Day 91 Post-Impact
Elena found herself spending more time outside her quarters than in them.
It wasn't intentional at first. She'd venture out for meals, for training, for the tactical meetings Sarnav had started including her in. But gradually, she began to linger. Watching. Learning. Trying to understand how these people functioned as a unit when everything in her training said they shouldn't.
The wives fascinated her most. Nine women sharing one man, each with different personalities, different needs, different ways of relating to him. By every metric Elena knew, there should have been jealousy, competition, manipulation. The kind of toxic dynamics that made harems in the old world into powder kegs waiting to explode.
Instead, she found something that looked disturbingly like family.
Nisha tending her gardens, always ready with food or comfort for whoever needed it. Ishani running training sessions, pushing everyone harder while somehow making them grateful for it. Jade in her server room, digital consciousness spread across a dozen screens, keeping them all safe in ways they barely understood.
And Sarnav at the center of it all, somehow holding everything together without seeming to try.
"You're staring again."
Elena turned to find Minji standing beside her, the Korean gamer wearing her characteristic smirk. Of all the wives, Minji was the one Elena understood least. Too playful, too casual, too seemingly unbothered by the apocalypse raging outside their walls.
"Observing," Elena corrected. "Old habits."
"Same thing, different word." Minji dropped onto the bench beside her, completely ignoring personal space in a way that made Elena's threat assessment instincts twitch. "You're trying to figure out how we work."
"Is it that obvious?"
"Super obvious. Like, noob-level obvious." Minji's grin widened at Elena's blank expression. "Gaming term. Means you're bad at hiding it."
"I'll work on that."
"Don't bother. We already know you're watching. Jade's tracking your movement patterns, Ishani's monitoring your training performance, Serena's calculating your probability of betrayal." Minji shrugged. "You're the most observed person in the compound besides Sarnav himself."
Elena should have been alarmed. Instead, she felt something closer to relief. At least they weren't naive about the threat she represented.
"So why are you talking to me?" she asked.
"Because Sarnav asked me to."
"Ah. Another test."
"Nope." Minji's expression shifted, becoming surprisingly serious. "He asked me to talk to you because he thinks we might have something in common."
"You and me?" Elena couldn't keep the skepticism from her voice. The cheerful gamer and the professional assassin. What could they possibly share?
"Both outsiders," Minji said. "Both from different cultures, dropped into this whole Malaysian apocalypse situation. Both pretending to be something we're not."
"I'm not pretending anything."
"Sure you are. You're pretending you don't want to be here. Pretending you're just waiting for the right moment to escape or betray us or whatever." Minji leaned back, studying the sky. "But you're not. You could have killed Vera and run. Could have used the chaos to disappear. Instead, you captured her and reported in like a good little team player."
"That doesn't mean anything."
"It means everything." Minji turned to face her directly. "You want to belong somewhere. You're just terrified of admitting it because every time you've trusted anyone, they've used you."
Elena's chest tightened. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know you were recruited at sixteen. Know you've never had a real relationship that wasn't professional or transactional. Know you've killed people who probably didn't deserve it because someone told you to." Minji's voice was gentle despite the words. "I also know you cried last night. Jade's got sensors everywhere. She wasn't trying to spy, just monitoring for threats. But she heard you."
The tightness became a knot. Elena looked away, jaw clenching.
"It's okay," Minji continued. "I cried too, when I first got here. Was stuck in Malaysia for a tournament when everything went to hell. My team died in the first week. I thought I was going to die too, until Sarnav found me."
"And now you're one of his wives."
"Now I'm part of a family." Minji stood, offering her hand. "Come on. There's something I want to show you."
The "something" turned out to be Minji's private quarters, which looked less like a bedroom and more like a gaming den that had exploded. Multiple screens, tangled cables, figurines on every surface, and posters covering the walls.
"Welcome to my lair," Minji announced proudly. "Don't judge the mess. I'm a chaos gamer."
"What exactly am I supposed to see here?"
"This." Minji crossed to a shelf lined with costumes. Elaborate outfits, carefully preserved despite the apocalypse. "My cosplay collection. Brought it with me to the tournament, couldn't bear to leave it behind."
Elena examined the costumes without touching. Anime characters, game protagonists, things she vaguely recognized from a lifetime of ignoring pop culture. "I don't understand."
"These are me pretending to be someone else. Putting on a costume, becoming a character, escaping reality for a while." Minji pulled out a sleek black outfit with silver accents. "This one's from Assassin Protocol. Ironic, right? I dressed up as an assassin for fun, and now there's a real one standing in my room."
