Sen dreamt of his tía, sitting in front of the TV. There was a telenovela on it; the sixth season, full of the usual twists and predictable betrayals, which somehow ended in the main character’s second death.

It was ridiculous, but his tía loved it all the same.

An advert interrupted the broadcast and Aunt Sofia sighed as she turned away from the screen, yawning. She directed her gaze to the window outside. It was afternoon out there—just past 3PM, with the field of sunflowers beyond the house craning their necks west to follow the sun. Then, past the stretch of their farmland in Mirador Llevant, past the steep shoreline cliffs, was the vast blue of the Balearic Sea. The seabirds shrieked. Slashes of white foam swept into the cliffside, and the sea dragged on, endless, dancing farther away.

His tía pursed her lips as she looked on, her eyes looking at a spot just beyond the horizon's reach.

“I’ve never gone to Algeria, even when it’s just a few hours across the Balearic,” she said. “Your uncle promised to take me there, but the right time never comes when you’re old. Even easy things start to feel hard.”

Sen walked up to her and took a seat on the couch.

“I can drag you there next Christmas, if you want. Pops left me a lot of money.”

“Don’t be wasteful, sobrino. That money is yours, and it will be spent like it’s yours. Once you are an adult, anyway.”

He smiled wryly, “I’m already twenty, tía.”

“And yet you spend all day outside, kicking balls into nets!” she huffed, giving his shoulder a lazy swat. Sen laughed as his aunt shook her head. “No, your money stays untouched as long as you stay with us. Your tío and I will pay for everything you need until you leave our nest.”

“You know you don’t have to do that.”

“And yet we choose to do it all the same, no?”

“Will you pay for a summer boat trip to Algeria, then?”

Aunt Sofia paused, then she laughed her chiming laugh, filling the room with mirth. She stood up. “I am old, sobrino. Old and lazy. Even a short trip to the Illes Balears feels tiring to me; what more of Algeria, twice as far? And… what more of Dubai, across the Mediterranean, past Egypt and Saudi Arabia? The trip is too long. Too long by far.”

Sen blinked, confused at her sudden mention of Dubai. His flight to the UAE wasn’t for another three months. What was she—

“I am too far, sobrino,” she said, her smile turning sad as she turned to the window. The field of sunflowers outside was wilted. Dead, as the sun shone a little too bright in the sky. She glanced at him and sighed, “Three thousand miles and more. I cannot go that far. I cannot go to check if you are safe, old as I am.”

Outside, the sun flared. A white flash, blinding, reaching down towards Earth with a hundred billion strands of solid light. It slammed into the ground, swallowing the sea, then the shriveled sunflowers, drowning them in silver nothingness. It swept closer—devouring more land by the second as it approached the house.

“Tía!”

Sen sprang from the couch, sprinting for his Aunt Sofia, but he was slow. The air was mud, his muscles were jelly, and he was thirsty. Feverish. The sudden lack of water in him robbed him of strength.

She met his eyes and smiled, “Stay safe, sobrino. Take good care of the sunflowers I sent you.”

He lunged even as she spoke. Sen stretched his arms out, trying to reach her, grab her, and pull her away from the window where the light would pierce through the glass. But he never caught her. The sun pulsed and the light sprang forward, blasting through the window and inside the house.

The last thing he saw was the silver glow over her shoulders, casting her smiling face in shadow as it rushed to swallow her whole.

Sen screamed for her. The light crashed into him. Then—

Click!

The world flashed white. Nothingness. Sen floated in a pale void, soundless, and—click! The void turned dark. Black. Another click came, and light flooded in, burning at his eyes. Sen recoiled, but before he could recover, it changed once more. Click. Black. Click. White. Click.

“Hey!”

A voice hammered into his eardrums and Sen flinched, his eyes snapping open at the sound. A final click came, and the light flooding his world disappeared, sending spots and colors dancing across his vision. Sen gasped for breath as the flashlight pulled away, and a familiar face stared at him from across the room.

Em sat in dirty, garbage-stained clothes. And she watched him from the other side of what looked to be an empty bus, frowning.

Sen wasn't even surprised to see her. He'd pushed her down the same chute, after all. He closed his tired eyes.

“I thought you were dead,” she said, and Sen felt the fatigue drop over him. He relaxed over the seat she’d placed him into, the tension draining away. He was safe. Alive. Sen’s shredded blazer was draped over him like some careless blanket, and he noticed the curtains on the bus were closed, the interior barely lit by what little red light leaked through the gaps.

Em glared at him in silence until Sen turned his eyes to her. He sighed. “So it’s you and me again, huh?”

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure if I would’ve preferred a heroic death over more of… this.”

Sen gestured around them. The bus was empty, and the silence beyond their voices was deafening. The thick scent of copper hung in the air. Foreboding. A metallic rasp with each and every breath, as if the very ground were expelling bloody fumes into the air. Em looked at him, then diverted her gaze away. She rested her head on the backrest of the seat in front of her and sighed.

