The scent of burnt flesh hung heavy in the air.

It pervaded the empty highway, wafting into every crevice and crack on the damaged tar. Jaelynn fought the urge to block her nose as she traipsed forwards. Holding her head high, she took in her surroundings.

Piles of ash littered the side of the road, lurking on the edges of her peripheral vision. Occasionally, the jagged remains of a skull peeked out from underneath the grey cinders. She did her best not to look at them, determined to keep her gaze trained in front of her.

She'd seen far too many incinerated corpses in the last year as it was.

Large buildings lined the street to her left. Once majestic and proud, they were slowly starting to fall into a state of disrepair. Windows were shattered, bricks starting to crumble away and bright graffiti covered the dusty walls, the contrast of the colourful words almost jarring against the dull concrete.

Jaelynn hated coming into the centre of town, preferring the quiet outskirts or residential areas. The dilapidated buildings and obvious signs of neglect always sent chills down her spine. The quiet atmosphere punctuated by the occasional scream made her nauseous.

There was also the likely possibility that she could be discovered or followed. Not to mention killed.

But today she had to take the chance. A fact that she was reminded of as she turned to her right, looking at the line of trees that bordered the forest. Her destination for the day lay in between the tall, imposing trunks and their golden and russet crowns.

A soft breeze lightly kissed her cheeks as she stepped off the broken road and onto the dry grass. It crunched beneath her cautious feet, sounding far too loud in the otherwise barren landscape. Every few heartbeats, she stopped to listen, ensuring that she wasn't being followed.

Her pulse thudded in her ears with each step. Out here, there was no cover, nowhere to hide if she were spotted, and Jae hated feeling so exposed. She was torn between proceeding slowly and carefully, her ears peeled for any sign of movement; or rushing forwards and closing the distance as quickly as she could. The former won out, and the minutes dragged on as beads of sweat coated her forehead and ran down her cheeks, her stomach twisting into knots.

Finally, after several excruciating minutes, she reached the tree line and stepped beneath the leafy canopy. Following the small marks carved into the bark, she found the wide clearing where two make-shift crosses were placed in the ground.

The wood on them was old and chipped, the nails holding the pieces together rusted. It had been a year today since she hammered them into the hard soil, and the weather had not been kind.

Kneeling down in front of them, she placed one hand on the ground. The earthy smell of dirt enveloped her, comforting her in a way that nothing else seemed to these days. She breathed in deeply, reveling in it for a moment before finally speaking, her voice thick from the lump that formed in her throat.

"I would say I wish you were here, but that would be a lie."

The words sounded harsh, but she meant them with every fibre of her being. She wouldn't wish this life on anyone. In truth, she believed that her parents were lucky, escaping the fate that the rest of the world succumbed to.

The existence that she was forced to endure.

"I was warned against coming here. Apparently, there's no room for sentimentality with The Risen wandering around," she muttered darkly, still annoyed at Jonah for his lack of diplomacy. She would never forget his parting words as she left the house they shared with the rest of their group. Or the look in his eyes as he uttered them.

She heaved a deep sigh, glancing through the dead leaves above her that were barely clinging to their branches. The day had been hot, almost unbearable. But now it was getting late. The sun was fast approaching on the horizon. Burnt orange and yellow painted the sky in streaks, softly mixing with the light blue.

It was one of the few beautiful things left in this world.

"But I had to." Her voice cracked as she blinked back tears. "Today marks a year."

One year since their dying screams echoed in her ears. One year since she spent hours digging their shallow graves by herself. One year since she nailed those crosses together.

Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days of learning to survive without them.

She plucked a donkey weed from the base of her father's cross and tore the leaves into tiny shreds, littering the ground around her knees with the remains. "Keenan thinks we may have to move on soon, find another place to settle. Our food runs come back with less each time. We've emptied out almost every shop and household within walking distance."

Keenan was technically their leader. Although, they weren't really supposed to have one, he took charge when no one else would step up. The Lost was just a bunch of survivors who grouped together, hoping that the old adage of 'safety in numbers' rang true. But Jae was starting to question whether attaching herself to them had been a good idea.

When the corpses first started crawling out of the ground, looking and sounding just like everyone else, her parents were still alive. She stayed with them, following every decision they made as though it was gospel.

Three months into The Rise, they were taken from her, caught in the crossfire between the dead and the living. At night, she could still hear her mother's screams as she was murdered by one of The Risen. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the panicked look on her father's face just before his neck was snapped. The sharp crack of it still reverberated through her body when she relived those final moments with them.

Now, she had no one. The earth was left in ruins, and those that were still alive fought for survival every day. The world had become a dangerous place. Each day that she woke up was a blessing, not a given. All because people tried to play 'God' and create new software.