"You're comparing cosplay to what I do?"
"I'm comparing coping mechanisms." Minji put the costume back. "You wear a mask every day. Cold professional, deadly killer, emotionless weapon. That's your costume. The character you play because the real you is too scary to show anyone."
Elena wanted to argue. Wanted to dismiss the gamer's amateur psychology the way she'd dismissed Sarnav's. But something about Minji's casual honesty made it harder to deflect.
"What if the character is all that's left?" she heard herself ask. "What if I've been wearing the mask so long that there's nothing underneath?"
Minji's expression softened. "Then you find out who you want to be and start building that person from scratch. It's not easy. But it's possible."
"How do you know?"
"Because I did it." Minji sat on her bed, patting the space beside her. Elena hesitated, then joined her. "Before the apocalypse, I was Park Minji, professional streamer, esports player, corporate mascot. Everything I did was for the brand, for the sponsors, for the audience. I smiled when I wanted to scream. Played nice when I wanted to tell people to fuck off."
"That doesn't sound like you."
"It's not. Not anymore." Minji drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. "When everything fell apart, I had to figure out who I actually was without the cameras and contracts. Turns out, I'm kind of a mess. Anxious, clingy, way too competitive about stupid things. But I'm also loyal, and funny, and really good at making people feel better when they're sad."
"And Sarnav helped you figure that out?"
"The network helped. Being connected to people who actually see me, not the brand. Feeling their emotions, letting them feel mine." Minji smiled. "It's scary at first. Being that vulnerable. But it's also amazing. You're never alone anymore. Never pretending. They know exactly who you are, and they love you anyway."
Elena sat with that for a moment. The concept of being fully known and still accepted was so foreign that she struggled to process it.
"I've done terrible things," she said quietly. "Things that can't be forgiven."
"So has Jade. So has Ishani. Probably so has Sarnav, though he doesn't talk about it much." Minji reached out, taking Elena's hand. "We're not asking you to be innocent. We're asking you to be real."
Elena looked at their joined hands. Such a simple gesture. Such a terrifying intimacy.
"I don't know how," she admitted.
"That's okay. We'll teach you."
Sarnav found them an hour later, sitting on Minji's bed and talking about everything and nothing. Elena was more relaxed than he'd ever seen her, the constant tension in her shoulders finally beginning to ease.
"Making friends?" he asked from the doorway.
"Oppa!" Minji bounced up to greet him with a kiss. "We were just talking about you."
"Should I be worried?"
"Only if you're scared of two women comparing notes." Minji's grin was pure mischief. "I was telling Elena-unnie about all your embarrassing habits."
"I don't have embarrassing habits."
"You talk in your sleep about cultivation rankings. Last week you mumbled 'essence optimization' for like ten minutes."
Elena actually laughed. A small sound, quickly stifled, but real. Sarnav caught her eye, and something passed between them. An acknowledgment that this moment mattered.
"I should go," Elena said, standing. "Let you two..."
"Stay." The word came from Minji, not Sarnav. "I mean, if you want. We're not doing anything weird. Well, not that weird. Just hanging out."
"I don't think that's appropriate."
"Why not? We're all adults. And you're going to be family soon anyway, right?" Minji looked at Sarnav for confirmation. "That's the plan?"
"If Elena wants it to be," Sarnav said carefully. "No pressure."
Elena stood frozen between the door and the bed, every instinct screaming at her to retreat. This was too fast, too intimate, too dangerous. She barely knew these people. Letting her guard down was how operatives got killed.
But she was so tired of being guarded all the time.
"One hour," she said finally. "Then I'm leaving."
Minji's answering smile was bright enough to light the room. "Deal. Now sit down, I'm going to destroy you both at Mario Kart."
Three hours later, Elena was still there.
She'd lost spectacularly at Mario Kart, discovered that Sarnav was only marginally better, and watched Minji demolish them both with cheerful trash talk. They'd moved on to a fighting game where Elena's combat instincts translated surprisingly well to virtual violence.
"Okay, that combo was actually sick," Minji admitted after Elena's character performed a twelve-hit juggle. "You sure you've never played before?"
"I've trained to incapacitate human bodies for fifteen years. The principles transfer."
"That's the most terrifying thing anyone's ever said about a video game. I love it."
Sarnav had settled onto the bed behind them, watching more than playing. Elena could feel his attention like a physical weight, assessing, evaluating. But not threatening. Just... present.
"It's late," she said eventually, though she made no move to leave. "I should..."
"You should stay." Sarnav's voice was quiet. "Not for anything complicated. Just... stay. Let yourself have this."
