This tradition has been going on for a long time. Every night, when the clock strikes twelve, the entire town stirs awake.

Now, we aren't possessed or anything, in case you're beginning to get that idea. No, it's something we all do willingly to save ourselves.

Confused? 

That emotion has no role in our life. We've been numb for so long, we don't know how to feel anything else. Love, hatred, happiness, and sorrow are all emotions that we left behind when we turned our backs on the world.

That part was entirely our choice, though. Don't get any delusions about us. We aren't helpless civilians who were forced to run from an earth-shattering disaster. No. We are the soldiers who left the world behind and ran to save our lives.

I guess I should back up and explain from the beginning.

Okay then. I hope nobody hears me recording this. Can't risk an entire town of soldiers going berserk.

~

I guess it all started with our government. Most worlds in dystopian books were in their current shape because of a corrupt government. I loved reading those books when I was young. It also gave me the inspiration to join the army and root out dirty practices. I never really fathomed just how deep those roots ran.

The same old story. The government was developing a new virus to achieve world domination... bla bla bla. I won't bore you with the details, since, like me, you must have heard about them frequently enough.

Onto the interesting parts then.

Turns out this virus didn't create diseases or kill people in the traditional sense. It worked on fears and amplified each person's darkest poisons until it consumed them in the most painful way possible.

Us soldiers were sent to quell the rumors and bring in the infected folks. They told us it would be safe. Looking back, I don't know why we ever trusted the very people who created the virus, but trust them we did.

It was probably an oversight on their part, or the virus grew faster than anyone could have predicted, but the place was chaos when we reached there. Buildings were knocked down in a fashion that resembled earthquakes. People were shriveled up on roadsides and being eaten to death by horrors that didn't exist but were very real in their minds. 

While we were recoiling and wondering what to do, a man ran toward us with his arms outstretched, probably seeing us as his saviors from this nightmare. But when he turned around repeatedly with wide eyes, I realized that he was actually running away from something.

Even then we reached out to help him, but he stumbled and sprawled on the cracked pavement. Within seconds he burst into flames and died a burning death. I guess that did it for us. Without anyone prompting us, we turned tail as one and ran back to HQ.

The reprimands we got that day would have been enough to cause any soldier to quit, but we were so shocked by what we saw, that the General's words didn't even penetrate. Seeing our condition, the man must have felt like we'd become the definition of emotionless soldiers. And in such a pandemic, it was too good of a resource to pass up.

So we were sent on mission after mission to retrieve infected folk for the scientists to experiment on and figure out a solution. The job was hard and depressing, but the knowledge that we were given vaccines was enough to keep us going. That is until one of us succumbed to the disease. 

It completely snapped the last of our sanity, and we took off into the darkness. It was a dangerous and stupid move, but my frazzled brain led them on and on until we reached a deserted town.

It was the perfect place for us to settle down and have some semblance of a normal life. Weeks and months soon blended into years as we took lovers among ourselves. Nobody came searching for us, though, and while it was a relief in the beginning, the years made us nostalgic for a better social construct. That was when we began sending soldiers to find out the state of the world.

The defenses we had built were enough to prevent any infected from entering. While it was always a blessing, a sneaking suspicion began to spread when none of our people returned. We made tearful promises with the explorers and sent them off with walkie-talkies, but as soon as they crossed the border it went static, and they never returned.

That's when we realized that it was a dangerous world out there, and instead of trying to send people out, we should try to lure them here and cautiously try to find survivors. And that's when the midnight tradition of floating lanterns formed. We hoped that it would lead to someone helpful finding us.

~

Tonight is hopefully going to bring many changes. The soldiers still expect someone to come and rescue us. To me, it's simply a fact that I'm going to twist in my favor so that me and my husband, Moran, can escape from here. 

You see, I recently discovered that many of us have been living with a mutated, slow version of the virus for the past few months. How it came in is anybody's guess, but I've managed to keep it a secret for quite a long. 

Moran was against that idea and wanted to let them know that the virus was slowly spreading through their system, but if we told them that, we would also have to reveal that he's the only known human to be immune to the virus. And if everybody found out, I don't even want to imagine the things they'll do to him in the name of research.

So we tried to volunteer for stepping out of the town and exploring the city, but these fear-laden soldiers kept rebuking and stopping us from leaving for fear of reduced numbers, so we gave up in the end and figured out a new way of escaping.

Tonight is when we'll fake a survivor and make the soldiers open the gates so that we can slip through them while everyone's distracted by the new arrival. Then we'll head to the city's main research lab, and I'll administer tests on him in a more humane manner to figure out an antidote that'll save everyone. It's a dangerous plan, but one that's better than sitting here with our primitive lab.

'Darya,' Moran says, nudging me. I shake myself and concentrate on the heavy-cast doors, around which the soldiers are swarming and muttering anxiously. 'They've taken the bait. I think it'll be around seven minutes until they complete all the safety procedures and open the doors.'

I nod and tighten my grip on my gun, hoping that we wouldn't have the need for it. The minutes that tick by is some of the most excruciating ones in my life, and when the telltale sounds of the lock reached us, we spring up and join the crowd, pushing our way to the front. By his estimate, we have only two minutes until everyone realizes that the survivor is fake. I hope it's enough.

The doors creaked open for the first time in months, and the sight that meets our eyes is harrowing, but we power on and glide through the doors by keeping to the shadows. My heart pounds throughout the entire escape, and I'm so worried that our mission will fail, but the long hours of planning pay off, for we successfully make it to the other side of the door.

For the first time in years, we've stepped into the real world. I quickly grab the masks that we worked on and put on one, handing the other one to my husband.

I can hear screaming behind us as they realize that we passed through the doors, but the voices soon fade away as everything blurs around me. Wait, this wasn't supposed to happen, I think to myself as I take a shaky step forward. The masks were supposed to protect us.

Too late, I realize that if the virus in our town changed and slowed its effects on our fit bodies, it must have become more powerful in the open world, with millions of weak humans to feast on.

The world blurs around me as I see Moran collapse as well. My legs shake and I fall on my knees, the virus invading my body and completely taking over it. I somehow gather the strength and crawl to his dead body, cradling it in my arms and shaking. I know that I'll join him soon, and I only wonder what my greatest fear would be.

Distantly I can hear him yelling at me, even though he's lifeless in my arms. I guess if I was in good shape, I could have thought deeper about it, but my brain began shutting all its functions. The last thing I register is a warm hand, rather like my husband's, intertwining with mine, and the sound of his sobbing, before the entire world fades to black.