A stranger looks back.
His face is gaunt, his eyes wide and haunted. A fresh, ugly scar runs along his cheekbone from Scab's glancing blow. He looks like a ghost, a man who has seen too much.
'Never again,' he thinks, his knuckles white as he grips the sink. I'm never going back there.
Not for all the gold in the world.
The safety of his apartment, a place he once saw as a cage of mediocrity, now feels like a sacred sanctuary.
He strips off the filthy clothes, seals them in a trash bag as if they were radioactive waste, and steps into the shower.
The hot water feels like a miracle, washing away the grime, the blood, the smell of death. But it can't wash away the memories.
The image of Maya, alone on that rooftop, her rifle raised against the coming darkness, is burned into his mind.
'I promised I'd be back,' he thinks, a sharp, bitter pang of guilt stabbing him.
'A promise I have no intention of keeping.'
He spends the next hour cleaning his wounds with first emergency kit, applying antiseptic creams and sterile bandages.
The splint Maya made was professional, but the materials were crude. Although the world seemed more advanced, she seemed to be dirt poor so it's a no surprise.
He replaces it with a proper compression brace from his first-aid kit.
"Let's get something to eat! The food I had with maya tasted like shit?"
What else can you expect from 2 bars of storage vitamin roll.
"Right, I will have you for the dinner!"
He orders the greasiest burger he can find, turns on the TV, and loses himself in the mindless noise of civilization.
He tries to forget.
For a few hours, it almost works. He is just Alex again, a guy in an apartment. The wasteland is a bad dream, a story to be buried.
Then, his phone rings.
It's a number he knows all too well.
St. Jude's Hospital.
"Mr. Virelli ?" a tired, administrative voice says. "We're calling about the outstanding balance on your father's account. The long-term care payments are now sixty days overdue. We need you to come in and arrange a payment plan, or we'll have to discuss… other options."
The words hit him like a physical blow. His father. Paralyzed from the waist down after a work accident five years ago.
The insurance had run out long ago. Alex had been shouldering the cost, barely, ever since.
"I'll… I'll be there this week," he stammers, his throat suddenly tight. He hangs up, the burger in his stomach turning to lead.
He checks his bank account online. The numbers are a bloody, visceral red. His pay check from last week was already gone, devoured by rent and automatic payments. He was worse than broke.
The comforting walls of his apartment begin to feel like they are closing in.
The phone rings again.
This time, it's his younger sister, Chloe. He forces a smile into his voice. "Hey, kiddo. What's up?" He says with a chirp he really doesn't mean.
"Alex?" she says, and he can hear the tears in her voice immediately. "I… I got the notice from the bursar's office. The tuition payment was due last Friday. They said if it's not paid by the end of this week, they're going to drop me from my classes for the semester."
She starts to sob, a sound of pure, youthful heartbreak.
"I'm so sorry to bother you, I know you're doing your best, but I don't know what else to do…"
"No, no, hey, don't worry," he says, his own voice cracking. He feels like a complete fraud.
"I'll handle it. I promise. I'll get the money."
"Thanks, thank you brother!"
He ends the call and sinks onto his couch, his head in his hands. The weight of it all—the debt, his father's health, his sister's future—is crushing him.
The safety of this world, he realizes, is just a different kind of monster.
A quieter, slower one, but just as lethal.
He looks at his hands, clean and soft once more. He thinks of the heavy, solid weight of the gold bar. He thinks of the impossible fortune he ran away from.
And he thinks of Maya, all alone, fighting for her life.
'No,' he tells himself again, shaking his head. 'No. It's not worth it. There has to be another way.'
But even as he thinks it, for the first time, the thought feels like a lie.