The attempt to return to a normal life was a special kind of hell.
Alex sits in his cubicle, the fluorescent lights of the office humming a monotonous, soul-crushing tune.
The air smells of burnt coffee and recycled air. His coworkers are murmuring about weekend plans and a new TV show.
It all feels profoundly, absurdly meaningless.
'They're worried about the quarterly report deadline', he thinks, staring blankly at a spreadsheet. The numbers swim before his eyes.
'Three days ago, I was worried about getting eaten by a giant, six-legged bug.'
He is a ghost haunting his own life. He moves, he speaks, he types, but the real part of him is still in the wasteland, listening to the baying of hounds in the red-tinged darkness.
He feels a constant, low-grade thrum of adrenaline, a hyper-vigilance that makes the soft clicking of keyboards sound like the skittering of claws on rock.
"I will be fine! Let's just focus on the work right now!"
******************************************
Later the night.
The city buzzes with traffic, whole world lit up in streetlights, a scene Alex didn't even mind previously, but looking at it now, it was very captivating for him.
Across him, sats beautiful brunette still in her working attire, Sarah for dinner, that night at their favourite cheap Italian place.
He tries. He really does.
He asks about her day, he smiles, jokes a bit and goes on about how he is doing very well.
But she sees right through him.
"Alex, are you okay?" she asks, her fork hovering over her pasta. Her eyes, usually so full of life, are clouded with worry. "You look… haunted. And you've lost weight. Did something happen?"
"No, just a lot of stress," he lies, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
"And this?" she says, gently reaching across the table and tracing the new, half-healed scar on his cheek.
He flinches from her touch, an instinctive reaction he can't control. "Stupid accident. Walked into a tree branch in the dark. Clumsy me."
'I killed a man, Sarah. I watched a monster tear another man apart. I left a woman to die.'
He wants to scream it. He wants to tell her everything, to pull her into his world and make her understand.
But how could he?
He looks at her, so beautiful and clean and safe, a part of a world that no longer feels entirely his own. The secret is a chasm between them, growing wider with every passing moment.
"You feel far away," she says softly, pulling her hand back. "Like you're not really here."
She's right. He isn't.
The guilt is a physical weight. He feels like a fraud, a liar. He has to do something, some small, normal thing to prove to her, and to himself, that he's still the man she loves.
"All right, I had enough! I will see you tomorrow. Good night, Alex."
"Yea, good night, babe!"
***************
The next day, he takes his grandfather's old silver watch—the one good thing the old man ever owned—to a pawn shop.
"Hum that's quite nice watch! I will give it a 90! No, a 100 just for you! What do you say?"
Alex stares the guy dead in the eye and says, "500 dollars!"
"120!" The guy counters back.
"For god's sake, man! That watch is 150 years old!! Give me something close to it's price at least!!"
Finally, they agree upon 300 after a hour long bargaining.
The three hundred dollars he gets for it feels like both a betrayal and a pathetic pittance. It wouldn't even cover a tenth of his sister's tuition. But it's enough for a gift.
A real one.
He walks into a high-end department store at the mall, the bright lights and clean, polished floors a stark contrast to the wasteland's grit and decay.
"Welcome Sir, what would you like to purchase today?"
"Where is the necklace section?"
"Kindly proceed to right of the section!" The reception instantly shows a disdain of expression before waving him of in the direction.
"Thank you!"
He feels out of place, a ghost in dirty jeans haunting a palace of luxury. He's looking at a display of delicate silver necklaces when he sees her.
'Sarah?'
She is across the gleaming atrium, and she is laughing.
A bright, carefree, beautiful laugh that he hasn't heard from her in what feels like an eternity.
She isn't alone.
She is with a man in his 30s, tall and handsome, with silvering hair and a suit that probably costs more than Alex's car.
The man has a confident, easy air of power and wealth. He says something, and Sarah laughs again, placing a familiar, intimate hand on his arm.
"No…no, that can't be Sarah!"
Alex feels the world tilt. It's not just jealousy. It is a cold, hollowing, soul-crushing wave of pure ache.
The man leads her into a designer handbag store. He gestures to a display, and the salesperson fawns over them.
Without even glancing at the price tag, the man pulls out a platinum credit card and buys her a purse that Alex knows costs at least a month of his salary.
The three hundred dollars in his pocket feels like a pile of worthless, dirty paper.
In his mind's eye, he sees the vault. He sees the mountains of gold, lying there like garbage. He feels the solid, heavy weight of the gold bar he held in his hand. The power. The possibility.
'That should be me,' the thought is a venomous whisper in his soul. 'I could give her all of this. I was holding a mountain of it, and I ran away.'
He doesn't run. He doesn't hide. The pain inside him crystallizes into something cold, and hard, and sharp.
He walks out of the jewellery store.
He starts across the atrium, his path a direct, unwavering line.
Sarah sees him. Her brilliant smile vanishes, replaced by a look of pure, panicked shock.
The older man turns, following her gaze, and looks at Alex with a mild, dismissive curiosity, the way one might look at a piece of lint on their jacket.
Alex stops in front of them, his face a mask of cold fury and heartbreak. The world seems to fade away, leaving only the three of them in a silent, spotlighted tableau.
"Sarah," he says, his voice dangerously quiet. "What is this?"