Truth or Dare was supposed to be a fun filled, sometimes exciting game was what they thought. Until o ne dare went too far.

"We didn't know he was allergic," was what they would say, their eyes full of fake tears. But no one believed them, no one at all.

After the ambulance pulled up, everyone scrambled, scared that they would get blamed. No one even thought of helping. That was how it went for all of Zander's life until it got put in jeopardy.

First thing he was doing was eating a handful of dog food pellets. The next thing he knew was he was on the ground, out in a coma that would last for five years.

No one ever thought he would live that long in the coma, but eventually one day, he got up and walked out of the hospital, white gown still on. No one even noticed. The police noticed after four weeks when Zander's unloving parents came to check on him and he was still gone, but the police didn't file a missing persons report. The parents just assumed he was hanging out at a friend's house. They didn't even check to find him after they left the hospital.

Zander's life was full of nothing, he was just another face in the crowd to everyone, even his parents. No one even cared about him. That's why he took the chance to escape when he could.

Zander didn't know where he was going - he just took the subway until it didn't run anymore, then a bus, and a bus and a bus until he ran out of cash. Turns out, you aren't the best at saving money when you've been out cold for five years. He arrived in a small town called Janville. Every window was boarded up, not smashed—sealed. Storefronts still had signs in the glass: BACK IN 15, CLOSED FOR LUNCH, OPENING SOON, their optimism frozen in dust and sun-bleached tape. Cars sat abandoned along the street, doors unlocked, some with weeds growing through the grates. No bodies. No sounds. Just the wind dragging something metallic down the road.

Zander wandered for an hour, his footsteps too loud in the silence, before he realized the problem wasn’t that the town was empty.

It was that it looked like everyone had left all at once.

And whatever made them run… might still be here.