“Don’t say that,” she said. “If you’d died, I would’ve had to deal with survivor’s guilt for at least three more hours.”

"That's pretty generous of you, all things considered."

"I'm nothing but soft and mushy on the inside."

“Well, I'm glad you're okay enough to joke."

She went silent at that. Sen watched her close her eyes, and only then did he notice the deep bags underneath. Em released a breath that sounded more like a shudder than a sigh.

“Benji’s dead, you know. He’s dead and we’re here, talking.”

Sen leaned his head against the window. “Yeah.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“We were supposed to have a Physics quiz today. But he’s gone.” She snapped her fingers and pursed her lips. “Just like that.”

“Were you two close?”

Em frowned and shook her head. “That’s the thing—” she said. “We weren’t. We just had a few classes together. I ate lunch with him and some others one time in the first term, and then we just never talked again. We were the last people to see him alive, and what do we even know? He died with strangers.”

She sighed.

“Someone died, I don't even know what to feel. This fucking sucks.”

“…Agreed,” Sen muttered. “The movies make the apocalypse look so much more fun.”

“Yeah. And none of them ever warned me about vomit trades and streakers.”

“I have a very good explanation for why I’m naked, this time.”

“And the vomiting?”

“I got nothing.”

Em nodded and reached down to the side, where she pulled a backpack up from the floor. It was one of the several they’d looted before, and it rustled with the unmistakable sound of food wrappers stuffed inside. Em held it towards him.

Sen went to take it, but she didn’t let go. Her grip was firm.

“Thanks for saving me,” she whispered, and her hold on the bag tightened. “But never, ever do it that way again. Got it, Gandalf?”

“So I’m banned from heroic sacrifices?”

“You’re banned from dying. Period.”

Sen blinked, then smiled. “Then I’ll do my best,” he said, and she let go of the bag. Sen pulled it close—half; half of all the supplies she had for herself, shared without question. Em leaned back, her eyes red as she released a shaky laugh. A weight seemed to fall away from her shoulders, fading with her next breath.

“Fuck,” she whispered, wiping at her eyes. “I thought I was going to be trapped down here by myself. I… I hate how glad I am. Shit.”

"Aww."

“Piss off, Sen.”

“Want a hug?”

Em crinkled her nose, sniffled, and raised a middle finger his way. “No,” she said. “You’re naked, smeared with blood, and you smell really, really gross. Hug me and you die.”

“Ouch.”

“You’ve been warned, Trash Monster.”

“I don’t smell that bad, do I?”

“Shut up and eat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sen turned towards the bag, glad for the company yet again. In the few hours he’d been conscious, fighting and worrying by himself, it had been suffocating. No one to talk to. Nothing to think about but endless caution and constant terror. But here? In a bus three floors down into the earth, where an apparent Nightmare was lurking in the darkness?

It wasn’t safe, but it was… doable. It felt like he would be able to hold it together, simply because there was someone else with him.

That someone was a bit of a dick, though.

Sen looked up from the bag.

“You took all the chips,” he said. “This… you left me the mid-tier stuff. Like the strawberry croissants and the coconut bars. How could you?”

She gave him a tired smile. “Finders keepers, homeless man. I called dibs on the good stuff. Like the barbecue crisps. But I left you a KitKat, since I’m nice.”

Sen found it. He held it up and frowned.

“It’s melted.”

“I sat on it by accident.”

“Trade me,” Sen said, pushing a croissant and the melted KitKat towards her. “You get a crime against humanity and a croissant, and I get a bag of mixed nuts.”

“Why that specifically?”

“Protein.”

Em narrowed her eyes at him, then nodded. “You get the pistachios. Mixed nuts are mine.”

“Deal.”

They swapped, and Sen happily tore into the snacks. He was starving. Two days without food had already gone by, and the constant fighting had him drained more than just mentally. He was running on fumes. Even with the sustenance option he'd bought with essence yesterday, there was just something distinctly different between being sated and actually being satisfied for real.

So he ate as much as he wanted to eat.

Sen knew it would have been smart to ration it out. Divvy up what supplies they had left from the vending machines and the escape to last as long as possible. But the moment he took a bite out of a chocolate bar, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to resist. Sen wolfed down a croissant and washed it down with orange juice like some starving kindergartener, before popping a bag of chips between his hands. With his enhanced taste, the flavors exploded across his tongue in splashes of color. Pink-sweet, silver-cold, yellow-sour.

It was an entirely new dimension of taste, and it was irresistible.

He was going to keep this skill forever.

The food disappeared into his gullet over the course of a few minutes, and it was only after a while that Sen regained enough control over himself to slow down. He wiped at his lips and willed himself to take smaller bites. Slower chews. And as he ate, he turned his eyes back to Em.

“You said you were scared of being trapped here alone,” he said, chewing. Sen swallowed and frowned. “Does that have something to do with that Nightmare notification I got when I came here?”

