Monday, January 30th. 3044.

The world wept when the last cry was silenced.

As civilians hid their children from vulture-eyed soldiers, they spared precious breath to warn the world leaders. What festered below would spread above. The plague of war would leave no one unscathed. All would be burned. All would be hollowed.

No one listened. No one who could change anything.

World War III turned into an extinction event within ten years. One young soldier’s misfire morphed into a nuclear war. Nuclear war froze into nuclear winter. The countries least affected busied themselves with the scraps of their decimated neighbors.

They believed themselves the survivors. Perhaps the poorest and frailest would die, but the powers would persevere and simply wait for the workforce to breed. A wound untreated turns septic, though, and soon even they fell under the weight of their own neglect.

We’re the last of humanity, shoved into bunkers like sardines. Our planet has disowned us like a scorned mother, as the flora and fauna are quick to tear apart any human who ventures outside our coffin. They rightfully blame us for their torture, as radiation from WWIII tears them apart by the atoms. The Earth allowed dogs, who clawed their way out before we ate them, but no humans. We do not deserve the sun.

Terra’s hatred of us has halved the average lifespan of a person. Few of us live past the age of forty as radiation chokes us slowly as it leaks through the steel walls of our casket.

If radiation does not kill us, we will finish what it started. Tear apart any who show weakness and filter their blood into water, cook flesh into jerky, and carve bones into daggers to start the cycle anew.

This is how our story ends.

There’s a satin satisfaction which comes from completing a journal entry. The cursor blinks at me. The last depressing green word chafes against the heavy black of the screen. My wrists hurt from the unforgiving plastic desk my computer rests on, but it’s not like I’ll live to really feel the consequences of that.

It’s easy to escape into the written world of diary entries, short stories, and sometimes poetry, though that medium hates me. Still, the written word calms my nerves, if only for a moment. Even if I’m writing about the past that blights my present.

And the present knocks on my door and manifests itself in the skin of my boss, Burkley, who barges in, barks at me to get off my ass, then slams the door closed in the same three seconds. On cue, the smell of sickly sweet iron floods my nose. I groan and drag myself out of my rickety chair, plugging my nose for a brief respite.

My uniform lies on my bed in a crumpled heap. A shirt, slacks, and an apron, all once a deep black, but are now a dull gray. Pulling them on is a thoughtless act of second nature. With one last longing look at my computer, I open the door and fall from my peaceful, dark oasis into the vomit-yellow lights of the bunker.

The rusted platform creaks ominously as I add my weight. The doors next to mine squeak open as more cleaners, in the same uniform as me, though all in differing shades of black or gray, filter out, much to the platform’s protest.

We live in The Middle of the bunker, where most of the workers live. Cleaners, trash collectors, guards, nutrient bar distributors (hence the guards), and so on. Those without a job live in The Lowers and The Pits, where tireless machines bathe everything in ash. The high and mighty fuckers live Up Top, where much of the smog can’t reach.

Cleaners have the privilege of their own section of the bunker, with how many the hellscape needs so we don’t drown in our own filth. Two rusted metal rectangles face each other, one for the floor cleaners, and one for the wall cleaners, all surrounded by high metal fences with only one way in. The fence holds back intruders, those desperate enough to drink the buckets of sludgy water. It also acts as storage, the chain-link covered in brushes, buckets, mops, and rags. A long metal pole, with a sharp hook on the end, helps grab the tools out of reach.

My fellow wall cleaners hustle to the fence, while the floor cleaners cluster amongst themselves, their shift starting in an hour, but the bustle too loud for them to sleep through. I nod at my coworkers and, sucking in a deep breath, I plunge into the pile of bodies.

The computer gives me access to information most people will never see, and not just because I’m one of the few who can read. According to the historical records I ripped from the hard drive, there are five bunkers in the entire world. Each could hold five-thousand people, but at least ten-thousand were shoved into them.

We’re lucky number three. Fifteen-thousand shoved into a giant can the size of a stadium, and I am a twenty-third generation resident. A person jams an elbow into my side and I wonder how the hell a single planet could hold eight billion of us.

“Clementine!” Burkley yells, voice ringing like steel on steel, from the metal walkway above me. His office/bedroom is crammed between a dozen others. “Move your ass.”

“Morning, Burkley. And yes,” I snark back, “Because wiping shit from the walls comes with such a time crunch!”

The man smirks and, while most of the cleaners take one look at his grin and move it double time, I smile back and stick out my tongue. He throws his head back and cackles, hammering the railing with a callused and scarred hand. “Morning to ya too, sunshine. And if your nose weren’t busted, you’d think so, boy.”

“Heh,” I shove my hands in my pockets and fondly mutter, “Jackass” under my breath. I’m thirty, but I was a boy when he hired me, and I’ll be a boy when he dies.

I snag the last rag in easy reach, glaring at a hand, far smoother and less scarred than mine, that tried to steal it from me. She’s a new brat, her shirt as dark as ink, and she flips me off. Coworkers laugh when I fake-pout and point at Grabby, a loving nickname for the long, hooked pole. She flips me off again, then stomps towards it.

A man about my age, the first sign of grays in his unevenly cut, chin-length hair, does me the solid of handing me a filled bucket. I nod in thanks, pick up a scrub brush, half its bristles missing, and run out of the creaking gate before Burkley gets the itch to yell at me again.

At first, disinfecting the walls and walkways with a mixture of bleach and water seemed easy. Then I found out how much actual human crap people throw at the wall. My stomach had sunk further when I looked up and studied the hundreds of walkways, which vein across the entire bunker like a nervous system, hundreds of connections dead or misfiring. My feet already ache at the thought of scrubbing-rinsing-walking, scrubbing-rinsing-walking for fifteen hours.

Each cleaner has their own section, so the work actually gets done. After not two, not three, but four cleaners were killed in fights for the Up Top sections, Burkley insisted he assign everyone himself, despite the extra work. Two wall cleaners flicker past my peripheral like cockroaches, their matching, patchy, gray-black shirts and aprons showing they’ve only had this job for four-ish years. Burkley’s shouts ring out, and the pair almost run to their sections. I stick to my leisurely walk.

Burkley is a burden and a boon. His voice cracks like a whip, but his wisecracks are the most positive interaction I get in a month. On the worst days, his sarcasm is worth more than a nutrient bar.

The work is tedious, disgusting, but it pays. It pays with the one thing a younger me, cursed with childhood, could not bitch, fight, or kill for. Food.

Bucket of murky water in one hand, and a scrub brush in the other, I do not notice the man as I whistle tunelessly. I hear him though. The wet sound of ripping meat. I stop, bucket nearly sloshing water onto the grated walkway. Bile burns at the back of my throat.

The smell of blood thickens in my nose. Metallic, tangy, with sickening notes of sweetness. The man hunches over his kill, so focused on departing flesh from bone. I’m not so much as a thought.

I spot more of the child as I walk past hunter and prey. A tiny hand, fingers bloody and covered in teeth marks, and a tissue-y stub where a pointer finger was. An arm as thin as my scrub brush’s handle. A slashed throat. Finally, a pale face, doll-like eyes staring at whatever greets us when we die. The man concentrates on the child’s stomach, tearing into organs before someone stronger steals his breakfast.

He spots me through his matted hair. It might have been brown underneath the years of caked dirt. His hairy upper lip, dark with blood and filth, curls and reveals a rotted canine. I swallow the bile down and force my face into a snarl. Stomp a foot towards him, wielding my scrub brush like a blade.

That’s all it takes. He wilts, scrambles on all fours for a few seconds before whatever is left of his humanity reactivates. The man whimpers, “Forgive me, Terra,” and runs away, covered in crimson.

I bolt in the opposite direction, up the nearest staircase. Each step creaks and shudders. Only when I’m nestled in the exhaustive network of walkways do I keel over, hand clenching my stomach. I swallow bitter saliva and fight down the urge to gag. I actually forced down a nutrient bar last night, and I don’t want the effort spilling onto the grating.

The hand not clenching my stomach dives into the middle pocket of my apron, and it curls around nothing. My brows furrow and I search the right pocket. Then the left. The middle pocket again. I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Great.”

I cannot count how many times that bone dagger has saved my ass. The chipped, sharpened bone, hilt wrapped in leather, has scared away desperate packs of children and desperate adult loners alike.

It must’ve fallen out last night. Maybe even when I was putting the apron on this morning. I can’t return to my room and snatch it back because then Burkley would jump down my throat. Tell me to suck it up before we both get fired and have to scavenge the walkways for corpses like the man.

So, no bone dagger. Thank Terra I’m not assigned to The Pits today.

The first stain I encounter is mercifully normal, just some blood. Much of it has splashed and trickled through the metal grating. Burkley hires an entire crew just for the floors, so most of it is not my problem. I lean my waist against the ancient railing and scrub at the wall. When I kneel through the bars to reach where the pink water has dribbled down, an ache shoots through my knees, up my thighs, and settles on the small of my back.

Cleaning blood is quick work, though. My brush leaks with the frothy water, and a pink droplet lands on the cap of a cleaner a floor below me. The young woman from before. She whips her head up to glare at me, and I flip her off, grinning.

The rest of the day goes a similar way: Kneel, pain, scrub, stand. Kneel-pain-scrub-stand, kneel-pain-scrub-stand. Soon, the horror of this morning pushes itself to the back of my mind, where I’ll drag it out instead of sleeping.

Eight hours in, I yawn, almost popping my jaw. Feet catch every little flaw and fracture on the grated floor. I slip multiple times, sometimes on water, sometimes not. People scurry around me like cockroaches caught in a spotlight, the upside to being a cleaner. The clean freaks Up Top would rather not step in shit whenever they come down from their throne of gold, so, while most everyone else in The Middle can be killed without consequence, cleaners like me have the law on our side. The law is a bunch of bloodthirsty meatheads who kill first, ask questions later, but the threat doesn’t stop everyone.

