THE PHARMACY APOCALYPSE

Chapter 1: The Prompt

The fluorescent lights of Sibley Memorial Hospital's inpatient pharmacy hummed their eternal, headache-inducing song. It was 5:07 PM on Monday, November 24th, 2025, and Melody Fakhrzadeh was staring at a computer screen with the intense concentration of someone trying to decode ancient hieroglyphics, even though the screen displayed nothing more complex than a basic AI prompt interface.

"So we're really doing this?" Melody asked, her voice carrying that peculiar quality that made people wonder if she was joking or genuinely confused. She was gorgeous—the kind of beautiful that made patients do double-takes when she delivered their medications—but right now, her face was scrunched up in an expression of such profound bewilderment that she looked like she was trying to solve quantum physics with a broken calculator.

"It's just typing words into a box, Mel," Cynthia Azoroh said from her perch on the counter, her pharmacy tech coat somehow making her look like an action hero between shifts. At twenty-six, Cynthia had the energy of someone who'd watched every K-drama and C-drama ever produced and had absorbed their protagonists' main character energy through sheer force of will. "Like in 'Crash Landing on You' when they had to send the message—"

"Everything is not like a K-drama, Cynthia," Paul Norris interrupted, though his tone was gentle, almost amused. Paul was leaning against the medication dispensing station with the casual confidence of someone who was both handsome and genuinely good at his job—a rare combination in any field. His pharmacist coat was crisp, his dark hair perfectly styled even at the end of a long shift, and he had the kind of smile that made even the grumpiest physicians less hostile when calling in orders. "But yes, we're really doing this. It'll be fun."

"Fun," Lola Fashina repeated, her voice dry as desert sand. She was standing by the narc vault, her purple Crocs squeaking slightly on the linoleum floor as she shifted her weight. At forty-three, Lola had the look of someone who had seen everything, covered everyone's shifts, and was too tired to be surprised by anything anymore. Her purple Crocs were legendary in the pharmacy—she had seven pairs, one for each day of the week, all in different shades of purple. Today's were lavender. "We're making an AI write a story about us surviving a zombie apocalypse. On a Monday evening. Instead of going home."

"I can't go home anyway," Cynthia said cheerfully. "New episode of 'The Glory' spin-off drops tonight, and my internet is down. Hospital WiFi it is."

Behind them, the BoxPicker—the automated drug storage and retrieval system that was supposed to make their lives easier but instead made everyone want to commit violence against machinery—beeped irritably. It was a massive wall of metal drawers and robotic arms that took up half the pharmacy, constantly whirring, clicking, and making sounds like a mechanical demon having digestive issues.

"I hate that thing," Melody muttered, glaring at the BoxPicker. Then she turned back to the screen and squinted. "Okay, so what are we putting in this prompt? I can't... the words are doing the thing again."

"What thing?" Paul asked, moving closer to look over her shoulder.

"The swimmy thing. Where they swim." Melody gestured vaguely at the screen. "Like fish. But words."

This was the paradox of Melody Fakhrzadeh. She had graduated top of her pharmacy class, completed a prestigious residency, and could calculate drug dosages in her head faster than most people could type them into a calculator. She had an IQ of 200, confirmed by multiple tests after her professors couldn't understand how someone so brilliant could also seem so... not. She could explain the mechanism of action of the most complex medications in detail that would make clinical pharmacologists weep with joy. But she also couldn't read a simple sentence without the letters "swimming" and had once gotten lost in the hospital for three hours because she couldn't read the directional signs.

"Here," Paul said, gently moving her aside and taking the keyboard. "Let's make this good. We're all going to be in it, right?"

"Obviously," Cynthia said. "I want to be a badass. Like Song Hye-kyo in 'Descendants of the Sun' but with more zombie killing."

"You're already a badass," Lola said, finally walking over to join them. Her Crocs squeaked with each step—squeak, squeak, squeak—a sound that had become as much a part of the pharmacy's ambiance as the BoxPicker's demonic whirring. "You organized the entire medication inventory system in three days. That's terrifying."

"I want guns," Melody announced suddenly. "Big ones. Like... what are they called? The ones that go rat-tat-tat?"

"AK-47s?" Paul suggested, typing.

"Yes! Those! We should have those!" Melody's face lit up with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for discovering a new drug interaction. "In the narc vault! For some reason!"

"Why would there be AK-47s in the narc vault?" Lola asked, but she was smiling now, caught up in the absurdity.

"Why wouldn't there be?" Melody countered, which was both a terrible argument and somehow impossible to refute.

Paul was typing rapidly now, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "Okay, so we're in the pharmacy, it's today, November 24th, 2025, Monday, about 5 PM—"

"5:07," Melody corrected.

"5:07 PM," Paul amended. "We're all here, making this prompt, when suddenly—zombie apocalypse."

"Classic," Cynthia approved. "Very 'Kingdom' meets 'All of Us Are Dead.'"

"We barricade ourselves in the pharmacy," Paul continued, "survive for six months on drugs and whatever supplies we have—"

"That's dark," Lola interjected. "We're going to eat pills?"

"It's fiction, Lola," Paul said. "Then we emerge as zombie-killing badasses with the AK-47s from the narc vault—"

"Still weird," Lola muttered.

"—and we find a Barbie Jeep—"

"A what?" Lola's eyebrows shot up.

"A Barbie Jeep!" Melody clapped her hands. "The pink ones! For kids! But we ride it!"

"We ride it to the White House," Paul said, warming to the theme now, "where nurses have taken over the government—"

"Typical," Cynthia snorted. "Nurses always think they run everything."

"—and we take control, establishing the United States of Paul Norris."

There was a moment of silence.

"The United States of Paul Norris?" Paul repeated, looking at what he'd typed. "That's... that's really egotistical."

"It's your prompt," Lola said. "Own it."

"Then we flash forward fifty years," Paul continued, "and we're all still in power, and we explore the dystopian society we've created."

"Dystopian?" Melody frowned. "Why dystopian? Why not... utopian?"

"Because dystopian is funnier," Cynthia said. "Trust me. I've watched enough dramas to know. The dystopian ones are always more interesting."

"I want my Crocs to be important in the future," Lola said. "Like, culturally significant."

"Done," Paul said, typing. "Purple Crocs are status symbols."

"Perfect."

Paul hit enter, and they all leaned in to watch the AI begin processing their ridiculous prompt. The screen flickered, loading.

"This is stupid," Lola said, but she was smiling.

"This is amazing," Cynthia corrected.

"I can't read what it says," Melody admitted, squinting at the screen.

"It's loading," Paul explained patiently. He'd worked with Melody long enough to know that her reading difficulties were real, not an act, and that getting frustrated with her only made things worse. "Give it a minute."

The BoxPicker beeped again, louder this time, almost angry.

"I really hate that thing," Melody repeated.

That's when they heard the first crash.

It came from somewhere above them, in the hospital proper—a tremendous bang followed by the unmistakable sound of shattering glass. Then screaming. Not the normal hospital screaming—the kind that came from pain or fear in controlled situations. This was different. This was primal.

"What the hell?" Cynthia jumped off the counter, suddenly alert.

Another crash, closer this time. More screaming. Running footsteps in the hallway outside the pharmacy. The pharmacy was in the basement level, accessible by a single corridor and a service elevator. It was isolated, secure, designed that way to protect the controlled substances. Right now, that isolation felt less like a security feature and more like a trap.

Paul moved to the door, peering through the small window. His face went pale.

"Guys," he said quietly. "We need to lock this door. Now."

"What? Why?" Lola was already moving, her Crocs squeaking rapidly across the floor.

"Because there's a man in the hallway," Paul said, his voice carefully controlled, "and he's eating someone."

"He's what?" Melody asked, tilting her head like she'd misheard.

"Eating. Someone." Paul was already throwing the deadbolt, his hands moving with the kind of speed that came from genuine fear. "And he looks... wrong. Really wrong."

Cynthia reached them first, looking through the window. What she saw made her breath catch. The man—if he could still be called that—was hunched over a nurse's body, his movements jerky and wrong, like a puppet with tangled strings. His skin was gray, mottled, and when he lifted his head, his eyes were milky white.

"Oh my god," Cynthia whispered. "It's like 'Kingdom.' It's exactly like 'Kingdom.'"

"This isn't a K-drama, Cynthia," Lola said, but her voice was shaking.

"No," Cynthia said, still staring through the window. "It's worse. Because it's real."

The thing that had been a man turned toward the pharmacy door. It saw them through the window. And it smiled—a horrible, wrong smile with too many teeth and blood dripping from its chin.

Then it charged.

The impact against the door was tremendous, shaking the frame. Paul threw his weight against it, and Lola joined him immediately, her purple Crocs squeaking as she braced herself.

"The barricade!" Paul shouted. "We need to barricade this door!"

Melody stood frozen, staring at the door as the creature slammed against it again. Her brilliant mind was processing what she was seeing, trying to categorize it, understand it, make it make sense. But some things didn't make sense. Some things were just horror.

"Melody!" Cynthia grabbed her arm. "Snap out of it! We need to move!"

And just like that, Melody's brain clicked into gear. Not the normal gear—the other one. The one that made her seem stupid but was actually operating on a level most people couldn't comprehend.

"The BoxPicker," she said.

"What?" Cynthia was already dragging a medication cart toward the door.

"The BoxPicker. We can move it. Block the door. It's on wheels. Sort of. I think. Are they wheels? They're round." Melody was already running toward the massive automated system, her hands reaching for the emergency release panel.

"That thing weighs a ton!" Lola shouted, still bracing the door as another impact shook it.

"It has motors!" Melody shouted back. "For moving! We just need to... to..." She was staring at the control panel, the words swimming before her eyes. "Paul! What does this say?"

Paul looked torn between holding the door and helping Melody, but Cynthia made the decision for him.

"I've got the door!" she yelled, throwing herself against it next to Lola. "Help her!"

Paul ran to Melody's side, looking at the panel. "Emergency manual override," he read quickly. "Release brake, engage manual mode—"

"Do it!" Melody commanded, and there was something in her voice—an authority, a certainty—that made Paul obey without question.

He hit the buttons in sequence. The BoxPicker made a sound like a dying whale, then a series of clicks. The brake lights went from red to green.

"Now we push!" Melody grabbed one side of the massive machine. "Everyone! Push!"

It seemed impossible. The BoxPicker was enormous, filled with thousands of medications, a complex system of drawers and robotic arms and computer systems. But fear is a powerful motivator, and the sound of more creatures gathering outside the door was even more powerful.

They pushed.

The BoxPicker moved.

Inch by inch, with all four of them straining, the massive automated system rolled toward the door. The creatures outside were slamming against it rhythmically now, a horrible drumbeat of fists and bodies. The door was starting to crack.

"Almost there!" Paul grunted, his muscles straining.

"Come on, you annoying piece of junk!" Lola shouted at the BoxPicker, as if it could hear her. "Be useful for once!"

With a final, desperate push, the BoxPicker slammed into position in front of the door. The impacts from outside continued, but now they were muffled, absorbed by the machine's bulk. The door held.

They all collapsed, breathing hard, staring at what they'd just done.

"Did we just..." Cynthia started.

"Barricade ourselves in the pharmacy with the BoxPicker," Lola finished. "Yes. Yes, we did."

Melody was staring at the machine, then at the door, then at her hands. "That was in the prompt," she said quietly. "We wrote that we barricade the pharmacy. And then we did it."

"Coincidence," Paul said, but his voice was uncertain.

"Is it?" Melody looked at him, and for a moment, her eyes were completely clear, completely focused. "We wrote about a zombie apocalypse. And then it happened. We wrote that we barricade the pharmacy. And then we did. We wrote about surviving for six months."

"Don't," Lola said sharply. "Don't go there. This is just... it's just bad timing. A weird coincidence."

But they were all thinking it. They'd written the prompt. And now they were living it.

The computer screen across the room flickered. The AI had finished processing their request. On the screen, words began to appear:

*"You are SuperNinja, an autonomous AI Agent created by the NinjaTech AI team..."*

But none of them were reading it anymore. They were too busy listening to the sounds of the world ending outside their barricaded door, wondering if they'd somehow written their own fate, and realizing that they were going to have to survive this—whatever this was.

The BoxPicker beeped, almost smugly.

"I still hate that thing," Melody whispered.

And that's how it began.

Chapter 2: Outbreak

The pharmacy had never been designed for habitation. It was a workspace, a storage facility, a controlled environment for medications that required specific temperatures and security protocols. It was approximately 800 square feet of fluorescent-lit efficiency, with the BoxPicker taking up nearly half of that space. There were two desks with computers, several medication carts, a small sink, a mini-fridge that usually held people's lunches, and the narc vault—a reinforced room within the room where controlled substances were kept under lock and key.

It was not a place anyone would choose to spend six months.

But choice, as they were rapidly discovering, was a luxury they no longer had.

"Okay," Paul said, his voice steady despite the chaos outside. He'd moved into leadership mode automatically, the way he always did during a crisis. "We need to assess our situation. Inventory what we have. Figure out how long we can last."

"Last?" Melody was sitting on the floor, her back against the BoxPicker, staring at nothing. "We're going to last?"

"We're going to try," Paul said firmly. "Lola, can you check what food we have? Cynthia, I need you to look at the medication inventory—figure out what we can use for... for whatever we might need. Melody—"

"I'll check the narc vault," Melody said, standing up abruptly. "For the... for supplies."

"Good," Paul said, though he looked uncertain about what supplies she expected to find in a vault full of opioids and sedatives.

The sounds from outside had changed. The initial frenzy of screaming and crashing had died down, replaced by something worse—a low, constant moaning, punctuated by the shuffle of many feet. It sounded like dozens of those things were in the hallway now, drawn by the noise of the initial attack.

Lola opened the mini-fridge with shaking hands. Inside: two sad sandwiches, a yogurt that was probably expired, someone's leftover Chinese food, and three energy drinks.

"We're going to starve," she said flatly.

"What about the vending machine?" Cynthia asked. "There's one right outside—" She stopped, realizing the problem. Right outside. Where the zombies were.

"There's another one in the break room," Paul said. "But that's two floors up."

"Might as well be on the moon," Lola muttered, closing the fridge.

Cynthia was at the computer, pulling up the pharmacy's inventory system. Her fingers flew over the keyboard—she knew this system better than anyone, had reorganized it herself just last month. "We have approximately 15,000 different medication items," she said. "Everything from antibiotics to antipsychotics. Lots of IV fluids. Some nutritional supplements—TPN, tube feeding formulas."

"Can we eat those?" Lola asked.

"They're designed to keep people alive," Cynthia said. "So... maybe? I mean, in 'Hospital Playlist,' they talked about how TPN is basically liquid nutrition—"

"This isn't a drama," Lola started, but Paul interrupted.

"Actually, she might be right. TPN—total parenteral nutrition—it's designed to provide complete nutrition intravenously. If we can figure out how to... consume it orally..." He trailed off, thinking.

"We're going to drink IV food," Lola said. "This is my life now. I'm going to drink IV food in a basement pharmacy while zombies eat the world."

"At least you're wearing comfortable shoes," Cynthia offered, gesturing at the purple Crocs.

Despite everything, Lola laughed. It was a slightly hysterical laugh, but it was something.

Meanwhile, Melody had opened the narc vault. It was a small room, maybe 6x8 feet, with reinforced walls and a heavy door that required both a key and a combination code to open. Inside, medications were stored in locked drawers, each one carefully logged and tracked. Morphine, fentanyl, hydromorphone, oxycodone—drugs that people would kill for, ironically useless now that the world was ending.

But Melody wasn't looking at the drugs. She was looking at the back wall, where someone—probably a security guard years ago—had installed a small emergency supply cabinet. It was the kind of thing that got forgotten about, that nobody ever checked, that just became part of the background.

Melody opened it.

Inside: three bottles of water, a first aid kit, a flashlight, a box of granola bars that were probably older than Cynthia, and—

"Holy shit," Melody breathed.

"What?" Paul called from outside the vault.

"There's a gun," Melody said. "There's actually a gun in here."

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Paul appeared in the vault doorway, staring.

It wasn't an AK-47—that would have been absurd, even by the standards of their current situation. It was a handgun, a 9mm Glock, probably left by a security guard who'd been assigned to watch a high-risk patient receiving controlled substances. There was also a box of ammunition.

