Chapter Text
The sound of crushing bone was a ghost that would haunt Max’s nightmares forever.
“Pull the shutter down! Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Oscar’s hands were trembling. Despite how long he had known Max, he could never quite get used to the frantic, adrenaline-soaked rhythm of Max’s battles.
“Get inside first!” Oscar shouted back.
The minutes seemed to stretch, turning viscous and slow, until Max finally threw himself through the pharmacy entrance. He was tearing his shirt away from the jaws of the last zombie they had failed to fell. By the time he was inside, it felt as if years had passed; Oscar could feel the thrum of his own panic rising in his throat.
“That was close,”
Oscar breathed. He couldn’t suppress the scowl deepening on his face. “Close? You almost got your arm bitten off and didn’t even think to dive inside before that!”
Max merely offered a careless shrug. It was no matter. Oscar had grown accustomed to almost every one of Max’s vices—provided he could ignore the way Max’s recklessness constantly flirted with death.
“There’s nothing here,” Max said, his voice echoing hollowly through the empty pharmacy. “We might last two or three days, but we’ll have to move again.”
The overhead lights flickered rhythmically, casting jittery shadows over overturned shelves and spilled contents. The sharp, stinging scent of disinfectant hung heavy in the air. It was a sterile, nauseating smell, but Oscar preferred it a thousand times over the copper tang of blood or the stench of decay.
As soon as they had stepped inside, Oscar’s mind had already begun constructing a checklist. Priority one: bandages for Max’s bleeding arm. Surely, in a pharmacy, finding gauze wouldn’t be an impossible task?
Max sank into a broken chair, spreading a large map across the surface before him. It was hard to wrap his head around the fact that this place had once been teeming with life—with people who possessed warmth. Oscar wanted so desperately to believe there were others out there, people still holding onto that heat. But Max had been traveling alone since the first year of the end, and he had given Oscar his grim assurance: There is no one left. No one but them.
“There’s a hospital nearby,” Max muttered, snapping Oscar back to reality. “They’ll have a cafeteria, right? Food?”
Bandages. Max needs bandages. Oscar needed to stop the bleeding before this wound became just another scar etched into Max’s skin.
“Oscar? You listening?” Max called out. “Get me that bandage.”
Max set to work tending to his wounds, leaving Oscar to scrutinize the map. It was a grim sight; nearly the entire parchment was scarred with heavy, dark ‘X’ marks. Every mark was a graveyard—a place Max had scouted and confirmed to be hollowed out, devoid of any human soul. One mark, larger than the rest, sat right over their current location.
Only one region remained untouched by the ink: a vast, sprawling forest that occupied nearly a third of the map. It was a place Max had never ventured into. Max had long ago abandoned any hope of finding survivors, and Oscar knew that Max’s only instinct for living was to keep moving. The forest wasn’t far from their current sanctuary, but a range of massive, jagged hills stood between them and the treeline, acting as a natural, daunting border. Even with their shared strength, traversing those hills would be an arduous climb.
Silence had become their primary language. Over the months, Oscar had learned to read the stories written in the depths of Max’s eyes, finding more truth there than he ever could in his voice.
“We leave at dawn,” Max said. Oscar felt his trust in his own hearing falter. It couldn’t be true. Max, are you insane? he wanted to scream. There’s a literal army of the dead out there. Do you have a death wish? Where would we even go? What’s the problem here?
Max shot him a sharp, warning glare. “Do you even remember the last time you ate, Oscar?”
Arguing with Max was a losing game; it never led anywhere but more tension. Max possessed a deep, resonant voice—a sound that occasionally pulled Oscar back to the memory of his father. A man who, by now, surely must have turned.
________________________________________
The sunlight was intrusive, piercing through the grime-caked windows of the pharmacy and stabbing directly into Oscar’s eyes. Max had prepared their packs the night before, resting his heavy axe casually across Oscar’s sweatshirt as if it were nothing more than a pillow.
“The hospital is only fifteen minutes from here,” Max noted, his eyes scanning the perimeter. “From what I can see, the area around the pharmacy is clear. We should move now.”