A woman speed-walks past me, nearly hitting me with her shoulder and briefcase. Her dark brown eyes, rimmed with a darker gray, glare at me. She would’ve blended into the other hundred assholes on this one walkway if not for her spotless white shirt and black blazer—and her pack of bodyguards.

People squeak and scatter out of the woman’s way, no one wanting a fist to the face. The rear guard, a giant block of muscle, stalks past and snarls at me. I lower my head, cheeks warm. A glint smacks into my abused retina, already beaten bloody by my computer screen, and I wince. I blink and follow where the glint came from.

There’s a metal rectangle sticking from the woman’s hip, in a holster not dissimilar to the one that holds my knife. This holster is bigger, though. The leather is shined to a lustrous finish and finely made. The weapon it holds is just as fine, but twice as valuable, if not thrice. Anyone could turn a person into a decent looking holster, but how the hell did this woman get a gun?

I whisper, mystified by the shiny metal. “Guns have been extinct since the early nineties...”

“Early tree-tousands, actually.” I jerk back. My hand dives into my apron’s middle pocket. Shaking fingers curl around nothing and adrenaline pours into my veins.

It takes a few seconds for my brain to register the young boy, who waves his arms frantically. “Whoa-whoa, ‘m not gon’ eat ya!” he shouts, uncaring of the stares his yelling attracts. “And ‘m not gon’ hurt ya eiter. Just,” he shrugged. “Wanted t’ correctcha.”

My shoulders drop, heart slowing back down to a steady beat. I narrow my eyes at the kid. “It’s rude to sneak up on people.”

“Manners went extinct in te fifties.”

My lips twitch into a sardonic half-smile. “Twenty fifty-two, to be exact.”

“When we all went under.” The kid grins back and sits on the railing, swinging his legs. I walk closer to him and bend over. My back creaks like a rusty hinge, but I grit my teeth and pick up the bucket. Small miracles, because it didn’t get knocked over when the kid startled me, or stolen by a loner or pack. I breathe out a sigh, because wasted water halves my nutrient bars, and I think I can stomach another one today.

I get a closer look at the kid. Terra knows how many layers of dust and smoke cover his face, the muck caked in further with humidity and sweat. Some of it flakes off when he twitches. The kid’s jaw isn’t… quite right. Like he got punched there when it was still squishy, malleable, and it never popped back into shape. He’s obviously adapted around it, and it’s remarkable that he’s survived this long with such a disadvantage. I wonder if one of his parents punched him before handing him over to the nearest orphan.

The kid’s eyes glimmer with curiosity as he studies me, patient, something I’ve never seen a child’s eyes do. No, actually, I knew one kid. “What’s your name, runt?”

“Jere.” I raise an eyebrow. “Te oter kids named me athter a late leader of teirs who got killed by guards.”

“Ah, born and raised with a pack, huh? Damn, even my own father had the decency to wait till I could walk and remember my name before chucking me onto the streets. Clementine.” I reach out a hand, and Jere looks at it astonished, like he’s never shaken hands before. He likely hasn’t. Burkley had to show me how. Unlike me at his age, though, he knows what to do and clasps his little, bony hand around mine and shakes it.

“Yer one of teh lucky ones, Clementeene.” He scratches his eyebrow and avoids looking me in the eye. “More adults aren’t even botering to wait fo’ us to walk an’ talk. Teh’re givin’ us to teh oter kids to raise. Not a lo’ of us make it.”

I swallow, fingers gripping the bucket’s handle. “Count your blessings, kid.” I turn my back to him and start walking away from him and this conversation. “At least they gave you away instead of eating you.”

As I walk, I hear him jump down from his perch. I feel the metal walkway shiver under my boots as it takes the kid’s pitiful weight. He scampers behind me and I resist the urge to twist around and sock him in his face. The kid could’ve jumped me before, but he didn’t, and I didn’t see any weapons on him. I doubt the filthy, faded rags he has to call clothes could hide the bump of a bone knife.

Holy hell, the kid’s survived this long without a weapon? Maybe he lost it. The insane urge to give it to the runt springs up, and I stomp it down, suddenly glad I don’t even have the thing.

“Hey,” Jere says, teleporting to walk by my side. “Do yeh like ‘istory? You seem teh know stuff.” He giggles. “Like me!”

“Go away. I gotta work now.”

“Oh, come on.” He walks a bit ahead of me, then jumps around to walk backwards, which is impressive with all the holes and jagged bumps. “I’m sure yer mean old boss wouldn’ mind ya talkin’ teh me!”

I pick up the pace. “Actually, he’d mind a lot.” Maybe I can tire the kid out. I’m more well-fed than the average resident, and the kid looks like he’s skipped a couple dozen meals. Shouldn’t take much, and I can always run if need be.

“Aren’t ya a cleaner?”

“Yep. Good eye.” Faster, Clementine.

“Ten ya can clean and talk, right?” Jere meets my every step with two of his own. Impressive again, since he’s walking backwards, unbothered by the perilous grating. He’s barely out of breath, but I’m quickly running out of patience.

I grind my teeth and hiss, “Kid, I got better things to do than babysit you.”

“Wat’s ‘babyset’?” Jere cocks his head. Genuine curiosity sparkles in his eyes and I slow down.

“It’s… a verb,” I answer.

“Wha’s a verb?”

I stop, and Jere hops to a halt. “Oh boy.” I scratch the back of my head and look around, like anyone would stop to help me teach a child grammar. “Um,” I try to remember what I learned in those torn and dirt-caked books all those years ago. “An… action word?” That sounds right.

Jere cocks his head more. “Like… stuff ya do?”

I snap my fingers and point at him. “Exactly! Babysit means… to look after kids. I don’t have time to look after you.”

Jere snorts and asks, “Who looks after kids?”

“It was a word from before the war. Lots of people looked after kids back then: teachers, siblings, older kids—”

“Parents?” The kid’s eyes widen.

I swallow and nod. “Yeah. Parents too, Jere. Everyone was supposed to.”

His jaw slackens and he shakes his head. “Tat sounds wild.” Jere hops back to my side like a rabbit. “Can ya tell me more? Tis is way more fun ten teh stuff I’ve tried to read wit.”

I squeak out a chuckle and nervously mess up the kid’s hair. Strands of oily, brittle hair cling to my fingers. “What do you read with?” I ask as I grimace and wipe my hand on my pants.

“Just stuff about teh bunkers, and teh’re, like, old pamlets and junk. It’s teh only read-y stuff I’ve got.” He kicks what looks like a finger bone off the walkway, scowling. “Not tat I can read. Teh pictures are fun, t’ough.”

“Hey,” I put a hand on my chest and feign offense. “I learned to read with those ‘old pamlets.’ They’re a good start.” I still have a few of them too, underneath my cot in a box, scratched on with tiny, sharpened bones. Those ‘inspirational’ pamphlets are going to outlive the whole damn bunker, the plastic sheets of nonsense.

The kid hops in place, holding his hands together and squealing, “I can lorn teh read wit tose?” He grabs the hem of my shirt and points two big, red watery eyes at me, “Please, please, please tehch me? None of teh kids know how teh read.”

I jerk my shirt out of his grip. “Great Terra, I wish I had your energy, runt.”

“I get tat a lot,” he says, still jumping. I place a hand on the top of his head, careful not to tear out anymore hair, and force him to stop. He redirects all that excited energy into his arms and hands. Fidgets and grabs onto anything in reach, including my arm.

“Stop it.”

“But I’m esited!”

“Don’t know why, since I didn’t say yes.” That stops him, and he pouts. “I don’t have time to teach a kid how to read, or how to write. You’re gonna have to figure it out like I did.”

Jere’s scrawny, starved body deflates. “But… tat’s gonna take forever.”

“Yeah, it is. I did it, though, so you got a good shot at it. I’m not exactly a rocket scientist.”

He tilts his head. “Ruhkeht?”

I pointedly wave goodbye. “Bye, kid. Maybe I’ll see you later.” Whether alive or that old man’s breakfast is up for Terra to decide.

A sliver of me hopes he’ll survive. Tired glares and scoffs usually greeted my rants about what I found on that computer until I grew too tired to try. We’re all too hungry to hunger for knowledge—except the kid somehow. I only crave because reading and writing helps distract from the smell of iron.

A tiny voice carries over the roar of the bunker as I’m halfway down the stairs. “Wait!”

Oh, for Terra’s sake. How the hell Jere has survived this long when he runs up to random adults is a mystery. Children avoid adults the same way rats avoided cats before we ate them both to extinction.

I keep my back to the boy and all-but run. There’s a slight chance he’ll think I can’t hear him and give up. Afternoon is well underway, so the night-to-day shifters are rushing home for a nap, while the day-to-night shifters are rushing to work. More adults are around, and any of them would have no problem snatching the easy morsel that is tiny Jere. “Clementeene!”

“What?” I snap, jerking around. “What could you possibly want from me? I have work to do. You know what that is, right? Work? You do shit for other people in the hopes of food. Maybe if you stop bothering people and start growing up, you’ll live long enough to read and get a job.” Jere’s several meters away, and the haze from the machines below puts a blurry filter on everything. The manmade fog doesn’t hide how the kid’s eyes get misty. I take in his appearance one more time, and it clicks.

Fuck. Kid doesn’t have a pack.

Pregnancy is when most kids die, the mothers too starved, drugged, beaten, or all of the above to bring the infant to term. If pregnancy doesn’t kill them, the birth takes them, and sometimes the mother too.

If they are born, their next greatest threat is their own skeletal parents. Provided that the kid is the luckiest bastard in the world, they’re born to parents who give a damn about them. They’re raised until they can walk and remember their name, and the parents have no choice but to kick them out. The bigger the mouths, the more food they need.

Birth took my mother, and my father, a rare person who believed in love, never forgave me for that. He only took care of me so I could remember that she should’ve been there, not me. As soon as I could tearfully recite that fact, he threw me into the arms of the next pack that wandered by.

