heavenward | n.scatorccio

The cold cut through the air like shards of glass, the wind snapping at their faces as they climbed, each rung a distant, frail promise of safety. The radio tower swayed in the wind, a skeletal figure that stretched up into the pale, gray sky. The snow had slowed to a whisper, thick and steady, the ground below a blanket of white, indistinguishable from the horizon. The world felt impossibly quiet.

Julianna's fingers were numb, but she gripped the icy ladder tighter, pulling herself up toward the top, her body trembling from the exertion and the weight of everything hanging just beneath her. The higher she climbed, the more her thoughts began to swirl, the wind biting at her exposed skin as the metal beneath her hands grew slicker with the fall of snow. But the sound, a low, guttural growl, stopped her dead in her tracks.

At first, it was nothing. A shift in the wind, a rustle of snow underfoot, or maybe just the blood pounding in her ears. But then it came again. Closer this time. And then, a flash—a quick, unsettling movement in the shadows below.

Julianna froze, her heart hammering in her chest. Her eyes darted downward, but there was nothing. Nothing but her brother beginning his ascent up the ladder.

She blinked and gripped the ladder even harder. The air felt thick. Dangerously thick.

It wasn't the wind she heard. Not this time. It was something else—something animalistic. The kind of sound that stirred an old, primal fear in her gut. The kind of sound that meant something was watching.

Her thoughts fractured in an instant, spiralling with that same stomach-twisting feeling she'd had ever since they'd first set foot in this nightmare. Something was wrong, like always.

Then came the sound again, closer now, curling through the air like a whisper of promised violence. It lingered, patient, calculating, as though it had been waiting for them to climb high enough, to teeter just close enough to the edge. A growl, low and guttural, swelled from the shadows—a sound like shifting earth before a collapse, like ribs cracking under pressure. It wasn’t just hunger. It was the slow, deliberate exhale of something that knew it had already won.

Julianna's blood ran cold. Her heart beat out of her chest, a thundering pulse that she could feel in her throat, her hands, in the very pit of her stomach. She could hear something moving below, around the base of the tower. She could feel its eyes, even if she couldn't see it.

She reached the top of the ladder just as the growls reached an unbearable pitch.

"Julianna—" Natalie's voice cracked through the silence, sharp, desperate. She pulled Julianna up the last step of the ladder, her fingers tight around her wrist, forcing her forward.

Natalie was pulling her through the narrow opening into the tower. She stumbled, her legs giving out from the exhaustion, but Natalie's grip was iron-tight, dragging her toward the dim, flickering light inside.

Julianna's breath hitched in her throat, but she let Natalie pull her inside the radio tower. Her muscles were screaming, the strain of climbing too much, but the pressure in the air was stronger now. She could feel it. The heat of something in the cold. She wanted to look down. She knew she should look down. But when she did, everything below her seemed to ripple with that same terrifying sensation.

But even as she was hauled to safety, her mind screamed.

She barely had time to regain her footing before she turned back to look down at her brother, still climbing. Her eyes locked onto Jeff, who was halfway up, his hands tight around the ladder as he pulled himself up, one foot after the other, sweat slicking his forehead despite the cold. He was looking up, trying to see the others, trying to gauge how close he was to the top.

And then, through the veil of falling snow and the mounting tension in the air, she saw it. She couldn't look away. Not even when her throat tightened and her pulse begged her to turn around and look anywhere else.

At the base of the tower, crouching in the snow like a shadow stretched too long, was a figure.

At first, it seemed almost human—bent low, crouched in a predatory stance, its eyes glowing with a sharp, predatory gleam. But it wasn't human. No. No, it couldn't be.

Its skin was pulled too tight over bones, streaked with scars and wear, like something that had been left to fester in the hollow of a withered tree, where time had forgotten to bleed, its roots tangled in the dark, choked by the quiet decay of forgotten things. Its teeth were jagged, curved in a way that made her insides bend, gleaming white in the gray light. It's nails stretched unnaturally long, like broken claws caked with a mixture of dried blood and dirt, as if they had been burrowing through the very structure of the world. And the sound—it wasn't a growl now. It was a snarl, sharp and intelligent, as if it knew exactly what it was doing. The creature's eyes locked onto Jeff.

It was waiting for him.

Julianna's breath caught in her throat as she watched the thing shift, its claws scraping against the snow like a knife through flesh. It was moving, slow at first, but with precision. Its body moved like liquid, sliding through the air with terrifying control, its muscles twitching beneath leathery skin.

And then, as if it had made its decision, it stirred. Slowly at first, like a corpse begrudgingly waking, its limbs unfurling with a sickening, bone-shattering crack. The sound was like the splitting of rotten wood, as joints popped and tore. Its body, twisted and gnarled, lurched upward, spindly arms reaching for the air with unnatural grace.

