Carter woke up and starting working the sand out of his lungs. It sounded like a cough but was more like vomit from his lungs. Five minutes of hacking, spewing, and hoping this wouldn’t kill him and in the end he had a pile of wet reddish-orange sand the size of a melted golf ball laying on his floor. Carter had heard stories of people coughing for hours, unable to clear enough sand out and eventually dying from it. He just wished he could afford a new strap for his mask so it wouldn’t fall off every day when he slept.

Pulling himself up off the floor he makes his way over to his single window. The sun had set maybe an hour ago and he could still see where the sand fog had poured in through the cracked seal. Great. He’d have to start sleeping in the bathroom and hope that the door’s seal held tighter. He picked up a roll of black tape from his counter and patched over the window leak. It wouldn’t hold for long but it should last until the fog died down.

He walks over to his closet and pulls on a shirt. It still feels clean so the seal must have held tight during the day. Maybe he’d sleep in there tonight. He walks towards the kitchen but is suddenly overcome with the urge to look out his single port window. He doesn’t know why, the scene outside of desolation is always the same, but for some strange reason he’s compelled to go look.

After clearing off enough of the red-orange condensation from the window pane with his shirt sleeve Carter cups his hands around his eyes and looks outside. He’s on the first tier of the Wessix Highrise and the window affords him a view of tier one and the gutters below. He can see the floor of tier two but there isn’t much point, it’s just a gray ceiling that blocks out the sky. Still compelled, and since there isn’t much to see for Tier One other than walls and a handful of windows, Carter looks down.

Looking down in the gutters Carter can see two levels, maybe three if he looks a the right angle. Looking down now he sees bodies laying all over, poor fools who didn’t survive the fog yesterday. He watches a mother carry a small child disappear into one of the few gutter level doors, the whole time the child is throwing up bloody red sand.  Carter hopes, prays, that it’s not his building they just walked into. The  kid clearly has the plague and Carter doesn’t want to catch it.

Just as Carter is about to go lock his door in-case that lady come knocking he sees something that would haunt him in his sleep. From the second gutter level an arm slides out of the darkness and slithers towards a body. Its eight feet long and jointed a dozen times. Carter watches as it reaches out from the shadows to grab hold of a corpse. Carter breaks his view before he can see what the monsters are doing. Just yet another reason to be happy he’s living in tier one.

He checks his door. Secured.  Then walks to the kitchen to start his day. Coffee, vitamin-syrup, and a single egg is all he managed to find last week. He slathers the egg with syrup and devours the breakfast. Just as he finishes he hears the override on his door activate. He stands up from his kitchen table and grabbing a steak knife as he stands.

As door slides open a man in black leathers steps into his room. Carter doesn’t look happy and starts to raise the knife. It is pointless though, the man in leather already has a gun pointing at Carter. Before Carter can get the knife high enough to strike three bursts erupt from the gun. Blood sprays from Carters wounds and coats his breakfast plate. Jaxon steps into the room and smiles, just another night on the job for him.

Winner
Carter’s boss terminating his employment.