Children hunt in packs. A dozen or more kids, all different ages, bonded together by the insistent need to survive. I remember the pack I ran with. The first ‘leader’ was a girl with pitch black hair and half her teeth missing, the rest filed to a sharp point. When she disappeared—Likely killed. Never found her body, but bodies aren’t undisturbed for long—I briefly took over and dragged half the kids into a massacre with a stupid plan to raid a densely guarded storage unit, where they keep the nutrient bars.

The runner-up was a boy younger, but sharper, than I. We ate well under his leadership until a bunch of loner adults grouped together. Cornered and killed most of us while the fastest scattered. I, obviously, was one of them. Me and… another boy, though a loner had stabbed him in the leg before we got away. I still remember hearing the dying screeches of my pack contort into deeper ones as the loners turned on each other.

My stomach grumbles in memory of being in Jere’s place. Packless. Didn’t matter how fast you were if you couldn’t back it up with muscle or numbers. It takes a dozen kids to secure enough food for six of them. Eight at most. Jere likely hasn’t eaten anything more than bones and scraps of scraps for weeks, if not months. I look at how his ribs dent his skin through his stained and ripped shirt. Months.

I was older by the time I lost my group, a ripe sixteen. It gave me a fighting chance. I just had to survive for a few months before Burkley shoved a bucket into my hand, and I’ve been set ever since. Starvation could’ve taken off a few years, but Jere’s no older than twelve. Twelve and without a pack. I’m staring at a walking corpse.

Putting down the bucket, I sigh and sit, leaning against the railing. “Come here, kid.” Buckley would rip me a new one if he found out, but I’m confident I can catch up on any time wasted comforting a child on what are likely his last days.

Like I snapped my fingers and willed it to happen, a brilliant smile stretches the kid’s lips and adds a happy gleam to his curious eyes. He nearly skips to where I am, and dumps his bony frame next to mine.

“Do ya ‘ave a computeh?”

I open my mouth, then catch the words before they leave. A computer shell is rare. The parts are rarer. The time it takes to put one together is rarest. It took far too many nutrient bars and scavenging to fix up that hunk of junk. Like hell am I gonna risk a group of kids robbing me. Yeah, he doesn’t have anyone, but he might trade such information for a seat at the table.

Jere stares at me with sunken, giddy eyes, and I tell myself that my heart can’t break anymore. I don’t care about this runt. Kids die nearly every day. I saw a little boy get eaten this morning, for fuck sake. He’ll die and I’ll forget him in a week while I’m scrubbing feces off a wall. The first cheerful person I’ve met in years is a little boy doomed to die. Who cares?

And who cares if I tell this little ghost I have a computer? After all the work I put into that laggy piece of plastic, I deserve to brag. “Yeah, I do. Put it together myself.”

Jere gasps and leans close. I see his black and brown teeth, his agitated gums. For the first time in a while, I’m almost thankful I can only smell blood, because I know his breath reaks worse. “Really? Tat’s so cool! And it works?”

“It’s crap, but, yeah, it works. I just use it to write.” A waste of resources, but also not my problem.

“Wat do ya wite?”

“Write.”

“Write. Wat do ya write?”

I shrug. I’ve never actually had to explain what I type on there. “Stuff. Sometimes my thoughts. Other times I write, um…” I do not want to spend hours explaining poetry to this kid. “Written stuff. Like those pamphlets. I type them into the computer.”

He squints. “Why’d ya do tat?”

“That.”

“Don’t boter wit teh t… Wit teh stts… Wit teh ‘issin’ Ts. Can nev’uh poonounce tem.”

Snorting like someone his age, I say “Pronounce.”

“Pronounce.”

We chuckle. When the kid inches closer, I let him. He scoots along the grimy grate until our shoulders touch, and his relax. I remember how… touchy packs were. At least how touchy mine was. We acted like animals during the day, but at night? We’d all cuddle under starless steel, starved for touch.

Jere lays his head on my shoulder. I let him. He’s light as a ghost too.

The little boy digs a dirty toe into the grate. Half his toes are bent from old breaks. His toenails are either gone or bruised a deep purple. “Do you think… we’ll ever see sunshine?”

“Only if hell freezes over and that vault door opens.” I point a finger towards the lid of our coffin. A circular slab of iron and steel, decorated with a dizzying amount of twisting hydraulics and pistons. Jere frowns and cuddles into me further. Stretches his stick legs over mine. “Comfy?” I snark.

He doesn’t seem to hear me. Poor kid’s eyes flutter close. He yawns, and I fight down a gag as the tangy, metallic smell in my nose thickens again. I have no place to judge the kid’s exhaustion, or his breath, even if I can’t allow it. “No-no-no.” I shake him awake and stand up before he can use me as a pillow again. “Sorry, kid, but I gotta finish cleaning. I need to eat too.”

Jere yawns again, rubbing his eyes. “Is alright. I need teh go find someting to eat anyways.” A shiver starts in my legs and works its way up, stopping at the phantom weight in my pocket. I know the kid won’t try anything on me, an able adult, yet my hand snakes its way into my apron. I snarl when I grasp nothing.

I need my goddamn bone knife! A weapon or a guard. Even if I want to retch at the thought of whose leg bone is resting in its leather sheathe, and if the leather came from the same person. It’s a necessity, I tell myself. I tell myself that every night as I stare at the mold-covered ceiling, wondering if the stars miss watching us.

This sick arrangement works out for everyone, the annoying announcer tells us once a month. The abled remained fed, and our ‘leaders’ don’t have to worry so much about straining our supplies to maintain the population. If I hadn’t taught myself to read, letter by letter, word by word, I would have never known different.

Slack-jawed, I had stared at the computer screen, another uncovered file telling me that cannibalism wasn’t always so normalized in the bunker. Only the truly desperate and depraved stooped to such lows.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of archived posts and articles gawking at how low humanity had sunken while trapped between dirt and radiation. Underground forums protected by code words to hide from predatory algorithms, where assassinations, riots, and uprisings were planned and then thwarted when one person got greedy and snitched in the hopes of a higher status. Well, snitches get stitches and ditches.

Terra, I felt betrayed reading them. Lied to. No one had sat me down and told me that this was normal. The words drifted in the air, though, as thick as the scent of death. They echoed whenever a child’s skull met the callous concrete. A metallic tang had flooded my mouth that night, so coppery I thought it could conduct the pain.

Jere’s skin and bones. Muscles too thin to fight. If he wants to survive, he only has one option on the menu. Desperate and depraved.

A voice at the back of my mind tells me to stab the kid and be done with it. To not risk the rat tailing me and trying to ambush me, or following me to my room and robbing me. I clench my jaw hard enough for my teeth to hurt. The kid’s so weak, I don’t need a knife. A determined hand around his neck would do, then this would all be over for him. He’d never have to trade his sanity for another day.

Just… one more day. That’s all I needed.

I jerk my hand out of my apron and clench it into a fist. Jere catches the movement and raises his hands. He must see the hollowness, the promise, in my eyes, because he takes a step back.

Sucking in a breath, I tell my fingers, one by one, to unclench. I sigh and wonder why my shoulders feel so heavy. “I’m not going to hurt you, runt, but you need to go. Find some food.” The dead kid I walked past is probably still there, picked clean, but Jere can… can eat the bones. I know he can. He only needs a rock.

Jere stares up at the walkway where those guards and the woman rushed through. There’s a sly grin on his face when he looks back at me. “No worries, Clem.”

All the worries, actually. Worries have replaced rats in how they scurry behind everyone, nipping at their heels and crawling between the walls. This kid is damn near every worry everyone has. Starvation, homelessness, loneliness, yet he’s all smiles as he jumps back up, hands me my bucket, and runs up the stairs.

Breathing out a sigh between gritted teeth, I shake the tension out of my shoulders and walk in the opposite direction. The walkways branch out endlessly, and so I only need to walk four or five meters before I’m walking down a staircase, then another.

Only three floors lower, yet I already need to fight the urge to run back up. The air is heavier here, thick with the toxins and particles spewed out by the few machines still chugging. The hunks of machinery burn Terra knows what, and condense the material into the flavorless chunks of fiber and protein to be given to the employed. Whatever the process is, they spew ash into the air. It coats The Lowers, only getting darker and darker the farther down you go. I’m still in The Middle, but ash-dusted walls tell me only just.

It’s hotter down here too, though I’d be an idiot to take off my shirt. Being a cleaner gives me some protection, but that won’t save me from a crazy with a knife. Flimsy armor is still armor.

I breathe through my mouth and get to work, the mechanical movements a balm. After years of this, my mind grants my hands complete control, and I sink into La-La Land.

Jere’s typing away on the computer, solving a series of English problems. A Brave New World is open on the desk, every other word underlined in pencil for the boy to look up later. I hear Burkley screaming at someone outside. Maybe an old employee or one of the fixer-uppers he’s taken in. Kid’s half-asleep, but that doesn’t stop his spidery fingers from clicking away at the keyboard.

“This is impossible,” he mutters.

I stretch, stomach full, something, anything, other than blood in my nose. “Yeah, that’s how it starts. You see everything you have to learn and it sucks.” I laugh. The kid can only manage an exhausted half-smile. “But that’s the fun part, really. You learn it piece by piece, then you put those pieces together. Then you put those pieces with other bigger pieces and,” I spread my hands wide. “You’ve learned to read.”

“Ugh, can I skip to teh part where I can read?”

“Nope.”

Burkely barges in. “Mornin’, chucklefucks.”

“Mornin’ Mr. Burkley!” Jere chirps from his perch on the desk chair, eyes suddenly wide and awake.

The older man twitches his lips at the kid, the closest he ever gets to a true smile. “Hey, Jere. Clementine, while you’re playing English teacher, how ‘bout you do the job I pay you to do?”

“I’m not a night-shifter,” I say, voice threatening to whine. “And Jere’s not done with his homework.”

Jere points at the screen. “Mr. Burkley, can you help me with this? Do you write ‘It is your cat’ or ‘It is you’re cat’?”