In a heartbeat, it was moving—slithering and circling the base of the tower, its feet dragging across the earth with a slick, meaty sound. The ground beneath it pulsed in time with the rhythmic scraping of its claws. Its breath, shallow and rasping, rose in filthy clouds that clung to the air, thick with the stench of spoilage.

"Jeff! Get up here! Hurry!" Julianna's voice cracked, her heart in her throat.

But Jeff didn't move faster. He was still climbing, every step deliberate, as if he couldn't feel the eyes burning into his back. As if he didn't hear the growl rising up from the thing beneath him.

It wasn't just one anymore. From the mountains, another shape emerged. And then another. And another.

And now, they were circling—stalking.

Julianna's stomach plummeted, an inscrutable ache spreading through her as the things moved with eerie precision, their motions synchronized like a choreographed dance. They lingered just beyond the edges of her vision, slipping in and out of the light snow, as though they were attuned to the very movement of her fingertips. Every shift, every rustle, was calculated—each one a deadly, hoarding the information of they would strike.

Her hands clung to the edge of the tower with a desperation that made the metal bite into her palms, tearing at her skin like sharp teeth. The disjointed edges of the steel dug deep, each corner a searing burn against her raw skin. She could feel the pulsing heat of blood rising beneath the surface, threatening to spill, but she didn't dare let go. Every heartbeat thrummed painfully in her fingers, as if her grip could hold her together, or tear her apart.

Jeff's breath came in heaving gasps, his hands trembled as he grabbed the last rung of the rusted ladder, pulling himself up onto the platform of the radio tower. His fingers ached from climbing, from holding on, from surviving.

Then came the sound. The tearing of metal, the sharp scrape of nails against steel.

Julianna saw it first.

Her scream ripped through the air as the thing, the infected—the hunter, lunged. It moved too fast, faster than anything should, its elongated claws catching on Jeff's calf. His body jerked back violently, his hands scrabbling at the floor beneath him, fingers reaching, grasping for anything. His scream was raw, a choked, strangled sound of sheer terror as the Hunter's weight yanked him down. His knee slammed into the steel frame of the ladder, a sickening crack ringing through the night.

Shauna grabbed his wrist.

For a fleeting moment, it seemed like she might actually pull him through. That maybe, maybe he'd be okay. But the Hunter's claws tore deeper, hooked into muscle and flesh, and pulled. The slick sound of skin tearing filled the space between his cries.

"Jeff—" Julianna shrieked, stumbling forward just as Shauna made the choice.

The only choice.

The doors slammed shut.

The lock clicked into place.

And Jeff was still outside.

For a moment, the only thing Julianna could hear was her own heartbeat, slamming against her ribs, deafening and all-consuming.

Then came the impact.

Jeff slammed against the window. His body lurched forward, fingers slipping in his own blood as he tried to clamber his way up. His face was a twisted mask of terror and agony, his mouth shaping words she couldn't hear, couldn't understand. His hands slapped against the glass, leaving behind streaks of red as he begged.

Begged to live.

The Hunter hit him again, dragging him down. His skull cracked against the metal grating, dazing him for just a second—long enough for the creature to pounce.

Julianna threw herself against the glass, her fingers meeting his through the cold surface.

Her throat burned from screaming, but she couldn't stop. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.

Jeff's eyes met hers.

Wide. Terrified.

The Hunter's teeth sank into his shoulder, ripping. His back arched as a wet, gurgling scream tore out of him. Blood sprayed against the window in a grotesque arc, painting Julianna's horrified reflection in red.

She could see the tendons stretch, snap, unravel like string as the Hunter ingested him.

Its jaws locked around his flesh, pulling, tugging—ripping. Strips of him disappeared into its mouth, its slitted pupils locked onto her even as it devoured her brother alive. Gulping him down, chunk by chunk.

Julianna screamed, kicked, threw her fists against the glass so hard her knuckles split open.

"Stop! Stop—please—"

He was convulsing now. Twitching. His body still fighting, still trying, even as his insides spilled out onto the metal grating. His fingers, the ones that had been reaching for her just seconds ago, twitched before curling into a weak fist.

A sob tore from her lips, inhumane and broken.

The Hunter went for his stomach.

Julianna heard it. They all heard it.

The moist, obscene tearing as its claws raked through the soft meat, prying it open like it was nothing. It plunged its face inside, gorging itself, feasting, making him nothing.

Jeff's body jolted. A choked, bubbling sound escaped him as blood gushed from his lips, dribbling down his chin in thick, glistening ropes. His eyes were barely open now, glazed and distant, but he was still alive. Still feeling it.

And Julianna could do nothing.

She felt hands on her, Natalie, pulling her back, shushing her, whispering something she couldn't hear. She thrashed, fought, but Natalie held on.

