Chapter 18: The Tides That Reshaped Us
The city hadn't fully released them yet. They hovered on the frayed edges, where burnt - out buildings clawed at the sky like broken fingers, and shadows stretched long and thin through hollowed streets. Smoke hung low and heavy, a thick curtain woven from char and ash, smothering the skyline like a shroud of grief that refused to lift. The stars blinked faintly above, almost swallowed by the smog, fragile beacons in a sky that felt like it might never brighten again. The city breathed its last in ragged sighs — smoke curling from forgotten fires, the scent of scorched earth, and the silence of empty windows.
Aria drove with the weight of all that death pressing down on her chest. Her hands gripped the steering wheel like it was the last anchor to something real. She hadn't spoken since Mae's blood soaked into the concrete tunnel hours ago, hadn't breathed a word since the moment they carried her from that hellish ambush. Every mile they put between themselves and the chaos only seemed to deepen the silence inside Aria's mind.
Selene sat beside her, eyes on the cracked windshield but always alert, scanning the darkened streets ahead for anything — patrols, traps, ghosts of the past. The low hum of the stolen RV's engine was the only sound filling the space between them, a brittle thread holding them to the present.
When the vehicle finally slowed and they pulled into the shadow of an abandoned apartment complex, it felt less like relief and more like surrender. The building was a skeleton of its former self, the upper floors half-collapsed and crumbled like a broken promise. Vines crept through shattered glass and cracked concrete like veins reclaiming forgotten life. It stood defiant and weary, like everything around it — broken but still standing.
Selene was the first out. She moved with practiced grace, her boots echoing against the hollowed floors as she led them through empty hallways that smelled of mildew and decay. She checked every corner, every shadow, her instincts sharp but weary. Shelter wasn't safety — not anymore — but it was something to hold onto, a fragile sanctuary in a city that had forgotten how to be kind.
Aria followed, dragging her feet, her breath shallow, her eyes fixed on the peeling wallpaper and graffiti scrawled in desperate hands. She sat on the edge of a sagging mattress tossed in the middle of the room, shoulders hunched, a ghost of the girl she once was. Her eyes were dry now, not from strength but from running out of tears. The weight of Mae's death was a stone lodged deep in her chest, pressing so hard it felt like she couldn't breathe.
"You should sleep," Selene said without looking back, restacking their salvaged supplies — ammo, med kits, water — like the act of organizing could hold the world together. "We leave before sunrise."
Aria's voice was barely more than a whisper. "I can't. Not after what happened. Not after her."
Selene paused. Her hands stilled, fingers tightening around a magazine before loosening again. "I know."
"No, you don't." Aria's voice cracked like breaking glass. "You didn't see her. You didn't see the way they — how they turned on her. I tried to save her. I screamed. She screamed for me. And I…" Her voice faltered, a choked sob trapped in her throat.
Selene finally turned, eyes soft but unreadable. "You drove, Aria. You kept going. That's why we're still alive."
Aria flinched, the words cutting sharper than any wound. "But I didn't want to live like this — not like this."
The silence that followed was thick and suffocating. Selene crossed the room, sitting beside her with deliberate care. She left a small space, as if afraid to close the distance completely. "None of us wanted this. Mae chose her path. Now it's time for us to make ours."
Aria's gaze dropped to the cracked floor. "She trusted them."
Selene's eyes darkened. "She was wrong. They weren't people anymore — not really. Just shadows wearing faces. This city… it changes you. Twists what's left of your humanity into something unrecognizable."
The room seemed to grow smaller with the weight of those words, dust motes swirling in the faint moonlight filtering through broken blinds.
"It's not just the virus," Selene continued, voice low and bitter. "It's the city itself. The grief, the desperation — it breeds something poisonous. Something that eats away at you until you're just another hollow shell."
Aria lifted her eyes, wet and glistening. "Then why are we still here? Why haven't we left?"
Selene moved to the shattered window, her silhouette framed by the pale moonlight. The wind tugged at her jacket, lifting strands of her dark hair like restless shadows. She gazed out at the endless maze of ruin, the endless fight to survive etched into every broken surface.
"Because you're not ready yet," she said softly. "And because I'm not leaving without you."
The words hit Aria like a silent blow, stirring something raw beneath the numbness. For a moment, she didn't know whether to cry or scream. To scream at Selene or into the night.
Selene's voice dropped lower, almost a whisper carried by the wind. "This place reshapes people, breaks them down until they forget who they were — what they believed in. That's what happened to Mae's crew. And if we stay too long, it'll happen to us too."
She turned, her green eyes shining like submerged gems in the darkness. "I needed you to see that. To feel it. Because the next part of this journey… it's going to tear you apart. But only if you don't decide now who you are."
Aria swallowed hard, her throat dry and tight. "And who are you, Selene?"
Selene met her gaze without hesitation. "Someone who doesn't get to mourn the dead until the living are safe."
The words carried the weight of too many losses and too many choices made in the dark.
Aria stood slowly, the tremor in her knees betraying the resolve she tried to summon. She brushed dust from her worn pants and swallowed the lump rising in her throat. "I don't know if I'm strong enough for what's next."
Selene's voice was steady. "You don't have to be. You just have to move."
The air settled between them, heavy but not oppressive. Aria nodded, not with bravery or certainty, but with the first step toward something fragile: hope.
Selene pulled a folded map from her pack, spreading it out on a cracked countertop. Lines traced forgotten roads and ruins. "We head northeast. There's a flooded zone by the old dam — no patrols, no city dogs. Just water, mud, and forgotten land."
"Dangerous?" Aria asked, tracing a trembling finger over the route.
"Always," Selene said. "But safer than staying here."
"And after that?"
"We find the radio tower," Selene said. "We send the signal."
Aria swallowed hard. "And if no one answers?"
Selene met her steady gaze. "Then we keep moving."
For a long moment, no one spoke. The building groaned softly around them, tired bones settling into another restless night.
Later, when the night deepened and the world seemed smaller and colder, Selene found Aria curled beneath a moth - eaten blanket. Her back rose and fell with shallow breaths, exhaustion finally breaking through the weight of grief.
Selene stood again at the shattered window, eyes tracing the horizon as the first hints of dawn crept forward. Her reflection in the glass was fractured and blurred — older, haunted, human.
She whispered to the wind, barely audible, "Don't become like me."
But even she wasn't sure if those words were meant for Aria, for herself, or for the ghosts that lingered in the ruins of everything they'd lost.