The diner had no walls left, only ribs of bent rebar and a husk of tile floor buckled by ash. They'd dragged themselves into the carcass anyway, because it had a roof; half-collapsed tin sheets that groaned when the wind shifted.
Mara sat with her back to a scorched booth, crowbar across her knees. She hadn't closed her eyes once. The fire they hadn't dared to light had left her shivering, but not from cold.
Opposite her, Darius stood at what used to be a window, blade hanging loose in his hand. The glass was long gone, but he stared into the street like a statue carved for watching. His shoulders didn't move when he breathed. He might not have been breathing at all.
Hana lay curled on her side near the corner, scarf bunched under her head, knees drawn up. She shifted often, like her dreams were shallow tides. Every so often her lips moved. Mara couldn't hear the words, and maybe she didn't want to.
The city was never truly still, there were always rats skittering, crows rasping, scavengers swearing as they prowled the ruins. Tonight there was nothing. Only the slow fall of ash, dry as sifted flour.
Mara muttered, half to herself:
"It's too quiet. Like something already happened to them."
Her voice sounded foreign in the air.
Darius didn't look at her. His jaw flexed once, no more.
The silence stretched. Long enough for Mara's grip on the crowbar to ache, long enough for Hana to stir and whisper in her sleep:
"Don't let him in…"
The words snapped like a wire in Mara's chest. She turned, heart kicking—but Hana hadn't woken. Her eyes moved under lids, and her hand clutched the scarf.
Mara exhaled slow. "Just a dream," she told herself. But the way Darius's gaze slid toward Hana made her skin crawl.
The quiet cracked.
It was faint, so faint Mara thought at first it was the diner's tin roof shifting. But then the sound came again, carried on the ash-thick air: a crack, sharp and metallic.
Gunfire.
Or maybe not. It could've been a door slamming in the ruins, or a beam collapsing, or her mind inventing something to break the silence.
She strained forward, crowbar tight in her grip. The sound echoed once more, thinner now, almost fading into a scream, or maybe the scream was only in her head.
Then nothing. The city swallowed it whole.
Mara's skin prickled cold.
"Did you hear—?" she started.
Darius's voice cut hers, low, flat, not directed at her but at the dark beyond the window.
"They're not coming."
Mara turned back to Hana. The girl was trembling in her sleep, lips moving. This time, the words reached them clear:
"Don't… don't let him in."
Dawn hadn't come yet, but the dark was thinning, turning a pale, bruised gray. The diner's ruins breathed cold drafts through every crack. Mara's eyes burned from keeping them open all night, but she didn't blink.
Footsteps scraped the street outside.
Stumbling.
Mara was on her feet in an instant, crowbar raised. Darius didn't move from the window, only shifted his knife to a killing grip.
A figure lurched into view.
He was a man, or what was left of one—one of the scavengers. His jacket was shredded, clothes matted dark with dried blood and ash. He staggered sideways and collapsed against the diner's doorway, leaving a smear behind him.
Mara froze, pulse hammering.
The scavenger lifted his head, and for a moment his eyes looked right through her, as if seeing something behind her shoulder. Then he collapsed to his knees, hacking for air that wouldn't come.
Darius stepped forward, blade already half-raised, efficient as ever. Kill him, clean the slate. But for the first time, Mara saw hesitation twitch across his face.
The man was already dying.
The scavenger's hand shot out, slick with blood, and seized Mara's wrist. His grip was weak but desperate, nails dragging her skin.
His voice rattled out:
"A… shadow… dropped on us… drank him… drank him dry…"
His eyes rolled, unfocused. His mouth quivered, muttering fragments. Then his gaze snapped wide again, fixed, not on Mara, not on Darius, but on empty air just past Mara's shoulder.
She whipped her head around. Nothing there.
When she turned back, his lips peeled into a grimace, and he rasped one more word like it had been clawed into him:
"Hungry."
Then his body convulsed. His eyes rolled white.
Mara yanked free, but his hand clung for a second longer before going slack.
The man collapsed, twitching once more before lying still.
Hana stirred. She had half-woken during the struggle, her face pale, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Her voice was fragile, but it carried:
"What did he mean… drank him?"
Mara flinched. She turned sharply, eyes narrowing. "It doesn't matter. He was delirious. Nothing he said matters."
For one knife's edge of a second, her mind slipped—not to the scavenger, but to Elias. The hospital. His stillness. The faint iron tang she had never been able to place. His eyes, watching from just a step too far away.
Mara shut it down. Locked it away hard. Elias was gone. Dead. Whatever this dying man thought he'd seen belonged to the ruins, not to them.
Darius crouched over the corpse, expression unreadable. His fingers brushed the man's jacket once, then he stood. His silence weighed heavier than Mara's denial, heavier than Hana's fear.
The diner sank back into stillness after the scavenger's death. Only the sound of the wind through broken walls, the faint creak of metal.
Mara dragged the body into the corner, tucking it beneath collapsed plaster and ash. It wouldn't fool anyone, but she couldn't bear leaving it in the open.
When she returned to the others, Hana had drifted into uneasy sleep again, clutching her scarf tight against her chest.
Mara leaned against the wall, exhausted, but her mind wouldn't rest.
Her eyelids fell despite herself. The ash outside sifted steady as snowfall.
And then the whisper came.
—[ Threshold breached. ]—
Mara's eyes snapped open. The diner was dark, unchanged. Hana murmured in her sleep. Darius still sharpened his knife.
But the voice hadn't been a dream.
—[ Protocol unlocked. ]—
She looked at Darius.
He had stopped sharpening his knife. His eyes were fixed out the window, jaw tight. He had heard it too. Or felt it. His silence said enough.
The sky bruised itself into morning,
Mara rose early, shoving rubble over the scavenger's corpse. She told herself it was to keep Hana from seeing it again, but the truth was, she didn't want to see the eyes staring back at her.
Hana limped as she woke, insisting she could move.
A crow landed on a bent street lamp as they walked, its feathers oily black against the ashen dawn. It tilted its head, watching them with a single bright eye.
One caw tore through the silence like a crack, then the bird launched itself into the air, wings beating heavy as it vanished above the ruins.
Mara tracked its flight, brow furrowing. When her gaze fell back to the street—
He was there.
Elias stood a dozen paces ahead, framed by the skeletal husks of buildings, as though he had been waiting all along.
For a heartbeat Mara couldn't breathe. He looked… different. Less ragged. His clothes were still worn, still scorched in places, but cleaner, better fitted. His hair no longer clung wild to his face but swept back, exposing sharp lines she hadn't noticed before. He stood taller, steadier.
Too steady.
His eyes found them. But not them. His gaze slid over Mara, over Hana, even over Darius, as though he was looking through their bodies into something behind them. Something they couldn't see.
When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, almost casual.
"You're still alive."
The words should have brought relief. Instead, they sent a shiver along Mara's spine.
Hana gasped softly, a hand flying to her mouth. Relief first, then hesitation, as though her heart knew more than her head. "Elias—"
Darius's fingers closed around his knife hilt. He didn't draw it, but his body coiled like a spring. His voice was flat, sharp as flint:
"You shouldn't be here."
Elias tilted his head slightly, as if amused, or confused, or both. He stepped forward once, slow and measured, the ash curling around his boots.
Mara's throat felt dry. She forced her voice steady. "Where have you been?"
Elias's eyes flicked to her then, only then, but there was no answer in them.
"I kept moving," he said at last.
Mara was torn between dragging Hana away, stopping Darius's hand, or stepping forward herself.