Burkley shrugs and twitches his lips again. “Heh, you’re on your own, boy. I get those mixed up half the time myself.”

“And he will not help you cheat.” I reach over and poke Jere in the side, his ink-black shirt bunching where my finger lands. The kid squeals and swats my finger away.

The older man fully enters the room, my ‘check’ in his hands. He hands me the bag with the nutrient bar in it and smacks me over the head. “Try to actually sleep tonight, boy,” he whispers to me. He ruffles Jere’s shiny, full head of hair and slams the door closed.

Jere hops off the chair and sits on the cot. He has some growing to do. His cheeks are too thin for my liking. I split the nutrient bar in half and pointedly squint at the computer screen. When Jere turns, I quickly shove the smaller half into my mouth and nudge the bigger half into his hand. The kid wolfs his portion down with a thankful grin, crumbs covering his chin.

I angle my head, awareness seeping through like oil. My mind’s done a good job creating a healthier Jere. He’s the normal amount of gangliness for a pre-teen, with more meat on his bones. His bright eyes reflect the computer’s dull light, shining with the morsels of knowledge I’ve given him. Jere tilts his head curiously at me. Wisps of hair fall and tickle his nose, his ears. Like this, full and hopeful, kid looks exactly like—

I barely hear the protesting tink as the scrub brush falls from my hands and onto a walkway below. Fire burns in my cheeks and I know I’m in trouble. The flames spread to the rest of my face. Lick their way down my neck before striking my chest.

Air. There’s not enough air down here. There’s never enough air. I gulp it down more than I should, and ash burns my lungs, coats the back of my mouth. Tears pour from my eyes. Blood clots in my nose and chokes me.

I wretch. Hold my breath, a pathetic attempt to stop the attack. Another lick of flame trails a scorching path down into my stomach and I vomit on the walkway. Bile, water, and half-digested chunks of nutrient bar splash over the grated walkway and drip down. Every time I’m surprised it isn’t blood and bones.

Disgusted shouts ring out, though I hardly hear them. A woman walks near me, sees my hunched over state, then runs to the nearest staircase up. Lungs quiver in their cage, and I beg my heart no more.

When the fire engulfs my chest, I close my eyes and collapse, accepting the punishment. Wheezing, I press my face into cool hands. It feels like thorns are sprouting throughout my entire body, tearing treasured tissue with every breath. They shred veins and pop organs as lights dance behind my shut eyelids.

I try to hold my breath again to dull the thorns. That only sharpens them, pours more adrenaline into my system. Pained gasps are the best I can manage for minutes.

Does Jere go through this? Does he also smell blood every second of every day, a sick penance so he’ll never forget what he did for more time? Maybe not. Maybe that’s why he’s so skinny, because he’s stronger than me. Because he refuses to stoop that low for the meager cost of another day.

Time thickens as I sit there and heave. I imagine playing with the congealed seconds, twisting and stretching them into minutes, then hours, the stolen time hot against my finger pads. When my blood calms to a simmer, I brave a look around, wishing to take my mind off my flushed skin.

A piece of leather lies in the middle of the walkway I’m on, only a handful of meters from where I’m collapsed. It’s too stupid to be a trap, but stupid people have been known to exist.

I narrow my eyes, and the tiny symbols on it focus. Words. Human leather with words carved into the rough, invaluable material when it could have been used for a thousand other things. Someone wanted to put their thoughts into writing quite badly.

My head lolls to the side like it can’t stand its own weight. Fingers are slow to obey me. My legs are their own challenge, as a thousand hair-thin needles stab into the calves whenever I so much as twitch. My eyes work fine, though.

Groaning, I slump to my stomach and crawl, my interest thoroughly piqued and my thundering heart in need of a distraction. Small mercies, as the afternoon rush has slowed to a trickle. Anyone who goes down this walkway sees me and turns right back around, preferring to take their chances with the long way and a pissed off boss.

The leather is old. Cracks stretch between the scraped and dried skin like valleys, creating canyons of age. The filth of the bunker has seeped into them, blanketing the landscape with black and brown dust. I use the hem of my shirt to wipe the worst of it away.

My ancestors would call the writing ‘chicken scratch.’ The writer had burned the poem into the piece of leather, the edges of the letters flaking with charred skin. Crawling to the railing, I lean against the harsh metal and trace the letters, in the hopes years of muscle memory will tell me what they say. After a few minutes, I recognize the word ‘and’ and build upon that minor victory. Burkley’s already gonna be screaming himself hoarse for how behind I am, so I might as well finish something while I’m curled in burning pain, just above The Pits like an hors d’oeuvre.

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Little bastards,

Littering the streets.

Humanoid rats,

Underneath our feet.

How dare they squeal,

How dare they shriek.

The grown are working,

While the young are weak.

I’ll tear out their bones,

Fashion them into daggers.

Their peers will be done,

Go ahead and run.

Dethrone the children.

They have not earned their place.

Throw them away,

The wastes of space.

“Well then.” I flip the ‘paper’ around to see if there’s anymore… riveting literature on the back. There isn’t, just more cracked and dirty leather. “The author sounds like a great hugger.”

A vicious part of me agrees with the, ahem, poet. Remembers the nutrients Burkley deprived me of because one rat snatched my water bucket while my back was turned for a whopping two seconds. How my hair raises when I’m scrubbing down walls and a pack of them slink by, each eyeing me up, seeing if the entire group could thrash me around, take everything on me, before backup arrived.

Another part of me thinks of Jere, and what this person would do to him if they ever crossed paths. Snap his bones to slurp up the marrow inside, go for the organs like the man this morning, and skin him for a nice new pair of boots. There’s a reason kids scatter when there’s a crowd. They’re easier prey than adults, no matter how starved the grown are. Kids are easier to trick, easier to corner, easier to overpower, and usually have more calories than loners.

Not Jere, though. Kid’s freakin’ diet food, and would probably try and hug the poet and get smacked upside the head for his troubles. I smile, and it feels like the realest smile that’s ever twisted my face.

“CLEMENTINE. HELP!” I drop the piece of leather, neck cracking with how fast I jerk my head. Jere. How hard would he have to scream to be heard from down here, have it travel through the constant noise of the bunker and crowds of people?

I jerk back around and close my eyes, trying to shut the child’s screaming out. His scratchy pleads catch on my name, a stranger, and probably the kindest face he’s seen in months.

It’s the way of things. He… He wasn’t going to last much longer anyway. My eyes sting, guilt and shame leaden in my gut. I force it back down when it makes its burning way up. Beat my fists on the rusted walkway, the sharp pain a balm.

The kid had—has. Has a messed up jaw, for Terra’s sake. That alone is a death sentence, even if he has a pack. Packs are there to get food, not share food.

But he wouldn’t have to worry about that if I shared my nutrient bars, half of which I don’t eat and trade for computer parts or bone knives anyway.

“You’re crazy,” I tell myself, huffing an incredulous laugh, but the image in my head is also so perfect, a tear slips down my cheek. Burkley would hardly complain about a cleaner he doesn’t have to feed, and he’s always had a soft spot for younger people. He took one look at me all those years ago. A broken seventeen-year-old, flakes of crimson around my mouth, and he handed me a brush.

Another tear, then two, then three more soon join it. It’s stupid. So, so stupid. Insanity. People don’t take care of kids, not anymore. I pull myself up, sit against the railing, wrap my arms around my knees, and rock. No one took care of me until it was too late. No one took care of Caton. Why the hell should I?

A phantom of Burkley whispers in my mind from years ago, when he had one of his rare, tender moments. His meaty hand, knuckles knotted, tight around my shoulder. “I’m glad I could be what you needed, runt.”

I blink and I’m at the top step. Long legs carry me faster than they’ve ever had before. Faster than when I ran away from the guards, faster than when my pack was being slaughtered, and even faster than when I ran away from Caton’s half-eaten corpse.

Jere’s voice draws nearer, more desperate with every half-second. I go up higher, higher. Soon, I’m sprinting in the lower levels of Up Top, the walkways freshly cleaned and polished, when I spot him.

He’s a broken miniature compared to the well-fed giant squeezing his neck.

Jere’s eyes magnetize to mine. He whimpers, “Clem—” The hand coiled around his neck, the size of my water bucket, kills the rest of my name. In the guard’s other hand, a blood red apple, with bite marks far too tiny to be his.

“Look at the scrawny little rat. I’d be doing this kid a favor, taking him out,” he rumbles. “It ain’t like he can do anything with that wrecked muzzle of his.” Dropping the bitten apple like it’s trash, the giant clamps the free hand over the boy’s mouth and twists Jere’s jaw until the child squeals in pain.

“Jere!” Red seeps into my vision as the man and his gang cackle at the kid’s agony. I reach into my apron’s middle pocket, wrap my fingers around the phantom leather handle—

Jere wrestles free from the hold for just two precious seconds. That’s all the time he needs to bite the guard’s thumb clean off. Blood slicks the boy’s ‘muzzle’ as he spits it out, the thumb plopping a foot away from the apple.

I grin and say, “He can do that.”

The man stupidly stares at the gushing stump, then raises his head and howls. He throws Jere a solid six meters, and the child nearly slides off the walkway before he grabs onto the railing and hauls himself up. He squats into a fighting stance, spits out a glob of pink spit, and pulls his lips into a bloody snarl. Damn, kid.

I do a headcount. Four guards, thirty-nine fingers. Jere took out the head honcho with his chomp, the man on his knees in agony. That still leaves three well-fed, muscular men, who have turned brutality into a living.

Jere shoots me a fearful look. Crouches down further when the smallest of the gang, a man built like a really short bison, turns to him. I take a deep breath.

“RUN, JERE.”

The roar jolts the guard closest to me, and I tackle him to the ground. Brass knuckles barely miss my eye, though not my shoulder on his second swing. I hiss at the pain that races down and nearly paralyzes my left arm.

I didn’t live this long by not knowing how to throw a splintering right hook, though, and I give the guard’s jaw one. Something snaps, crackles, and the guard stumbles away, his hand catching streams of blood.

