What we do to Survive
Some were clear, unyielding. Others blurred with each step forward, smudged by desperation, by hunger, by the ache of simply existing. Which lines were crossed out of necessity, and which out of choice?
Victoria had often pondered that question. What it meant to live. What it meant to survive. But the longer she watched as others crossed more and more lines, the more it seemed like survival knew no limit. Once crossed, those lines faded into nothingness. Never to be seen again.
Survival was a knife edge dulled by countless hands, each one pressing harder. And yet it kept carving. Deeper and deeper.
Another night, another fight. That was the rhythm here. A place where survival turned people into things they swore they’d never become. Maybe it had even swallowed Victoria whole — scarred by countless nights spent preventing people from crossing the wrong line.
She flexed her fingers, a faint sting shooting through her knuckles. Blood still clung to her skin, just as his face clung to her mind. Slack-jawed, eyes wide with betrayal. She felt no guilt — not entirely — only the low thrum of adrenaline, already fading, and the quiet questions she could never answer.
Desperation stripped people bare, clawing at them until they were left raw and trembling. It didn’t ask for permission, didn’t wait for the right moment. It simply devoured.
This man had been yet another victim of its appetite.
The small room came into view, and she slipped inside with a sigh. A soft tune drifted in the air, playing from a record player. Olivia’s favourite song. The vinyl bobbed up and down as notes escaped from a guitar, a man singing with the distinct voice of those old records. Olivia looked up from where she sat, exhaustion etched into her face.
“Another one?” she asked, her tone edged with concern.
Victoria shrugged, leaning back against the wall. She almost wanted to let the tears roll and her body crumble onto the floor. But there was no use. Instead, she nodded.
Olivia didn’t ask for details. She knew it was pointless. She stood and reached for a cloth and a green bottle. “Sit,” she said, gesturing to a wooden chest.
Her hands dabbed at Victoria’s wound. The damp cloth, soaked with antiseptic, bit into her skin. But she didn’t register the pain; she dreamt of elsewhere, the music carrying her to unseen lands.
Victoria could almost picture it. The green, expanding grass caressing the soles of her feet and a field of white flowers more beautiful than snow itself. The setting sun casting its vermilion beams, and Livvie’s laughter filling the gaps of silence with a million melodies of warmth. A life spent in adoration, cherishing every second of freedom. A life she would never have.
“Hold still,” Olivia murmured, her tone short of commanding. The flickering lamplight danced in her brown eyes, catching new golden flecks to explore. Her eyes are made of dreams. At least Victoria had her. If nothing else.
“Have I ever told you you’ve got pretty eyes?”
Olivia paused, caught off guard. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips, playful and disbelieving. “Only a million times… but your ocean eyes beat me by far,” she replied, a teasing edge in her voice.
Victoria shook her head. “Blue eyes get way too much credit, you know. Just because someone has blue eyes doesn’t mean they’re beautiful. I’ve met plenty of people with ugly eyes… and trust me, the blue in them doesn’t save them.”
“Alright, alright!” Olivia laughed, her hands abandoning the cloth to cup Victoria’s face. “You’re relentless.”
Victoria softened at the touch, her grin fading into something quieter. She wondered what she had ever done to deserve such tenderness. How her gaze could be graced with a face so fair, and her heart experience such care. Liv’s stare seemed to hold entire worlds of emotion.
“You have the prettiest eyes I know,” Victoria added, her voice dropping to a murmur.
The teasing had gone, replaced by something earnest. Olivia’s hands stilled, a thumb brushing over Victoria’s cheek.
“And I love that they’re brown,” Victoria continued.
Her fingers trailed absentmindedly over Liv’s arm. “Brown isn’t enough of a word to describe them, really. They’re the colour of Autumn. The colour of chocolate…” A wistful smile played on her lips. "How I wish we had chocolate.”
Olivia’s laugh came soft and breathy, her forehead tipping forward to rest lightly against Victoria’s. “You’re ridiculous,” Liv simply said.