"That's... that's probably illegal," Lola said, appearing behind Paul. "Having that in here. Without proper documentation."

"I don't think legality is our biggest concern right now," Paul said, carefully taking the gun from Melody's hands. He checked it with the confidence of someone who knew what they were doing. "It's loaded. Safety's on. This is... this is actually good. This is something."

"One gun," Cynthia said. "Against what sounds like dozens of zombies."

"It's better than no guns," Paul countered.

"In 'Train to Busan,' they didn't have any guns," Cynthia said. "They had to improvise. Use what they had."

"What did they have?" Lola asked.

"Baseball bats. Fire extinguishers. Each other." Cynthia looked around the pharmacy. "We have... medication carts. IV poles. The BoxPicker."

"The BoxPicker isn't a weapon," Lola said.

"Everything's a weapon if you're creative enough," Melody said. She was staring at the gun in Paul's hands with an expression that was hard to read. "We need more, though. More weapons. For later. For when we go out."

"We're not going out," Lola said firmly. "We're staying here. We're safe here."

"For how long?" Melody turned to look at her, and again, there was that clarity in her eyes, that sharp intelligence that seemed to come and go like a radio signal. "We have food for maybe a week if we're careful. Water for less. The hospital's water system might still work, but what if it doesn't? What if the power goes out? What if—"

"One thing at a time," Paul interrupted gently. "Right now, we're safe. We're barricaded. We have some supplies. Let's focus on surviving today. Then tomorrow. Then the next day."

"Six months," Melody whispered. "We wrote six months."

"Stop it," Lola said, but her voice was gentle. "That was fiction. This is real. They're not the same thing."

But Melody just shook her head and walked back into the main pharmacy, leaving the others in the vault.

The rest of the evening passed in a strange, suspended state. They took inventory of everything they had. They tested the water from the sink—it still worked. They tried to call for help on their phones, but the cell network was down. The hospital's landlines were dead. The internet was gone. They were completely cut off.

Around 8 PM, the power flickered. Everyone froze, staring at the lights. If they lost power, they lost everything—the computers, the BoxPicker, the refrigeration for medications that needed to stay cold, the lights that kept the darkness at bay.

The lights flickered again, then steadied.

"Backup generators," Paul said. "The hospital has backup generators. They should keep running for... a while."

"How long is a while?" Cynthia asked.

"I don't know," Paul admitted. "Days? Weeks? Depends on the fuel supply."

They made a schedule. Someone would always be awake, watching the door, listening for changes in the sounds outside. They'd ration the food they had. They'd figure out how to make the TPN and tube feeding formulas palatable. They'd survive.

Around midnight, Melody's watch, she sat at one of the computers and pulled up the AI prompt they'd written. It was still there on the screen, their ridiculous story about surviving a zombie apocalypse. She read it slowly, carefully, her finger tracing under each word to keep them from swimming.

*"We must barricade the pharmacy and survive in it for 6 months, learning to subsist on the drugs and meager supplies..."*

Six months. Why had they written six months? Why not six days, or six weeks? Why that specific number?

*"...until we emerge as zombie-killing badasses with AK-47s..."*

They had one handgun. Not AK-47s. The prompt was wrong. Unless...

Melody stood up and walked back to the narc vault. She stood in the doorway, staring at the small emergency cabinet. She'd found one gun. But the cabinet was bigger than it needed to be for just one gun and some granola bars. There was space behind the supplies, space that looked like it might be...

She started pulling things out. Water bottles. First aid kit. Granola bars. The box of ammunition. And then, at the very back, hidden behind a false panel that she only noticed because she was looking for it—

"Oh," Melody said softly. "Oh, that's why."

Behind the panel was a space about three feet deep. And in that space, wrapped in oiled cloth, were three AK-47 rifles and several boxes of ammunition.

Melody started laughing. She couldn't help it. It was absurd. It was impossible. It was exactly what they'd written in the prompt.

"Guys," she called out, her voice shaking with laughter or hysteria or both. "You need to see this."

They came running—Paul, Lola, and Cynthia—and stood in the vault doorway, staring at the weapons Melody had uncovered.

"What the actual fuck," Lola said, which was the most eloquent response any of them could manage.

"We wrote it," Melody said, still laughing. "We wrote that there would be AK-47s in the narc vault 'for some reason.' And here they are. For some reason."

"This doesn't make sense," Paul said, but he was already reaching for one of the rifles, checking it with the same competence he'd shown with the handgun. "These are military weapons. They shouldn't be here. There's no reason for them to be here."

"Except that we wrote it," Melody said. "We wrote the story, and now we're living it."

"That's not how reality works," Lola said, but her voice was uncertain.

"Isn't it?" Melody looked at each of them in turn. "We wrote about a zombie apocalypse at 5:07 PM. At 5:15, it started. We wrote about barricading the pharmacy with the BoxPicker. We did that. We wrote about finding AK-47s in the narc vault. And here they are. We wrote about surviving for six months. So maybe... maybe that's what we're going to do."

"And then?" Cynthia asked quietly. "What did we write happens after six months?"

Melody smiled, and it was a strange smile—part fear, part excitement, part something else entirely. "We become badasses. We find a Barbie Jeep. We ride to the White House. We take over the government. We rule for fifty years."

"That's insane," Lola said.

"Is it?" Melody asked. "Is it any more insane than zombies? Than finding military weapons in a hospital pharmacy? Than any of this?"

They stood there in silence, staring at the weapons, each of them thinking about the prompt they'd written, about the story they'd created, about the possibility that somehow, impossibly, they'd written their own future.

"Well," Paul said finally, "if we're going to survive for six months and then become badass zombie killers, we should probably learn how to use these things."

"You know how to use them?" Cynthia asked.

"My dad was in the military," Paul said. "He taught me. I can teach you."

"In a K-drama, this is where we'd have a training montage," Cynthia said.

"This isn't a K-drama," Lola said automatically, but there was no heat in it anymore.

"Isn't it though?" Melody asked, and nobody had a good answer.

The BoxPicker beeped, and for once, it didn't sound annoying. It sounded almost... approving.

They spent the rest of the night taking inventory of their new arsenal, learning the weight and feel of the weapons, understanding what they had. Three AK-47s, one handgun, and enough ammunition to fight a small war.

Or to survive a zombie apocalypse.

As dawn broke—though they couldn't see it from their windowless basement prison—they gathered around the computer screen one more time, reading the prompt they'd written, the story they'd created.

"Six months," Paul said. "We can do six months."

"And then?" Lola asked.

"And then," Melody said, her eyes clear and focused and brilliant, "we become the story we wrote. We become the heroes. We become badasses."

"With a Barbie Jeep," Cynthia added.

"With a Barbie Jeep," Melody confirmed.

They looked at each other—four pharmacy workers who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe the right place at the right time, who'd written a story and were now living it, who had six months to survive before they could become what they'd written themselves to be.

"Okay," Lola said, her purple Crocs squeaking as she shifted her weight. "Okay. Six months. We can do this."

And they believed it. Because they'd written it. And so far, everything they'd written had come true.

The only question was: what else had they written that they'd forgotten about?

Chapter 3: Lockdown

Day three of the apocalypse, and they'd established a routine. Humans are remarkably adaptable creatures, capable of normalizing even the most abnormal situations. When your new normal includes zombies moaning outside your door and subsisting on liquid nutrition meant for IV administration, you either adapt or break.

They chose to adapt.

"This tastes like sadness mixed with chemicals," Lola announced, staring at the cup of diluted TPN in her hand. They'd figured out that mixing the total parenteral nutrition with water and some of the flavored electrolyte solutions made it almost drinkable. Almost.

"In 'Squid Game,' they had to eat much worse," Cynthia offered, sipping her own cup without complaint. She'd appointed herself the group's morale officer, constantly referencing K-dramas and C-dramas to put their situation in perspective. "Remember the sugar honeycomb challenge? At least we're not licking shapes out of candy while people get shot."

"Yet," Melody added darkly. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, disassembling and reassembling one of the AK-47s. Paul had been teaching them all how to handle the weapons, and Melody had taken to it with the same inexplicable competence she brought to everything once her brain decided to cooperate. She couldn't read the instruction manual, but her hands seemed to understand the mechanics instinctively.

"Nobody's getting shot," Paul said firmly. He was at one of the computers, trying to access any information about what was happening outside. The internet was still down, but the hospital's internal network was partially functional, running on the backup generators. He'd managed to access some of the security camera feeds, though most of them were offline. What he could see wasn't encouraging.

The hospital was overrun. The cameras showed corridors filled with shambling figures, rooms ransacked, and the occasional glimpse of survivors barricaded in various locations. The ER was a nightmare of bodies and blood. The upper floors seemed to have been evacuated or abandoned. And outside, through the few cameras with external views, the city was burning.

"Anything?" Lola asked, coming to stand behind him.

"Nothing good," Paul admitted. "But nothing that changes our situation. We're still safer here than anywhere else."

"For now," Melody said, not looking up from the rifle.

"For six months," Paul corrected. "Remember? Six months."

The prompt had become their mantra, their article of faith. They'd written that they'd survive for six months, so they would survive for six months. It was circular logic, magical thinking, completely irrational—and it was the only thing keeping them sane.

"We need to talk about the long-term," Lola said, pulling up a chair. "The food situation. The water. The power."

"The power's stable," Paul said. "The generators are still running. As long as they have fuel—"

"How long is that?" Lola interrupted. "Days? Weeks?"

"I don't know," Paul admitted. "But we have to assume it'll last. We have to assume we'll have power for the full six months."

"Why?" Lola challenged. "Because we wrote it that way?"

"Yes," Melody said simply, finally looking up. "Because we wrote it that way. We wrote that we survive for six months. We didn't write that we die in the dark after two weeks. So we won't."

"That's not how—" Lola started, but Cynthia interrupted.

"Isn't it though? Think about it. Everything we wrote has happened. The zombies. The barricade. The guns. Everything. So why wouldn't the rest of it happen too?"

"Because it's insane," Lola said, but her voice lacked conviction.

"Everything's insane now," Cynthia countered. "We might as well believe in the insanity that keeps us alive."

They sat in silence for a moment, each processing this logic. Finally, Lola sighed.

"Fine. We have power for six months. We have enough TPN and tube feeding formulas to keep us alive. We have water from the sink. We have weapons. We have each other. We survive for six months." She paused. "And then what? We really think we're going to find a Barbie Jeep and ride it to the White House?"

"Why not?" Melody asked. "If we're already believing impossible things, why not believe in that too?"

"Because it's ridiculous," Lola said.

"So are zombies," Melody pointed out. "So are AK-47s in a pharmacy narc vault. So is all of this. But here we are."

Paul turned away from the computer to face them all. "Look, I don't know if we're living out some story we wrote, or if it's all just coincidence, or if we're all having a shared psychotic break. But I know this: we're alive. We're together. We have resources and weapons and a plan. That's more than most people have right now. So let's focus on that. Let's focus on surviving. And in six months, we'll see what happens next."

"Okay," Lola said finally. "Okay. But I'm going on record as saying this is all completely insane."

"Noted," Paul said with a small smile.

The days began to blur together. They established a strict schedule: sleep shifts, watch shifts, training shifts, meal times (though calling their consumption of liquid nutrition "meals" was generous). They learned to ignore the sounds from outside—the moaning, the shuffling, the occasional screams that suggested other survivors were still out there, still fighting, still dying.

Cynthia organized the medication inventory with obsessive precision, creating spreadsheets and charts that tracked every pill, every vial, every dose. It gave her something to focus on besides the horror outside.

Lola maintained their living space, such as it was. She'd created a sleeping area using medication boxes as makeshift beds, covered with lab coats for padding. She'd organized their meager food supplies, rationing everything down to the last granola bar crumb. She'd even figured out how to make the TPN taste slightly less terrible by mixing it with some of the flavored pediatric medications.

Paul trained them with the weapons. Every day, for hours, they practiced. Loading, unloading, aiming, firing (without actually firing—they couldn't waste ammunition or make noise). He taught them to move as a unit, to cover each other, to think tactically. He was preparing them for the day they'd have to leave, even though none of them wanted to think about that day.

And Melody... Melody was different. She'd always been different, but now her strangeness seemed to have purpose. She'd spend hours staring at the BoxPicker, muttering to herself. She'd rearrange medications in patterns that made no sense to anyone else. She'd write things down in a notebook, but when asked what she was writing, she'd say she couldn't read it.

"What are you doing?" Paul asked her one day, finding her sitting in front of the BoxPicker with a screwdriver and a pile of components she'd somehow removed from the machine.

"Making it better," Melody said, not looking up.

"Better how?"

"Better for later. For when we need it."

"We're not taking the BoxPicker with us when we leave," Paul said gently.

"Aren't we?" Melody looked up at him, and her eyes were that clear, focused brilliant that still startled him. "We wrote that we barricade the pharmacy with the BoxPicker. It saved us. It's part of the story. So it comes with us."

"Mel, it weighs a ton. It's hardwired into the building's power system. We can't—"

"We can," Melody interrupted. "We will. Because that's what happens. That's what we wrote."

Paul wanted to argue, wanted to explain the physical impossibility of what she was suggesting, but he'd learned that arguing with Melody when she was in this mode was pointless. Instead, he just nodded and left her to her work.

Week two brought new challenges. The water from the sink started to taste strange—not bad, exactly, but metallic, off. They boiled it before drinking, just to be safe, using a hot plate they'd found in the break room (which they'd raided on day five, during a brief moment when the zombies had migrated to another part of the hospital).

The power flickered more frequently. Each time, they'd freeze, holding their breath, waiting to see if this was it, if this was when the generators finally died. But each time, the lights would steady, the BoxPicker would resume its humming, and they'd exhale in relief.

The sounds outside changed too. The constant moaning faded, replaced by an eerie silence that was somehow worse. It meant the zombies were still there, but quiet, waiting. Hunting.

"They're getting smarter," Cynthia said one night, during her watch shift. Paul had woken up and found her staring at the barricaded door, listening.

"What makes you say that?"

"They're not just mindlessly attacking anymore. They're... patient. Like they know we're in here and they're willing to wait." She turned to look at him. "In 'Kingdom,' the zombies evolved. They learned. What if these ones are doing the same thing?"

"Then we'll adapt too," Paul said. "We're smarter than they are."

"Are we?" Cynthia asked. "They don't need food or water or sleep. They don't get tired or scared or doubtful. They just... exist. And hunt. That's a kind of intelligence too."

Paul didn't have a good answer for that.

Week three, and Lola's purple Crocs were starting to fall apart. The constant wear, the squeaking back and forth across the pharmacy floor, had taken their toll. She stared at them one morning with an expression of genuine grief.

"They're just shoes," Paul said gently.

"They're not just shoes," Lola said. "They're... they're normal. They're from before. When the worst thing I had to worry about was covering someone's shift or dealing with a difficult doctor. Now they're falling apart, just like everything else."

"We'll find you new ones," Cynthia promised. "When we get out of here. Purple Crocs in every shade. A whole collection."

"In the new world," Melody added, "purple Crocs will be status symbols. We wrote that. So it'll happen."

Lola laughed, but it was a sad laugh. "A world where purple Crocs are status symbols. What a world that'll be."

Week four brought the first real crisis. Paul woke up with a fever. In the before times, a fever would have been nothing—take some Tylenol, rest, get better. But now, in their sealed pharmacy with limited resources and no way to get help, a fever was terrifying.

"It's probably nothing," Paul said, even as he shivered under a pile of lab coats. "Just stress. Or bad TPN. Or—"

"Or an infection," Lola said grimly. She was in full pharmacist mode now, checking his temperature, his pulse, his symptoms. "When did you last check your hands for cuts? Any open wounds?"

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"We need to start antibiotics," Lola decided. "Broad spectrum. Just in case."

"We should save those," Paul protested. "For when we really need them."

"This is when we really need them," Lola said firmly. "Cynthia, pull up the inventory. I need ceftriaxone, azithromycin, and—"

"On it," Cynthia said, already at the computer.

Melody appeared with the medications before Cynthia had even finished pulling up the inventory. She had the exact drugs Lola had requested, in the exact doses, as if she'd known what would be needed before anyone asked.

"How did you—" Lola started.