Jere holds his own. He nicked the knife from the grizzled, whimpering guard, and now locks gleaming steel with rusted iron.

Duck, slash. Slice, dodge. The short guard’s muscle and experience falters against Jere’s feverish speed and even shorter stature. For every drop of blood the guard spills, the boy sheds cupfuls. His dagger is a silver blur.

By the time my guard goes down, Jere and his are circling each other, hunched, and soaked in blood. I snarl and yank the brass knuckles off of my guard, slipping them over my fingers and clenching my bruised hand into a fist. They are too large for my slimmer fingers. They’ll beat this bastard’s head in all the same.

I take a step and freeze. Where’s the third guard? And, now that I’m looking, where’s the giant?

Most of the blood from the giant has leaked through the grated floor, but shiny crimson frames the square holes and trail from here to a staircase farther back. A pained squeak snaps my attention back to the kid.

His rags are soaked in blood, his face is ashen, and he appears seconds away from puking. He’s standing, though, and his guard is most certainly not. The man’s chest rises and falls shakily from where he’s curled into an unconscious ball, a fat bruise on the side of his head. It’s all I could have hoped for.

I take a step towards Jere, stopping when my shoe hits something. Bitter saliva pooling in my mouth, I look down, expecting a severed thumb. Instead, a beautiful apple rolls a few inches before the metal holes stop it. My stomach twists and growls, and my saliva loses its bitter taste. I lean down and pick up the fruit. Real fruit. Not the plastic-y, ‘fruit-flavored’ nutrient bars we get on special occasions.

“Where…” I turn the apple over in my hands. I trace the bite marks. Lucky brat got a few bites in before getting caught. “Where did you get this?”

Jere looks away and shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Jere, you just bit off a guy’s thumb.” He laughs. “It’s not funny.” He stops.

The kid twitches, picks at the dead skin on his fingers, and says, “Teh lady had it.” He points at the fruit. “She just left it tere wit’ her goods.”

“‘Guards.’”

“Gourds.” Close enough. “I tought, since she left it, she didn’t wan’ it anymore.” His eyes trace over the blood that drips through the metal grating and onto the walkway—and likely any unfortunate people—below. “Guess I was wrong.”

He walks closer to me as he speaks, cheery and distracted. He doesn’t look back to the staircase where the giant and his co-beater escaped. Only I see the metallic glint of an apex predator.

I shout. Jere drops. A bullet whizzes over him—and into me.

A pinch underneath my ribs. Wetness spreading on my chest. A flash of white.

I’m on the ground. Ringing floods my ears. I hear a voice. Screaming.

Jere. Jere screeches, equal parts anguish and anger, and jumps out of my hazy view. A grunt. Two, one high-pitched and the other low. The giant stumbles into my sight, a lump on his back. I squint, then widen my eyes. Jere is hanging onto the giant’s neck, blood following each swipe of his claws as he tears off skin and gnaws muscle.

The man squeals when Jere bites off his ear. A clicking sound, then a woman’s voice. The boy jumps off the giant’s back, using his miniscule weight to push the man away from him and closer to the railing.

Another shot, as deafening as the first. I reach for Jere, but it is the guard who needs it. Before he goes over the railing, a hand holding his spitting neck.

Four voices echo, and echo, and echo, and echo after the giant falls, panicked. They bounce off each other, then clot and thunder in my head. The woman’s voice breaks off and rises above the others. Blissfully, the voices follow hers, the vibrations of their boots dying off.

“Clem!” a tiny voice cries out. I feel the floor shiver as a shadow floats above me, a painful contrast to the dozens of lights flittering like dust. Spidery fingers grab my shoulders and put me on my back. I was on my side?

The feeling of oblivion sinks into me like a knife, and part of me welcomes it. I turned thirty yesterday. Burkley is almost in his forties, and most don’t survive past that damning four-zero. Not even the Up Top pricks live past their sixties. Can only distance themselves from the rot so much.

The kid’s voice winds around my heart, and the sputtering organ beats a little faster. A familiar string tickles the tips of my fingers, and my mind grabs hold. I tug on it, and a few of the blinking lights snuff out. I tug it again, and again, killing the cloud of fairies. The string lengthens, and I wrap the cord around my fingers.

It hardens into steel. I grunt.

Pull yourself back, I whisper to myself. Just a little more.

I tug the steel cord harder, and the boy’s image focuses. Tears flow down the child’s hollow cheeks, carving rivers of gray skin as they wash away layers of filth. His hand holds mine in a death grip, and it almost hurts. I follow the almost-sting.

“Clementine, no!” the boy sobs. He crouches over me protectively, hands rushing to place themselves over the hole in my chest.

“Shh,” I whisper. I swipe a shaky thumb under his eyes, smearing the dirt. “I was out of time anyway, Jere.” We both are. I think of the guard, his strength unable to save him from falling, and his boss and three remaining thugs. They will hunt Jere down, and he will be lucky to die.

The child nearly heaves from the force of his sobs. The bones in my hand crunch together. “I’m sorry. I nev’uh shoulda called you. I nev’uh should took tat stupid apple.” He nuzzles his forehead into the nape of my neck and wails. “I’m so sorry.”

I comb a hand through the oily, brittle tangles, loosening the many knots. “Sweetheart.” The word slips out, gliding across my tongue as easy as typing away at my computer. A plush warmth settles over my heart, and I swallow down the urge to call the boy other endearments. Darling, angel, love, lamb, baby boy. Just a child. Just a baby.

“Sweetheart, look at me.” Jere lifts his head heavily. Every part of him trembles. “My apron, Jere. Left pocket. A tiny piece of metal.”

Jere nods his head, face blank and still dripping tears, and digs through my apron pockets. A spare rag, lint, and a key. The boy stares at it with the same fixation as he did the apple, thumbing over the ridged surface.

“My room,” I whisper. “It’s yours.”

He tears his eyes off the key and gapes at me. He shakes his head. “Tat’s… tat’s not how it works.”

A wheeze forces its way out of me, reminding me that my body is currently pissing blood. I swallow a biting remark and grab his hand. “Go into my room. The computer’s password is ‘past.’ That’s it. D-Don’t worry about spelling it. Burkely knows how. He’ll know you’re telling the truth then, and he’ll give you a job. My bone dagger… Burkley gave it to me when he hired me.” Back when he had the energy to truly care. “It’s yours now.”

I brush a lock of hair from his face. “He’ll give you my room. You just gotta work. It’s-It’s not so bad, especially after a few years.”

“No, Clem.” He rubs his head against my soaked shirt. His forehead is streaked with blood when he lifts his head back up. “I’m sorry, Clem. I’m s-s-sorry.”

“No apologies, sweetheart.” The fairies have come back, flickering faster. I shake my head. “No time for apologies. Go.” His best chance is how his face blends in with the other thousand starving children here once he leaves. Nothing will save him if the woman and her guards return, though. I push him off with the last of my strength. “Go. Now. Don’t look back.”

A thin hand squeezes mine before he lets it drop to the floor. I mutter, “Learn to read.” Jere’s thin arms wrap around his thinner waist, snot running down. He twitches back and forth, like every part of his body fights against leaving me. Whimpers like a dying animal, but he listens. The boy blissfully listens. Ripping his eyes away from me, the room key clenched in bloodless fingers, he sobs and runs down the stairs.

Burkley will take care of him. I close my eyes and sigh. The kid will at least see his eighteenth birthday. It’s… It’s okay…

I don’t know how long I stay on the floor. Long enough for my brain to conjure gentle voices. Their gentle tones hug me, keeping me awake. One is a woman, maternal and firm, the other is a boy, who freezes my draining blood when I recognize him.

He does not accuse me, does not list each of my crimes, nor does he tell my lungs to drown me in blood like I deserve. Caton sounds like he did before our pack got slaughtered. Content, sustained on dreams instead of sustenance. How are you, Clem?

If I had the blood to spare, I know it would burn me from the inside out, like gasoline kissed by an ember. Terra, it hurts to hear his voice again. “I’ve been better.” His twinkling laugh responds, and I want to cry fat, ugly tears.

The woman’s voice is a kind hand on my forehead. You need to get up, sweetheart. Why? Each breath is met with needles. I’m pretty sure that damn bullet nicked a lung.

Their voices merge, asking the same question, Don’t you want to see the sun?

Me and every other decrepit soul. I moan and snap my fingers next to an ear, hoping to stop the ringing. Even death is a chore.

Resentment not my own boils under my ribs, frothing past my throat and into my skull. Then go. Get up. Get UP, CLEMENTINE.

The ringing shrieks into tolling bells. My abused eardrums are used as actual drums. Copper tickles the back of my throat. “Fuck,” I hiss. “I deserve that.”

Both voices gentle. That was not aimed at you. Never you. But go now, while you still have the will.

I blink, and I am stumbling through the veins of the bunker, another virus in its diseased body. The voices push me whenever I falter. Sometimes with an understanding hand, other times with a decided shove.

I catch the eyes of the bunker’s people. Some hunched over themselves, terrified. Some lifeless, limping to their destination on automatic. All starving. When the empty get too close, I snarl and charge at them, Caton’s hungerless energy behind each determined footfall. The giant had a hundred pounds of muscle on me, but I have at least fifty on everyone else. It makes me all the tastier, yet it’s also a threat. Attack me at my weakest and risk being thrown over the rails, or go another day without food and die anyway.

The deadest eyes try their luck. The last thing they see is me giving them to the swarms below.

Poor souls, the woman’s voice glides alongside my fidgety thoughts. Are they even aware?

Blood drenches my shirt and drips to my pants. The smell of it fills my nostrils. “I hope not.”

Bony hands and needlepoint nails grip my arms, my shoulders, my neck. A wrinkled, dusty hand wraps around the short tips of my hair and pulls. Nearly drops me on my ass before I find my footing, saved by years of hard-earned muscle memory.