For a moment, the room felt smaller, quieter. The old song, the distant murmurs, the constant weight of Noxhold’s walls — all of it had faded. Only they remained, tucked into a stolen moment. I simply wish it would last. But Victoria knew it couldn’t.
“I gotta go to work…” Olivia said, her hand lingering on Victoria’s cheek for a moment longer before she turned to her supplies.
The world began to seep back in, but the warmth of the moment stayed, burning in Victoria — a tiny ember she would nurture.
When Olivia had left the room, Victoria waited before doing the same. It was their little nest. A tiny place away from all the agitation of Noxhold, where they met every morning before starting their day. But every morning, she had to leave it for the agitation of the bunker.
Noxhold was a restless machine. A giant complex resting below ground made of concrete and steel. Hundreds of people lived here, performing chores that had been precisely dispatched, each as important as the next — although some were less pleasant than others.
Today, Victoria had been tasked with delivering parcels. It wasn’t the most thrilling duty and certainly not the most demanding, but she enjoyed it nonetheless. Each day was different for Victoria, but on those days when she strolled through the corridors of Noxhold, she had all the time to reflect on her life and imagine a better one. And most of all, she had time to chat.
Each sector had a resident she liked the most, someone with whom to share conversations or someone who addressed her small attentions. In sector B, there was an old man everyone called ‘Gramps’, the eldest person in Noxhold. Eighty-seven long years he had passed on this Earth, seven and ten of them underground. He liked to jest that he was a seventeen-year-old boy and that all the years before that had only been a bad dream he’d woken up from. But the grey hairs on his head and the wrinkles on his skin seemed to disagree.
One day, it would be his last. He would leave this world behind and all its tragedies. And there would be no sun to comfort him. No sky to return to. Victoria couldn’t accept the same would happen to her. That she would spend the rest of her life below ground. Fortunately, others offered distractions from the dread of existence.
In sector J, there was a woman, Elaine, who was always dressed in the most elegant clothes. Victoria had often wondered where she could find those in a place where everyone wore recycled garb, and had ended up with two theories. Either Elaine had a sewing machine in her room and an undisclosed talent for design, or she knew someone who owed her some favours. Victoria liked to think it was the latter, especially with all the stories Elaine shared of men courting her.
But surely, the one Victoria anticipated visiting the most was a middle-aged man from sector F. Luka. He insisted on calling her ‘Kid’ despite her protestations that she was no longer one, and he always had a tale to share. Tales from a life spent in faraway places. He painted her pictures of various cultures, languages and breathtaking monuments, spending hours describing her a city as if she walked beside him, filling her mind with dreams of travels. For a short moment each time, he made her believe that perhaps someday she too would travel.
And above all, he always had a funny anecdote to share. A peculiar encounter on a train, a fight in a bar, or even how each government was stupid. His experience with politics stemmed from a job Victoria barely understood but found fascinating. She’d often come back late to the distribution centre because of him, which was probably why they more often gave her tasks away from the residents.
Today, she had returned early. Gramps had no pie to share, Luka had left for the market, and the other stops offered little distractions.
The crates she had delivered were strictly for the upper floors, sectors between A and H. There, the population was older. People with supposedly less use to the general well-being of Noxhold, incapacitated one way or another, or with less sought-after skills. Because of that, the rulers of Noxhold had given them fewer benefits and more constraints.
That was why they were given access to food only after all the other sectors had been fed. And those crates delivered were just that: rations meant for the expendables. Victoria had had no part to play in that decision — taken years before she could even understand what it meant — but she was left with the responsibility to carry it, and she despised it no less.
When she opened the door towards the distribution centre, she immediately noticed it. A ledger forgotten on a wooden crate. Victoria had always been curious, and leaving such a thing right under her nose was practically begging for her to look at it. And so she did.
It was of no particular interest initially, only an inventory of all the food dispatched and collected — numbers etched for each stock and each harvest. But something quickly struck wrong. The distribution centre where she stood, acting as a warehouse for the upper floors, should be filled with twice as many grains and thrice as many greens.
