Author's Preface
25th February 2022
I woke up in an office today. It was a total head-trip at first; the last thing burned into my brain was the kitchenthe smell of stale grease and the feeling of that knife sinking into that Fluid bastard. I can still feel the phantom resistance of its skin.
Now, the air is different. It smells hospital clean that sharp, chemical tang of bleach and antiseptic but I know this isn't a hospital. The ceiling tiles are the wrong shape, and there's a stack of dusty box-files in the corner that says Inventory 2021. My arm is propped up on a pile of fleece blankets that smell like a warehouse. It's too quiet here. It's the kind of quiet that makes your ears ring, and every time I close my eyes, I'm back on that crane, watching the blue dress disappear into the dark.
The people here seem nice enough, I suppose. I met Rachael and Christine today. Rachael has this permanent, stony look about her-the kind of expression that tells you asking for an extra roll of toilet paper might actually turn into a fight to the death. She moves like she's counting every calorie and every second.
Christine is different. She's kind, or at least she's trying to be. She told me she used to be a teacher... well, a science teacher. Now, she's the closest thing we have to a doctor. She's the one who tried to set my arm, her hands shaking just enough for me to notice while she whispered apologies I wasn't sure were for me or for her.
Then there's Cairn. He's a soldier or at least he was and right now, he's my hero. There's something about the way he carries himself that makes the walls of this Sainsbury's feel a little thicker, a little safer. He has this walk, a steady, measured pace that says he's always scanning for exits, always ready for the floor to drop out from under us.
He's the one who found me. He told me I was half-dead in a bush, tucked away like a piece of discarded litter near the road. When I look at him, I don't just see a man with a gun; I see the only reason I'm still breathing. He's old world polite the kind of guy who probably still thinks it's important to open doors, even if the doors are hanging off their hinges and there's a Fluid screaming in the next street over. I'm not ashamed to admit it: I find myself watching him. It's more than just the soldier thing, though the uniform or what's left of it definitely does something for him. He's cute, in that rugged, older guy sort of way. He has these lines around his eyes that only show up when he's squinting at the sun or trying to make me laugh so I'll forget about the stinging in my arm. There's a heat that carries with him, a kind of solid, living energy that makes my own skin feel electric when he's near.
Yesterday, he reached over to check my pulse, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe. His hands are roughcalloused and scarred from the old world and his wedding ring is scuffed beyond recognition and i know hes outbof bounds but his touch was so incredibly gentle. It's a weird kind of torture, being this close to someone who looks like he could carry the weight of the world on his shoulders while I feel like I'm barely holding onto my own pieces.
I think I'm officially a cliché: the damsel in distress falling for the man with the gun. But honestly? If the world is going to be this cold and grey, I'll take whatever warmth I can find, even if it's just a look he gives me across the staff room.
And then there's the man in the other cot. He's tucked away in the far corner, a silent shadow that never seems to move. He spent the entire day yesterday just... staring at me. I swear to God, he didn't blink once. Not a flutter, not a twitch. He just watched me with these eyes that feel like they're looking through my skin and straight into my bones. There's something about those eyes. They remind me of something something I've seen before, buried deep in the static of the last few weeks but I can't quite put my finger on it. It's a look that isn't quite human, like a camera lens that's always recording but never feeling.
Eventually, the pressure of his gaze became too much. I felt like I was being hunted while I laid there, helpless. I had to beg Christine to find me something anything to block him out. She managed to rig up a makeshift screen using a couple of clothes racks and some heavy winter coats from the display floor. Now, I'm tucked behind a wall of wool and polyester, but I can still feel him on the other side. Even if I can't see him, I know he's still staring.
26th February 2022
I woke up around 3:00 AM. It's hard to tell the time these days, especially with the sky the color of piss a sickly, bruised yellow that bleeds through the office blinds and makes everything look jaundiced. The silence was broken by a sound that made my skin crawl: him. I heard him shuffling around on the other side of the coat rack. It wasn't the sound of someone tossing and turning in their sleep; it was a rhythmic, deliberate dragging sound, like fingers trailing over plastic.
He scares me, but not in the way he should. It's not the normal fear of a stranger in the dark. It's deeper. It's the way my body reacts before my brain even knows why-a cold, primitive instinct that tells me there is something fundamentally wrong with the thing behind those coats. He isn't a man. He's a hollow space shaped like a man, and every time the metal hangers clink together, I feel like he's just one heartbeat away from reaching through the wool to find me.Rachael came in with breakfast today. She didn't say much just set the tray down with that same stony, don't ask for more look she always has. It was a bowl of bone-dry cornflakes and a glass of orange juice. It's a far cry from the freshly squeezed stuff I'm used to the kind with the pulp that actually tastes like sunshine-but it'll do. In this world, you don't complain about the tang of concentrate and the sound of dry cereal clicking against your teeth.