The trek toward the hospital was unnervingly quiet. Oscar spoke of his dreams from the night before, his voice a low murmur against the backdrop of the wasteland, while Max simply listened.
In his dreams, the answer lay beyond the hills. He dreamed of a place where the forests didn’t echo with the rhythmic, sickening crunch of teeth on bone. A place where people actually lived—where Oscar could hear a sound other than his own heartbeat or the heavy tread of Max’s boots.
He dreamed of a future that felt warm. A place of real beds, the crackle of a fireplace, and perhaps… perhaps even a person who could love him. An embrace that belonged to no one else but him. A bright, shimmering future, entirely untethered from the shadow of death.
The hospital was a monolithic corpse of a building, its skeletal walls strangled by climbing vines. In the courtyard, rusted, abandoned cars sat like hollowed-out shells, their shattered windows staring blankly at the sky. Scattered among them were the remains of those who hadn’t been fast enough—the ones who had lost their race against death. Oscar knew that mourning them was a fool’s errand; in this world, he and Max were no different. They were merely walking on borrowed time, and when their own light finally flickered out, there would be no one left to weep.
The corridors were a labyrinth of discarded gurneys and overturned wheelchairs. At a nursing station, a moldy coffee mug sat abandoned next to a chaotic spread of patient files, frozen in a moment of mid-shift panic.
To Oscar, hospitals were the cruelest part of the apocalypse. These were the places that had once been the blueprint for his entire life—the dream he had spent four grueling years chasing, only to have it snatched away. In the quiet hours, when Max was too exhausted to speak, Oscar would tell him the stories. He’d talk about his internships, the adrenaline of the ER, and his desperate, naive hunger to save lives. Lives that were now nothing but dust and echoes.
“As someone who used to work in these halls, shouldn’t you know where the cafeteria is?” Max asked, his voice cutting through Oscar’s reverie.
Oscar let out a hollow, dry laugh. “This isn’t my city anymore, Maxi.”
They found the cafeteria on the floor above. As they moved, Oscar couldn’t help but feel the ghost of his parents’ prideful stares from the day he started medical school. He remembered the first time he stepped into an operating theater, the weight of the scalpel in his hand, the terrifying, beautiful realization that he actually had the power to save someone. The first time that—
“The cans…” Max’s voice dropped, turning sharp and dangerous. “They’ve been opened. Half-eaten.”
Oscar froze, his breath hitching. “What? Like… someone actually opened them?”
Max’s eyes narrowed, a dark headache clearly blooming behind his brow. The sheer waste of it—the lack of discipline—infuriated him. “Someone was here. They ate this crap halfway through and just left it. When I catch them, I’ll—”
A piercing, jagged scream ripped through the air, cutting Max off mid-sentence.
“LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Oscar and Max spun around in unison.
There he was.
A boy. He looked to be roughly Oscar’s age, with soft, unruly curls falling over his forehead. His pale skin stood in stark contrast to the warmth of his honey-colored eyes, and his lips—small and flushed—were bitten raw from the stress of being caught.
The reaction was instantaneous. Before Oscar could even process the boy’s presence, Max had closed the distance. The knife was out, the steel cold and unforgiving against the stranger’s throat. Max forced the boy’s head back, the blade pressing firmly into the skin.
The boy’s honey eyes welled with tears that refused to stay contained, and then he let out a scream—a sound so raw and high that it seemed to vibrate in the very marrow of Oscar’s bones.
“Stop! Stop! I’ll give you everything I have! Well, I don’t actually have anything, but—but!” The boy’s words came out in a panicked, nonsensical rush. “Sex? Is that what you want? Sir? Mister? Uncle? Please, just take the knife out of my throat! I swear I’m human! Honestly, this is so homophobic—you can’t just put a knife to a gay man’s—”
“For the love of God, Max, put the knife away!” Oscar groaned, rubbing his temples. “My head is splitting.”
