He could sleep through the sounds of battle and the wails of the dying—but a relentless microwave was hard to ignore. It was still dark outside, and the faint smell of burned food filled the entire apartment. He looked around. His mattress, which sat like a beached whale in the center of the kitchen, had a green energy drink spill near his feet that looked like toxic sludge, and beside it the refrigerator door was ajar. From the other room came the sound of swarming zombies and the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire. “GET THE KIDS! SOMEBODY SAVE THE KIDS!” shouted a voice he didn’t recognize. He crawled up on his spindly legs, raising himself to his feet. There was no kitchen table, or at least, not anymore; what was left of it sat in a broken heap of tangled wood in a corner, a bed sheet draped over it as if it were a corpse. He carefully stepped across the floor, trying to avoid bugs of various species traveling from one Doritos bag shelter to the next. He kicked aside a half-eaten bowl of mac and cheese that had more larvae than mac or cheese, and made his way to the beeping microwave, which was smoking.
