Hours passed, and it was already night. Outside, the city was eerily dark. The streetlights that once bathed the blocks in pale orange had long gone dead, their circuits useless without power. Only here and there, in the distance, faint glows could be seen—scattered buildings that must've had automatic backup generators still running. It gave the nightscape a patchwork look: mostly black, with pinpricks of artificial light keeping the darkness from being absolute.
Inside the bookstore, the silence pressed heavy. The clock on the office wall ticked faintly, the hands pointing straight to nine o'clock. Riku leaned back against one of the intact shelves, a paperback in hand.
Beside him, Miko sat cross-legged on the floor, her head wrapped neatly with the gauze he'd tied earlier. She cradled a book in her lap, her fingers brushing gently against the pages as she read. Every so often, her soft voice would break the silence, sharing a passage that caught her interest.
