A forlorn breeze blew through the shattered window and into the tomb in which Gretta sat.
A handful of leaves danced across the dusty floor, around her huddled figure, around the rusted and decaying skeletons of chairs and people (Why me?).
Gretta’s only company was a lifeless, neon sign (Why me?). It hung loosely on the wall above a husk of a coffee machine, crying ‘We Got What You Knead’.
The scientists said immunity was her blessing, but in this dark reality, it was her curse (Why me?). You’ll be safe, they reassured her, but they didn’t tell her she’d be lonely (Why me?). They told her she was lucky, but she didn’t feel that way (Why me?).
On the last day the café had been open, Gretta had carved two words into the wood. It had begun as an outburst of emotion, an isolated act of rebellion against an invisible enemy (Why me?). Now it was ritual, the only routine she had (Why me?) — two words, carved into every table. There wasn’t an inch of polished wood left (Why me?). When she’d blunted the first knife, she raided the kitchen and grabbed another (Why me?). She’d lost track of how many she’d gone through (Why me?). So many days blurred into one, but this one would be different (Why me?).
Today she’d run out of tables. Her ritual dissolved. It formed something new.
What now?