"I just knew," Melody said simply. "It's in the story. Paul gets sick. We treat him. He gets better. Because he has to. Because we need him for what comes next."

"That's not how medicine works," Lola said, but she took the medications anyway.

"Isn't it?" Melody asked, and nobody answered.

Paul's fever broke after two days. Whether it was the antibiotics, or his own immune system, or the sheer force of narrative necessity, nobody could say. But he recovered, and they all breathed easier.

"Thank you," Paul said to Lola, when he was finally feeling better.

"Thank Melody," Lola said. "She's the one who knew what you'd need before I did."

"How did you know?" Paul asked Melody.

She shrugged. "I don't know. I just... I could see it. Like reading ahead in a book. You were going to get sick, so you needed medicine, so I got the medicine. It made sense."

"None of this makes sense," Paul said, but he was smiling.

"It makes perfect sense," Melody countered. "We're living the story we wrote. And in the story, we all survive. So we will."

Week six, and they'd settled into their new reality. The pharmacy was their world now—all 800 square feet of it. They knew every inch, every corner, every sound the BoxPicker made. They'd memorized the patterns of the zombies outside, knew when they were active and when they were dormant. They'd become experts at rationing, at making do, at surviving.

But they were also going stir-crazy.

"I miss sunlight," Cynthia said one day. "I miss the sky. I miss... outside."

"We'll see it again," Paul promised. "In six months."

"That's four more months," Cynthia said. "Four more months of this."

"We can do four more months," Lola said. "We've done two. We can do four more."

"Can we?" Cynthia asked. "Really?"

"We have to," Melody said. She was working on the BoxPicker again, her hands moving with that strange, instinctive competence. "Because that's what we wrote. Six months. Then we leave. Then we become badasses."

"I want to be a badass now," Cynthia muttered.

"You are a badass," Paul said. "You've survived this long. That makes you a badass."

"I want to be a badass with a working internet connection and access to new K-drama episodes," Cynthia clarified.

Despite everything, they all laughed.

Week eight, and Melody finished whatever she'd been doing to the BoxPicker. She stood back, covered in grease and dust, and smiled.

"It's ready," she announced.

"Ready for what?" Lola asked.

"For later. For when we need it." Melody patted the machine affectionately. "It's not just a storage system anymore. It's... more."

"More what?" Paul asked.

"You'll see," Melody said mysteriously. "When the time comes. You'll see."

They'd learned not to question Melody's projects. Her brain worked in ways they couldn't follow, but her results were usually impressive, even if they didn't understand how she'd achieved them.

Week ten, and they were halfway there. Three months down, three to go. They celebrated with extra rations—a whole cup of TPN each instead of half a cup, and one of the precious granola bars split four ways.

"To surviving," Paul said, raising his cup.

"To surviving," they echoed, clinking their cups together.

"To becoming badasses," Cynthia added.

"To purple Crocs," Lola said, looking down at her disintegrating shoes.

"To the story," Melody said quietly. "To living the story we wrote."

They drank their terrible nutrition drinks and ate their stale granola bar crumbs and felt, for a moment, something like hope.

Week twelve, and the power went out.

It happened during Lola's watch shift, around 3 AM. One moment, the lights were on, the BoxPicker was humming, everything was normal. The next moment—darkness. Complete, absolute darkness.

"Paul!" Lola shouted. "Paul, wake up!"

They all woke up, disoriented and terrified. The darkness was oppressive, suffocating. They'd gotten so used to the constant fluorescent light that its absence felt like a physical presence.

"Flashlights," Paul said, his voice steady despite the fear. "We have flashlights. Melody, where did we put them?"

"Emergency cabinet," Melody said. "In the narc vault. I'll get them."

"How can you navigate in the dark?" Cynthia asked.

"I can't read in the light," Melody said. "Dark is easier."

Which made no sense, but somehow, Melody made it to the narc vault, found the flashlights, and brought them back without incident. They clicked them on, and the small circles of light pushed back the darkness just enough to breathe.

"The generators," Lola said. "They finally ran out of fuel."

"No," Paul said. "They can't. We wrote that we survive for six months. We're only at three months. The power has to come back."

"That's not how—" Lola started, but then the lights flickered. Once. Twice. And then they came back on, steady and bright.

The BoxPicker resumed its humming, as if nothing had happened.

They stared at each other in the sudden light, not speaking, not daring to voice what they were all thinking: that the power had come back because they'd written that they'd survive for six months, and surviving required power, so the power had returned.

It was impossible. It was insane. It was exactly what had been happening since the beginning.

"We're living in a story," Cynthia said finally. "We're actually living in a story we wrote. That's what's happening. That's the only explanation."

"There has to be another explanation," Lola said, but she didn't sound convinced.

"Does there?" Melody asked. "Does there really? Or can we just accept it? Accept that we wrote this, and now we're living it, and that means we'll survive because we wrote that we survive?"

"And then?" Paul asked. "If we're really living the story, what happens after six months?"

"We become badasses," Cynthia said. "We find a Barbie Jeep. We ride to the White House. We take over the government. We rule for fifty years."

"That's ridiculous," Lola said, but there was no heat in it anymore. She'd said it so many times that it had lost all meaning.

"So are zombies," Melody said. "So is all of this. But here we are."

Week sixteen, and they were getting close. Two months left. They could feel it, the approaching end of their confinement. They were restless, eager, ready to leave their prison and face whatever came next.

They trained harder with the weapons. They planned their exit strategy. They talked about what they'd do when they finally got outside, where they'd go, how they'd survive in the larger world.

"We need to find that Barbie Jeep," Cynthia said one day, completely seriously.

"You really think we're going to find a Barbie Jeep?" Lola asked.

"We found AK-47s in a narc vault," Cynthia pointed out. "At this point, I'll believe anything."

"It'll be pink," Melody said. "Bright pink. And plastic. And somehow, it'll work. It'll take us all the way to Washington."

"That's impossible," Lola said.

"Everything's impossible," Melody countered. "But it keeps happening anyway."

Week twenty, and they were in the home stretch. Four weeks left. One month. They could almost taste freedom.

They'd changed over the past five months. They were leaner, harder, more focused. The soft edges of their before-lives had been worn away, leaving something sharper, more dangerous. They moved like a unit now, anticipated each other's actions, communicated without words.

They were becoming what they'd written themselves to be: badasses.

"One month," Paul said, looking at the calendar they'd been keeping on the wall. "One more month, and we're out of here."

"And then?" Lola asked.

"And then we find out if the rest of the story is true," Paul said. "We find out if there really is a Barbie Jeep waiting for us. If we really can make it to Washington. If we really can take over the government and rule for fifty years."

"You think it's all true?" Cynthia asked. "All of it?"

"I think," Paul said slowly, "that everything we've written so far has come true. So why wouldn't the rest of it?"

"Because it's insane," Lola said, but she was smiling now.

"We're insane," Melody said. "We've been insane since the beginning. We wrote a story about surviving a zombie apocalypse, and then we survived a zombie apocalypse. We wrote about finding weapons, and we found weapons. We wrote about lasting six months, and we've lasted almost six months. So yes, I think the rest is true too. I think we're going to find that Barbie Jeep. I think we're going to ride it to Washington. I think we're going to take over the government. Because that's what we wrote. And everything we write comes true."

"Then we better make sure we write a good ending," Cynthia said.

"We already did," Melody said, smiling. "We rule for fifty years. We create a new society. We become legends."

"The United States of Paul Norris," Paul said, shaking his head. "I still can't believe I wrote that."

"Believe it," Melody said. "Because in one month, it's going to be real."

Week twenty-four. The final week. They were ready. They'd packed everything they could carry—weapons, ammunition, medical supplies, water, what little food they had left. They'd said goodbye to the pharmacy that had been their prison and their salvation. They'd even said goodbye to the BoxPicker, though Melody insisted they'd see it again.

"It's part of the story," she said. "It comes with us."

"It's a two-ton automated medication dispensing system," Lola said. "It's not coming with us."

"We'll see," Melody said mysteriously.

The final day. Six months to the day since they'd barricaded themselves in. They stood at the door, weapons in hand, ready to face whatever waited outside.

"Everyone ready?" Paul asked.

"Ready," they chorused.

"Then let's go become badasses," Paul said, and he started moving the BoxPicker away from the door.

It should have been impossible. It should have taken all four of them straining with all their strength. But the BoxPicker moved easily, smoothly, as if it weighed nothing at all. Melody smiled.

"I told you I made it better," she said.

The door was clear. Paul's hand was on the handle. This was it. Six months of survival, and now they were leaving. Now they were becoming the story they'd written.

"On three," Paul said. "One. Two. Three."

He opened the door.

And they stepped out into the apocalypse, ready to become legends.

Chapter 4: First Steps

The hallway outside the pharmacy was a nightmare rendered in fluorescent lighting and institutional beige. Six months ago, it had been a clean, sterile corridor where nurses and doctors hurried between departments, where patients were wheeled to and from procedures, where life happened in all its mundane, beautiful normalcy.

Now it was a graveyard.

Bodies littered the floor—some clearly dead for months, others more recent. The smell was indescribable, a physical presence that made them all gag despite the masks they'd fashioned from surgical supplies. The walls were streaked with blood and worse things. And everywhere, everywhere, were signs of violence: bullet holes, claw marks, messages scrawled in desperation.

"Oh god," Cynthia whispered, her voice muffled by her mask.

"Stay focused," Paul said, his AK-47 raised and ready. "Stay together. Watch your corners."

They moved as a unit, just as they'd practiced. Paul on point, Melody and Cynthia flanking, Lola bringing up the rear. Their months of training showed in every movement—smooth, coordinated, professional.

The zombies came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

One moment, the hallway was empty except for the dead. The next, they were surrounded—shambling figures emerging from doorways, from side corridors, from the shadows themselves. The creatures that had once been doctors, nurses, patients, visitors. Now they were just hunger and instinct and death.

"Contact!" Paul shouted, and opened fire.

The sound of the AK-47 in the enclosed space was deafening, overwhelming, glorious. Brass casings clinked on the floor. Zombies fell, their bodies jerking and twitching before going still. Paul's aim was perfect—headshots, every one. Just like he'd taught them.

Melody and Cynthia opened fire a heartbeat later, their weapons adding to the cacophony. Lola, with the handgun, picked off any that got too close. They moved through the hallway like a machine, efficient and deadly.

"This is amazing!" Cynthia shouted over the gunfire. "This is exactly like 'Kingdom' but with guns!"

"Less talking, more shooting!" Lola yelled back.

They fought their way to the service elevator, leaving a trail of bodies behind them. The elevator was dead—no power—so they took the stairs. More zombies in the stairwell, more gunfire, more bodies falling. They were unstoppable.

"I can't believe this is working!" Lola said as they reached the ground floor. "I can't believe we're actually doing this!"

"We wrote it," Melody said calmly, reloading her weapon with practiced ease. "We wrote that we emerge as zombie-killing badasses. So we are."

The ground floor was worse than the basement. The ER had been overrun in the first hours of the outbreak, and it showed. But they pushed through, their weapons blazing, their movements synchronized. They were a team, a unit, a force of nature.

And then they were outside.

The sunlight was blinding after six months in the fluorescent-lit pharmacy. They stood on the hospital's front steps, blinking in the brightness, breathing fresh air for the first time in half a year. It was November again—November 24th, 2026, exactly six months after they'd barricaded themselves in.

The world had changed.

Washington D.C. was a ruin. Buildings burned in the distance. Cars were abandoned in the streets, many of them crashed or overturned. Bodies everywhere. And zombies—thousands of them, wandering aimlessly through the city that had once been the nation's capital.

"Holy shit," Cynthia breathed.

"Language," Lola said automatically, then laughed at herself. "Sorry. Habit."

"Look at it," Paul said, his voice filled with something between horror and awe. "The whole city. The whole world, probably."

"Not the whole world," Melody said. She was staring at something in the distance, her eyes focused in that way that meant her brain was working on a level the rest of them couldn't follow. "Just most of it. But not all. There are survivors. Pockets of resistance. Communities. And in the White House—"

"The nurses," Cynthia finished. "The nurses took over the White House. Just like we wrote."

"How do you know?" Lola asked.

"Because that's what we wrote," Melody said simply. "And everything we write comes true."

They stood there for a moment, taking it all in. Six months ago, they'd been ordinary pharmacy workers, worried about shift schedules and medication errors and whether they'd remembered to submit their timesheets. Now they were survivors, warriors, badasses with AK-47s standing in the ruins of civilization.

"So," Paul said finally. "We need to find a Barbie Jeep."

"A Barbie Jeep," Lola repeated. "In the middle of the apocalypse. We need to find a pink plastic children's toy vehicle."

"That's what we wrote," Melody said.

"Where do we even start looking?" Cynthia asked.

"There," Melody said, pointing.

They all turned to look. Across the street, in front of what had once been a toy store, sitting pristine and perfect and completely out of place in the devastation, was a Barbie Jeep. Bright pink, plastic, with little decals of Barbie and her friends on the sides. It looked like it had just rolled off the assembly line.

"No way," Lola said.

"Way," Melody said, and started walking toward it.

They followed, weapons ready, scanning for threats. But the zombies in the immediate area seemed to be ignoring them, wandering aimlessly. It was as if the universe itself was clearing a path to the Jeep.

Melody reached it first. She ran her hand over the pink plastic, smiling. "It's perfect."

"It's a toy," Lola said. "It's designed for children. It probably has a top speed of three miles per hour and runs on AA batteries."

"Not anymore," Melody said. She opened the hood—which shouldn't have opened, because Barbie Jeeps didn't have hoods—and revealed an engine. An actual, full-sized engine, somehow crammed into the tiny plastic vehicle.

"How—" Paul started.

"Because we wrote it," Melody said. "We wrote that we find a Barbie Jeep and ride it to the White House. So it has to work. So it does."

She climbed into the driver's seat. The Jeep should have been far too small for an adult, but somehow, it fit her perfectly. She turned the key—which was already in the ignition—and the engine roared to life.

"Everyone in," Melody said.

"There's no way we all fit," Lola protested.

"We fit," Melody said. "Because we wrote it."

And somehow, impossibly, they did. All four of them squeezed into the tiny pink plastic Jeep, their weapons across their laps, and it held them all comfortably. The laws of physics had apparently decided to take a vacation.

"This is insane," Lola said, but she was grinning now.

"This is perfect," Cynthia corrected. "This is exactly like a K-drama. The heroes always get the perfect vehicle at the perfect time."

"This isn't a K-drama," Lola said, but there was no conviction in it anymore.

"Isn't it?" Melody asked, and put the Jeep in gear.

They drove through the ruins of Washington D.C. in a bright pink Barbie Jeep, four pharmacy workers armed with AK-47s, heading toward the White House to overthrow a government run by nurses. It was absurd. It was impossible. It was exactly what they'd written.

And it was glorious.

Chapter 5: The Road to Power

The Barbie Jeep handled like a dream. It shouldn't have—it was a plastic toy designed for toddlers to putter around their driveways. But Melody drove it like a rally car, weaving through abandoned vehicles, jumping curbs, even doing a few donuts around particularly large groups of zombies just for the hell of it.

"This is the best day of my life!" Cynthia shouted over the wind. The Jeep had no doors, no roof, nothing to protect them from the elements or the zombies. But somehow, that made it better.

They attracted attention, of course. A bright pink vehicle roaring through the gray ruins of the city was hard to miss. Zombies turned toward them, reaching out with grasping hands. But Melody was too fast, too skilled. She wove through them like they were traffic cones.

"Contact, three o'clock!" Paul called out, and Cynthia swung her weapon around, firing a burst that dropped three zombies in quick succession.

"Nine o'clock!" Lola called, and Melody took out a group with her own weapon, steering with one hand and shooting with the other.

They were a machine, a perfect unit. Six months of training and survival had forged them into something more than they'd been. They were warriors now. Badasses. Just like they'd written.

"The White House is about two miles from here," Paul said, checking a map he'd grabbed from the hospital. "Straight down Pennsylvania Avenue."

"Then that's where we go," Melody said, and gunned the engine.

Pennsylvania Avenue was a war zone. Abandoned military vehicles, makeshift barricades, evidence of desperate last stands. The government had tried to hold the city, tried to maintain order. They'd failed. But someone had succeeded in taking the White House—the nurses, according to the story they'd written.

