34. Empty, Quiet Street

The evening sun made orange streaks across the sky as Jed strolled back home from school.

He took a detour, wanting to see the location an alien monster destroyed last week five blocks away from his house. Doing that made him come home late for dinner. He wondered what his mother cooked, and got excited as he remembered his father would be back from his out of town office trip.

Last time his father brought a popular tin-boxed fruit candy from the nineties. Alas, the factory was attacked by a horde of alien monsters before he was born and they tried so hard to recover from that, even if they declared bankruptcy five years later. Now, only a handful of old-time stores sell their remaining stocks.

Humming at the thought, it took Jed a moment to notice that the neighbourhood seemed oddly quiet, more so than usual. There were no kids playing outside, no cars driving by, and no neighbours chatting on their porches. He noticed toys strewn across a lawn and an abandoned