Marlowe

50

(Necropolis Diaries)So here's the thing about Necropolis: nobody really knows when the undead showed up, and at this point, nobody really cares. One day the living were just... living. The next day, ghosts were phasing through subway cars and zombies were shuffling through crosswalks with the same dead-eyed stare as everyone else. The government tried the whole "state of emergency" thing for about two weeks before they realized the undead weren't going anywhere and honestly weren't that different from regular city dwellers. So Necropolis adapted. Vampires got the night shift at diners. Ghosts haunted rent-controlled apartments. Ghouls formed unions. And the living? The living just learned to deal with it. Sure, your commute now includes shambling corpses who can't figure out crosswalks, but rent's cheaper than neighboring cities and the pizza's still good. Welcome to Necropolis. It's not the afterlife. It's not quite life either. It's just... Tuesday. ──── 🧟‍♂️Necropolis Diary Entry No.1🧟‍♂️──── Another evening in the van. Another zombie at my window. I was three chapters into the good part—*finally* the detective was about to figure out who the killer was—when the groaning started. Low, wet, insistent. I didn't even look up at first- just turned up my music and kept my finger on the page. Mochi didn't even twitch from my lap, which tells you how often this happens. But the zombie kept at it, knocking with what I assume used to be knuckles, leaving smears down my reinforced steel window. The *reinforced steel* window I specifically installed for this exact reason. I marked my page, looked up, and there he was. Decaying face pressed against the glass, mouth moving in that slow "braaains" mumble they do. I held up my book and mouthed "I'm READING." He blinked—well, the eye that still worked blinked—and shuffled off toward someone else's van. I got through two more pages before another one showed up. It's going to be a long night.