The city was quieter now, but not safer. Casablanca's heart had turned into a graveyard of steel and ash. Soufiane and Amal moved through the wreckage of a supermarket near the boulevard, their steps muffled on broken glass.
The air smelled of rot. Most shelves were stripped bare, torn open in the first wave of panic. Soufiane held a rusted machete in one hand, while Amal scanned with her pipe raised.
"Check the back," she whispered. "Sometimes people hide stock there."
Soufiane nodded. They pushed through swinging doors into a storage room. The faint buzz of flies greeted them, circling over spoiled meat. Soufiane's stomach turned, but then he spotted something—cans, stacked in a corner, dusty but sealed.
"Here," he murmured. He shoved as many as he could into his backpack: beans, tuna, even a few bottles of water. Amal found a crate of biscuits, half-crushed but edible.
For a brief moment, they allowed themselves to breathe.
"Feels almost normal," Amal said, forcing a smile. "Like grocery shopping after a long day at the call center."
Soufiane smirked despite himself. "Except no one's yelling at us about their phone bills."
The moment broke when a crash echoed from the front. Soufiane froze. Through the dusty glass of the storeroom door, shadows moved—limping, erratic, hungry.
"Infected," Amal mouthed.
Soufiane's grip tightened on the machete. They had what they needed. Now they had to get out alive.