Chapter 21: When the Dark Learns Your Name
The night did not pass. It folded itself into the seams of their breath and stayed there, like something claimed. Aria had drifted in and out of something close to sleep — but never all the way. Not with Selene so still beside her. Not with the silence, too unnatural to be trusted, stretching tight over the bones of the world.
When morning finally bled into the cracks of the crawlspace, the light was gray. Lifeless. Like even the sun had grown cautious.
Selene moved first. She always did. Her hand brushed Aria's wrist before she shifted the crate. Quiet, careful, as if the whole world would collapse if they breathed wrong. And maybe it would. The bakery above was untouched, but it felt different now. Not safer. Just… emptier. Selene checked the door again, listening long at the window. She said nothing. Not even when Aria stood, trembling, her muscles aching from too many hours pressed against the wall. They left without speaking.
The streets outside were changed. Not destroyed. Not yet. But the way shadows pooled felt wrong. The way silence hovered felt alive. They walked fast, ducking between alleyways and abandoned storefronts. Selene's hand hovered near her blade the entire time. Aria tried to mirror her pace, her resolve. But the images from the day before — those missing eyes, the soundless rage — they clung to her like fog. Every step felt like it landed in a memory she couldn't shake.
It wasn't until they reached an overpass, half - sunk from a long - ago collapse, that Selene finally stopped. They crouched beneath the broken concrete, shielded from the eyes of whatever still watched the city. Selene didn't speak right away, just studied Aria like she was reading a wound.
"You're shaking."
"I'm fine," Aria said automatically, too quickly.
"You're not." Her voice wasn't accusing. Just stating the obvious.
Aria looked down at her hands, at the tremble she couldn't seem to stop. "You should be," Selene added, her tone shifting colder. "You should be scared. That's the right reaction."
"I didn't say I wasn't scared."
"No," Selene said, her gaze drifting to the horizon, "you didn't."
They were quiet again, but it wasn't empty this time. There was something coiled in the silence between them now. Something waiting to unravel.
Aria sat on the broken concrete and hugged her knees close. "I used to think people changed after trauma," she said, voice hushed, like she wasn't sure if the words were safe. "That it made you stronger. Or colder. Or harder."
Selene didn't respond. Not yet.
"But I think maybe trauma doesn't change you. It just reveals the parts you didn't want to see."
Selene turned slowly, her eyes catching the faint morning light. "And what do you see now?"
"I'm still soft," Aria admitted. "Still… too human."
For a moment, something flickered in Selene's expression. Not pity. Not amusement. Recognition. "Good," she said. "Don't lose that."
"You haven't," Aria said before she could stop herself.
Selene's mouth tilted. A not - smile. "I've just hidden it better."
Aria didn't press. She could feel it — how close they were to something fragile. Something Selene wasn't ready to name. The silence settled again, not empty, but heavy with all the words neither of them could say out loud.
They moved on. The city had grown quieter, but not in a peaceful way. The kind of quiet that meant something was holding its breath. They weaved through side streets and scorched buildings. At one point, Aria paused at a mural of children painted in bright colors on a crumbling wall. Their eyes were scratched out.
She didn't ask what that meant.
They stopped near the remains of a church. Its bell tower had collapsed, the shattered metal lying across the street like a severed limb. Selene scouted the interior first. Aria stayed close, eyes darting from doorway to shadow, aware now of how easily the world could shift beneath her feet. When Selene waved her in, Aria stepped into a space that smelled like ashes and mildew, but at least held walls.
Selene pushed a heavy door shut and braced her back against it, scanning every corner with practiced ease. Aria lowered herself onto a half - charred pew. The wood was soft from rot. Her fingers trailed over the scars etched into its surface — names, dates, desperate declarations of love and faith.
Selene knelt in front of her, pulling out a cloth and a tin of water. Without asking, she took Aria's hand and wiped a cut on her knuckle that Aria hadn't even felt. "You need to tell me next time," Selene said, the steel in her voice cloaked in something gentler.
"I didn't know," Aria whispered.
"You need to start knowing."
Her hands were rough, but precise. The cloth smelled like metal and lavender — an old remnant of a life before all this. Aria watched her face closely. Up this near, she could see a scar along Selene's cheekbone, could see the fine lines etched into her skin not by age, but by survival. She breathed shallowly. She blinked less. She focused like the world would shatter if she looked away.
"Who taught you to survive like this?" Aria asked softly.
Selene's eyes didn't lift. "No one."
Then, after a pause, "I had someone. Once. But I waited too long."
Aria's heart sank. "What happened?"
Selene's hands stilled on her skin. "She didn't make it."
There was no tremble in her voice. No cracked edge. Just silence, sharper than any blade. Aria felt something shift. Slowly, she reached forward and touched Selene's wrist. Her fingers were cold, but steady.
"I'm not her," Aria said. "But I'm still here."
Selene finally looked up, and for a moment the mask slipped. Just enough. And behind it — fear. Not fear of dying. Fear of failing. Of losing again.
"I know," Selene said quietly.
For a heartbeat, they sat there. Two bodies in a ruined chapel. Two souls stitched together by circumstance and unraveling grief. The wind found its way through the broken bell tower and moaned like something lost. It wasn't loud. But it filled the silence like a warning.
Or maybe a promise.