Em chewed on her melted chocolate and nodded.

“There’s… it’s hard to explain. But this place is off. And dangerous.”

“How?”

“For one, it's bigger than it’s supposed to be.”

Sen blinked, then slowly turned to the window. He peeked through the curtains and gazed outside. Again, it was the same parking lot—covered in strips of pulsating flesh, lined with crimson salt crystals that glowed with light. A faint, red mist floated in the air, draping everything in a dreary, sanguine shade.

For an apocalypse, that was normal, he supposed. But that wasn’t the problem. Now that Em had pointed it out, Sen saw it.

The parking lot just kept going.

Across the lines of cars to the west, and then the buses parked along the east, it expanded until it hit the walls left and right. But forward, down the path? It stretched endlessly. Sen saw the numbers on the pillars, lining down the far wall, and the sparse collection of cars that thinned the farther it went out. It read as lot D3 – W45. D3 – X45. D3 – Y45. D3 – Z45.

Then…

Another pillar. But the text wasn’t whole. It was scratched, as if scraped away with a thousand knives. And once it passed that threshold, Sen noticed that the changes in the parking lot intensified. Over the ruined pillars, the parking lot was more flesh than concrete, with veins creeping along the ground like the lining of some giant artery. There were no cars in that tunnel, leading farther down and out of sight.

Only darkness and cold, waiting silence.

Sen gulped.

“…I don’t want to go down there,” he said. Em nodded.

“I don’t either. It’s why I’ve been stuck here, since you kicked me down that chute.”

“You haven’t tried climbing back up the way you came?”

“Look back where you entered.”

Sen opened the curtains further, his eyes scanning across the sea of cars. Thanks to the light coming from the crystals and his darkvision, he could see all the way to the wall. He stared.

His spine chilled.

“The door’s gone,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Em replied. She stood up from her seat and reached over, closing the curtain for him, before plopping down on the seat next to him. “Down the opposite way from the tunnel, it’s just… wall. There’s nothing there. No ramp to the second floor, no emergency exits, no nothing.”

“We’re being funneled.”

“Down the only way forward.”

She stared quietly at the closed curtains, and Sen noticed it now that she was closer. It was in her dull gaze, her dark eyebags—the way she seemed to slump and go still. She was tired. Slowly, he raised a hand and put it to her forehead.

Feverish.

Em turned her eyes to him as she gave him a tired grin. Impish, with none of the usual energy to back it.

“I tried to leave,” she said. “Yesterday, after I got here. I looked around and tried to check out that weird tunnel. But then…”

She twisted her body and slowly raised the hem of her shirt. Underneath, Sen saw a gaping, bloodied wound, wrapped up in makeshift bandages from her old uniform. It tore into her side, barely missing the vitals underneath. Dark veins throbbed up from underneath her bandages, branching up her body like lightning. Poison. Black, malevolent. And it seemed—even with her Body attribute—she was still far from recovered.

Both of them were in wretched, injured states.

Em covered the wound with her shirt and leaned back again, seemingly more tired than ever. She slumped into the seat.

“There are things down there, hiding in the walls. One got me before I even saw what it was,” she said, and Em closed her eyes. “I thought I was gonna die, you know. But I didn’t. And now, down here in this damn place, I want to go out there and try again. I want to get out of here alive. Just to spite this stupid fucking apocalypse.”

She reached into her pocket and took out a keychain; the key in the center glinting faintly in the dim, red light.

It was a car key to the bus.

“I’ve got the keys,” she said. “So… can I ask you to be the guy with the wok again?”

Em stared at him, waiting. A moment passed.

And then, in reply Sen sighed, reached into his pack, and opened the wrapper for another croissant. He threw it down onto her lap.

“What's with the dramatics?” he said, huffing as he tore his sharpened teeth into a crumbly cupcake from his pack. “You don't have to ask. What else is there to do down here but come up with another suicidal plan to escape? I'm with you all the way. So for now, just eat. Recover. And once we’re not bleeding out from everywhere anymore, we can try our luck.”

Sen swallowed a bite, before going for another. He offered her a cupcake.

“I may not have a wok this time, but you can rely on me," he said, before pausing. "So long as you promise to trade me more of those snacks.”

Em laughed, then relaxed. “Thank you. Then from now on, you're my meat shield.”

“Sure. Just don’t crash the bus when we try to drive out of here.”

She nodded. “OK. Mhm.”

Sen looked at her. “…You do know how to drive, don’t you?”

A pause. And then...

“I’ve played GTA a few times,” she said, as she bit into the cupcake he offered. Em didn't meet his eyes. “Of course I know how to drive. Move the wheel, step on the gas. Easy as peas.”

“Right,” Sen nodded. “Easy as peas.”

He closed his eyes and swallowed another bite. It was certain now, in his mind: they were a pair of idiots who had no idea what they were doing.

And they were going to die.

Horribly.