It seemed weird that such a mistake could have gone unnoticed, but Victoria knew for certain that it was one. Her deliveries had taught her to quickly gauge the quantity of a given resource amongst the entire stock, and the amount left around her didn’t match the number written on the record. Where has all the food gone?
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The door creaked suddenly, and Victoria looked up, startled. A wiry man with a sharp jawline stood in the doorway. His eyes narrowed on her like she had just trespassed into a restricted area.
“Can I ask what you’re doing with that?”
Victoria lifted her hand slightly to show she meant no harm. “Something looked off on the sheet. Thought maybe there had been a mistake.”
“There’s no mistake,” he said quickly, snatching the clipboard from her hand and tucking it under his arm. “You should focus on deliveries, not inventory.”
“Right,” she said, backing away from him. “Just thought I’d mention it.”
She stepped out of the room, a bitter taste in her mouth. What’s this guy’s deal?
Maybe it was worth telling Briggs; if the food had indeed gone missing, she figured he’d want to know.
Victoria strode through the corridors and down the stairs, making her way towards his office. She was halfway down the stairwell when she smelled the faint antiseptic tang of the infirmary. Her steps slowed as the thought took root.
Olivia.
She would be there, no doubt, tending to the endless parade of scrapes and infections Noxhold’s inhabitants seemed to collect. The lack of sunlight made for a poor immune system, Liv would say.
The slight sting of her knuckles would be the perfect excuse to steal a moment from her. Victoria’s lip twitched, almost smiling at the thought of Olivia’s annoyed expression when she’d see the same injury she had already treated. She paused outside the infirmary door, glancing down the hall towards Briggs’ office. He could very well wait; she only needed a minute. One minute that wasn’t just about duty and responsibility.
The door creaked open under her touch, and she stepped into the warmth. The lights overhead buzzed faintly. It was quiet. Unusually quiet. Typically, she would hear murmurs and the clatter of instruments, and nurses reasoning with worried parents. But now, only the lights’ hum filled the silence.
Her fingers brushed against the doorframe as she moved deeper inside, scanning the rows of makeshift beds. Most were empty, stripped of sheets and left bare.
Had they moved the patients to the wing further down?
Walking past the first rows of beds, her eyes darted to the medical trays left in disarray. A half-filled syringe lay abandoned on one of them, the needle glinting faintly. She pressed forward through the corridor leading to the surgical ward when an uneven sound reached her ears.
Breathing.
It hitched, shallow and strained, from an obscured room. She followed the sound to the far end, where a single bed sat shrouded in shadow.
A man was lying there, his chest rising and falling slowly. His eyes were squeezed shut as though caught in some nightmare, but they snapped open. Bloodshot and wide, they fixed on her with a panic so raw it sent a chill down her spine. His lips moved, the words coming in a frantic whisper that barely reached her ears.
“The light is leaving us… They know the light is leaving.”
For a moment, she couldn’t move. What was he saying? What was he seeing?
The man’s gaze darted past her as though searching for someone.
“They’re watching,” he rasped, his voice trembling. “You shouldn’t be here… You should know about the light! You should…”
Victoria took an instinctive step back when a voice broke out.
“Victoria?”
Olivia had stepped into the room, darting past her and already holding the man’s shoulders back. “You shouldn’t be here, he’s in distress.”
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, for lack of a better question.
Other nurses had stumbled into the room, their hands quickly adjusting machines and checking vitals. One of them pressed a syringe into the IV line, and just like that, his protestations faded. But before his eyes fluttered shut, he found her one last time. His consciousness slipped back into a void, dragging along with it, the answers to all her questions. Past and future.
‘The light is leaving’?
Olivia guided her outside and addressed her with a warm smile. “It’s alright, Vic,” she said. “He’s just a little shaken.”
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She slipped through the crack in the wall.
Her jacket caught on the edges, snagging for an instant before coming away streaked with dust. Victoria adjusted the box beneath her arm, shifting its weight. It wasn’t particularly heavy, but its bulk was enough to hinder her movements.
