Fragments drifted through the air.
They were not dust, but fragments of people.
Fingernails, skin flakes, hair, teeth, bone marrow, brain matter.
Everything that could be broken had been ground into powder in this world.
The powder floated through the air, settled on people, and was inhaled into their lungs.
Those particles carried fragments of their former owners' consciousness. Even a tiny clipping of nail retained the instinct to "live."
They entered the bodies of the living dead, coursing through their blood vessels, accumulating in their organs, and taking root in their brains.
They would sprout—not literally, but multiply on the level of consciousness.
A fragment of consciousness from a tiny piece of nail would grow into a new voice inside some living dead person's mind.
That voice would endlessly say: I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.
Whether that living dead person wanted to live or not, the voice would keep repeating it.
After countless years, when those voices filled the living dead person's mind until it could hold no more, the voices would spill from their ears, noses, and mouths, mingle with the air, become new fragments, and drift into someone else's lungs.
The living dead had empty eyes.
Not the emptiness of having no emotions, but the emptiness of being crammed so full of emotions, memories, and pain that there was no room left inside, and no light from outside could penetrate.
You thought they were looking at you, but in truth, they were looking at no one.
They merely existed in that direction, out of habit and without meaning, like stone statues forgotten in the wilderness.
They did not speak.
Not because they were mute, but because their voices were blocked.
There was too much in their throats—phlegm, blood, shredded flesh,