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A Lingering Unease
I licked the syrup from my fingers. It was sticky, clinging to my skin, and the sweetness spread across my tongue like sunlight breaking through gray clouds. For a fleeting second, I almost forgot where I was—forgot the ruins around me, the silence of dead streets, the weight of survival that never lifted.
But the taste didn't sit right. A strange heaviness coiled in my chest, sour beneath the sugar. A bad feeling, sharp and unshakable.
It wasn't the syrup. It was something else.
I tried to laugh it off, telling myself it was only my nerves. We'd had bad days before, nights when hunger gnawed and fear stalked every corner, but this wasn't one of them. Everything was fine—better than fine. Lucan and I were together, stronger than ever. We were surviving, thriving even, in our own fractured way.
Still, the dread lingered, whispering at the edges of my mind like smoke you can't quite see but can smell, acrid and undeniable.
I brushed it off anyway.
After all, wasn't this what we had been fighting for? A moment of peace. A moment of sweetness in a world where sweetness had no place.
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The Next Day
The warehouse smelled faintly of smoke and rust. The walls leaned with age, metal beams bent like ribs around us, but it was ours. Home.
I strolled through the space, my boots crunching against bits of broken glass embedded in the concrete floor. The others were gathered near the barrel fire, their voices carrying in warm, uneven waves.
Conversations like this had become our escape. Not about survival or scavenging, not about danger lurking outside—just fragments of the past, tiny stories of who we used to be. Pieces of normal life that felt like they belonged to someone else.
"I used to live in an apartment," I said when it was my turn, my voice lighter than I'd expected.
"Oh, you're a city boy then," one of them teased with a smirk.
"I lived in a house," another added, and the first groaned dramatically.
"Luxury!"
Someone at the back laughed. "I grew up on a farm. Chickens, goats, the whole lot."
The group erupted with chuckles, voices overlapping as they swapped memories—favorite restaurants, old streets, the taste of food that no longer existed.
I smiled, my eyes crinkling at the corners, warmth spilling through me despite the chill. The sound of laughter echoed against the warehouse walls, filling the empty space with life. For a moment, I let myself believe we could build something here, that maybe this fragile community was more than just a pause between tragedies.
It felt like home.
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The Center of My World
And yet, even as I sat among them, part of me wasn't there.
My gaze drifted again and again to Lucan.
He stood a little apart from the firelight, arms crossed, face impassive as ever. His shadow stretched long across the concrete floor, but his presence was heavier than anyone's laughter. He didn't speak often, but when he did, people listened—quietly, respectfully.
To the others, he was distant. Cold. Reliable, but untouchable.
To me, he was everything.
Whenever I caught his eye, even for the briefest moment, a strange warmth blossomed in my chest. It was dangerous, that warmth—sharp and consuming. When he looked away, or when he spoke to someone else instead of me, it was as if invisible hands tightened around my ribs, squeezing until it hurt to breathe.
I didn't understand it, not fully. I had never felt it before.
But I didn't want to run from it.
I embraced it, fragile as it was, believing it could do me no harm. That in this broken world, love—if that's what it was—could only be a gift.
And I believed, with every foolish, aching part of me, that Lucan felt it too.
That behind the coolness in his eyes, behind the walls he built, he cared.
That maybe… just maybe… he loved me too.
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Ordinary Days That Felt Like Hope
The days blurred together in a rhythm of survival.
Mornings were quiet, filled with the sound of footsteps as we split into groups to scavenge. Some days we returned with nothing but scraps—half-crushed cans, broken tools—but others felt like small miracles: a crate of bottled water, a jar of honey, even a few dented packs of crackers that tasted like heaven.
Afternoons were for repairs. Patching holes in the roof, reinforcing the barricades with scavenged wood and rusted nails. Work that left our hands raw but gave us a sense of control, however fragile.
Evenings were my favorite. That was when the fire crackled, when stories spilled into the dim air, when laughter stitched together the rips in our lives.
And always, there was Lucan.
We'd share the same blanket when the nights grew too cold, shoulders pressed together for warmth. We'd sit side by side, watching the embers glow red, saying little but speaking volumes in silence. Sometimes his hand would brush mine when he passed me food, rough fingers grazing skin, and the spark of it would linger for hours.
He never smiled much, but when he did—when the corner of his mouth twitched upward, rare and fleeting—I felt invincible.
The world could fall apart around us, and I wouldn't have cared.
Because in those moments, it felt like we had everything.
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