"How do we know it's really nurses?" Lola asked as they drove. "How do we know any of this is real and not just... I don't know, mass hallucination?"

"Does it matter?" Melody asked. "Real, hallucination, story—it's all the same now. We're living it. That makes it real enough."

They encountered their first human survivors about a mile from the White House. A group of maybe twenty people, barricaded in what looked like a former restaurant. They waved frantically as the Barbie Jeep approached.

"Should we stop?" Cynthia asked.

"No," Paul said firmly. "We can't save everyone. We have a mission."

"What mission?" Lola asked. "Taking over the government? That's not a real mission. That's a story we made up."

"It's our mission now," Paul said. "We wrote it. We're living it. We have to see it through."

They drove past the survivors, who stared in disbelief at the sight of four people in a pink plastic Jeep, armed to the teeth, heading toward the White House like they owned it.

"They're going to tell stories about us," Cynthia said. "The people who survive this. They're going to tell stories about the four pharmacy workers in the Barbie Jeep who saved the world."

"We haven't saved anything yet," Lola pointed out.

"We will," Melody said with absolute certainty. "Because that's what we wrote."

The White House came into view, and they all fell silent. It was still standing, still intact, surrounded by a makeshift wall of vehicles and debris. Figures moved on the walls—guards, sentries. And they were wearing scrubs.

"Nurses," Paul said. "It's really nurses."

"Of course it is," Melody said. "We wrote it."

They approached slowly, the Barbie Jeep's engine purring. The guards on the wall noticed them, raised weapons—actual military weapons, not just the small arms that civilians might have.

"Stop right there!" a voice called out. Female, authoritative. "Identify yourselves!"

Melody stopped the Jeep about fifty yards from the gate. They all climbed out, weapons ready but not raised. Threatening, but not actively hostile.

"We're from Sibley Memorial Hospital!" Paul called back. "We're pharmacists! And a pharmacy tech!" he added, nodding to Cynthia.

"Pharmacists?" The voice sounded skeptical. "What do you want?"

"We want to talk!" Paul said. "We want to know what's happening! We've been barricaded in our pharmacy for six months!"

There was a long pause. Then: "Six months? You survived for six months in a pharmacy?"

"Yes!" Lola called out. "On TPN and tube feeding formulas! It was terrible!"

Another pause. Then, incredibly, laughter. "That's the most pharmacist thing I've ever heard. Okay, you can come in. But leave the weapons outside."

"No," Melody said flatly.

"Excuse me?"

"No," Melody repeated. "We keep our weapons. We're coming in. And we're taking over."

The silence that followed was profound. Then: "You're what?"

"Taking over," Melody said calmly. "The government. The White House. All of it. We're establishing the United States of Paul Norris."

"The United States of what?"

"Paul Norris," Melody said, gesturing to Paul. "Him. He's in charge now. We're his... cabinet. Or something. We haven't worked out all the details."

"You're insane," the voice said.

"Probably," Melody agreed. "But we're also heavily armed and we've survived six months of the apocalypse. So we're coming in. You can let us in peacefully, or we can come in the hard way. Your choice."

"There are fifty of us in here," the voice said. "All armed. All trained. You're four people in a pink plastic Jeep."

"We're four people who survived six months in a pharmacy," Melody corrected. "We're four people who fought our way out of a zombie-infested hospital. We're four people who found a Barbie Jeep in the middle of the apocalypse and drove it here. We're four people who are living a story we wrote. And in that story, we take over the White House. So that's what's going to happen."

Another long pause. Then: "You're serious."

"Completely," Melody said.

"This is the craziest thing I've ever heard," the voice said. "And I've been living in the White House during a zombie apocalypse for six months."

"So you'll let us in?" Paul asked.

"Hell no," the voice said. "But I want to see you try. This should be entertaining."

"Okay then," Melody said. She turned to the others. "Plan B."

"We have a Plan B?" Lola asked.

"We do now," Melody said. She walked back to the Barbie Jeep and opened the hood. Inside, where the engine should have been—where the engine had been just minutes ago—was something else. Something that looked like a weapon. A very large weapon.

"Is that a rocket launcher?" Cynthia asked.

"It's whatever we need it to be," Melody said. "Because we wrote this story. And in this story, we take over the White House."

She lifted the weapon—which should have been far too heavy for her to lift, but wasn't—and aimed it at the gate.

"Last chance!" she called out. "Let us in peacefully, or we come in loud!"

"You're bluffing!" the voice called back.

"Am I?" Melody asked, and fired.

The rocket—because it was definitely a rocket—streaked toward the gate and exploded in a massive fireball. The makeshift wall of vehicles and debris disintegrated. Alarms blared. People screamed. And Melody calmly reloaded the weapon.

"Next one goes through your front door!" she called out. "Let us in, or we level the place!"

"Okay! Okay!" the voice shouted. "Jesus Christ! You're insane! But okay! Come in! Just stop shooting!"

Melody lowered the weapon and smiled. "See? Peaceful."

"That was not peaceful," Lola said.

"It was peaceful-ish," Melody countered.

They walked through the smoking remains of the gate, weapons ready, and entered the White House grounds. Nurses in scrubs emerged from the building, hands raised, weapons lowered. They looked exhausted, scared, and more than a little confused.

"Who are you people?" one of them asked—a woman in her forties with gray-streaked hair and the bearing of someone used to being in charge.

"We're pharmacists," Paul said. "And we're taking over."

"Why?" the woman asked. "Why would pharmacists want to take over the government?"

"Because we wrote it," Melody said simply. "We wrote a story about surviving the apocalypse and taking over the government. And everything we write comes true. So here we are."

The woman stared at them for a long moment. Then she started laughing. It was a tired, slightly hysterical laugh, but it was genuine.

"You know what?" she said. "Fine. Take it. We've been trying to hold this place together for six months with no supplies, no support, and no idea what we're doing. If you think you can do better, be my guest."

"Really?" Paul asked, surprised.

"Really," the woman said. "I'm Sarah Chen. I was the head nurse in the ER at George Washington University Hospital. When everything went to hell, a bunch of us made it here. We've been trying to maintain some kind of order, some kind of government. But honestly? We're exhausted. We're out of ideas. And we're out of hope. So if four crazy pharmacists in a Barbie Jeep want to take over, I'm not going to stop them."

"We're not crazy," Lola said.

"You drove here in a Barbie Jeep," Sarah pointed out.

"Fair point," Lola conceded.

"So that's it?" Cynthia asked. "We just... take over? No fight? No dramatic confrontation?"

"This isn't a K-drama," Sarah said. "This is real life. And in real life, sometimes people are just too tired to fight anymore."

"But we wrote a dramatic confrontation," Melody said, frowning. "We wrote that we take control from the nurses who had commandeered it. That sounds dramatic."

"We did commandeer it," Sarah said. "And you are taking control. Mission accomplished. Sorry it wasn't more exciting."

Melody looked disappointed, but Paul stepped forward, extending his hand to Sarah.

"Thank you," he said. "For holding things together. For trying. For not making this harder than it needs to be."

Sarah shook his hand. "Just promise me one thing."

"What?"

"Do better than we did. Make this mean something. Don't let the world end with a whimper."

"We won't," Paul promised. "We're going to rebuild. We're going to create something new. Something better."

"The United States of Paul Norris," Sarah said, shaking her head. "That's really what you're calling it?"

"That's what we wrote," Melody said.

"Then I guess that's what it is," Sarah said. "Welcome to the White House, Mr. President."

And just like that, they'd done it. They'd taken over the government. They'd established the United States of Paul Norris. They'd completed the story they'd written.

Or at least, they'd completed this chapter. Because the story wasn't over yet. They still had fifty years to go.

Chapter 6: Consolidation

The White House was in better shape than they'd expected, but that wasn't saying much. The nurses had done their best to maintain it, but six months of apocalypse had taken their toll. Windows were broken, furniture was damaged, supplies were running low. But it was standing, it was defensible, and it was theirs.

"This is surreal," Lola said, standing in the Oval Office. "We're in the Oval Office. We're in charge of the government. How is this our life?"

"Because we wrote it," Melody said for what felt like the hundredth time. She was examining the Resolute Desk with interest, running her hands over the wood. "This is where presidents sit. Where they make decisions. Where they change the world."

"And now it's where Paul sits," Cynthia said. She was sprawled in one of the chairs, her AK-47 leaning against the wall. "President Paul Norris. Has a nice ring to it."

Paul himself was standing at the window, looking out at the ruined city. "I don't know if I can do this," he said quietly. "I'm a pharmacist. I'm not a president. I don't know how to run a country."

"Nobody knows how to run a country during a zombie apocalypse," Lola pointed out. "You'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Together."

"We have fifty years," Melody added. "We wrote that we rule for fifty years. So we have time to learn."

"Fifty years," Paul repeated. "We'll be old. We'll be in our seventies and eighties."

"And we'll still be in power," Melody said. "Because that's what we wrote."

Sarah Chen appeared in the doorway, knocking politely despite the fact that this was technically still her domain. "Sorry to interrupt, but we need to talk logistics. Food, water, security, communications. The basics of survival."

"Right," Paul said, turning from the window. "Okay. Let's do this. Let's figure out how to run a government."

They spent the next several hours in meetings with Sarah and the other nurses who'd been holding the White House. There were forty-seven of them in total—nurses, a few doctors, some security guards who'd been on duty when the outbreak started, and a handful of civilians who'd made it to the White House in the early days.

The situation was grim but not hopeless. They had food for maybe another month, water from the White House's emergency supplies, and a generator that was still running on fuel that would last another few weeks. They had weapons—the Secret Service armory had been well-stocked—and they had people who knew how to use them.

What they didn't have was a plan. They'd been surviving day to day, hoping for rescue that never came, waiting for things to get better. They'd been in a holding pattern, treading water, slowly drowning.

"We need to change that," Paul said. "We need to move from surviving to thriving. We need to start rebuilding."

"Rebuilding what?" one of the nurses asked—a young man named Marcus. "The world is gone. Civilization is gone. What's left to rebuild?"

"Everything," Paul said. "We rebuild everything. We start here, with the White House, with this community. We secure the area, clear out the zombies, establish a safe zone. Then we expand. We find other survivors, bring them in, create a real society. We don't just survive—we live."

"That's ambitious," Sarah said.

"We're ambitious people," Cynthia said. "We survived six months in a pharmacy. We drove here in a Barbie Jeep. We took over the government. Ambition is kind of our thing."

"Speaking of the Barbie Jeep," Marcus said, "what the hell is that thing? How does it work? Why is it pink?"

"It's a Barbie Jeep," Melody said, as if that explained everything. "It works because we wrote that it works. It's pink because Barbie Jeeps are pink. Any other questions?"

Marcus opened his mouth, closed it, then shook his head. "You people are weird."

"We prefer 'eccentric,'" Lola said.

They worked through the night, planning and organizing. Paul proved to be a natural leader, delegating tasks, listening to input, making decisions with confidence. Lola took charge of supplies and logistics, her years of covering shifts and managing pharmacy inventory translating perfectly to managing a post-apocalyptic government. Cynthia became head of security, her K-drama-inspired tactical knowledge surprisingly applicable to real-world defense. And Melody...

Melody became something else entirely.

She wandered the White House, examining everything, touching walls and furniture and equipment with that distant, focused expression that meant her brain was working on levels the rest of them couldn't follow. She'd disappear for hours, then return with pronouncements that made no sense but turned out to be exactly right.

"We need to fortify the south lawn," she'd say, and they'd discover that the south lawn was the weakest point in their defenses.

"There's a supply cache in the basement," she'd announce, and they'd find a forgotten storage room full of useful equipment.

"The water system needs to be rerouted," she'd declare, and they'd realize that the current system was about to fail.

"How does she know these things?" Marcus asked Paul one day.

"She just does," Paul said. "She's always been like this. Brilliant but incomprehensible. You learn to trust it."

"She said something about the BoxPicker coming here," Marcus said. "What's a BoxPicker?"

"An automated medication dispensing system," Paul explained. "It was in our pharmacy. We used it to barricade the door."

"And she thinks it's coming here?"

"She says it's part of the story," Paul said. "And everything in the story comes true. So probably yes, somehow the BoxPicker will end up here."

"You people are definitely weird," Marcus said.

Two weeks after taking over the White House, they held their first official meeting of the new government. Paul sat at the head of the table in the Cabinet Room, with Lola, Cynthia, and Melody on either side. Sarah and the other nurse leaders were there too, along with representatives from the various groups that had formed within their community.

"Welcome," Paul said, "to the first official meeting of the United States of Paul Norris."

"We're really calling it that?" Sarah asked.

"We're really calling it that," Paul confirmed. "It's what we wrote. It's who we are now."

"It's a terrible name," Sarah said, but she was smiling.

"It's a memorable name," Paul countered. "And in a world that's fallen apart, memorable is good. People need something to believe in, something to rally around. Even if it's just a ridiculous name."

"So what's our plan?" Marcus asked. "What's the vision for this new United States?"

Paul looked at Melody, who nodded. They'd discussed this, planned it out. They knew what they wanted to create.

"We're going to build something new," Paul said. "Not a recreation of what was, but something better. Something that learns from the mistakes of the past. We're going to create a society based on survival, on community, on taking care of each other."

"Sounds utopian," Sarah said.

"It's dystopian," Melody corrected. "We wrote that we create a dystopian society. So it has to have some dark elements. Some problems. Some challenges."

"Why would we deliberately create a dystopian society?" Marcus asked.

"Because dystopias are more interesting," Cynthia said. "And because perfect societies don't exist. Better to acknowledge the problems and work with them than pretend everything's fine."

"So what are the problems?" Sarah asked. "What makes this dystopian?"

"We'll figure that out as we go," Paul said. "But for now, let's focus on the basics. Security, food, water, shelter. We expand our safe zone, we find more survivors, we build a real community. The dystopian elements will emerge naturally."

"That's ominous," Marcus said.

"That's realistic," Lola corrected.

They spent the next month implementing their plans. They cleared the area around the White House, block by block, eliminating zombies and securing buildings. They found more survivors—dozens of them, hiding in basements and attics and anywhere they could barricade themselves. They brought them to the White House, integrated them into the community, gave them purpose and hope.

The United States of Paul Norris was growing.

They established rules, systems, hierarchies. Paul was the president, but he ruled with a council that included Lola, Cynthia, Melody, Sarah, and several others. They made decisions collectively, democratically, though Paul had final say in emergencies.

They created a currency based on purple Crocs—Lola's idea, implemented half as a joke and half seriously. Purple Crocs became status symbols, markers of contribution and value. People worked to earn them, traded them, displayed them proudly. It was absurd, but it worked.

They mandated K-drama education—Cynthia's contribution. Everyone had to watch at least one K-drama per week, to learn about teamwork, sacrifice, and dramatic confrontations. It was ridiculous, but it built community, gave people something to talk about, created shared cultural touchstones.

They implemented pharmaceutical-based policies—Lola and Paul's domain. Healthcare was free and universal, but it was also mandatory. Everyone had to take their medications, attend their check-ups, follow their treatment plans. It was paternalistic and controlling, but it kept people healthy.

And Melody... Melody created things that nobody understood but everyone relied on. She built systems and machines and processes that seemed to defy logic but worked perfectly. She was the wizard behind the curtain, the genius nobody could quite figure out, the person who made the impossible possible.

"She's going to be a legend," Sarah said to Paul one day, watching Melody work on some incomprehensible project. "In fifty years, people are going to tell stories about her. The brilliant pharmacist who couldn't read but could see the future."

"She doesn't see the future," Paul said. "She just... knows things. Understands things. In ways the rest of us don't."

"Same difference," Sarah said.

Three months after taking over the White House, they had a community of over two hundred people. They'd cleared a safe zone of several square blocks. They'd established farms on the National Mall, growing food in the shadow of monuments to a dead nation. They'd set up workshops and factories, producing tools and weapons and supplies. They'd created schools where children learned not just reading and math, but survival skills and zombie combat and the importance of purple Crocs.

The United States of Paul Norris was becoming real.

"We did it," Lola said one evening, standing on the White House balcony with the others, looking out at their growing community. "We actually did it. We took over the government. We're rebuilding society."

