There's a kind of hunger that settles in your bones when you've gone too long without food. Not the stomach-gnawing, dramatic kind. That passes after the second day. No, this is the quiet kind. The kind that makes your limbs heavy and your blood cold. The kind that whispers, Lie down. Stop trying. No one's coming.
But I'm too stubborn to die like that. Not curled up on some piss-stained mattress in an alley behind Lix Market, one shoe on, one eye swollen shut, my last thought being; I should've stolen the bread with raisins.
So instead, I'm here. Kneeling in a broken-up alley with gravel biting into my knees and a sour baguette clutched like a prize, even though it's more mold than wheat. My fingers are shaking. Part from adrenaline. Part from the cold. Mostly from the way every single nerve in my body is screaming you're being watched.
I'm not paranoid. I'm not. That implies some kind of delusion, and I've got neither the time nor the energy to be delusional. I've got instincts, though. Razor-honed ones. The kind you sharpen on bruises and broken ribs. The kind that never lie. And they're telling me I'm not alone.
The alley smells like oil and rot. The dumpsters on either end are overflowing with the kind of things no one wants to talk about. A severed doll arm. Something too pink and too wet to be chicken. The city calls this zone the Ash Ring, which is poetic considering everything here is already dead or dying. Including me, if I don't get the hell out of here soon.
I tear a chunk off the bread and bite down. It tastes like cardboard and something faintly floral, probably the soap used to wipe down the vendor cart, if they even bothered. It's cold and wet at the center, but I chew anyway. My stomach doesn't complain, that stopped two days ago.
Behind me, somewhere in the layered shadows of the alley mouth, a plastic bag skitters across the concrete. Too light to be anything important, but I still tense. Every muscle in my body pulls taut like wire. Not because of the bag, because of the silence that follows.
Ashwich is never quiet. Not even at night, not even here.
There's always something. Voices. Distant tires. The low hum of city breath. But right now, there's nothing. No echo, no drip from the broken pipes, no hiss from the neon signs above the shuttered shops.
Just stillness.
I go still, too.
Then slowly, very slowly, I lift my head.
The alley mouth is empty. That doesn't mean shit.
I've been hunted before. Not by monsters. Not yet. Just by men with nothing left to lose and too much time to kill. And if they think you're weak, they'll follow. Wait. Watch you starve, then sweep in like they're doing you a favor. Like letting you die on their terms is some kind of mercy.
But this… doesn't feel like that.
This feels worse.
I wrap the bread in the lining of my coat and push it into the pocket at my chest. It's stupid to keep it, heavier than it's worth. But I've learned not to throw things away unless they've already betrayed you.
I rise slowly. I don't make a sound. I learned how to do that before I learned how to lie.
I press my back to the wall and let the cold brick soak through the fabric. Let it anchor me. The chill keeps me sharp.
My eyes scan the rooftops, the windows, the alley mouth again.
Still nothing. I don't believe it.
There's a feeling you get right before a fight breaks out. When the room gets tight and your skin prickles and everything in your gut clenches. I feel it now, even though the space around me hasn't changed.
There's no one here.
There's someone here.
Both of those things are true.
I inhale through my nose. The air smells wrong. Not just the usual stink of trash and desperation. This is something colder, ozone before a lightning strike.
Something is close. Close enough to breathe me in.
My heart skips. Not because I'm scared. I'm always scared, but because my body knows something my brain hasn't caught up to yet.
I'm being watched.
Followed, stalked.
Already chosen.