Max relented, sliding the blade away. The boy let out a long, theatrical sigh of relief. “Look, I don’t have a problem with a knife play, but could you at least ask for permission first? This is bordering on assault—”
Thwack!
Oscar delivered a sharp kick to the boy’s ribs. “Shut up and introduce yourself! Stop talking nonsense!”
The boy let out a pathetic, whining groan that made Oscar wince. Are all humans this high-maintenance? he wondered.
The boy turned toward the cafeteria’s refrigerator, his bravado returning with terrifying speed. “Lando Norris. Twenty-three. Physics student. My favorite number is four. My favorite color is orange. My favorite position is—”
“Just explain why you’re here!” Max snapped, his eyes flashing with irritation.
Lando placed three half-eaten cans on the table with a casual shrug. “Oh. Well, three years ago, I came to this city for a university presentation, and then everything just… broke. And, well, I guess I just got stuck here?”
Oscar narrowed his eyes, his survivalist instincts kicking in. “How exactly have you stayed alive this long?”
Max let out a heavy, defeated sigh. Lando was clearly a force of nature; if Max actually possessed a shred of patience, he might have been able to handle him. “I’m Max Verstappen. And this is my traveling companion, Oscar Piastri.”
Oscar sat down and began eating, desperately trying to ignore the chaos. For a few precious minutes, silence finally reclaimed the room, and the absence of Lando’s screaming was, quite frankly, a miracle.
Then, Lando spoke again.
“There’s a shower and a clean place to sleep here, if you want? I mean, just saying. You both look like you could use it.”
It was a suggestion that neither of them could refuse. God knows how long it had been since Max or Oscar had seen themselves in a clean mirror.
Max was the first to stand, heading toward the room Lando had indicated, leaving Oscar and the stranger alone.
The interrogation began the moment Max disappeared.
“How old are you? What was your major? And… would you have any problem if I kissed you?”
The color drained from Oscar’s face. He looked as pale as the corpses they had passed in the hallway. “Are you sure you studied physics? Why are you like this? Do you just walk up to random people and ask for kisses?”
Lando paused, looking genuinely thoughtful for a moment. “Well, no. Just pretty boys. And you… you look exactly like my type, piastri.”
Pya-isteri. The way Lando tripped over his surname made the hair on the back of Oscar’s neck stand up. “No. You can’t. And I’m twenty-three. I was in my final year of medical school.”
Lando let out a low, appreciative hum. “And your handsome friend? What about him?”
Oscar hesitated. Telling Lando about Max felt like a breach of a sacred contract. Max was a man of iron-clad boundaries; until only a month ago, Oscar hadn’t even known the man’s surname.
“He’s twenty-seven,” Oscar said, choosing his words carefully. “And he was an elite athlete.”
Lando let out a low, mischievous chuckle that sounded altogether too wicked. “That explains the broad shoulders… and those hands.”
Before Lando could launch into a full-scale interrogation of Max’s physique, the sound of footsteps approached. Oscar lunged forward, delivering a sharp slap to Lando’s arm just as Max emerged from the bathroom.
Max looked… human. He wore an oversized hoodie that made him look strangely vulnerable, his blonde hair damp and clinging to his forehead. His face was clean-shaven, and the exhaustion that usually sat like a weight on his shoulders seemed slightly lifted. For a moment, the apocalypse felt miles away.
________________________________________
Night arrived with a heaviness that Oscar had been praying to avoid. He would have traded anything just to return to the quiet, rhythmic breathing of Max—the silence that felt safe. But Lando Norris was a creature of pure, unadulterated chaos, a demon straight from the pages of a dark scripture. Even Max seemed unable to contain him.
“Maxie, you can’t leave me here alone with this guy!” Lando protested, leaning into Max’s space. “Let me take the watch. I’ll do the night shift, and we can head out tomorrow, okay?”
Max shot him a look of pure, unadulterated fatigue. “No. You need sleep, Osc. We have to cross those hills tomorrow.”
“And what about you?” Lando gestured wildly toward Max. “Have you even looked at yourself in a mirror lately?”