Gripping her wrist, I twist it and my body till I hear the weak bones crack. Her shriek of agony is cut off when I grab the back of her head and smash the palm of my hand into her nose and up. Another thing Caton taught me, unknowing how foolish it was. The woman’s eyes widen, pupils shrinking into periods, then she drops like a pruned flower.

Don’t think, Caton urges me, begs me. Don’t think about her, or Jere. You need to get out of here.

I killed her. The words repeat in my head a hundred times over. Despite the dangers here, it’s rare I have to actually kill someone. I can only imagine how tempting I look, a quarter of the way dead and far too close to The Pits, far too close to evening.

She would have tried to kill you.

I don’t know that for sure, do I? Bundles of silver are in her thin, matted hair. Old scars and dark patches stamp her skin, showing her age more than the tinsel. Much older than forty. It’s so rare to live beyond that, and I just killed one of them.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her cooling corpse. I back away. Already there are people circling, honing in on the smell of death like flies. Someone knocks into my shoulder and I nearly jump over the railing.

It’s a teenager. A few years older than Jere. His eyes shine, pupils blown wide. A line of drool dribbles out of the side of his mouth. He drops to his knees in front of the woman’s head.

“Kid,” I rasp.

Caton’s voice is low, knowing. Leave him. You’re so close.

I walk closer to the boy. “Kid. Hey, runt!” The boy twists around and growls at me, his canines black. Spittle flies out of his mouth as he swipes a hand at me, nails jagged and yellow, tongue all but lolling out of his mouth as he possessively twines a handful of the woman’s silver hair between his fingers.

“I want none of that.” The kid tilts his head, his tired, hollowed eyes flickering. I fool myself and believe it’s his last gasps of humanity. Then he scoffs and turns back to the woman, half-heartedly hissing at another, smaller teen who stalks nearby. I know he won’t share. I know.

I run.

Being a cleaner has never come in handy like it does now. My mind runs like a well-trained computer, mapping out the quickest path when I input “bunker door” into the search bar.

Bottom floor. The Pits. Where not even my status as a cleaner can protect me from people like the munchy teen and his friend. Where the most animalistic are exiled, only allowed to hunt across the upper levels at night, picking off the weak and injured. Pit Walkers.

I think about the teen boy and his friend. Fuck, is it night already? The lights are dimming down around me. The Pit Walkers will smell me in an instant and then I’ll be gone. I’d rather bleed out in my bed. A painful, lasting rest. Say goodbye to Jere. Thank Burkley for trying to save my soul, even if he was a day too late.

The sun, Clementine, the woman’s voice begs. What about the sun?

The bunker door, brain. How close am I?

Close. Two more levels until I reach The Pits. From there, it’s a swift run, assuming I can run by the time I’m done with the stairs. After that, the guard will be my greatest obstacle. They’ll have some kind of weapon, no doubt. A dagger, a stun gun. Maybe an actual gun, since I currently hold compelling evidence that guns are, indeed, not extinct. One last run, Clementine.

If I thought stairs after a full-shift was torture, the bullet wound adds an extra spicy twist. Exhaustion pushes down on my spine, every step filled with an agonized numbness. Like my legs are asleep, but so much worse. My muscles are melting, the hot liquid seeping into my bones and boiling the marrow. Every breath is too short, yet every breath is like breathing in fiber glass.

Terra, I did not know humans had so much blood in them. I slip on my own crimson trails, and the jerky movement aggravates the bullet hole.

The world starts to feel like a dream, too little yet too much, too light and too heavy. I blearily wonder if I’m at the part where I can fly.

I grip the handrail, soaking up the heat through my skin. Everything’s hot to the touch from the smelters and machines. From the heat of thousands of bodies crammed into a giant death-hole. It licks my palm. Threatens to burn through it and scorch the rest of me.

The last flight of stairs is a brand of hell all its own, as I lose my fight against gravity. Rusted metal scrapes and digs into my skin as my skull meets the stairs. An old friend, copper, slicks my tongue and gums. Slivers down my throat. Skin tears. My eyes roll into the back of my skull.

So many nightmares of me dying as I lived, torn apart. Watching my insides slurped into the greedy mouths of child and adult alike. My screams endless and exciting the horde further. The wet sounds growing louder.

I come to, staring at the blackened walkway above me, panting and pissing blood for Terra knows how long. The concrete of The Pits scolds my back.

Jolting up, I wince and press a hand on the bullet hole. It takes minutes for me to grab onto the rusted rail of the damned staircase and pull myself up.

I can see the entrance, our tomb’s indestructible door. The cleanest place in The Pits, though that isn’t saying much. Body fluids, smoke, and dirt hide the steel walls, the muck only retreating for a short time after the bravest cleaners venture down. I hate it down here.

“Grr? Hurgh. Hurgh!” And that’s why.

The man slams into me. I skid several feet, the filth on the floor slicking my shoes. Adrenaline gives me a top-off and I manage to throw a punch as the Pit Walker goes in for the kill. I spot something off-white clenched in his hand and I jump back before the half-broken bone knife punches any more holes in me. He slashes the knife at me again.

Puffing up my chest, I try to look bigger, stronger, than I really am. Less like a punctured water balloon. The man snarls, his gums red and black, most of his teeth gone and the rest pointed and rotten. I bare my teeth, showing that I still have all of mine, and he deflates ever-so-slightly. There’s no gray in his hair, eyes young and alert.

He charges and I meet him head-on. We clasp the other’s elbows and smash skulls like a hammer on hot steel. Black spots threaten to overtake my vision again, and I shake them off.

I take back maybe two inches. He grips my elbows harder, sinks his jagged nails in. Spreads his legs wider, roars with ferocity I did not realize he had, then yanks. His skull slams into mine, then again. And again. Again.

I go down on the fourth strike, but I wrap a hand around a hard clump of matted hair and drag the man down with me. The man wastes no time in throttling me, spindly fingers a vice around my Adam’s apple. I gurgle and jerk, try to kick him off with my legs. He lifts my head up and slams it into the concrete. I go limp.

“Hey!” a voice screams, and I dazily think it’s Caton until an unscarred hand grabs the back of the man’s neck and tosses him off me. “No fighting near the gate!”

The Pit Walker hisses, and the guard replies with a deeper hiss. Throws his shoulders back and growls at the man, his pearly whites gleaming like porcelain daggers. The Pit’s few lights flicker across his face.

My rescuer isn’t very tall, perhaps only an inch taller than me. The cleanest parts of his hair gleam blond, but dirt’s dyed the rest a shaggy brown. I… I don’t think I’ve ever seen blond hair before.

Whenever I hear about blonds, it’s always their light hair and blue eyes. But this man’s eyes can’t be compared to the ocean or the sky. They’re a dark brown, rimmed by a darker gray. A fresh layer of dust coats his purple uniform, cap included. Despite the dust, they’re the most immaculate clothes I’ve seen. Not a patch or hole in sight, and no stains deface the saturated fabric.

His employees feed him well, his body filling out the uniform nicely, hair dirty and tangled, but thick. His nostrils don’t flare, nor do his eyes shiver hungrily as he looks at me and the blood my body drools. I now understand why people have killed for this job.

The man scrambles back, a pathetic groan leaving him as he stalks back into the shadows and ash. The guard turns to me, takes one long look at the dripping blossom on my shirt, and says, “Follow me.”

Can I? Spots still linger in my vision, and the puddle near me… isn’t insignificant.

Try, the woman’s voice pleads.

I grit my teeth, turn on my side, put my palms against the hot concrete floor, and push myself to my feet. A wail almost leaves me. I blink back tears, take a shallow, soot-tasting breath, and limp after the guard.

He doesn’t say a word as he opens the door to his office and waves me inside. I shiver when I enter. Air… air conditioning?

“I thought only the uppers got cool air?”

“The uppers and guards,” the guard corrects, then points to a cot huddled in the corner of the room. “You can lay down there.” The cot has an actual mattress and a white, spotless, fluffy blanket. I didn’t know blankets could still be fluffy. I pick it up, stifling a delighted gasp, and press it against my face. Terra, I wish I could smell more things than blood. My throat picks up whatever my nose refuses, and it tickles the back of my throat. I fight back a crazy grin.

His entire office is spotless, at least by modern standards. Silver and white gleam in the pristine laptop’s light, the only source of light in the dim room. There’s a black-and-white checkered floor, and polished steel makes up the walls. I try to find any kind of grime in this place, and the closest I find is a pile of dust and hair under the desk. That’s nothing. Nothing.

I suck in a breath and sigh. Clean air. Or as clean as it gets down here. Not like the ash and rot waiting outside, worse than a cigarette.

I smelled a cigarette once, before blood filled my nose. It’s a rich smell, because only those with clean enough lungs can afford to dirty them. “Cancer sticks,” Caton called them, spitting out the archaic term he got from who knows where. “You gotta be a right moron to waste clean air like that.”

An older man, a gentleman, walked by our slums with a pack of guards, all as thick as pillars, a sharp contrast to their sickly, stickly charge. Despite being only just a few floors above The Pits, he sucked down that cylinder of paper and herbs like his life depended on it. Blew a cloud of nicotine and tobacco at my face as he walked past, grinning as I hacked.

I look at the guard, who has been patiently standing there, watching me. I narrow my eyes. “Why did you help me? I mean, thi-this could be a setup. I could have six loners out there waiting for me to, er, tap the door and rob you. Kill you.”

The guard pats the holster on his hip, where an acquainted silvery shape peaks through. “If you were planning some grand heist for my nutrient bars and laptop, I’d make quick work of you. You and your buddies.”

Ah. “Ah.” I don’t look away from the gun. My bullet wound pulses to my heartbeat. Worsens the longer I stare. The gun splits into two. Three. I squeeze my eyes shut and smack the side of my head. When I open my eyes, it’s back by its lonesome.

“So,” the guard says, and plops on his swivel chair, swiveling it towards me. He points to the cot again and I sit down, carding my fingers through the fluffy blanket, dirtying it with bloody mud. “I’m going out on a limb here and say you had a run-in with General? Well, The General, but we just call her General.”