I watched her over the rim of the glass. She doesn't waste a single movement. Even the way she carries a tray feels like a tactical maneuver. I wanted to ask her about the man behind the coats to see if she feels that same cold prickle on her skin when he's in the room but I didn't want to look weak. Not in front of her. She's the kind of woman who probably thinks fear is just a waste of calories.Rachael didn't stop at my cot. I heard her heavy boots thud across the linoleum toward the corner, the tray rattling with a second set of glass and ceramic. The shuffling on the other side of the coats stopped instantly.
"Here," she snapped, and I heard the dull clack of a plastic tray hitting the floorboards.
"Eat it or don't, I don't care. But don't expect me to spoon-feed you."
The man didn't say a word. There was just that heavy, unblinking silence.
"I'm a survivor, not a slave," Rachael muttered, more to herself than him.
She turned on her heel, her eyes flicking toward my screen of winter coats with a look of pure exhaustion.
"And I'm not a waitress, either. If you two want to play hide-and-seek behind the Sainsbury's winter collection, that's your business, but don't think for a second I'm enjoying the service."
She marched out, the heavy office door clicking shut behind her with a finality that made the room feel smaller. On the other side of the coats, there was no sound of a spoon hitting a bowl. No crunching. Just the silence of someone or something waiting for the door to close.Later, while she was checking the bandages on my arm, Christine whispered the truth about Rachael. Apparently, she hasn't been the same since Thomas vanished, just after Christmas.
He'd gone out to scout for a larger camping stove something big enough to cook for the whole group instead of just relying on the small ones they'd scavenged. He was trying to make life better for everyone, but he never came back. No body, no blood, just an empty space where a person used to be.
"They never do," I muttered to Christine, but she just looked away, her eyes filling with that tired, teacher-like pity.
I think I understand Rachael's stern look now. It isn't just about the food or the supplies. It's a shield. If she stops being angry, she might have to start feeling the hole Thomas left behind. It's easier to complain about being a slave than it is to admit that you're just a ghost waiting for another ghost to walk through the door.
I managed to move around a little today, but my head still feels fuzzy, like it's packed with cotton wool. Every time I stand up, the room does a slow, sickening tilt, and my legs still feel like they're made of lead.
Christine says I'll be okay after a few days, but she sounds like she's trying to convince herself as much as me. I lost a lot of blood back in that kitchen, and she keeps reminding me that it'll take a while for my body to fully recover especially since proper food is a thing of the past. Without iron or protein or anything that didn't come out of a dusty box, my blood is just... thin.
I feel like a ghost haunting my own skin. I'm stuck in this office, hiding behind a rack of winter coats from a man who doesn't blink, waiting for my body to remember how to be a person again. It's hard to be brave when you can barely walk to the bathroom without needing to sit down nearly peeing yourself.
1st March 2022
Christine changed my bandage today. I was actually glad for the fresh gauze, mostly because the old one had started to turn a sickly, crusted yellow-the exact same shade as the sky. It's like the air out there is so toxic it's finally starting to seep into my skin, staining me from the inside out.
I tried to look away while she unwrapped it, but I couldn't help but catch a glimpse. The arm looks... wrong. It's not just the color; it's the shape. It's puckered and angry, a map of trauma that doesn't belong on a nineteen-year-old's body. Christine's hands were steady, but I could see her jaw tightening every time she had to peel the fabric away from a fresh scab.
"It's healing, Pauline," she whispered, but the way she said it sounded more like a prayer than a medical fact.
I looked over at the coat rack while she worked. The silence on the other side was absolute. I wondered if his blood was yellow, too. I wondered if he was rotting in the dark while I was rotting in the light.Honestly? The arm looks like a Turkey Twizzler. That's the only way I can describe it. You know the ones from the old school dinners on TV? All wrinkled, orange-tinted, and twisted at that weird, unnatural angle.
Looking at it makes my stomach do a slow, sick roll. It doesn't look like skin and bone anymore; it looks like processed meat that's been left under a heat lamp for too long. The skin is puckered and shiny in all the wrong places, and the way the bone sits underneath makes the whole thing spiral. I caught Christine staring at it with a look that was half-pity and half-nausea. I tried to make a joke about it-told her I'd be a hit at the next Christmas party if we ever found a turkey-but she didn't laugh. She just taped the fresh gauze down and walked away without saying a word.