"Have what?"
"A normal night. Friends. Fun." He met her eyes. "When's the last time you did something just because you enjoyed it?"
Elena couldn't remember. Couldn't recall a single moment since her teenage years that wasn't about the mission, the training, the next target. Even her rare moments of physical pleasure had been transactional, tools for manipulation rather than genuine enjoyment.
"I don't know how to do normal," she admitted.
"Then we'll show you." Minji set down her controller and crawled over to Sarnav, settling against his chest with practiced ease. "Stay. Watch. Learn. No pressure to participate in anything, no expectations. Just... be here."
Elena watched them together. The casual intimacy, the comfortable silence, the way Minji fit against Sarnav like she'd been designed for that specific purpose. It should have made her feel like an intruder. Instead, she felt something unfamiliar. Something that might have been longing.
She stayed.
And when Minji started kissing Sarnav, slow and sweet at first but building steadily, Elena didn't leave. She watched, heart pounding, as Minji's hands slid under his shirt, as his fingers tangled in her hair, as soft sounds began to fill the room.
"You can leave if you want," Minji murmured between kisses, eyes finding Elena's. "No judgment. But you can also stay. Watch. Learn what it's like when it's not about manipulation."
Elena should have left. Every professional instinct screamed that this was a compromise, a vulnerability, a weakness that could be exploited.
She stayed anyway.
Minji pulled her shirt over her head, revealing a lacy bra that was definitely not standard apocalypse wear. "Told you I kept my good stuff," she said to Elena with a wink. Then she was kissing Sarnav again, grinding against him, making sounds that hit Elena somewhere deep.
"Oppa," Minji breathed as Sarnav's mouth found her neck. "Feels so good..."
She stripped off her bra, guiding Sarnav's hands to her breasts. His touch made her gasp, arch, press closer. Elena watched his fingers tease her nipples, watched Minji's expression shift from playful to needy.
"Want you," Minji said. "Want you so bad, oppa. Please..."
They undressed each other with familiar efficiency. Sarnav's body was lean and strong, marked with scars that Elena catalogued automatically. Minji's was soft curves and gaming-pale skin, surprisingly athletic beneath the gamer aesthetic.
"Watch me take him," Minji said to Elena as she sank down onto Sarnav's cock. Her eyes fluttered, mouth falling open. "Oh god... oppa, you're so deep..."
She started to move, riding him with obvious practice. Her breasts bounced with each motion, nipples flushed and hard. Sarnav gripped her hips, helping her set a rhythm that made them both groan.
"So good," Minji panted. "Always so good, oppa... harder, please, I need it harder..."
He gave her what she wanted, thrusting up to meet her movements. The wet sounds of their joining filled the room alongside Minji's increasingly loud moans.
"I'm gonna... oppa, I'm gonna..." She threw her head back as the orgasm hit, crying out in a mix of Korean and English. Her whole body shuddered, clenching around him.
"GG," she gasped when she could breathe again, and laughed at her own joke. "Round one to me."
"Since when is orgasm a competition?"
"Everything's a competition." She started moving again, slower this time. "Ready for round two?"
They went three more rounds. Elena watched every moment, fascinated and aroused in equal measure. This wasn't the transactional sex she'd experienced, the cold manipulation of bodies for information or access. This was joy. Connection. Two people who genuinely wanted to give each other pleasure.
When it was over, Minji collapsed beside Sarnav in a satisfied heap. "Oppa OP," she murmured, already half asleep. "Too strong. Nerf required."
Sarnav kissed her forehead, then looked at Elena. She hadn't moved from her spot on the floor, hadn't spoken, but something in her expression had changed.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I don't know." It was honest. "I've never seen anything like that."
"Like what?"
"Happy." She struggled to find words. "You were both so... happy. Like it meant something beyond the physical act."
"It does mean something. That's the whole point."
Elena sat with that, processing. Everything she'd been taught said sex was a tool, a weapon, a transaction. The idea that it could be something else, something beautiful, something worth having for its own sake...
"I want that," she said quietly. "I don't know if I can have it. But I want it."
"Then we'll work toward it." Sarnav's voice was gentle. "No rush. No pressure. When you're ready."
Elena nodded, something tight in her chest finally beginning to loosen. She wasn't ready yet. Might not be ready for a long time. But for the first time in her life, she believed that ready might actually come.
[DAY 91]
[WIFE COUNT: 9/32]
[ESSENCE: 967,100 / 1,000,000]
[ELENA VOLKOV: WALLS CRACKING]
[STATUS: HEALING]
[NEXT: DARKNESS]