Max didn’t even dignify the comment with a response. He simply turned and walked toward the rooftop, leaving a trail of irritation in his wake.
“Well,” Lando said, turning back to Oscar with a grin that was far too bright for the darkness. “Looks like it’s just us again, Piastri. So, tell me… how did you meet this handsome gentleman?”
Oscar let out a defeated, jagged sigh and collapsed onto a hospital bed. It was a real bed—not the makeshift, uncomfortable places they usually found—but it lacked the warmth and softness of the dreams he used to have.
“Max and I found each other in Monaco,” Oscar murmured.
Lando sprawled out on the bed beside him, his honey-colored eyes fixed unblinkingly on Oscar’s face. “But we’re in the middle of France now?”
“Shut up, Norris, or I’ll explain it to you with my fists.”
“I’m not going to use my hands,” Lando countered playfully. “Just talk.”
Oscar took a breath, the weight of the memory pulling at him. “Max was working at the only remaining quarantine station in Monaco. Three years ago, when the world fell apart, I was studying in a nearby city. I had a safe haven, a place to hide… until two months ago. I ran out of supplies. I had no choice but to go out into the gray. The first city I reached was Monaco, and it was there I learned how to fight. I was about to be torn apart—before Max…” Oscar’s voice fractured on the final word, a tiny, broken sound. “…before Max saved me.”
The silence that followed was heavy. The tremor in Oscar’s voice was so profound that even Lando felt the sudden, sharp urge to retract his curiosity.
“I… I’m sorry I asked,” Lando whispered, his playful mask slipping for the first time.
Oscar took a long, shuddering breath, pulling the mask of indifference back over his features. “What about you? How did you survive?”
Lando let out a laugh, but there was no humor in it—only a hollow, bitter echo.
The two of them lay there in the dim light, eyes fixed on the sterile white ceiling of the hospital, both of them mourning a world that had once been bright, and a past they had never truly learned how to cherish.
“I don’t know, honestly,” Lando replied, his voice barely a shadow. “Just luck. Pure, dumb luck.”
The silence that stretched between them was thick, heavy with the weight of things unsaid. Oscar reached out, his fingers brushing the switch of the hospital’s dim, dying light. As the room plunged into darkness, he whispered a soft, tired benediction: “Sleep well, Norris.”
________________________________________
The sky was a vast, shimmering canvas of stars. It was something Max had only truly noticed in the second year after the world ended. Without the suffocating veil of light pollution and the smog of civilization, the heavens had been stripped clean. Now, the constellations were sharp and piercing; Max could almost see the shapes within the celestial dust.
Three years ago, Max’s world had been a different kind of hell.
Max Verstappen, the quarantine officer who spent every waking hour wishing for the end. He was a man who walked into fires, a man who spent his weekends bruised and broken under the heavy, rhythmic fists of his father. Back then, lying in the dark, Max didn’t dream of glory or survival. He dreamed of a single touch—just one hand to gently trace the map of his scars and soothe the burns that never seemed to heal.
The apocalypse had stripped away the man and left only the survivor. To stay alive, he had become a creature of utility, a person who would do anything, go anywhere, and become anyone to endure the next hour.
He had watched the infection bloom in Monaco like a dark flower. He had watched the transformation—the horrific, stuttering transition from human to hunger. With his own hands, he had been forced to end the lives of colleagues, of friends, of people who had once shared his breath.
He had seen the terrible irony of nature’s reclamation: the oceans turning a clearer, deeper blue; the forests growing lush and aggressive; the birds singing louder than they ever had in the age of man. The world was thriving, blooming, and breathing—and Max Verstappen remained a solitary island in the middle of it all. He was a man with no one to hold, no one to shield him from the profound, ancient loneliness that had taken root in his soul long before the first zombie ever rose.
The moon climbed higher into the velvet sky. Tomorrow would come, just like every other tomorrow, and nothing in the life of Max Verstappen would change.
This was his curse: the terrifying, silent realization that he had never truly wanted to be loved.