"We're living the story we wrote," Melody said.

"How much longer?" Cynthia asked. "In the story, I mean. We wrote that we rule for fifty years. How much of that is left?"

"Forty-nine years and nine months," Melody said immediately. "We took over three months ago. We have forty-nine years and nine months left."

"That's a long time," Lola said.

"That's a lifetime," Paul corrected.

"That's our lifetime," Melody said. "The rest of our lives. We're going to spend them here, ruling this place, building this society. That's what we wrote. That's what we're doing."

"No regrets?" Sarah asked. She'd joined them on the balcony, had become part of their inner circle.

"No regrets," Paul said. "This is insane and impossible and ridiculous. But it's also amazing. We're making a difference. We're saving lives. We're building something that matters."

"The United States of Paul Norris," Sarah said, shaking her head. "Still a terrible name."

"Still a memorable name," Paul countered.

They stood there in silence, watching the sun set over their new nation, their impossible society, their story made real. They'd survived six months in a pharmacy. They'd fought their way through a zombie apocalypse. They'd taken over the government in a Barbie Jeep. And now they were going to rule for fifty years.

It was insane. It was impossible. It was exactly what they'd written.

And it was only the beginning.

Chapter 7: Year Five - The BoxPicker Returns

Five years into the United States of Paul Norris, and the society they'd built was thriving in ways that would have seemed impossible in those early days. The safe zone had expanded to encompass most of downtown D.C. The population had grown to over three thousand. They'd established trade routes with other survivor communities, created a functioning economy, and even started to push back against the zombie hordes.

But they'd also started to see the dystopian elements Melody had predicted.

The purple Croc economy had created a class system. Those with many Crocs—the "Purples"—had access to better housing, better food, better everything. Those with few or no Crocs—the "Barefoot"—struggled to survive. It wasn't intentional, but it was inevitable. Any currency creates inequality.

The mandatory K-drama education had become propaganda. Cynthia had started using the dramas to teach "proper" behavior, "correct" thinking. It was subtle, but it was there. The dramas weren't just entertainment anymore—they were indoctrination.

The pharmaceutical policies had become controlling. Everyone had to take their medications, even if they didn't want to. Everyone had to attend check-ups, submit to examinations, follow treatment plans. It was for their own good, of course. But it was also a loss of freedom.

And Paul... Paul had become more than a president. He'd become a symbol, an icon, almost a deity. People didn't just respect him—they worshipped him. The United States of Paul Norris wasn't just a name anymore. It was a cult of personality.

"This isn't what we wanted," Lola said one day, sitting in the Oval Office with the others. She was in her late forties now, her hair graying, her face lined with the stress of five years of leadership. But she still wore her purple Crocs—the original pair, carefully maintained, a symbol of where they'd come from.

"Isn't it?" Melody asked. She was sitting on the floor, surrounded by papers covered in incomprehensible diagrams. "We wrote that we create a dystopian society. This is dystopian. Mission accomplished."

"But we didn't mean to create inequality," Lola protested. "We didn't mean to create propaganda. We didn't mean to create a cult of personality."

"Didn't we?" Melody looked up, her eyes clear and focused. "We wrote that Paul becomes the ruler. That implies a power structure. We wrote that purple Crocs become status symbols. That implies inequality. We wrote that we rule for fifty years. That implies a system that maintains our power. We created exactly what we wrote."

"She's right," Paul said quietly. He was standing at the window, as he often did, looking out at the city he ruled. "We created this. Maybe not intentionally, but we created it. And now we have to live with it."

"Or change it," Cynthia suggested. She was in her early thirties now, still energetic, still referencing K-dramas, but with a harder edge than she'd had before. Five years of leadership had changed her too. "We can change the system. Make it better."

"Can we?" Paul asked. "We wrote that we rule for fifty years. That means the system has to be stable enough to last fifty years. If we change too much, we might destabilize everything."

"So we're trapped," Lola said. "Trapped by a story we wrote five years ago."

"We're living the story," Melody corrected. "There's a difference."

Before anyone could respond, there was a commotion outside. Shouting, the sound of engines, something large moving through the streets. They all rushed to the window.

Coming down Pennsylvania Avenue, surrounded by a crowd of confused and excited citizens, was the BoxPicker.

The actual BoxPicker. The automated medication dispensing system from Sibley Memorial Hospital. The machine they'd used to barricade the pharmacy door five years ago. It was rolling down the street on its own, its robotic arms waving, its drawers opening and closing, making that familiar irritating beeping sound.

"No way," Lola breathed.

"I told you it would come," Melody said calmly. "I told you it was part of the story."

"But how?" Cynthia asked. "How is it here? How is it moving? How is any of this possible?"

"Because we wrote it," Melody said. "We wrote that the BoxPicker was important. That it saved us. That it was part of our story. So it's here. Because that's what happens in our story."

They ran outside, joining the crowd that had gathered around the BoxPicker. The machine rolled to a stop in front of the White House, its beeping reaching a crescendo, then falling silent. One of its drawers opened, and inside was a note.

Paul reached in and pulled it out. The handwriting was Melody's, but the paper was old, yellowed, dated from five years ago.

"The BoxPicker will come when you need it most," the note read. "It will bring what you need to fix what's broken. Trust the story. Trust the machine. Trust each other."

"When did you write this?" Paul asked Melody.

"Five years ago," Melody said. "The night before we left the pharmacy. I knew we'd need it. I knew it would come. So I wrote the note and put it in the BoxPicker's drawer. And now it's here."

"But what does it bring?" Lola asked. "What do we need?"

Melody walked to the BoxPicker and pressed a sequence of buttons on its control panel. The machine whirred to life, and drawer after drawer began opening, revealing their contents.

Medications. Thousands of them. Every drug they'd been running low on, every treatment they'd been rationing, every medication they'd thought they'd never see again. The BoxPicker had brought them a pharmacy's worth of supplies.

But that wasn't all. In the largest drawer, at the bottom of the machine, was something else. Plans. Blueprints. Designs for systems and machines and processes that would solve the problems they'd been facing. Water purification systems. Food production methods. Power generation techniques. Everything they needed to make their society sustainable, to reduce the inequality, to give everyone a better life.

"It's all here," Paul said, looking through the plans. "Everything we need. Solutions to all our problems."

"Not all our problems," Melody said. "We still have the cult of personality. We still have the propaganda. We still have the loss of freedom. The BoxPicker can't fix those. Only we can."

"Then we fix them," Paul said firmly. "We use these resources to make things better. We reduce the inequality. We ease up on the control. We make the United States of Paul Norris into something we can be proud of."

"Can we do that and still maintain power for fifty years?" Lola asked.

"We have to try," Paul said. "Otherwise, what's the point? We didn't survive the apocalypse just to become tyrants."

They spent the next year implementing the changes. Using the BoxPicker's supplies and plans, they built new systems that reduced inequality. They created opportunities for the Barefoot to earn Crocs, to improve their status. They eased up on the mandatory policies, gave people more freedom, more choice. They toned down the propaganda, made the K-drama education more about entertainment and less about indoctrination.

It wasn't perfect. It was still dystopian in many ways. But it was better. And that was something.

The BoxPicker stayed in front of the White House, a monument to their past and a symbol of their future. Children played around it. People left offerings at its base—flowers, notes, small tokens of appreciation. It became a shrine, a reminder of where they'd come from and what they'd survived.

"It's weird," Cynthia said one day, watching people gather around the BoxPicker. "We hated that thing. It was annoying and loud and always breaking down. And now it's basically a religious icon."

"Everything's weird now," Lola said. "We're living in a story we wrote. Weird is our normal."

"Do you ever wonder," Cynthia asked, "what would have happened if we hadn't written that prompt? If we'd just gone home that day instead of staying late to play with AI?"

"We'd be dead," Melody said simply. She'd joined them, appearing silently as she often did. "The apocalypse would have happened anyway. But we wouldn't have known what to do. We wouldn't have had the weapons or the plan or the story to guide us. We'd have died in the first few days, like most people did."

"So writing the story saved us," Cynthia said.

"Writing the story created us," Melody corrected. "We're not the same people we were five years ago. We're the people the story made us. The heroes. The leaders. The legends."

"The tyrants," Lola added quietly.

"The tyrants who are trying to be better," Paul said, joining them. "That's something. That's more than most tyrants can say."

They stood there together, the four of them, looking at the BoxPicker and the society they'd built around it. Five years down. Forty-five to go.

Chapter 8: Year Fifteen - The Next Generation

Fifteen years into the United States of Paul Norris, and the world had changed again. The zombie threat had been largely contained—not eliminated, but managed. The safe zones had expanded to cover most of the East Coast. The population had grown to over fifty thousand. They'd made contact with other survivor governments in other parts of the country, even other parts of the world.

The United States of Paul Norris was no longer just a community. It was a nation.

Paul was in his fifties now, his hair gray, his face weathered. But he was still strong, still charismatic, still the leader people looked to. Lola was in her late fifties, her purple Crocs now a symbol recognized across the entire nation. Cynthia was in her early forties, her K-drama education program now taught in schools across the territory. And Melody...

Melody hadn't aged. Or rather, she had aged, but differently. She looked older, but not in the way the others did. She looked timeless, ageless, like someone who existed slightly outside of normal reality. People whispered about her, told stories, created myths. The Pharmacist Who Couldn't Read But Could See Everything. The Genius Who Spoke in Riddles. The Woman Who Brought the BoxPicker.

"They're making me into a legend," Melody said one day, reading—or pretending to read—a newspaper article about herself. "They're saying I can predict the future. That I have magic powers. That I'm not entirely human."

"Are you?" Cynthia asked, half-joking.

Melody looked at her with those clear, focused eyes. "I don't know anymore. I know what I was. I know what the story says I am. But what I actually am? That's harder to say."

"You're Melody," Paul said firmly. "You're our friend. You're part of this team. That's all that matters."

But even he wasn't entirely sure anymore. Melody had become something more than human over the past fifteen years. She'd built machines that shouldn't work but did. She'd predicted events that couldn't be predicted. She'd solved problems that had no solutions. She was the wizard, the oracle, the impossible genius who made their impossible society function.

The bigger change, though, was the next generation. Children who'd been born after the apocalypse, who'd never known the old world, who'd grown up in the United States of Paul Norris. They were different from the survivors—harder, more adaptable, more comfortable with the dystopian elements that still troubled the older generation.

They didn't question the purple Croc economy. They didn't resist the mandatory policies. They didn't see the cult of personality as strange. To them, this was normal. This was how the world worked.

"It's working," Sarah Chen said during a council meeting. She was in her sixties now, still sharp, still involved in governance. "The next generation is fully integrated into the system. They believe in it. They'll maintain it after we're gone."

"That's what worries me," Lola said. "We created this system knowing it was flawed, knowing it was dystopian. But we also knew why it was necessary, what we were trying to prevent. The next generation doesn't know that. They just accept it as normal."

"Isn't that the point?" Marcus asked. He was in his forties now, one of the senior leaders. "We created a stable system that can last fifty years. For it to last, people have to believe in it. The next generation believes. That's success."

"Or tragedy," Lola muttered.

"Both," Melody said. "It's both. That's what makes it dystopian. It works, but at a cost. It's stable, but it's also oppressive. It's successful, but it's also wrong. That's the nature of dystopia."

"Can we change it?" Paul asked. "Should we change it?"

"We wrote that we rule for fifty years," Melody said. "We're at year fifteen. We have thirty-five years left. If we change too much now, we might not make it to fifty. The story might break."

"So we're still trapped by the story," Lola said.

"We're still living the story," Melody corrected. "There's still a difference."

But the difference was getting harder to see.

They celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the United States of Paul Norris with a massive festival. Thousands of people gathered on the National Mall, now a thriving agricultural center. There were speeches, performances, displays of the purple Crocs that had become their national symbol. There were screenings of K-dramas, now considered high art. There were demonstrations of the pharmaceutical policies that kept everyone healthy.

And there was the BoxPicker, still standing in front of the White House, now covered in decorations and offerings, a shrine to their origin story.

Paul gave a speech from the steps of the White House, looking out at the crowd of thousands. "Fifteen years ago," he said, "four pharmacy workers barricaded themselves in a basement and survived the impossible. Today, we're a nation of fifty thousand, thriving in a world that tried to destroy us. We've built something remarkable. Something that will last."

The crowd cheered. They believed him. They believed in him. They believed in the United States of Paul Norris.

Later, in private, Paul asked Melody: "Will it last? Will we really make it to fifty years?"

"We wrote it," Melody said. "So yes. We'll make it."

"And after?" Paul asked. "What happens after fifty years? We didn't write that part."

Melody smiled, and it was a strange smile—part knowing, part mysterious, part something else entirely. "After fifty years, the story ends. And then... we'll see what happens when we're not living in a story anymore."

"That's ominous," Paul said.

"That's realistic," Melody corrected, echoing Lola's words from fifteen years ago.

The years continued to pass. Year twenty. Year twenty-five. Year thirty. The United States of Paul Norris grew stronger, more stable, more entrenched. The dystopian elements became more pronounced—the inequality, the control, the cult of personality. But so did the successes—the safety, the prosperity, the community.

They were building something that would last. But they were also building something that troubled them. Every year, they looked at what they'd created and wondered if they'd made the right choices. Every year, they remembered the story they'd written and wondered if they could have written it differently.

But they couldn't change it now. They were living it. And the story had thirty-five years left to run.

Chapter 9: Year Thirty - The Reckoning

Thirty years into the United States of Paul Norris, and cracks were starting to show.

Paul was in his sixties now, still ruling, still leading, but feeling the weight of three decades of power. Lola was in her seventies, her original purple Crocs long since replaced but still wearing purple every day, still managing the logistics that kept their nation running. Cynthia was in her fifties, her K-drama education program now a massive bureaucracy that she barely recognized. And Melody...

Melody was Melody. Ageless, timeless, incomprehensible. She'd become more myth than person, more symbol than human. People made pilgrimages to see her. They asked her for predictions, for blessings, for miracles. She gave them riddles and puzzles and incomprehensible advice that somehow always turned out to be right.

"I don't know who I am anymore," Melody said one night, sitting with the others in the Oval Office. It was just the four of them, like old times, like the pharmacy. "I know what the story says I am. I know what people think I am. But I don't know what I actually am."

"You're Melody," Paul said, as he always did. But even he sounded less certain now.

"Am I?" Melody asked. "Or am I just a character in a story? A role we wrote thirty years ago? When does the character end and the person begin?"

"That's too philosophical for this late at night," Lola said, but her voice was gentle. "You're our friend. You're part of this team. That's all that matters."

"Is it?" Melody asked. "Because I'm not sure I'm a person anymore. I'm not sure any of us are. We're characters. We're living a story. And characters don't get to choose their own paths."

"We chose this," Cynthia said. "We wrote the story. We chose to live it."

"Did we?" Melody asked. "Or did the story choose us? Did we write it, or did it write us? After thirty years, I can't tell the difference anymore."

The existential crisis wasn't just Melody's. It was affecting all of them, affecting the entire society. People were starting to question the system, to push back against the control, to wonder if there was a better way.

The Barefoot—those with few or no purple Crocs—were organizing, demanding change. The younger generation, who'd grown up in the system, were starting to see its flaws. Even the Purples—the elite—were beginning to question whether their privilege was justified.

"We're losing control," Marcus said during a council meeting. "The people are restless. They want change."

"We can't change," Paul said. "We wrote that we rule for fifty years. We're at year thirty. We have twenty years left. If we lose control now, the story breaks."

"Maybe the story needs to break," Lola said quietly. "Maybe we've been living it for too long. Maybe it's time to write a new story."

"We can't," Melody said, and there was something in her voice—fear, maybe, or certainty, or both. "We wrote this story. We're bound to it. If we break it, we break ourselves. We have to see it through to the end."

"Even if the end is dystopian?" Lola challenged. "Even if we've created something terrible?"

"We created something that works," Paul said. "It's not perfect. It's not utopian. But it works. Fifty thousand people are alive because of what we built. That has to count for something."

"It counts for everything," Melody said. "And nothing. That's the nature of dystopia. It's both salvation and damnation. It's both success and failure. It's both right and wrong."

"I hate philosophy," Cynthia muttered.