Inside, the contents rattled faintly with the metallic sound of unfamiliar tools. Milo waited for her just ahead, his tiny hands fidgeting.
“Do you think this will be enough?” he asked in a small voice.
“I’m sure it will,” Victoria replied, offering him a faint smile. But truthfully, she had no idea. Milo had been intent on finding those tools to fix his friend — whatever his friend could be — but she wasn’t sure what good it would do.
His descriptions had made little sense, and she hadn’t pressed for more. Some part of her had been afraid to. For all she knew, the boy could be dragging them towards a scavenged pile of junk or, worse, a rotting carcass he refused to bury. She supposed she would know once there. Either way, the boy deserved their attention.
“Earlier,” Victoria started, picking her words carefully. “You said your mom was coming back. Where did she go?”
Milo walked through the jungle of bent rebar and climbing moss. He looked up as if the answer might be written on the crumbling ceiling.
“She said she would come back soon,” he started, optimism lifting his voice. “She had something really important to do.”
Victoria frowned. She knew so little about the kid. Questions were stacked in her mind, but she wasn’t sure he could offer any answer that would make sense to her.
Milo darted forward suddenly, his attention elsewhere. He dropped to his knees beside a pale flower that had somehow bloomed in the wreckage, its delicate white petals stark against rust and ruin.
What a strange thing it was to see a child alive and breathing in the wasteland. He moved through the chaos with such ease, still finding wonder and amazement in such little things. A boy, out here. The thought felt surreal like a ghost had taken flesh.
Milo started humming a song. A tune light as the air, his head tilting in time with the melody. “Small and white, clean and bright ~” he sang softly, holding the petals over his fingers.
“You look happy to meet me ~”
The tune caught Victoria by surprise. The pieces clicked into place. It was Hers. She had almost forgotten. How could she have forgotten? She had let herself sink into the darkness, let dread and anger control every part of herself. The little spark that had burned gracefully in her heart — now left alone in a corner of her soul. Dying.
Edelweiss.
The song had been Olivia’s favourite. Always playing in the background of their stolen moments, weaving itself into the fabric of their quietest joys. But today, it was a beacon. The beam of a lighthouse calling her to shore. Dragging her out of the murky waters. How could I forget?
But just as she felt warmth radiating through her body, the shopping centre shuddered all around her. A deep electric wave coursing through the walls.
Victoria froze mid-step.
Lightbulbs flickered above, and some burst from the electricity rushing through them. Glass rained in glittering shards, catching flashes before they scattered at her feet.
She flinched, throwing up an arm to shield her face.
There’s still electricity out here? She could hardly believe it. In Noxhold, they were lucky to enjoy just enough power to keep the lights on, but she’d never imagined the ruins outside could still spark to life.
Then, the first alarm sounded, joined almost immediately by others.
Milo spun towards her, his face pale but focused. “Come, we have to run,” he said, his voice almost drowned by the noise. “They will come out.”
“They?” The word barely left her lips before Milo bolted, his silhouette vanishing into the rubble. Victoria cursed, clutching the box tighter as she took off after him.
No sooner had Victoria rounded a corner that she was forced to halt her race. Behind a crumbling pile of debris, she spotted Milo crouched low. He had burrowed into a tangle of rusted shelving and splintered wood, nearly invisible save for the glimmer in his eyes when he searched for her gaze.
He pressed a finger to his lips.
Victoria crept towards him, careful not to sway the box. “What’s going on?” she whispered when she reached him.
He only looked over her shoulder, and she followed his gaze.
They were there, moving with an unnatural gait — stumbling but never faltering. Their flesh sagged in places, pale, translucent, and bloated as if water had been pumped under the skin. Dark veins crawled beneath the surface, pulsating faintly, the epidermis tainted green in their wake.
They moved slowly under the guise of shadows. One of them stopped, its head snapping to the side. The movement exposed the ruin of its face — there were hollow sockets where eyes had once been. Victoria stilled. The eyes had melted, leaving only streaks to spill over its cheeks like wax from a burned-down candle.