As if it would do anything. As if anything mattered.

Jeff made one last sound.
A breath. A gurgle.

His body collapsed, limbs sagging in unnatural angles as his very life was siphoned from him. The once steady beat of his breath faltered, and his skin grew cold to the touch, a ghostly pallor settling in. He seemed to sink into a state of lifelessness, as though his soul had abandoned its vessel, leaving behind only an empty shell, hollow and limp.

The infected lifted its head, Jeff's blood smeared across its face, strands of flesh caught between its jagged teeth. It grinned.

Julianna was fighting.

She was fighting like her life depended on it, thrashing in Natalie's arms, nails clawing at her skin, legs kicking, body convulsing with raw, animalistic desperation. Her screams were hoarse, torn from the deepest parts of her soul, rasping and uneven as if her throat were lined with glass.

"Let me go! LET ME GO! I can help him! I can—"

"Julianna—"

"I can get him back—!"

Her voice cracked. She slammed her fists against Natalie's chest, hard, but Natalie didn't let go. She just held on tighter, her fingers digging into Julianna's arms, stabilising her, keeping her from doing something stupid—even though it didn't feel stupid to her.

It felt necessary.

It felt like the only thing that made sense.

Natalie's breath hitched, her own tears spilling over now, streaking through the grime and blood on her face. "Julianna—he's gone."

"No. No. No." She shook her head so violently her neck ached. "No, he's not! You didn’t see—he looked at me! He was still there! I can get him—I—I can still—”

Julianna lurched toward the door, her fingers scraping against the cold metal, nails bending backward as she tried to pry it open. "Please," she gasped, turning to Shauna, to Misty, to anyone. "Please, just—just let me try. Please, I'm begging you—"

Her voice broke on the last word, splintering.

"I can pull him out, I know I can, I just—I just need to go out there, I can—I can fix this!"

She turned to Shauna, eyes wild, pleading. "Please, Shauna, please, you can't do this to him. You can't just—just let him die like this!"

Shauna's face was twisted in pain, eyes glossed with tears, her jaw clenched so tightly it trembled. She didn't speak. Didn't move.

Julianna turned next to Misty, hands gripping her arms, shaking her so hard her teeth nearly rattled. "You're smart, you always have a plan! Tell me how to save him! Tell me what to do! Please—"

Misty's lips parted, but no words came out.

Julianna screamed, hands curling into fists, slamming against the door. "Someone please—just open the fucking door!"

Julianna's screams streamed into raw, strained sobs, each one a jagged shard scraping her throat, to the point she thought blood would congeal.

She grabbed at Shauna again, nails digging into her arms, shaking her so hard that it reverberated both of them.

"Don't just stand there! Please—"

Shauna's face contorted, like she was holding something back, like she wasn't letting herself feel it.

That only made Julianna angrier.

"You're supposed to—" she was out of breathe, "You're supposed to help!?" she screamed, shoving Shauna so hard she nearly stumbled. "You're just—going to let him die?! You're going to stand there while he—while he—"

Her breath hitched, her voice cracking apart.

She spun around, wild-eyed, searching, begging, for anyone to do something, for anyone to tell her this wasn't happening.

She turned on Misty ahah , grabbing her shoulders, voice breaking as she pleaded.

"You fix things, Misty—you fix everything—" Her nails bit into Misty's skin, hard enough to leave marks, but she didn't care. "Tell me how to fix this! Tell me what to do—please i'll-"

Misty flinched, something flashing in her eyes—guilt, regret, helplessness, but she said nothing, as quiet sobs escaped her lips.

Julianna shoved her away.

Her hands clawed at the door now, fingers slipping in the blood that had splattered onto the handle. Her nails bent as she yanked at it, sobbing so violently that her whole body shook.

"Please—please—you don't understand!"

The silence beyond the glass was a gaping void, echoing with the sound of forgotten things, a suffocating hum that seemed to pull the air from her lungs, leaving nothing but the cold, brittle reverberation of what wasn't being said.

She slammed her fists against it, over and over and over, until her skin split open and her own blood smeared across the surface.

"I'm begging you—just—please—"
Her voice was shattering, breaking down into something primal, something that didn't even sound human anymore.

She turned to Natalie again, grabbing her now, fingers tangled in her jacket, sobbing into her chest like she could bury herself inside of her and make this all go away.

"He needs me, Nat, he needs me! I can't—I can't leave him like that! I can't—"

Her knees hit the floor, shaking, her breath hitching in sharp, uneven sobs. Natalie held her, arms wrapped around her so tightly it should've hurt, but it didn't.

Nothing hurt.

Nothing hurt more than this.

She crumpled completely, collapsing into Natalie like all the fight had just drained out of her at once.

And all that was left was pain.

She pressed her forehead against Natalie's shoulder, her whole body wracked with sobs, shaking so violently it felt like she was falling apart at the seams.