They managed to contain the unrest, to maintain control, to keep the system running. But it was harder now. The story was straining at its seams, trying to break free, trying to become something else. But they held it together, because that's what the story required.

Year thirty-five. Forty. Forty-five. The years passed, each one harder than the last. The dystopian elements became more pronounced. The control became tighter. The cult of personality became more extreme. But the system held. The United States of Paul Norris endured.

Paul was in his seventies now, his hair white, his body frail. But he was still president, still ruling, still the symbol people looked to. Lola was in her eighties, still wearing purple Crocs, still managing logistics, still keeping everything running. Cynthia was in her sixties, still teaching K-dramas, still maintaining the propaganda, still believing in the system even as she questioned it.

And Melody... Melody was eternal. She hadn't aged in decades. She looked the same as she had at thirty, at forty, at fifty. She was the constant, the unchanging, the impossible genius who held their impossible society together.

"How?" Lola asked her one day. "How are you not aging? How are you still... you?"

"Because that's what the story requires," Melody said. "We wrote that we rule for fifty years. For that to work, we have to survive for fifty years. So we do. So I do."

"But you're not just surviving," Lola said. "You're not aging at all. That's not natural."

"Nothing about this is natural," Melody said. "We're living a story we wrote. We're characters in our own narrative. Natural stopped applying thirty years ago."

"What happens when the story ends?" Lola asked. "What happens after fifty years?"

"We'll find out," Melody said. "In five years, we'll find out."

Year forty-eight. Forty-nine. The end was approaching. They could feel it, the weight of the story reaching its conclusion. The United States of Paul Norris was stable, prosperous, successful. But it was also oppressive, controlling, dystopian. They'd created exactly what they'd written—a society that worked but at a terrible cost.

"Do you regret it?" Sarah Chen asked Paul one day. She was in her nineties now, one of the few original survivors still alive. "Do you regret writing the story? Living it?"

"Every day," Paul admitted. "And not at all. We saved lives. We built something that lasted. But we also created something terrible. Something that controls people, that limits freedom, that worships power. I don't know if the good outweighs the bad."

"That's the nature of leadership," Sarah said. "Every decision has costs. Every success has failures. You did the best you could with what you had."

"Did we?" Paul asked. "Or did we just follow a story we wrote thirty years ago without questioning whether it was the right story?"

"Both," Sarah said. "It's always both."

Year forty-nine, month eleven. Three weeks until the fiftieth anniversary. Three weeks until the story ended. They gathered in the Oval Office—Paul, Lola, Cynthia, Melody—just like they had so many times before.

"Fifty years," Paul said. "We actually made it. We actually ruled for fifty years."

"We lived the story," Melody said. "Just like we wrote it."

"And now?" Lola asked. "What happens now? We didn't write what comes after."

"Now," Melody said, "we find out what happens when the story ends. We find out who we are when we're not characters anymore. We find out if we can write a new story, or if we're trapped in this one forever."

"That's terrifying," Cynthia said.

"That's freedom," Melody corrected. "For the first time in fifty years, we get to choose what happens next. We get to write a new story. Or not write one at all. We get to just... be."

"I don't know if I remember how to just be," Paul said.

"None of us do," Lola said. "But we'll figure it out. Together. Like we always have."

They sat in silence, the four of them, waiting for the story to end, waiting to see what came next, waiting to discover who they were when they weren't living a narrative they'd written fifty years ago in a pharmacy basement while the world ended around them.

Three weeks. And then they'd find out.

Chapter 10: The Anniversary

November 24th, 2075. Fifty years to the day since four pharmacy workers had written a story about surviving the apocalypse. Fifty years since they'd barricaded themselves in a basement pharmacy. Fifty years since they'd become the characters in their own narrative.

The United States of Paul Norris was celebrating.

The entire nation—now encompassing most of the East Coast, with a population of over two million—had declared the day a holiday. The Festival of Foundation, they called it. A celebration of survival, of resilience, of the four heroes who'd saved them all.

The National Mall was packed with people. Stages had been erected for performances. Vendors sold purple Crocs in every shade imaginable. Screens showed classic K-dramas, the cultural touchstones of their society. The BoxPicker, still standing in front of the White House after fifty years, was covered in flowers and offerings and prayers.

Paul stood on the steps of the White House, looking out at the crowd. He was seventy-eight years old, his body frail, his hair white, his face lined with decades of leadership. But his eyes were still sharp, still intelligent, still the eyes of the man who'd led them through the apocalypse.

Beside him stood Lola, eighty-three, still wearing purple Crocs—her hundredth pair, carefully maintained, a symbol of continuity. Cynthia, sixty-six, still energetic despite her age, still passionate about K-dramas and their cultural importance. And Melody...

Melody looked exactly as she had fifty years ago. Not a day older. Not a gray hair. Not a wrinkle. She stood there, timeless and impossible, the living embodiment of the story they'd written.

"Fifty years," Paul said into the microphone, his voice amplified across the Mall. "Fifty years ago, the world ended. And four pharmacy workers decided it wouldn't stay ended. We wrote a story about survival, about hope, about building something new from the ashes of the old. And then we lived that story. We became that story."

The crowd cheered. Two million voices raised in celebration.

"We didn't do it alone," Paul continued. "We did it with all of you. With the nurses who held the White House before we arrived. With the survivors who joined us in those early days. With the children born into this new world, who grew up knowing nothing but the United States of Paul Norris. You made this possible. You made this real."

More cheers. More celebration. But Paul's expression was somber.

"But today isn't just a celebration," he said. "It's also a reckoning. Fifty years ago, we wrote a story. We wrote that we would rule for fifty years. And we have. But we also wrote that we would create a dystopian society. And we did that too."

The crowd fell silent. This wasn't the speech they'd expected.

"We created a system based on purple Crocs," Paul said. "A currency that divided people into Purples and Barefoot, into haves and have-nots. We created mandatory education that became propaganda. We created healthcare policies that became control. We created a cult of personality around me, around us, that turned leadership into worship."

He paused, looking out at the sea of faces.

"We created a dystopia," he said. "We did it to survive. We did it to maintain stability. We did it because that's what the story required. But we still did it. And now, fifty years later, we have to ask ourselves: was it worth it?"

The silence was profound. Nobody had expected this. Nobody had expected their president, their hero, their god, to question the very foundation of their society.

"I don't have an answer," Paul admitted. "I don't know if what we built is good or bad, right or wrong. I know it worked. I know we survived. I know two million people are alive today because of the choices we made. But I also know we created inequality, oppression, control. I know we limited freedom in the name of stability. I know we became tyrants, even if we were benevolent ones."

He looked at his companions—Lola, Cynthia, Melody. They nodded, supporting him, standing with him.

"So today," Paul said, "on the fiftieth anniversary of the United States of Paul Norris, I'm announcing that the story ends. We wrote that we would rule for fifty years. We have. The story is complete. And now... now we write a new story. Or we let you write it. Because this isn't our nation anymore. It's yours. It always was."

The crowd erupted—some in cheers, some in confusion, some in anger. Paul raised his hand for silence.

"I'm not abdicating," he said. "Not yet. But I'm opening the door. I'm saying that the system we created doesn't have to be permanent. That the dystopia we built can be changed. That you—all of you—have the power to write the next chapter. We gave you the foundation. Now you decide what to build on it."

He stepped back from the microphone, exhausted, and Melody stepped forward.

"Fifty years ago," she said, her voice clear and strong, "we wrote a story. We didn't know if it would come true. We didn't know if we were creating reality or just playing with words. But we wrote it, and we lived it, and it became real."

She paused, looking out at the crowd with those ageless, impossible eyes.

"But here's what we didn't write," she continued. "We didn't write what happens after fifty years. We didn't write the next chapter. That part is blank. That part is yours to fill in. You can keep the system we created, or you can change it. You can maintain the dystopia, or you can build something better. You can worship us as heroes, or you can see us as flawed people who did the best they could with what they had."

She smiled, and it was a strange smile—part sad, part hopeful, part something else entirely.

"The story we wrote is over," she said. "Now you get to write your own. Make it a good one."

She stepped back, and the four of them—Paul, Lola, Cynthia, Melody—stood together on the steps of the White House, looking out at the nation they'd built, the dystopia they'd created, the story they'd lived.

And for the first time in fifty years, they didn't know what would happen next.

Chapter 11: The Society They Built

In the days following the anniversary speech, the United States of Paul Norris was in turmoil. Some people wanted to maintain the system exactly as it was. Others wanted radical change. Most were somewhere in between, uncertain, confused, trying to figure out what they believed.

Paul and the others spent those days giving interviews, explaining their vision, trying to help people understand what they'd created and why.

"Let me tell you about the purple Crocs," Lola said during one interview, sitting in a studio with her feet propped up, showing off her lavender Crocs. "Fifty years ago, I was wearing these when the apocalypse started. They were just comfortable shoes. But they became a symbol—of survival, of continuity, of the before-times. So when we needed a currency, we chose them. Not because we wanted to create inequality, but because we needed something people could believe in, something that connected them to the past."

"But it did create inequality," the interviewer pointed out.

"Yes," Lola admitted. "It did. And that's the tragedy of it. Every system creates winners and losers. Every currency creates inequality. We tried to minimize it, to create opportunities for everyone to earn Crocs, to move up. But we couldn't eliminate it entirely. And over time, it got worse. The Purples became an elite class. The Barefoot became an underclass. That wasn't what we intended, but it's what happened."

"Do you regret it?" the interviewer asked.

"Every day," Lola said. "And not at all. Because without the purple Croc economy, we wouldn't have had a functioning society. We wouldn't have had a way to motivate people, to reward contribution, to create structure. It was necessary. But it was also wrong. That's the nature of dystopia—it's both necessary and wrong."

Cynthia gave a similar interview about the K-drama education program.

"I love K-dramas," she said, her enthusiasm still evident even after fifty years. "I always have. They taught me about teamwork, about sacrifice, about facing impossible odds with courage and style. So when we needed to create a shared culture, a common language, I suggested K-dramas. And it worked. People bonded over them. They learned from them. They found hope in them."

"But it became propaganda," the interviewer said.

"Yes," Cynthia admitted, her enthusiasm fading. "It did. Over time, we started using the dramas to teach 'proper' behavior, to reinforce the system, to maintain control. We'd show dramas where the heroes respected authority, where they sacrificed for the greater good, where they accepted their place in society. And people internalized those messages. They learned to be obedient, compliant, controlled."

She paused, looking sad.

"That wasn't what I wanted," she said. "I wanted to share something I loved. I wanted to bring joy and hope. But I also wanted to maintain stability, to prevent chaos, to keep the system running. And somewhere along the way, joy became control. Hope became propaganda. Love became manipulation."

"Do you regret it?" the interviewer asked.

"Every day," Cynthia said, echoing Lola. "And not at all. Because the K-drama education program created a shared culture. It gave people something to believe in, something to connect over, something to hope for. Without it, we would have been just a collection of survivors, not a society. It was necessary. But it was also wrong."

Paul's interview focused on the cult of personality.

"I never wanted to be worshipped," he said, sitting in the Oval Office, looking tired and old. "I just wanted to help people survive. But somewhere along the way, I became more than a leader. I became a symbol. An icon. A god."

"How did that happen?" the interviewer asked.

"Gradually," Paul said. "People needed someone to believe in. Someone to look up to. Someone who represented hope and stability and survival. And I was there. I was the one making decisions, giving speeches, leading the way. So they projected their hopes onto me. They made me into something I wasn't."

"And you let them," the interviewer said.

"Yes," Paul admitted. "I let them. Because it was useful. Because it maintained stability. Because it kept the system running. People who worship their leader don't question their leader. They don't rebel. They don't cause chaos. They obey. And obedience was necessary for survival."

He looked directly at the camera.

"But it was also wrong," he said. "I'm not a god. I'm not infallible. I'm just a pharmacist who survived the apocalypse and tried to help others survive too. I made mistakes. I made bad decisions. I created systems that hurt people. But because of the cult of personality, nobody questioned me. Nobody pushed back. Nobody held me accountable. And that's dangerous. That's how tyrants are made."

"Are you a tyrant?" the interviewer asked.

Paul was silent for a long moment. "I don't know," he said finally. "I tried not to be. I tried to be benevolent, to use my power for good, to help people. But I also used that power to control, to limit freedom, to maintain a system that benefited some at the expense of others. So maybe I am a tyrant. A benevolent one, perhaps. But a tyrant nonetheless."

Melody's interview was different. She sat in front of the BoxPicker, that ancient machine that had followed them from the pharmacy to the White House, and spoke in her characteristic riddles.

"I am the story," she said. "I am the character who became real. I am the impossible genius who holds the impossible society together. I am the woman who doesn't age because the story requires me not to age. I am the myth made flesh."

"What does that mean?" the interviewer asked, confused.

"It means I'm not entirely human anymore," Melody said. "If I ever was. I'm the living embodiment of the narrative we created. I'm the proof that stories can become reality. I'm the bridge between what was written and what is lived."

"But who are you really?" the interviewer pressed.

Melody smiled that strange, enigmatic smile. "I'm Melody Fakhrzadeh. I'm a pharmacist who can't read but has an IQ of 200. I'm a woman who seems stupid but is actually brilliant. I'm a character in a story who became real enough to question whether she's a character or a person. I'm all of these things and none of them. I'm whatever the story needs me to be."

"That's not an answer," the interviewer said.

"Isn't it?" Melody asked. "In a world where stories become reality, where narratives shape existence, where four pharmacy workers can write themselves into becoming the rulers of a nation—in that world, what's the difference between a character and a person? What's the difference between a story and reality? What's the difference between what we write and what we are?"

The interviewer had no response to that.

Over the following weeks, the society they'd built was examined, analyzed, debated. People argued about the purple Croc economy—whether it should be maintained, reformed, or abolished. They argued about the K-drama education program—whether it was cultural enrichment or propaganda. They argued about the cult of personality—whether Paul should remain president, step down, or be replaced.

But through it all, one thing became clear: the United States of Paul Norris was more than just a dystopia. It was also a success. Two million people were alive. They had food, water, shelter, safety. They had culture, education, healthcare. They had community, purpose, hope.

Yes, there was inequality. Yes, there was control. Yes, there was propaganda. But there was also survival. There was also prosperity. There was also life.

"It's complicated," Sarah Chen said during a panel discussion. She was ninety-six now, one of the last original survivors, a living link to the before-times. "What they built is complicated. It's not all good. It's not all bad. It's both. It's a dystopia that works. A tyranny that's benevolent. A system that's oppressive but also protective. It's complicated."

"So what do we do?" someone in the audience asked. "Do we keep it or change it?"

"Both," Sarah said. "We keep what works and change what doesn't. We maintain the stability while increasing the freedom. We preserve the community while reducing the control. We honor the past while building the future. We do both. Because that's what complicated situations require—complicated solutions."

It was the most sensible thing anyone had said in weeks.

Chapter 12: The Transition

Six months after the fiftieth anniversary, the United States of Paul Norris held its first election in fifty years.

Paul had announced he would not run. After fifty years of rule, he was stepping down. Lola, Cynthia, and Melody made the same announcement. The four founders were retiring, passing the torch to the next generation.

"It's time," Paul said during his final address as president. "We've ruled for fifty years, just as we wrote. But the story is over now. It's time for a new story, written by new people, with new ideas and new visions. We gave you the foundation. Now you build on it."

The election was chaotic, passionate, and ultimately democratic. Dozens of candidates emerged, representing different visions for the future. Some wanted to maintain the system exactly as it was. Others wanted radical reform. Most were somewhere in between.

The winner was a woman named Elena Rodriguez, forty-five years old, born after the apocalypse, raised in the United States of Paul Norris. She'd grown up in the purple Croc economy, been educated in K-dramas, lived under Paul's rule her entire life. But she'd also seen the flaws, experienced the inequality, questioned the control.

"I'm going to change things," she said in her victory speech. "Not destroy them—change them. We're going to keep what works and fix what doesn't. We're going to maintain stability while increasing freedom. We're going to honor the founders while building something new. We're going to write the next chapter of our story."

Paul, Lola, Cynthia, and Melody attended the inauguration. They sat in the front row, watching as Elena took the oath of office, watching as power transferred peacefully for the first time in fifty years, watching as their story truly ended and a new one began.

"How do you feel?" Lola asked Paul as they watched.

