DAY 5: THE HUNGER

By the fifth day, cities were hollow. Smoke curled from the ruins, the air thick with ash and the sour tang of decay. The last supermarkets were stripped clean, their glass doors shattered and aisles littered with empty wrappers. People wandered like ghosts, too weak to fight, too afraid to stop.

But beyond the cities, the countryside endured. The farmers had seen collapse before. Generations of scarcity had taught them how to live without supply chains or signals. Wells were hand-dug, seeds saved, livestock guarded like treasure. They rationed grain, harvested by hand, and cooked over open flame.

Yet even self-sufficiency had limits. The soil grew strange beneath the red haze. Crops withered early, and animals grew sick from the tainted air. Fences failed. Strangers came from the cities, desperate and armed. Each visit ended in blood or mercy, depending on who answered the door.

The nights stayed long and red. Families worked in shifts to watch the fields. Every shadow looked like a threat. Every noise in the dark could mean survival or death.

By the end of the fifth day, the cities had fallen silent, but the land still breathed slowly, stubbornly, and not without pain.

[END TRANSMISSION]