They couldn’t see, but they were sensing; she could feel it. An unseen thread pulling between them. And she understood then. They weren’t the same as the creature from the tunnels. But they weren’t far from it, either. She knew now how such a thing had come to be.
Different.
Milo reached out and gripped her arm, his small fingers digging into her jacket. He didn’t speak, but his eyes implored her not to move.
She nodded and turned her gaze back to the thing in the dark.
It had tilted its head again, its body swaying in an unnatural rhythm. Then, it let out a wet, gurgling noise. The sound latched onto her — a hook in her chest. She clenched her jaw, trying to remain still even as her muscles screamed to run.
When it had moved further behind the rubble where her eyes couldn’t follow, Milo motioned for her to move behind him. Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor. It was madness. Complete and utter madness. Victoria knew moving meant certain death, and yet something in his attitude inspired her trust. She could see it in the way he moved, with the same ease as he rushed through ruin. He had done it before. Countless times.
Reluctantly, she mimicked his movements, and they slithered their way across the room, inch by inch. Each time Victoria would slowly push the box forward before dragging her own weight, but she never took her eyes off the shapes.
Milo led her cautiously through the ruined room, and Victoria finally saw it. A door. Green with oxidation. The faintest sliver of light seeped under its frame, and Milo carefully twitched the handle.
He disappeared shortly after, engulfed in a beam of light.
Victoria could barely find the strength to get up, but the fear of being left behind in this room was enough to force her on her feet.
The air hit her like a slap, waking her from the lethargy of dread. She sucked in a breath and blinked, adjusting to the pale light that spilt over the pavement. Milo had rushed forward, past the stone pillars and down the stairs — jumping and humming. His voice carried on the wind with all the innocence of a child. Like none of it had ever happened.
Milo’s head tilted towards the extending clouds. He was lost in his own world, and so he didn’t see it. But the last fingers of sunlight disappeared around them just as Victoria noticed something parked beyond the stairs.
A van.
Her heart dropped. The battered frame shook with the energy of a running engine — its sound disguised under the muffled alarms, swallowed by the rushing waters. She wanted to cry out, rush after Milo, and somehow hide him from the men who were now walking in his direction.
But how could she?
On their chest, right under the leather that bound their weapons to their shoulders, rested a symbol. A symbol Victoria would confuse for nothing else — its colours and lettering indications of their allegiance.
Men of Noxhold.
She staggered, instinctively pressing herself against the column beside her. What were they doing out here?
Victoria found herself back in the corridors of the underground bunker, surrounded by darkness and layers of deceit. Her mind went back to the pain, the betrayal, and the edge of a knife carving its way inside her. Deeper and deeper.
Her hand found the fabric of her shirt right over where her wound pulsed. She could never go back.
She could never be found.
For a moment, her own body felt smaller, caging her. Milo’s song, the distant alarms, the constant weight of fear — all of it had faded. Only the pain remained. Coursing through her every muscle. Taking hold of every memory.
The air felt thinner, harder to pull into her lungs.
Then surfaced a melody. A melody of white and warmth, sung by different voices but always the same. Clinging to her from the depths of her mind.
How could she be so selfish?
Her head turned. Milo!
He was there. Dancing. The men’s arms tight around his frame. There was a pleading look in his eyes as Milo looked over in her direction. His mouth opened wide, but the song didn’t reach her. It was too terrible for her to hear.
The van roared to life, and then he was gone. Gone in an instant. They had disappeared down the cracked road and taken Milo with them. The last ember burning in this wretched place had been stolen before her, Victoria left behind — a silent witness to her own ineptitude.
Victoria let her body carry her forward, down so many broken steps. But before she could reach the street, her knees buckled beneath her. Even this she couldn’t do.
She sank onto the stone, the box slipping from her grasp.
The first tear fell before she could notice.
The second before she could stop it. The weight of all her pain dragging it down her cheek.
And then, there was nothing she could do to hold them back.
***