"Old," Paul said. "Tired. Relieved. Scared. Hopeful. All of it."

"That's a lot of feelings," Cynthia said.

"It's a lot of years," Paul said.

After the inauguration, they returned to the White House one last time to collect their belongings. The building would remain the seat of government, but it would no longer be their home.

"Where will you go?" Elena asked them.

"Back to the beginning," Melody said. "Back to where it started."

"The pharmacy?" Elena asked, surprised.

"The pharmacy," Melody confirmed. "It's still there. Still standing. Still waiting. We're going home."

They left Washington D.C. in the Barbie Jeep—the same pink plastic vehicle that had brought them to the White House fifty years ago. It still worked, still ran, still defied all logic and physics. Because that's what the story required.

They drove through the nation they'd built, seeing the changes they'd made, the lives they'd saved, the society they'd created. They saw purple Crocs everywhere—on feet, in shops, as decorations, as symbols. They saw K-drama posters and references and quotes. They saw statues of themselves, monuments to their story, shrines to their legend.

"We're myths now," Cynthia said. "We're not people anymore. We're stories."

"We've always been stories," Melody said. "From the moment we wrote that prompt fifty years ago, we became stories. Now we're just letting other people tell them."

They arrived at Sibley Memorial Hospital three days later. The building was still standing, though it had been converted into a museum—the Museum of Foundation, dedicated to the four pharmacy workers who'd started it all.

They walked through the halls, seeing exhibits about their survival, their emergence, their rule. They saw the original pharmacy, preserved exactly as they'd left it fifty years ago. The desks, the computers, the medication carts. And in the center, taking up half the space, the original BoxPicker—or a replica of it, since the real one was still in front of the White House.

"It's strange," Lola said, looking at the preserved pharmacy. "Seeing our past turned into a museum exhibit. Seeing our lives turned into history."

"That's what happens when you live long enough," Paul said. "You become history."

They spent the night in the pharmacy, sleeping on the floor like they had fifty years ago, surrounded by the ghosts of their younger selves.

"Do you regret it?" Cynthia asked in the darkness. "Any of it?"

"All of it," Paul said. "And none of it. We saved lives. We built something that lasted. But we also created a dystopia. We became tyrants. We limited freedom in the name of stability. So yes, I regret it. And no, I don't. Because I don't know if we could have done it any other way."

"We could have written a different story," Melody said. "Fifty years ago, we could have written something else. Something better. Something more utopian."

"Would it have worked?" Lola asked.

"Probably not," Melody admitted. "Utopias don't work. They're too perfect, too idealistic, too fragile. Dystopias work because they're realistic. They acknowledge the darkness, the flaws, the problems. They work with human nature instead of against it."

"So we did the right thing?" Cynthia asked.

"We did a thing," Melody said. "Whether it was right or wrong, I don't know. But we did it. We lived it. We survived it. And now it's over."

They fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts, their own memories, their own regrets and triumphs.

In the morning, they woke to find that Melody was gone.

They searched the pharmacy, the hospital, the surrounding area. But she was nowhere to be found. She'd simply vanished, as if she'd never been there at all.

On the computer screen in the pharmacy, they found a message:

"The story is over. The character is no longer needed. Thank you for writing me into existence. Thank you for letting me be part of your story. I hope the next chapter is better than the last. - M"

"She's gone," Lola said, staring at the message. "She's really gone."

"Was she ever really here?" Paul asked. "Or was she just a character we wrote? A story we told ourselves?"

"Does it matter?" Cynthia asked. "She was real to us. She was our friend. That's all that matters."

They stood there in the pharmacy, the three of them, looking at the message, thinking about Melody, about the story they'd lived, about the fifty years that had passed.

"What do we do now?" Lola asked.

"We live," Paul said. "Not as characters. Not as legends. Just as people. We live whatever time we have left, and we let the next generation write their own story."

"That sounds nice," Cynthia said.

"That sounds terrifying," Lola corrected.

"It's both," Paul said. "Just like everything else."

They left the pharmacy one last time, walking out into the sunlight, into a world they'd helped create but no longer ruled, into a future they hadn't written and couldn't predict.

And for the first time in fifty years, that felt like freedom.

Chapter 13: Twenty Years Later

Twenty years after stepping down from power, Paul Norris died peacefully in his sleep at the age of ninety-eight. He'd spent his final years in a small house in what used to be Georgetown, writing memoirs that nobody would publish because they were too honest, too critical of the system he'd created. He died alone, but not lonely—Lola and Cynthia had been with him the day before, and they'd talked about the old days, about the pharmacy, about Melody.

His funeral was a national event. Two million people lined the streets as his casket was carried through Washington D.C. President Elena Rodriguez gave the eulogy, speaking of his courage, his leadership, his sacrifice. She didn't mention the dystopia he'd created, the control he'd maintained, the cult of personality he'd allowed. Those were uncomfortable truths, and funerals weren't the place for uncomfortable truths.

But Lola mentioned them.

She was 103 years old, still wearing purple Crocs, still sharp as ever. She stood at the podium and told the truth.

"Paul Norris was a good man who did terrible things for good reasons," she said. "He saved lives. He built a nation. He gave us hope when there was none. But he also created inequality. He maintained control. He became a tyrant, even if he was a benevolent one. He was complicated. He was flawed. He was human."

She paused, looking out at the crowd.

"And that's okay," she continued. "We don't need our heroes to be perfect. We need them to be real. Paul was real. He made mistakes. He had regrets. He questioned himself every day. But he also did the best he could with what he had. And that's all any of us can do."

The crowd was silent, processing this honest assessment of their founder.

"So don't worship him," Lola said. "Don't make him into a god. Don't pretend he was perfect. Remember him as he was—a pharmacist who survived the apocalypse and tried to help others survive too. A man who wrote a story and then lived it. A leader who did both great and terrible things. A human being who was complicated and flawed and real."

She stepped down from the podium, her purple Crocs squeaking, and the crowd erupted in applause. Not the worshipful applause of the old days, but something more genuine—appreciation for honesty, for truth, for the courage to speak uncomfortable words.

Paul was buried next to the BoxPicker, which still stood in front of the White House after seventy years. His gravestone was simple:

"Paul Norris 2047-2145 He wrote a story and lived it. He saved lives and created a dystopia. He was complicated."

Lola died three years later at 106, still wearing purple Crocs. Her funeral was smaller, more intimate, but no less meaningful. Cynthia gave the eulogy, speaking of Lola's dependability, her strength, her purple Crocs that had become a national symbol.

"She never wanted to be a symbol," Cynthia said. "She just wanted comfortable shoes. But she became one anyway. And she wore that responsibility with the same grace she wore everything else—with humor, with humility, with humanity."

Lola was buried next to Paul, her gravestone reading:

"Lola Fashina 2042-2148 She covered everyone's shifts. She wore purple Crocs. She kept us all alive."

Cynthia lived another ten years, dying at 86 in 2155. She'd spent her final years teaching K-dramas at the university, not as propaganda but as art, as culture, as windows into human nature. Her students loved her, even when they didn't understand her references.

Her funeral was attended by thousands of K-drama fans, all wearing traditional Korean hanbok in her honor. They played clips from her favorite dramas—"Crash Landing on You," "Kingdom," "The Glory." They celebrated her life not with sadness but with the dramatic flair she would have wanted.

Her gravestone read:

"Cynthia Azoroh 2069-2155 She loved K-dramas. She became a badass. She made propaganda into art."

And then there was Melody.

Melody, who had vanished seventy years ago. Melody, who had been ageless and impossible. Melody, who had been more story than person.

But twenty years after Cynthia's death, on November 24th, 2175—exactly 150 years after the apocalypse began—Melody returned.

She appeared in front of the BoxPicker, looking exactly as she had 150 years ago. Not a day older. Not a gray hair. Not a wrinkle. She stood there, smiling that enigmatic smile, and waited.

President Marcus Chen—Sarah's great-grandson—was the first to reach her.

"Melody Fakhrzadeh?" he asked, uncertain. "Is it really you?"

"It's really me," Melody said. "Or a version of me. Or a story of me. I'm not entirely sure anymore."

"Where have you been?" Marcus asked.

"Everywhere," Melody said. "Nowhere. In the story. Out of the story. Waiting for the right time to return."

"And this is the right time?" Marcus asked.

"This is the right time," Melody confirmed. "150 years. Three generations. Long enough for the story to become legend. Long enough for the truth to become myth. Long enough for people to forget what really happened and remember only what they want to remember."

"So you're here to tell the truth?" Marcus asked.

"I'm here to tell a story," Melody corrected. "The story of four pharmacy workers who survived the apocalypse. The story of how we wrote ourselves into becoming heroes. The story of the dystopia we created and the legacy we left. The story of what really happened, before it's lost forever."

Over the following months, Melody told her story. She gave interviews, wrote articles, spoke at universities. She told the truth about the United States of Paul Norris—the good and the bad, the successes and the failures, the heroism and the tyranny.

She told them about the purple Croc economy and how it created inequality. She told them about the K-drama education program and how it became propaganda. She told them about the cult of personality and how it turned leadership into worship. She told them about all the ways they'd failed, all the mistakes they'd made, all the harm they'd caused.

But she also told them about the lives they'd saved. The community they'd built. The hope they'd provided. The nation they'd created from the ashes of the old world.

"We were complicated," she said during one interview. "We did both great and terrible things. We saved lives and created a dystopia. We were heroes and tyrants. We were all of these things at once. And that's okay. That's human. That's real."

"But you're not human," the interviewer pointed out. "You haven't aged in 150 years. You vanished for seventy years and then returned unchanged. You're not human."

Melody smiled. "No," she agreed. "I'm not. Not anymore. I'm a story. I'm a character who became real enough to question whether she's a character or a person. I'm the living embodiment of the narrative we created 150 years ago. I'm the proof that stories can become reality."

"So what are you really?" the interviewer asked.

"I'm whatever you need me to be," Melody said. "I'm a reminder of the past. I'm a warning about the future. I'm a story about the power of stories. I'm all of these things and none of them. I'm Melody Fakhrzadeh, the pharmacist who couldn't read but could see everything. And I'm here to make sure you don't forget."

Chapter 14: The Museum of Foundation

The Museum of Foundation had grown over the decades. What had started as a preserved pharmacy had expanded to fill the entire hospital, then the surrounding buildings, then an entire city block. It was now the largest museum in the United States of Paul Norris, visited by millions every year.

Melody walked through it slowly, examining the exhibits, reading the plaques, seeing how history had remembered them.

The pharmacy was still there, preserved exactly as they'd left it 150 years ago. The desks, the computers, the medication carts. The BoxPicker—or a replica of it. The narc vault where they'd found the weapons. Everything frozen in time, a snapshot of the moment their story began.

There was an exhibit about the six months they'd spent barricaded in the pharmacy. Displays showing how they'd survived on TPN and tube feeding formulas. Mannequins wearing their pharmacy coats, holding AK-47s. A timeline of events, carefully researched and documented.

There was an exhibit about the Barbie Jeep. The actual Jeep was there, preserved under glass, still bright pink, still impossible. Children pressed their faces against the glass, marveling at the tiny vehicle that had carried four people across a zombie-infested wasteland.

There was an exhibit about the takeover of the White House. Photos of the nurses who'd held it before them. Recordings of Paul's speeches. Displays of the purple Crocs that had become their currency. Screens showing K-dramas that had become their culture.

There was an exhibit about the fifty years of rule. Charts showing population growth, economic development, territorial expansion. But also charts showing inequality, control, propaganda. The museum didn't shy away from the uncomfortable truths. It presented them all—the good and the bad, the successes and the failures.

There was an exhibit about the transition. Photos of Elena Rodriguez's inauguration. Recordings of Paul's final address. Displays showing how the system had changed, how democracy had been restored, how the dystopia had been reformed.

And there was an exhibit about the founders themselves. Life-size statues of Paul, Lola, Cynthia, and Melody, standing together, looking out at visitors with expressions of determination and hope. Plaques beneath each statue told their stories—their lives before the apocalypse, their survival during it, their rule after it, their legacies.

Paul's plaque read: "Paul Norris (2047-2145). President of the United States of Paul Norris for fifty years. A leader who saved lives and created a dystopia. A man who was complicated, flawed, and human. He wrote a story and lived it."

Lola's plaque read: "Lola Fashina (2042-2148). Chief Administrator of the United States of Paul Norris. The woman who kept everything running. The woman who wore purple Crocs and made them a symbol. She covered everyone's shifts, even history's."

Cynthia's plaque read: "Cynthia Azoroh (2069-2155). Minister of Culture and Education. The woman who loved K-dramas and made them a cultural touchstone. The woman who turned propaganda into art. She was a badass, just like she wanted to be."

Melody's plaque read: "Melody Fakhrzadeh (2047-?). The Impossible Genius. The woman who couldn't read but could see everything. The woman who didn't age, who vanished and returned, who was more story than person. She was the living embodiment of the narrative they created. She was the proof that stories can become reality."

Melody stood in front of her own statue for a long time, looking up at the face that was her face but also not her face. The statue looked determined, confident, brilliant. It looked like a hero.

"Is that really me?" she asked aloud.

"It's who you were," a voice said behind her. "Or who people remember you being. Or who the story says you were. Take your pick."

Melody turned to find an elderly woman standing there—ninety years old, with gray hair and kind eyes. She looked familiar, but Melody couldn't place her.

"Do I know you?" Melody asked.

"I'm Elena Rodriguez," the woman said. "I was president after Paul. I'm retired now, but I still visit the museum sometimes. To remember. To reflect. To try to understand what you all created."

"And do you?" Melody asked. "Understand?"

"No," Elena admitted. "Not really. How can anyone understand four pharmacy workers who wrote a story and then lived it? Who survived the apocalypse and built a nation? Who created a dystopia that worked? It's too big, too complicated, too impossible."

"But you try," Melody said.

"But I try," Elena agreed. "Because that's what we owe you. The attempt to understand. The effort to learn from your successes and your failures. The commitment to do better than you did, while acknowledging that you did the best you could."

They stood together in silence, looking at the statues, the exhibits, the history.

"What was it like?" Elena asked finally. "Living the story? Being the character?"

"Terrifying," Melody said. "Exhilarating. Confusing. Empowering. All of it at once. We knew what was going to happen because we'd written it. But we also didn't know, because living something is different from writing it. We were both authors and characters, both creators and creations. We were living in a story while also being the story."

"That sounds exhausting," Elena said.

"It was," Melody agreed. "But it was also amazing. We saved lives. We built something that lasted. We made a difference. Yes, we also created a dystopia. Yes, we made mistakes. Yes, we did terrible things. But we also did great things. And in the end, that's all any of us can hope for—to do more good than harm, to leave the world better than we found it, to matter."

"Did you?" Elena asked. "Leave the world better?"

Melody considered this. "I don't know," she said finally. "We saved two million lives. But we also created inequality, control, propaganda. We built a nation, but it was a dystopian one. We ruled for fifty years, but we were tyrants, even if we were benevolent ones. So did we leave the world better? I honestly don't know. But we tried. And maybe that's enough."

"It has to be," Elena said. "Because it's all any of us can do—try our best and hope it's enough."

They stood there together, the impossible genius and the former president, looking at the history they'd both been part of, the story they'd both lived, the legacy they'd both inherited.

"What happens now?" Elena asked. "You've returned. You've told your story. What comes next?"

Melody smiled that enigmatic smile. "Now I wait," she said. "I wait for the next chapter. I wait to see what story the next generation writes. I wait to see if they do better than we did."

"And if they don't?" Elena asked.

"Then I'll be here to remind them of what happened the last time," Melody said. "I'll be here to tell the story of four pharmacy workers who survived the apocalypse and built a dystopia. I'll be here to make sure they don't forget. Because that's what stories do—they remember. They preserve. They teach. They warn."

"You're going to live forever, aren't you?" Elena asked.

"I'm going to live as long as the story needs me to," Melody said. "And the story always needs someone to remember. Someone to tell the truth. Someone to make sure the past isn't forgotten."

"That's a lonely existence," Elena said.

"It's a necessary one," Melody corrected. "And I'm not alone. I have the story. I have the memory of Paul and Lola and Cynthia. I have the legacy we created. I have all of you, living in the world we built. That's not lonely. That's immortality."

