Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 3:15 PM
Countdown to Extraction: 59 Hours, 26 Minutes Remaining
"My fucking period is on!"
Tally's voice tore through the dead silence of the apartment, a shrill, hysterical shriek that instantly spiked the panic in the room to a suffocating level.
"Shut the fuck up!" Renee hissed, lunging forward and grabbing the teenager by the arm. "Keep your voice down! Do you want every mechanic in this complex hammering on that door?"
Tally physically wrenched her arm out of Renee's grip, her light brown skin flushed with a blotchy, terrified red. Her manicured hands flew into her thick, sandy blonde curls, pulling at the roots as she backed away.
"Don't tell me to shut up! They smell blood, Renee! Ethan said they smell it like sharks!" Tally's chest heaved, her eyes darting frantically around the claustrophobic, trash-strewn living room. "I need a tampon! Where the hell does she keep them?"
Without waiting for an answer, Tally pivoted and lunged for the kitchenette. Her boots stuck and peeled against the grimy linoleum as she started violently ripping open the cheap particle-board cabinets.
"I need one right now!" Tally snapped, slamming a cabinet shut when a handful of roaches scattered over an empty box of stale cereal. She moved to the drawers, pulling them open so hard one nearly came off its plastic tracks. "How does anyone actually live like this? It's a literal trap house! There is no food, there is garbage everywhere, but there has to be a fucking tampon somewhere!"
"Tally, stop tearing the kitchen apart," Renee warned, her voice tight, keeping herself planted between the teenager and the barricaded front door.
Tally wasn't listening. The sheer terror was completely overriding any filter she had left, fueling her bitchy, defensive armor. She kicked a pile of empty beer cans out of her way, sneering at the overflowing ashtrays and the mountain of empty pill bottles on the coffee table.
"She has hundreds of Oxy bottles but not a single box of Tampax?!" Tally yelled, her voice vibrating with tears and rage. "What kind of trashy, disgusting—"
"I said stop!" Renee barked, the sharp, uncompromising crack of her voice finally cutting through the teenager's spiral.
Tally froze, her chest heaving, staring at Renee with wide, panicked eyes.
"Look around you, Tally," Renee said, her tone dropping into a brutal, heavy reality check. "Kimmie is nearly eight months pregnant. She hasn't bought tampons in a year. There are none in this apartment."
Tally's face crumpled. "Then I need pads! A pantyliner! A paper towel! Something! I am actively bleeding, Renee! They're going to smell me!"
Renee closed the distance between them. She grabbed Tally by both shoulders, holding her firmly in place.
"You are not going to bleed out and attract the whole city," Renee said, maintaining a steady, authoritative grip. "But you need to calm down and think. I am a medical professional. I will handle this. Go into the bathroom, turn on the water, and take a shower. Wash the blood off your legs right now, and I will find something for you to use."
Tally physically recoiled, her face twisting into a mask of pure, entitled revulsion.
"A shower? In there?" Tally pointed a shaking finger toward the chipped bathroom door. "Are you out of your mind? The water pressure is barely a trickle, the tub is lined with black mold, and the shower curtain looks like a crime scene! I am not putting my bare feet in that tub. I'll catch a staph infection!"
Renee stared at the teenager, a muscle feathering in her jaw. The world was burning outside. People were being eaten alive in the streets. Dot was slipping into a toxic coma on the carpet behind them. And this sandy-blonde brat was refusing to wash off a biological homing beacon because the grout was dirty.
"You have exactly two choices," Renee said, her voice dropping to a dead, dangerous calm. "You can either go into that bathroom, turn on the water, and wash the fresh blood off your body... or you can stand out here and complain about the mold until the mechanics catch your scent, tear through that barricade, and eat you alive. Pick one."
Tally swallowed hard. The brutal math of survival finally clicked.
"Fine," Tally hissed, her voice trembling. "But I'm tying my hair up. I am absolutely not letting that water touch my head. And my leggings are ruined. You better find me something that doesn't smell like cigarettes or cheap weed. I am not wearing anything from this dumpster."
"Get in the shower," Renee ordered, pointing at the door.
Tally marched stiffly toward the bathroom, pulling the door open with two fingers like the wood itself was diseased. She slammed it shut behind her. A moment later, the pipes groaned deep in the walls, and the weak, sputtering sound of the water kicking on filled the apartment.
Renee let out a long, ragged exhale. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling a bone-deep exhaustion settling into her muscles. She glanced down at Dot, checking the older woman's shallow, rapid breathing, before stepping over the spilled trash and pushing open the door to the single bedroom.
The air inside was stifling. It was thick with the suffocating smell of stale sweat, cheap cologne, and unwashed laundry. The bed was unmade, the bare mattress stained. A massive flat-screen TV hung on the wall, a glaring, expensive anchor in a room drowning in squalor.
Renee walked over to the cheap dresser. The top was cluttered with Troy's life: empty cans of dip, a shattered glass pipe, loose change, and pink final-notice medical bills.
She opened the top drawer. She was looking for a thick sweatshirt or a pair of heavy sweatpants—something she could cut into strips and fold into a makeshift pad.
Renee started sifting through the fabric, but suddenly, the adrenaline that had been keeping her upright just completely gave out.
Everything in the drawer was cheap, worn paper-thin, and smelled heavily of the stale smoke baked into the apartment walls. She traced her fingers over a frayed, faded maternity shirt. It had a small, crude patch sewn over a tear near the hem.
She's having a baby, Renee thought, the realization hitting her like a physical blow to the chest. She's bringing a baby into this.
Renee's hands started to shake. She looked around the dark, depressing bedroom. She had fought so incredibly hard to pull herself and Kimmie out of the trailer park. She had scrubbed toilets, worked triple shifts, and practically raised her little sister so Kimmie would never have to know what it felt like to live in filth and fear.
And Kimmie had chosen this anyway.
A hot, bitter tear slipped down Renee's cheek, dropping silently onto the frayed fabric of the maternity shirt. She wiped her face angrily with the back of her hand, but another tear followed, and then a choked, ragged sob tore its way out of her throat.
She leaned her forehead against the edge of the cheap dresser, her shoulders shaking as she wept quietly in the dark.
She was so incredibly angry at Kimmie for staying with Troy. But beneath the anger was a cold, bottomless terror.
Kimmie was trapped inside Memorial Hospital. A hospital completely overrun with mechanics.
Renee squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers gripping the edge of the drawer until her knuckles turned white. She pictured her little sister, heavy and terrified, trying to hide in the dark corridors of a slaughterhouse.
"Please be alive," Renee whispered to the empty room, her voice cracking, the tears finally flowing freely down her face. "Please, Kimmie. Just stay alive."
Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 3:28 PM
Countdown to Extraction: 59 Hours, 13 Minutes Remaining