Technology had destroyed them all.

She blamed the scientists that came up with the 'miracle chip' that would make people live forever. Of course, anyone with enough money was lining up to have one inserted in their brain. She could only be thankful that her family was never rich, always living paycheck to paycheck.

She wondered how the creators felt now, knowing how spectacularly it failed. Not only did people still die, they came back as ruthless monsters, emerging from the grave with their humanity stripped and an insatiable instinct to kill. The microchips promised eternal life. Instead, they brought about chaos and destruction.

Jae used to love watching zombie movies and now she was living in one. But the real undead were different to anything she'd ever seen on the television. They looked like people; they didn't eat flesh or walk slowly. In fact, you could hardly tell the difference unless you got close enough to smell them.

Death is an impossible scent to mask.

The Rise was slow. It wasn't an outbreak like all the movies she used to watch. In fact, it took a while for anyone to realize what was happening. Of course, when they did, it was already too late.

Thousands died. Some came back as The Risen, others, from poor families, stayed buried. Like her parents.

They always knew the right thing to do. But, with them gone, she felt like she was constantly making the wrong choices. She wondered if they would be proud of her for having survived this long, or ashamed of what she'd done to stay alive.

Since their deaths, survival took on a whole new meaning. She was forced to do it on her own, caught between doing the right thing and putting herself first. She always chose herself, no matter the consequences.

Her hands were far from clean.

She tried to push the dark thoughts away before she lost herself in them entirely. What happened was in the past and she was doing her best to move forward. This was a kill or be killed world that she lived in now, and though she may hate it, it was the irrefutable truth.

"I don't want to leave," she spoke to the mounds of dirt in front of her. "It's dangerous enough coming here now. If we go further away, I'll never be able to visit."

She ran her hand along the ground, right above where her father was buried. For a moment she let herself pretend he was still here, comforting her with his warm brown eyes. She imagined his smile, large and welcoming, and the grey hairs that covered his scalp, completely overtaking his usual black.

She pictured her mother, with her light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and the small gap between her two front teeth. Jae remembered their faces as though she'd seen them only yesterday, as though time couldn't taint her memory of them.

"I'm sorry," she choked, as grief lodged in her throat. Her eyes filled with tears, spilling over onto her cheeks. "For everything I've done."

The breeze was her only answer. But Jaelynn took comfort in speaking to the mounds of dirt that covered their corpses. She wished she came sooner.

Though the pain of losing them was a crushing ache that never left her, she felt better than she had in a long time. Grief had become as much a part of her as another limb, but she knew that somehow, she would survive. For them.

"I should probably go."

Night was approaching, and with it, the chances of arriving back at the house with no food. It was the one condition that Keenan set for her visiting her parent's graves. He was okay with the excursion, as long as she brought back supplies.

Neither of them mentioned the fact that she could die along the way like so many others before her. When she first joined The Lost, they were a group of twenty. Slowly but surely, their numbers dwindled down to six.

She got to her feet and brushed the dirt off her jeans, casting one last longing look at the ground below her before turning away and heading back out of the forest. She probably wouldn't make it back to the house where the Lost resided before nightfall. But if she could at least load up on supplies, she could find a place to stay and then head back first thing in the morning.

Keenan wouldn't be impressed, but she couldn't convince herself to care.

It was hard to remember which of the buildings they'd already ransacked. At first, they used to leave marks on the doors to remember. But then, Keenan realized that they could also be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for anyone who wanted to find them.

No one was sure how smart The Risen actually were, or if they were capable of actually hunting down survivors. Not to mention that there were other groups of people out there, some of whom might be desperate enough to invade the house and steal supplies. It was better not to take the risk, a fact that Jae wholeheartedly agreed with.

Now, they left it up to memory, scribbled notes and lucky guesses. Jae cursed inwardly as she stared at the row of decrepit buildings in front of her, trying to decide which one held useful supplies and berating herself for not memorising the list of ransacked places back at the house. She had to be quick about it. Standing around in the open was never a good idea.

As she stepped off the grass and back onto the tar, a tall building about a block over caught her interest. It was several stories high, and possibly loaded with supplies. Even if it wasn't, it would be a relatively safe place to stay for the night.

She started towards it, before pulling up short at the sight of the graffiti that covered the side of an old shoe store. Though she had walked down this road before, she couldn't remember ever having seen it. The letters were written in a messy script, clearly rushed by whoever took the time to paint them there. In bright red, they boldly proclaimed:

Hell is Empty.

Whoever they were, they were wrong. Hell couldn't be empty. They all lived in it.