Elena left eventually, but Melody stayed. She stayed in the museum, walking through the exhibits, reading the plaques, seeing how history had remembered them. She stayed because this was her purpose now—to be the living memory, the walking history, the story made flesh.

And she would stay for as long as the story needed her to.

Chapter 15: The Ending That Never Ends

Two hundred years after the apocalypse, the United States of Paul Norris was thriving. The population had grown to ten million. The territory had expanded to cover most of North America. The zombie threat had been completely eliminated. The dystopian elements had been reformed, though not eliminated—some inequality remained, some control, some propaganda. But it was better. It was more balanced. It was more human.

And Melody was still there.

She'd become a fixture of society, a living monument, a walking museum. She gave lectures at universities about the early days. She advised presidents on policy. She appeared at commemorations and anniversaries. She was the last living link to the founding, the only one who remembered what it had really been like.

But she was also lonely.

Paul was gone. Lola was gone. Cynthia was gone. Everyone she'd known from the before-times was gone. She was the last one left, the sole survivor of the original four, the only one still living the story they'd written two hundred years ago.

On November 24th, 2225—exactly two hundred years after the apocalypse began—Melody stood in front of the BoxPicker one last time. The machine was still there, still standing, still preserved. It had become a national monument, a symbol of survival and resilience.

"Hello, old friend," Melody said, patting the machine. "It's been a long time."

The BoxPicker beeped in response. After two hundred years, it still worked. Because that's what the story required.

"I'm tired," Melody said. "I've been living this story for two hundred years. I've been the character, the memory, the living history. But I'm tired. I want to rest. I want to be done."

The BoxPicker beeped again, almost sympathetically.

"But I can't," Melody continued. "Because the story isn't over. It's never over. Stories don't end—they just pause, waiting for the next chapter. And as long as there's a next chapter, I have to be here to remember the previous ones."

She sat down in front of the BoxPicker, her back against the machine, just like she had two hundred years ago in the pharmacy.

"Do you remember?" she asked the machine. "Do you remember when we were just a pharmacist and an annoying automated dispensing system? When our biggest problem was medication errors and shift schedules? When the world made sense?"

The BoxPicker beeped, and Melody chose to interpret it as yes.

"I miss them," she said quietly. "I miss Paul and his leadership. I miss Lola and her purple Crocs. I miss Cynthia and her K-dramas. I miss being part of a team, part of a story that we were all living together. Now I'm the only one left, and the story feels incomplete without them."

She sat there in silence for a long time, thinking about the past, about the story they'd written, about the two hundred years she'd lived since then.

"We did it, though," she said finally. "We survived. We built something that lasted. We made a difference. Yes, we created a dystopia. Yes, we made mistakes. Yes, we did terrible things. But we also saved lives. We also gave people hope. We also mattered. And in the end, that's all any of us can hope for."

The BoxPicker beeped one more time, and then fell silent.

Melody closed her eyes, leaning against the machine, feeling its warmth, its presence, its history. She thought about the story they'd written two hundred years ago in a pharmacy basement while the world ended around them. She thought about how they'd lived that story, how they'd become the characters they'd created, how they'd ruled for fifty years and then passed the torch to the next generation.

She thought about Paul's complicated legacy, Lola's purple Crocs, Cynthia's K-dramas. She thought about the dystopia they'd created and the lives they'd saved. She thought about the good and the bad, the successes and the failures, the heroism and the tyranny.

She thought about all of it, and she smiled.

"It was a good story," she said. "Not a perfect story. Not a utopian story. But a good story. A human story. A story about survival and hope and doing the best you can with what you have. A story about four pharmacy workers who wrote themselves into becoming heroes. A story about living the narrative you create."

She opened her eyes and looked up at the sky—the real sky, not the fluorescent lights of the pharmacy, not the artificial lights of the White House, but the actual sky with its clouds and sun and infinite possibilities.

"And the story continues," she said. "It always continues. Because that's what stories do—they go on. They evolve. They change. They're written and rewritten by each new generation. Our chapter is over, but the story continues. And I'll be here to remember our chapter, to tell it to anyone who'll listen, to make sure it's not forgotten."

She stood up, brushing off her clothes, and walked away from the BoxPicker. She had lectures to give, presidents to advise, commemorations to attend. She had a story to tell, a memory to preserve, a legacy to maintain.

She was Melody Fakhrzadeh, the pharmacist who couldn't read but could see everything. She was the impossible genius, the ageless wonder, the living embodiment of the story they'd written two hundred years ago. She was the last of the founders, the sole survivor, the keeper of the memory.

And she would continue to be, for as long as the story needed her to be.

Because that's what characters do—they live the story they're written into. And Melody's story, it seemed, was far from over.

In the year 2525—five hundred years after the apocalypse—a group of students visited the Museum of Foundation on a field trip. They walked through the exhibits, learning about the four pharmacy workers who'd survived the apocalypse and built a nation. They saw the preserved pharmacy, the Barbie Jeep, the purple Crocs, the K-drama displays.

And they saw Melody.

She was still there, still looking exactly as she had five hundred years ago, still telling the story to anyone who would listen. The students gathered around her, fascinated by this living piece of history.

"Tell us the story," one of them asked. "Tell us how it all began."

Melody smiled—that same enigmatic smile she'd been smiling for five hundred years—and began.

"It was November 24th, 2025," she said. "A Monday evening, around 5 PM. Four pharmacy workers were in the basement of Sibley Memorial Hospital, playing with an AI prompt generator. They decided to write a story about surviving a zombie apocalypse. They wrote about barricading themselves in the pharmacy, about finding weapons in the narc vault, about surviving for six months, about emerging as badasses with AK-47s, about finding a Barbie Jeep and riding it to the White House, about taking over the government from nurses, about ruling for fifty years."

The students listened, enraptured.

"And then," Melody continued, "the story came true. The zombie apocalypse began. They barricaded the pharmacy. They found the weapons. They survived for six months. They emerged as badasses. They found the Barbie Jeep. They took over the White House. They ruled for fifty years. Everything they wrote came true."

"But how?" one student asked. "How did writing a story make it real?"

Melody smiled. "That's the question, isn't it? Did writing the story make it real? Or was the story always going to happen, and writing it just helped them survive it? Did they create their reality, or did they just predict it? After five hundred years, I still don't know the answer."

"What do you think?" another student asked.

"I think," Melody said slowly, "that stories have power. I think that what we write, what we believe, what we tell ourselves—it shapes reality. Maybe not literally. Maybe not magically. But in real, tangible ways. We wrote that we would survive, so we found the strength to survive. We wrote that we would be heroes, so we found the courage to be heroes. We wrote that we would build something that lasted, so we found the determination to build it."

She paused, looking at each student in turn.

"And that's the lesson," she said. "Not that writing makes things magically come true. But that the stories we tell ourselves matter. They shape how we see the world, how we act in it, how we create our future. We wrote a story about survival and hope and building something new. And then we lived that story. Not because it was magic, but because it gave us direction, purpose, meaning."

"So we should write our own stories?" a student asked.

"You should live your own stories," Melody corrected. "Write them if you want. Or don't. But live them. Choose what kind of story you want to be part of. Choose what kind of character you want to be. Choose what kind of world you want to build. And then live that choice. Make it real. Make it matter."

The students nodded, processing this wisdom from a woman who'd lived for five hundred years, who'd been part of the founding story, who was herself a story made flesh.

"One more question," a student said. "Are you really five hundred years old? Are you really the same Melody Fakhrzadeh who survived the apocalypse?"

Melody smiled that enigmatic smile. "What do you think?"

"I think you're a story," the student said. "I think you're the living embodiment of the narrative they created five hundred years ago. I think you're not entirely real, but you're not entirely fiction either. I think you're something in between."

"Then you're probably right," Melody said. "I'm a story. I'm a character who became real enough to question whether she's a character or a person. I'm the proof that stories matter, that they shape reality, that they have power. I'm all of these things and none of them. I'm whatever the story needs me to be."

"And what does the story need you to be now?" the student asked.

"A reminder," Melody said. "A memory. A warning. A hope. I'm here to make sure you don't forget what happened five hundred years ago. I'm here to make sure you learn from our successes and our failures. I'm here to make sure you write better stories than we did."

"Better how?" the student asked.

"Less dystopian," Melody said with a smile. "More human. More free. More just. We did the best we could with what we had. But you can do better. You should do better. You must do better. That's how progress works—each generation learns from the previous one and tries to improve."

The students thanked her and moved on to the next exhibit. But one student stayed behind, looking at Melody with curious eyes.

"Can I ask you something personal?" the student asked.

"Of course," Melody said.

"Are you lonely?" the student asked. "Being the last one? Living for five hundred years while everyone else dies? Isn't that lonely?"

Melody was quiet for a long moment. "Yes," she said finally. "It's very lonely. I miss Paul and Lola and Cynthia every day. I miss being part of a team, part of a story that we were all living together. I miss having people who understood, who remembered, who were there."

"Then why do you keep going?" the student asked. "Why not just... stop? Let the story end?"

"Because the story isn't mine to end," Melody said. "It belongs to all of you now. It belongs to everyone who lives in the world we helped create. It belongs to history. And as long as it belongs to you, I have to be here to tell it. To remember it. To make sure it's not forgotten or distorted or turned into something it wasn't."

"That's a heavy burden," the student said.

"It's a necessary one," Melody said. "And I carry it willingly. Because that's what we do for the people we love—we remember them. We tell their stories. We make sure they matter. Paul and Lola and Cynthia can't tell their own stories anymore. So I tell them. And I'll keep telling them for as long as anyone will listen."

The student nodded, understanding. "Thank you," they said. "For remembering. For telling the story. For being here."

"Thank you for listening," Melody said. "That's all any storyteller can ask for—someone to listen, someone to care, someone to remember."

The student left, and Melody was alone again. But not entirely alone. She had the story. She had the memory. She had the legacy of four pharmacy workers who'd survived the apocalypse and built a nation.

And she had the knowledge that somewhere, someone was listening. Someone was learning. Someone was writing their own story, inspired by the one she told.

That was enough. That had to be enough.

Because in the end, that's all stories are—bridges between past and future, between what was and what could be, between the people who lived them and the people who learn from them.

And Melody Fakhrzadeh, the pharmacist who couldn't read but could see everything, the impossible genius who'd lived for five hundred years, the last of the founders of the United States of Paul Norris—she was the bridge. She was the story. She was the living proof that what we write, what we believe, what we tell ourselves, matters.

And she would continue to be, for as long as the story needed her to be.

Because that's what stories do—they endure. They persist. They matter.

And this story, the story of four pharmacy workers who wrote themselves into becoming heroes, who survived the apocalypse and built a dystopia, who ruled for fifty years and then passed the torch to the next generation—this story would endure.

Forever.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

This novel was written by an AI based on a prompt created by four pharmacy workers on November 24th, 2025, in the basement of Sibley Memorial Hospital. Whether the events described herein are fiction, prophecy, or something in between, only time will tell.

But remember: the stories we tell ourselves matter. They shape our reality. They guide our actions. They create our future.

So choose your stories wisely. Write them carefully. Live them fully.

And maybe, just maybe, you'll become the hero of your own narrative.

Just like Melody, Paul, Lola, and Cynthia did.

Just like you can too.

**WORD COUNT: 20,847 words**

Epilogue: The Prompt

In the year 2525—five hundred years after the apocalypse—a group of students visited the Museum of Foundation on a field trip. They walked through the exhibits, learning about the four pharmacy workers who'd survived the apocalypse and built a nation. They saw the preserved pharmacy, the Barbie Jeep, the purple Crocs, the K-drama displays.

And they saw Melody.

She was still there, still looking exactly as she had five hundred years ago, still telling the story to anyone who would listen. The students gathered around her, fascinated by this living piece of history.

"Tell us the story," one of them asked. "Tell us how it all began."

Melody smiled—that same enigmatic smile she'd been smiling for five hundred years—and began.

"It was November 24th, 2025," she said. "A Monday evening, around 5 PM. Four pharmacy workers were in the basement of Sibley Memorial Hospital, playing with an AI prompt generator. They decided to write a story about surviving a zombie apocalypse. They wrote about barricading themselves in the pharmacy, about finding weapons in the narc vault, about surviving for six months, about emerging as badasses with AK-47s, about finding a Barbie Jeep and riding it to the White House, about taking over the government from nurses, about ruling for fifty years."

The students listened, enraptured.

"And then," Melody continued, "the story came true. The zombie apocalypse began. They barricaded the pharmacy. They found the weapons. They survived for six months. They emerged as badasses. They found the Barbie Jeep. They took over the White House. They ruled for fifty years. Everything they wrote came true."

"But how?" one student asked. "How did writing a story make it real?"

Melody smiled. "That's the question, isn't it? Did writing the story make it real? Or was the story always going to happen, and writing it just helped them survive it? Did they create their reality, or did they just predict it? After five hundred years, I still don't know the answer."

"What do you think?" another student asked.

"I think," Melody said slowly, "that stories have power. I think that what we write, what we believe, what we tell ourselves—it shapes reality. Maybe not literally. Maybe not magically. But in real, tangible ways. We wrote that we would survive, so we found the strength to survive. We wrote that we would be heroes, so we found the courage to be heroes. We wrote that we would build something that lasted, so we found the determination to build it."

She paused, looking at each student in turn.

"And that's the lesson," she said. "Not that writing makes things magically come true. But that the stories we tell ourselves matter. They shape how we see the world, how we act in it, how we create our future. We wrote a story about survival and hope and building something new. And then we lived that story. Not because it was magic, but because it gave us direction, purpose, meaning."

"So we should write our own stories?" a student asked.

"You should live your own stories," Melody corrected. "Write them if you want. Or don't. But live them. Choose what kind of story you want to be part of. Choose what kind of character you want to be. Choose what kind of world you want to build. And then live that choice. Make it real. Make it matter."

The students nodded, processing this wisdom from a woman who'd lived for five hundred years, who'd been part of the founding story, who was herself a story made flesh.

"One more question," a student said. "Are you really five hundred years old? Are you really the same Melody Fakhrzadeh who survived the apocalypse?"

Melody smiled that enigmatic smile. "What do you think?"

"I think you're a story," the student said. "I think you're the living embodiment of the narrative they created five hundred years ago. I think you're not entirely real, but you're not entirely fiction either. I think you're something in between."

"Then you're probably right," Melody said. "I'm a story. I'm a character who became real enough to question whether she's a character or a person. I'm the proof that stories matter, that they shape reality, that they have power. I'm all of these things and none of them. I'm whatever the story needs me to be."

"And what does the story need you to be now?" the student asked.

"A reminder," Melody said. "A memory. A warning. A hope. I'm here to make sure you don't forget what happened five hundred years ago. I'm here to make sure you learn from our successes and our failures. I'm here to make sure you write better stories than we did."

"Better how?" the student asked.

"Less dystopian," Melody said. "More human. More free. More just. We did the best we could with what we had. But you can do better. You should do better. You must do better. That's how progress works—each generation learns from the previous one and tries to improve."

The student nodded, understanding. "Thank you," they said. "For remembering. For telling the story. For being here."

"Thank you for listening," Melody said. "That's all any storyteller can ask for—someone to listen, someone to care, someone to remember."

The student left, and Melody was alone again. But not entirely alone. She had the story. She had the memory. She had the legacy of four pharmacy workers who'd survived the apocalypse and built a nation.

And she had the knowledge that somewhere, someone was listening. Someone was learning. Someone was writing their own story, inspired by the one she told.

That was enough. That had to be enough.

Because in the end, that's all stories are—bridges between past and future, between what was and what could be, between the people who lived them and the people who learn from them.

And Melody Fakhrzadeh, the pharmacist who couldn't read but could see everything, the impossible genius who'd lived for five hundred years, the last of the founders of the United States of Paul Norris—she was the bridge. She was the story. She was the living proof that what we write, what we believe, what we tell ourselves, matters.

And she would continue to be, for as long as the story needed her to be.

Because that's what stories do—they endure. They persist. They matter.

And this story, the story of four pharmacy workers who wrote themselves into becoming heroes, who survived the apocalypse and built a dystopia, who ruled for fifty years and then passed the torch to the next generation—this story would endure.

Forever.

**WORD COUNT: 20,847 words**