The Gap in the Sidewalk (Infinite Sidewalk) REVISED 2026

I walk. The heavens above hold no promise, bruised and heavy with the weight of a modern plague— a silent, circling Death.

The concrete grit beneath my boots grinds a hollow, rhythmic rasp. I am alone. Or rather, I am the only thing moving that still has a pulse.

I feel the Great Eye on my neck, a gaze too vast to be human. I try to blink it away, to shroud myself in the thin veil of disbelief, but the sky does not blink back.

There is no dark throat of an alleyway to swallow me, no rusted sewer to offer its foul sanctuary. I would trade this air for the breath of vermin, for a damp grave among the rats, if only to be hidden.

But there is only the slab. Here is there; there is everywhere. I walk on— watching, waiting— for the clock to strike Inevitable.

No engines thrum in the distance. No windows glow with the warmth of a life. The world has been hollowed out, leaving only the motion of my legs and the stillness of the void.

I am a prisoner of my own skull, denied the mercy of a bird’s song or the distraction of a passing face. Total silence. Total hunger.

I keep walking because standing still is a scream. I wait for the sky to break, for the Monsters to tilt their shovels and begin the downpour— the crushing rain of earth and stone.