“Who?”

The guard lifts a hand up high. “Tall woman. Well-dressed. Always has a flock of goons attached to her. Has my gun’s twin.”

“Oh, yeah, her. She tried to shoot a kid and got me instead.”

He nods, not the least bit shocked. “Yeah, that sounds like her. Don’t know if it’s the stress of being in charge of this hellhole, or an unfortunate personality, but she’s a bit,” he pretends to shoot a finger gun at me. “Trigger happy.”

I sputter, “We have a leader?”

He holds out a flat hand and tilts it from side to side. “Eh, on paper. She definitely gets all the benefits of being The General.”

“Including being able to shoot starving kids for stealing an apple? That she left alone?”

The guard has the courtesy to flinch. He nervously taps an armrest and scratches his chin. “Yeah. Including that.”

“So, again,” I wave a hand around the office. “Why am I here? I’m assuming it’s not because of my conversation skills.”

He coughs into his hand. “I, well…” His cheeks darken. “When people are in your… state, I let them in here to—”

“Die?”

The guard’s finger-drumming intensifies, and he refuses to look me in the eye. “Yeah. So you can at least be comfortable."

Wow, that’s fucked. Can’t lie, though, it’s also, “Sweet. That’s… sweet of you.” The guard flushes more. “Really, it is. But I don’t want to die here. I came here for a reason.”

“Oh?”

I lean forward, enjoying how the air-conditioning soothes every ache. For the first time in months, I feel like I can sleep a full night if I just lay down and close my eyes—or maybe that’s me dying.

“I want to go outside.” The last word echoes between us, and we sit there, studying the other. At least I can breathe. “Please, I don’t have much time.”

He gestures at the hole, still oozing. “To be completely honest, I don’t have the slightest clue how you got down here.”

I mutter, “Will.” My teeth grind together when he cackles.

“Will?” he wheezes out. “I thought that went extinct with courage and dignity. And hope.”

“Apparently not.” I stand up and loom over the guard. His fingers twitch toward his gun. “Listen, I threw people off railings. I pierced a woman’s brain with her own bones and watched a boy turn her into dinner not ten seconds after. I nearly got killed by a Pit Walker after dragging myself down Terra knows how many levels.” I’m panting, rage and exhaustion curdling in my stomach. “Now, thank you for saving me from him, but I need just one more favor. Get me outside. Let me die out there.”

Crossing his arms, the man scoffs. “Fine, okay. Geez.”

I take a step back, mouth agape. I click my jaw closed. “Just like that?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Why not?”

“Um, radiation?”

The guard smiles. It isn’t a kind smile. “Please. I’d sooner take my chances outside than The Pits without my gun. A heaping dose of good old Raddy is the least of our worries. Besides, more than enough makes its way in from the vents leading outside. I’m surprised the kids around here don’t glow.”

I falter, knowing he’s not wrong, but second guessing anyway. “What if more leaks in when I walk out? An, I don’t know, extra fatal amount.”

“You’re just worrying about this now?”

I rub a hand over my neck. “I-I, well. Um—”

“You didn’t think you’d make it this far.”

“Yep.”

Always second guessing yourself, Clementine, Caton’s voice chuckles. Right till the end.

The guard laughs, stands up, flicks imaginary lint off his perfect pants, and waves me along. “Come on then, dead boy. Let’s get you out.” Hovering a hand over my shoulder, he guides me towards the door. He stops before turning the doorknob. “By the way, name’s Major.” He shrugs. “Kinda cool. The first human outside in centuries knows my name.”

“Clementine.”

Major tips his cap. “It was nice knowing you, Clementine.”

It’s a short walk from his office to the massive bunker door. I crane my neck and struggle to see the top of the metal slab. Hundreds of pistons, cogs, and hydraulics control it. All from an unassuming console just a few meters to my right.

Soot covers the console, red rust peaking through. Major bangs on it, instantly regretting his decision when decades of disuse fly straight at him. “Fuh-huh-huh-ck!” He waves his hands against the red and black cloud. “Yeah, radiation is the least of my worries—Ach!” He spits out a glob of ash and rust.

I ask, “How many times have you done this?” Dozens of people must rush to Major’s aid, deciding that radiation poisoning is a better end than this slow suffocation. Dozens a week. No, a day. I must have fallen into his lap during a lull.

“Just you. Just this once.”

I shake my head. “What? Wuh-Why would anyone want to stay here?”

He sighs and traces a heart into the thick layers of corrosion. “Better than the devil you know, I guess. Or maybe they just… Maybe they just…” Major studies the bunker door. His voice softens when he asks, “Do they even know this is an option?

I can’t tell if he’s asking himself, the universe, or me, but I answer anyway. “I guess not. Maybe they’re too tired to think about this. You remember what it was like. Surviving.”

He purses his lips, sheepish. “Hah, no. I’m an Upper, chief. Gate guards usually are.”

I furrow my brows. “I thought this job was random. Like, a name taken out of a hat.”

He sucks a breath through his teeth. “Mmm-hmm. Names of Upper kids.”

…

I can’t help it. I chuckle, because of course. Of course the one good job here is gatekept by Uppers. I think about the apple Jere put his neck on the chopping block for, the pristine bullet in my side. “You nepo-jackass.” I grin at him.

Major nods, taking out a spotless rag and cleaning a few buttons. “It’s why I let people die in my office. Too much of a coward to let this go, but I can… let people borrow it on their deathbed. I guess.”

Any fuzzy feelings I had in the office poof away like a dust bunny in a hurricane. I whistle. “Good Terra. You’re a dick, Major.

“Don’t I know it. She agreed with you.” He jerks his head somewhere behind us, just outside the bunker door’s entrance, and swallowed in shadows. “Gave her one of my blankets. Found her this morning. I called, what’s his name? Burkley? I called him, but he hasn’t sent anyone down yet to pick her up. She gave me an earful before she passed, though.”

I limp to where he points, looking left and right for any ambush predators. Closer, I see a fluffy blanket like the one in his office, only gray. Gently, I pull the blanket covering her head back.

The girl from this morning greets me, her fierce eyes now lifeless. Her shirt, still a new black, is in tatters along with her slashed stomach.

I look back and see Major staring at me with sad eyes. I tell him, “Burkley sends two people to The Pits, if not three. Always. Where’s the other one?” So I can strangle the worthless coward. A Pit Walker’s desperation is terrifying, but they’re not hard to overpower. I held my own fairly well and I’m a dead man walking. The girl would likely still be alive to flip someone off if her partner hadn’t fled.

Major lifts a helpless hand. “Most likely ran off. At least she won’t be eaten. Can’t say that for a lot of people who die down here.”

“Or up there.” I think about the woman I killed and wonder if she’s nothing but bones now.

Major flips a switch, hits the console, and it lights up with wavering LEDs. He shouts, “Hah!” for the small victory and flips two more switches. Above us, something hisses. “Hey, do you know what I think?”

I sway as I limp back to his side, adrenaline leaving my muscles. I focus on his hands as he presses a hundred buttons. Or it’s only three. “Can’t lie, not really. But since I’m gonna die, I’ll take it to my grave for you.”

Without a trace of humor, he snorts, and grabs hold of a small lever. He grunts when it refuses to budge. Clamping his other unscarred hand around his wrist, he heaves. The lever moves a solid inch.

“Well,” he straightens his cap and wraps the now-soiled rag around the lever. “Since I have your attention, I think—” Major grabs it with both hands and leans his entire body back. The lever groans. A small cloud of rust puffs up when the lever gives another couple of inches, now pointing straight up.

“—With all of this, humanity has…” Another inch. “Never been…” He plants his feet against the console, the muscles in his arms bunching. With a metallic screech, the lever gives up, but not without revenge. The sudden lurch throws Major on his ass. Hard.

Rubbing his sore rear-end, he throws a fist in the air and whoops, proud as Burkely after he’s won a bet. He looks almost as happy as Jere when the kid started babbling about reading and history.

He takes off his cap and uses it to wipe the sweat off his brow. With a victorious grin, he pants, “Humanity has never been more honest.”

“Whoa,” I drawl, still a touch bitter from the guard job revelation. “How long did it take you to come up with that nugget of wisdom?” He adjusts his cap with his middle finger—

An eardrum-bursting shriek splits the air, and Major and I nearly trip over each other as we race away from the door.

We plaster our backs against the wall, bolting our eyes from each other to the vault door, then back to the other’s. My shirt, soaked in blood and sweat, glues itself to the metal.

Another, quieter screech, and a soft light glitters a line along the floor. Major’s eyes dilate with want, his breath stuttering. I tap him on the shoulder and, as one, we creep closer.

The light leads to a pile of corroded scrap metal next to the vault door. Mold-ridden blankets, dozens of those useless pamphlets, and corroded sheets of metal piled high. Major puts a hand on my chest and pushes me back, whispering, “I got this.”

He strips off the moldy blankets and kicks away pamphlets. Rips off jagged metal sheets and barely winces when one catches his palm. He picks up a stick of wood, pockmarked and gray with centuries, and caresses it, before sticking it in his pocket. Real wood is worth its weight in nutrient bars, but I wouldn’t hold it against him if he kept the artifact. With each piece of the pile he tosses, tears off, and heaves off, the light lengthens, widens, urging him on.

“Can you smell it?” he breathes excitedly, his knees quivering.

I don’t have the heart to tell him, so I lie. “Yep.” I press a hand over the bullet wound, then stop when that seems to strengthen the smell of blood. “Smells nice.”

“Dude,” he laughs. “It smells fucking great. Like-Like-Like,” he snaps his fingers in thought. “Like how I used to dream sunshine smells like. I’m almost through, get over here. Just need you to help me with this.”

One last giant hunk of metal restrains the light, though it’s more rust than iron at this point. A slight touch paints the tips of my fingers a deep orange. Pretending I’m not seconds away from passing out from both blood loss and pain, Major and I drag the slab until it loses its balance, tips over, and slams to the ground.

