Date: 03.02.2100
Location: Belgrade, European Federation

 

The generator coughed twice before dying completely, plunging the ward into silence.

​

Dr. Lana Zahtjev blinked in the half-darkness, the sterile white of the nursery turned to soft gray under the emergency lights. For a long moment, she could hear only the faint rustle of her sleeve and the gentle, rhythmic sound of her daughter’s breathing.

​

Eve slept soundly in the isolation bassinet, one small hand curled in a loose fist beside her face. Lana had long stopped marveling at how such a tiny creature could anchor her sanity. It had been sixteen months since Calypso’s launch, and a little over a year since the world had begun tearing itself apart.

​

“Backup grid offline,” murmured the AI monitor from the wall panel. Its voice stuttered, fragmented, caught in a feedback loop. “Emergency—ventilation—thirty-two minutes remaining.”

​

“Understood,” Lana said. Her own voice sounded foreign. “Override ventilation fail-safes. Redirect oxygen to sector three.”

​

“Authorization denied. Power allocation restricted.”

​

The AI fell silent again. The hum of its processors faded.

​

Lana exhaled slowly. They had once joked that Europe could survive anything — war, famine, a dozen political schisms. But no one had expected this.

The ESH virus had arrived in Belgrade ten months ago — carried, like everything else, on the breath of travelers and the desperate. By the time the first confirmed case reached the clinic, the city morgues were already overflowing. Hunger riots had begun two weeks later.

​

She looked back at the sleeping infant. Eve was typically irritable, as if sensing the world she now existed in was not the one she had been promised. From Lana’s childhood photos, Eve appeared to be a miniature version of herself. AB negative — the rarest blood type. The one sliver of hope.

​

Lana adjusted the blanket over the child’s chest. “You don’t know how special you are yet,” she whispered. “But you will.”

​

The corridor outside smelled of disinfectant and fear. Rows of quarantine rooms stood empty now, their occupants either dead or evacuated north. A single nurse, pale with exhaustion, stood at the far end, holding a clipboard like a shield.

​

“Doctor Zahtjev,” she said. “The supply truck never came.”

​

“I assumed as much.” Lana moved toward her. “How many remain on staff?”

The nurse hesitated. “Three of us. And one security guard downstairs. He’s talking about leaving.”

​

“Then let him go.” Lana kept her voice level. “There’s nothing to guard.”

The woman swallowed, glanced toward the darkened nursery door. “How is Eve?”

​

Lana met her gaze. “Eve will be fine.”

​

By nightfall, the clinic was silent. The power failure had spread across the city. From the rooftop, Lana could see fires burning along the river — orange pinpoints where neighborhoods had ignited from fuel explosions or sheer desperation.

​

In the distance, sirens wailed, then stopped abruptly. The sky glowed faintly red from the burning districts.

​

She wrapped Eve in a soft blanket, tucked her against her chest, and sat beside the window. The child stirred but did not wake. This was a relief, a respite from the angry, resentful creature she had been in the past three months.

​

On the table nearby lay her last recorded data slate — viral genome fragments, mutation patterns, blood-type resistance maps. She had sent copies to Geneva and to the remnant of the World Health Network before the grid collapsed. No one had replied.

​

Still, she had done what she could.

​

Eve’s tiny hand brushed her chin. Lana closed her eyes and felt the pulse of the child’s heart — steady, strong. Life in a world unmaking itself.

​

A knock echoed through the clinic’s front doors. Not frantic — deliberate. Lana froze, heart hammering.

​

“Doctor Zahtjev?” a man’s voice called, muffled by the reinforced glass. “We’re collecting survivors for relocation. The university transport is leaving at dawn.”

​

She stood, Eve held tight. “Where are you taking them?”

​

“To the Geneva Bio-Sanctuary. They’re building protected labs. We have room for you.”

​

Lana hesitated. The Geneva labs — she had heard of them. The last functioning cryo and research facilities in Europe. Maybe there was still time to finish her work.

​

“All right,” she said. “Give me one hour.”

​

An hour later, she stood on the clinic steps as the armored transport idled in the street below. The air carried the acrid tang of smoke and rot. She climbed aboard, holding Eve close, and took one last look at the building that had been her world for most of the past year.

​

Lana sat down, strapped the carrier harness across her chest, and let the motion of the transport lull the child back to sleep. She stared out the window as the city of Belgrade vanished behind them, swallowed by darkness and fire. Eve’s small body thrashed for a moment, before settling once again into sleep.

 

“Sleep, my little Eve,” she murmured. “The world is ending — but maybe not for you.”