"I should've saved him—," she whispered, her voice so broken it was barely a sound.

Natalie's arms tightened around her, her own breath ragged.

"It wasn't your fault."

Julianna shook her head, the tears spilling over in torrents, each sob ripping through her chest. It felt as though her very soul, already stained and forsaken, was being torn apart from the deepest, most agonizing core. Every breath she drew scraped against the inflamed, shredded edges of her insides, as if she were breathing in barbed wire, stinging and searing. The pain twisted inside her, unbearable, until she thought she might break entirely.

"Then why does it feel like it is?"

Natalie had no answer.

Because there wasn't one.
Because nothing would ever be enough to fix this.

Because he was gone, and Julianna was still here.
And she didn't know how to live with that.

She hadn't cried since the world ended. Not when they lost food, not when they ran for their lives, not when she watched people she cared for die.

She held it in. Every time. Every goddamn time.

All of it. The fear, the anger, the shame, because if she had been faster, if she had held on tighter, if she had done something different, maybe her brother wouldn't be a pile of shredded, unrecognizable meat on the other side of the door.

Maybe she wouldn't feel so alone again.

Natalie was crying too, but she was quiet about it to the point you couldn’t hear unless you were really listening. The kind of crying that meant she had nothing left to give, nothing left to say. She just wrapped herself around Julianna, holding her against her chest, her chin resting on Julianna's hair, her breath uneven but there.

Julianna clutched at her, sobbing into her jacket, into the blood-stained fabric that still smelled like smoke and sweat and something unnameable.

"I can't—," Julianna whispered, shaking. "I can't do this without him."

"You can," Natalie whispered back, her voice barely above a breath. "I know you can."

"I don't want to."

Natalie swallowed hard, her own breath faltering, her tears hot against Julianna's scalp.

"I know."

Her arms were still locked around Julianna, her breath uneven, her own tears dripping onto Julianna's hair. She wasn't saying anything anymore.

Julianna's sobs turned to shaking, her body convulsing against Natalie's. It was like her muscles had given up, like her bones couldn't hold her up anymore. She felt empty and full of grief all at once, like her body was rejecting reality, like if she cried hard enough, she could wake up and this wouldn't be real.

But it was real.

It was so real.

The blood on the glass.

The way he looked at her in his last moments, begging her to save him, begging her not to leave him to die alone.

And she had.

She let out another broken sob, her voice so hoarse it barely made a sound.

But holding her wasn't enough. Nothing was enough.

Julianna felt like she was being peeled, layer by layer, and something vital inside of her was unravelling, snapping strand by strand. She was suffocating in it, drowning, gasping for air between gut-wrenching, body-wracking sobs that made her whole chest seize.

She clutched at Natalie like she could anchor herself to something, like if she held on tight enough, she wouldn't vanish into this black hole inside her. But it didn't matter how hard she squeezed, how violently she shook, the pain didn't stop. It only grew, feeding on her, tearing her apart like the Hunter had torn apart Jeff.

She could still hear it. The grotesque ripping of flesh. The crunch of his bone splitting. The gurgling, choked sounds he made before he stopped moving.

What was the point of surviving if he wasn't here?

What was the point if he was just bones now, just pieces of something that used to be him, used to laugh, used to hold her when she cried, used to tell her everything was going to be okay?

She would never hear his voice again.

She would never see him smile.

She would never get to tell him she loved him one last time.

A thousand knives shoved into her chest, creating a wound inside of her, growing deeper and deeper until there was nothing left of her but loss.

And outside, the killer was still there.

Waiting. Grinning.

Julianna squeezed her eyes shut, because what else could she do?

What was she supposed to do now?

There was no coming back from this.
There was no surviving this.

This wasn't the kind of pain that healed.

The room was silent, except for her sobs.
And everyone was staring. Tears sat on their cheeks like condensation on cold glass, heavy with grief yet refusing to fall freely. They did not sob, did not wail—only let the sorrow seep from their skin in quiet, glistening trails.

Shauna stood stiff, her arms wrapped around herself so tightly her nails dug into her skin, her expression unreadable, because what was she supposed to say? What could she possibly say?

Misty had gone eerily still, her usually sharp, calculating eyes dim, her fingers twitching like she wanted to do something, say something, fix something, but she couldn't.

She buried her face into Natalie's shoulder, shaking violently, sucking in desperate, broken breaths that did nothing to stop the tribulation splitting her chest open.

If a brother dies, does sisterhood die with him? Or does it linger in the hollow spaces he left behind, in the echoes of a name no longer answered? Are you still a sister when the other half of the bond is dust, or is love enough to keep the title alive?

He was gone.
Her brother.

Her forever first and last resort.
Gone.

And she hadn't even gotten to say goodbye.