An unassuming panel waves at us sluggishly, old wires and older hinges waking up.

I can’t smell the air, but I can feel it. Never has it been easier to breathe. My lungs cry with relief it did not know existed. The organs swell like a balloon, like my body dreads that this is only a fluke. Clean air will be gone at any moment, and back to ash, rust, and heat we go. Tears well in my eyes, and I blink them away. I don’t want to look away from the sunlight.

And that’s what it is. Sunlight. When I get close enough, I reach a hand out and wiggle my fingers in the innocent ray of light. It’s warm, almost hot, but not how the walkway rails feel hot. Not how the overhead bunker lights pour heat. It’s like a kiss on the cheek. Day’s tender greeting.

“Hey.” Major clamps a hand on my shoulder, only a step behind me. His voice has tears in it when he says, “If there’s… anything out there… come back for us?”

Right now, I’m a bit busy keeping my blood in my body. Still, I place a hand over his and squeeze it. “If I’m not dead by nightfall, I’ll come give you a knock and we can stand in the sun together.”

The hand on my shoulder guides me closer to the door, until the light flares and I shield my eyes. Major’s shaking. I feel it. Nails dig into my shoulder, his breath trembling in my ear.

“I’m not religious,” he whispers. “Faith takes too much energy, but I hope she’s merciful with you.”

I know the answer. I know it in whatever is left of my soul, though I ask anyway. “Who?”

“Mother Terra.”

Clementine, wait.

He kicks the door wide open. Sunlight stabs my eyes. I flinch back against Major’s chest and he—pushes me out.

Every curse I’ve ever learned thrash around like feral packs as I whip back, eyes disbelieving and a scream trapped in my throat, and see the last of Major. Tears stream down his face. The door slams shut.

Gravity grips me. Pulls me down. My back meets the earth, true earth, and…

The world makes sense. If only for a moment.

Sunshine pets me like a lost dog, and I think again how different it is from the bunker’s fever. Like the hug Burkley awkwardly gave me when he first hired me.

Cool air flirts across my skin and I shiver. The air is so crisp, my lungs almost hurt with it. I taste fresh air. Taste what must be actual sweetness for the first time, and I stop fighting back tears. They flow down the sides of my face in hot, cathartic rivers.

I catch the sound of rushing water, and I crane my head toward it. Lush vegetation covers up what must be a stream, or even a river. What does fresh water taste like?

I landed on a pillow of hundreds of green plants, each no taller than my pinky. My fingers pluck a stem.

A clover. A five-leaf clover, with flecks of purple and yellow. I fight down the urge to eat it and pick another one. A four-leaf clover this time, with pretty pink and orange dots along the rims of its leaves.

The hole in my side is almost forgotten as I laugh, high and giddy and tearful with life. All the life around me. I’ve only seen plants, a right once reserved for my ancestors, from choppy images on my computer.

I can’t escape it now. Clover and grasses. Petals of pristine whites, soft yellows, and bold reds. Trees, tall and proud as they preen under a faint wind. Videos and photos could never do the sun justice. How decadent it is. A quartz sphere bleeding amber and gold against a sapphire sky. Clouds, swirling masses of puffy wonder. Clover, silky and yielding beneath my fingers. Flowers sprinkling with dew, like teardrops on eyelashes. Birdsong in the distance.

A growl reverberates into my bones.

I don’t move, staring at a particularly wooly cloud in denial. No. No-no-no. C’mon, I mean… Come on. Don’t let me get torn apart moments before I bleed to death. That’s just mean. Deserved, but petty.

The world must be laughing as it points a middle finger at me. A giant shadow blocks the sun as it enters my sight. It leans closer and I swear my heart stops.

It’s a giant wolf. Tall as Burkley, and just as broad. That’s not what has me taking a second take, though, oh no. Instead of two eyes meeting mine, I see three. One on either side of its broad face, and a large, deformed one in the center, its pupils two circles halfway merged. The right side of its face is black, the eye almost white. The other side is tan, the eye a creamy caramel.

Their snouts start as two, but quickly fuse into one until a wet, bicolor nose wiggles, sniffs at my mangy hair, and snorts. Their eyes move independently, sometimes going cross-eyed as they stare at one another. The large eye in the center stays on me.

I switch between ice and caramel. The way one gleams with cold fury, the other sweetly, tells me this one body houses two souls. Two sets of thoughts who now control my fate. Though, it’s not just my story, ending already written, I worry about.

Pointing to the metal panel, much of its battered surface given new life with moss and vines, I croak, “I’m already dead. Please.” The twins stare. The right eye condemns me while the left eye comforts me. They fidget in place, thick tail swishing. Five-leaf clovers complain as the wolves shift from paw to paw. I wonder if they’re arguing with each other. I wonder who will convince the other: malice or mercy?

Caton’s voice says, Keep your mouth shut and don’t move.

A helpless panic tries to urge my limbs into action anyway, but I go limp when the slightest movement has Malice snarling. Told you.

The wolves breathe through their shared nose, Malice’s ear pinned to their skull while Mercy’s is upright. Whimpers and snarls galore are exchanged.

The tail whacks Mercy’s side of the body. Malice growls, and it’s deeper than those hellish machines on full power, but I know who’s won as Malice huffs in defeat and Mercy’s eyes light up.

I reach out to the wolves, and Malice unfurls two fangs where there should have been one. “Please.” I can feel hot blood bubbling past my lips, death finally grabbing hold after being denied for too long.

Just one more minute. That’s all I need. “Please,” the word chokes me. “A boy.” The wolves’ ears perk up. “He’s… better. Better than this.” Mercy’s eye almost glows with excitement. Malice flicks an ear.

“Please. Save him. He doesn’t deserve… to die down there.” I watch the sun filter through a tree’s leaves. Actual leaves. “Why doesn’t he get to see the sun?” A breeze flows over my face, and I wish I can smell the scents it carries. Clover, flowers, and clean air.

Fire burns in my cheeks and creeps down my throat. “Please.” Blood gags my cries. The thought of Jere, a little boy who just wants to read, forced to choke down human flesh, endure this agony as penance, strangles me more than the blood, real and phantom. “Please. Please. Forgive me—us. Please. Please-please-please-please-plea—”

The wolves rest their bulky head over mine, muffling my cries. A rumble from their barrel chest shakes my bones, and the fire in my face smothers down to embers. Mercy whimpers, the sound overtaken by Malice’s growl. When I start to struggle under the mass of muscle and fur, they lift their head.

The tan tufts of fur on Mercy’s side of the chin is stained ginger with my blood and… I don’t know. I guess it really hits me that I am actually dying. There’s no way I can come back from this. But, silver linings, I got to see a wolf. Hmm, actually…

Now that they’re so close, I cock my head and try to remember the few pictures of wolves I’ve seen from an archive thread named “The Memorial of Yellowstone.” Blood loss turns my thoughts to water, slippery and uselessly translucent.

Mercy’s eye is wide open, and I’m sure the tongue lolling out is ‘theirs’ now. Malice glares, distrust inlaid in every feature. Something isn’t quite right, though. These two are far too… soft, to be the hardened, sleek wolves I’ve seen. Everything that should be a straight, sharp edge is softened to a kind roundness.

Mercy’s side of the nose is petal pink, while Malice’s is a chocolate brown. Mercy’s eyes are filled with warmth and trust, while Malice is as cold as the ice in their eye. I can’t blame Malice. We betrayed them first.

I reach out again and chance Malice’s side. They look to be two seconds away from ripping my hand clean off. Closing my eyes, I graze the fur of Malice’s cheek with the back of my hand. It’s the softest thing I’ve ever touched. Without thinking, I run my fingers through it greedily.

“Good doggy,” I whisper and open my eyes, a small smile on my face. The frosted eye widens, then melts into springwater. They lean into my touch, whimpering. A happy groan escapes the wolves when I scratch under their chin. Mercy jealously pushes their side against my hand, and I cough on a chuckle. “Jere would love you. I know he would.” He would be running through a meadow, Mercy and Malice on his heels in case he falls.

He’s still in there. Trapped in a bunker, a few pounds away from weighing the same as a skeleton. The memory of Burkley’s barking voice soothes the horrible thought. Although he’s a bastard, he won’t turn the kid away once Jere reveals he knows the password. The man will know that I am very much dead, but the kid had nothing to do with it. Packs and loners have beaten me bloody for that computer before, for my room key, for the password, and I told them precisely jackshit.

Boss is gonna miss me. I’m gonna miss him, if I go to a place where I can miss. If all those pretty stories of pearly gates are true. I spare a few tears at the thought.

I think he knows how much I appreciate him. He yelled at me like the rest of his employees, but there was an affectionate note in his tone for me. Like he feared I’d hate him if he didn’t sweeten the salt. Jere will be good for him. New blood to raise before he dies young, like most everyone else who hits their forties.

I didn’t have much longer anyway.

An easy rhyme leaves my lips. I let the gentle rhythm of rushing water soothe me. The words fumble as my vision darkens for the last time, first in tiny spots, then the spots bump into each other and form thick clouds of shadow. Then nothing. Not gray, or black, or white. Nothing. My heart slows.

Malice and Mercy whine. I hear them sniff at the ground. The wet snap of a stem. They lay something underneath my nose.

Before Death takes me home, I smell a flower. Sweet. An odd, ticklish scent I know in my heart is floral. It smells like home. Jere deserves to be home too.

Terra, I hope he does. I hope Jere finds Major and they both get the hell out of there. I hope Mercy and Malice smell me on the kid’s hair, on Major’s hands, and lead them home.

The poem slurs.

Oh, delight, shouting in my ear.

I could never wish you ire.

The world of new is not fair.

Our world of old, a priceless fare

Hate and bones, a wicked snare.

Death avoided by just a hair.

Traded mercy on a venture.

Skinned our morals for tenure.

If the sky fills with spears,

My hand is your shield, my dear.

I hold you tight, my heart bare,

As we tell Terra you’re still here.