirt lying across her chair, and hurried downstairs, already preparing an insult sharp enough to make Elise regret being born. Unfortunately, the sight waiting in the kitchen swallowed the words before they reached her mouth.

Elise stood beside the sink in pink pyjamas, a wad of tissue pressed beneath her nose, while red blood slipped between her fingers and dripped onto the white tiles. Rebecca had one hand on Elise’s forehead and the other gripping her chin, turning her daughter’s face toward the kitchen light like she expected to discover a second nose hiding somewhere.

Daniel Mercer stood near the refrigerator with his reading glasses halfway down his nose, looking personally offended by the amount of blood his daughter had managed to produce before breakfast.

“Would somebody tell me why my daughter is bleeding into my kitchen instead of getting ready for the day?” he demanded, reaching for the kitchen roll. “And please give me an answer that doesn’t involve another stupid video you watched on your phone.”

Elise rolled her eyes so hard Nina wondered whether they might get stuck. “I bent down to pick up my charger under the bed, and my nose started bleeding like I had been punched by a professional boxer, which is apparently a crime punishable by having the entire family inspect my face.”

“Your face is dripping blood onto my floor, young lady, so excuse me for showing an interest,” Rebecca snapped, checking her temperature again. “When did you last eat, and why are your hands colder than the water coming out of this tap?”

“Because you keep making me stand here while you interrogate me, Mum, and I would appreciate a lawyer before this situation becomes any more ridiculous.”

Nina would have laughed if the blood had not looked so bright against Elise’s pale fingers. “You look like you lost a fight with a butcher, and somehow you’re still finding the energy to annoy everybody.”

“Thank you, Nina, your support means the world to me,” Elise replied, holding the bloody tissue toward her. “Perhaps you could contribute something useful and fetch me a towel before I bleed to death in front of the fridge.”

“Use the kitchen roll, you disgusting little menace.”

The television muttered from the living room, where the morning news had been playing since Daniel woke up. Nina was turning toward it when the presenter’s voice sharpened enough to cut through their bickering, announcing reports of unexplained deaths across several cities, overcrowded emergency departments, and patients attacking medical staff after arriving with high fevers and severe confusion.

A red banner crawled along the bottom of the screen, warning viewers about what officials were calling a developing neurological infection. The government urged people to avoid crowded places, report unusual symptoms, and remain calm while medical teams investigated the cause.

Behind the presenter, police officers carried a blood-covered man through a hospital entrance while another patient hurled himself against a glass door, smashing his forehead into it hard enough to leave a dark, wet smear.

The man did it again, apparently oblivious to the blood sliding down his face.

Nina stopped reaching for the cupboard.

“What the actual hell is wrong with that man?” Elise asked, lowering her tissue just enough to see the screen. “They should probably stop letting people out of their rooms if they’re going to behave like rabid animals.”

The presenter continued talking about public safety, although her smile had become painfully stiff. Somebody spoke outside the camera’s view, too quietly for Nina to understand, and the woman’s eyes darted sideways before she hurriedly shuffled her papers. The broadcast disappeared into an advertisement for laundry detergent, complete with a cheerful woman promising to remove stubborn stains.

“Wonderful, somebody is smashing his head against hospital glass, and apparently our biggest problem is dirty clothes,” Elise muttered, throwing her bloody tissue into the bin. “Perhaps the detergent kills whatever has crawled into his brain.”

“Can you stop joking about everything for five minutes?” Nina asked, surprising herself with how irritated she sounded.

Elise’s grin faded slightly, but before she could answer, Rebecca’s phone vibrated against the counter. She read the message twice, her mouth tightening as she typed a reply to someone from the clinic where she worked.

“What happened now?” Daniel asked, watching her face instead of the television.

“One of my colleagues says their suppliers have stopped delivering bottled water, disinfectant, and disposable gloves to several clinics, and she wants me to bring whatever we can find before the situation gets worse.” Rebecca rubbed her forehead, then looked at the girls. “If you’re going to the supermarket, get the supplies on this list and come straight home instead of wandering around wasting time.”

Daniel reached for his car keys. “Go now while the shelves are stocked, because I refuse to spend tomorrow fighting strangers over a bottle of water when we could have bought everything today.”

Rebecca looked ready to argue, but another news alert flashed across the television, and she snatched up a pen to add more items to the list. “I’m serious about this, girls, and I want both of you to keep your phones charged, stay together, and leave immediately if anybody starts acting strangely.”

“We are buying water and gloves, not infiltrating a terrorist compound,” Elise complained, although she tucked the list into her pocket without another argument.

Nina was still watching her friend when Elise caught her looking at the tissue bin, where a red stain had soaked through the thin paper.

“Stop staring at my blood as if you’ve discovered evidence of a terrible crime, because I promise you that having a nosebleed does not make me interesting enough to investigate.”

“You’ve never been interesting enough to investigate, but congratulations on finally giving me a reason to avoid sharing food with you.”

Elise laughed and hooked her arm through Nina’s, but the grin slipped when she noticed Nina had gone quiet. “You would miss me terribly if I disappeared, so try not to look so miserable while I’m still around to improve your life.”

The joke struck somewhere Nina did not want touched. Her biological parents had died when she was young, leaving behind memories that had become increasingly blurry with every passing year, and although the Mercers had welcomed her into their home without making her feel like an unwanted extra mouth to feed, she still carried the old fear of losing people without warning.

Elise understood that better than anyone, which was probably why her teasing expression softened almost immediately.

“Sorry, Nina, that was a horrible thing to joke about, and I’m not going anywhere unless somebody finally gets tired of my beautiful face and throws me out.”

“You would come back through the window just to annoy them, so I doubt anybody is going to get that lucky,” Nina replied, allowing Elise to drag her toward the door before either of them could make the moment more uncomfortable.

Outside, the neighbourhood carried on with its usual morning nonsense, a bus coughing black smoke at the corner while two children argued over a football and a delivery driver shouted at a man who had parked across half the road. Somewhere nearby, a radio played loudly enough for an entire street to hear, and somebody was frying onions with the windows open.

Then an ambulance sped past without its siren, swerving around a taxi before disappearing at the intersection.

Nina watched it go, noticing a man beside a parked car who stood perfectly still with his head bowed over his hands. Blood covered his palms and dripped onto the pavement, but he kept rubbing his fingers together as though he could not understand what he was looking at.

“Maybe he hurt himself,” Elise said, following Nina’s gaze, although she sounded less certain than she had a minute earlier.

Before Nina could answer, her phone vibrated with an emergency alert warning that unexplained deaths had risen sharply overnight. Authorities were asking witnesses to report unusual behaviour at hospitals, and the message urged residents to avoid unnecessary travel while investigations continued.

A second notification arrived before she finished reading the first.

BREAKING NEWS: A local hospital has reported several missing bodies from its secured morgue.

Nina stared at the words, then looked back toward the ambulance’s empty stretch of road as another alert began loading beneath them.

The hospital has not confirmed how the bodies disappeared, and families are being advised not to approach the facility.