Scars
Through concrete and steel, through flesh and memory. Each wail clawed at her, dragging Victoria back into the tunnels where the walls had felt too close, and the darkness had pressed on her.
She was drowning.
The sound wasn’t as loud here; it was distant and muffled by layers of rain and stone. Yet it only made it worse. The silence it brought was a blank canvas, her mind painting horrors into the void. What we stumbled upon, that was — different than what’s out here. Alek’s words echoed in her mind.
Different. The word carried a weight she hadn’t fully understood until now. She realised she had no idea what they were — what waited for her in the dark.
Her chest tightened, her breaths shallow, the damp air doing nothing to quench the heat rising in her throat. She was drowning, and the wails kept coming, rhythmic and relentless, merging with the patter above. A surging sound that gave life to every shadow.
In the recesses of her mind, behind the chaos of fear, the tunnels loomed. And now she understood. Alek tried to warn me.
She had expected the promise of sunlight. Freedom. Vast skies and endless plains. Trees and grass, and flying birds painting the air with songs.
He had tried to tell her that it would be worse up here. But how could it be worse? How could she have known?
She saw it clearly now. This world had its own suffocating grip. Terror inhabited every corner, thriving in the open. Not confined by walls but unleashed in every shadow, every sound.
Victoria realised the truth — she knew nothing of this world. Nothing but the darkness, hunger, pain, and fear. An endless agony. Somehow she still hadn’t learned her lesson, trading one kind of darkness for another, again and again.
She leaned her back harder against the metal of a car, as though she could sink into its cold surface and disappear. Every inch of her body stayed alert to the emptiness surrounding her. Even in the stillness, she could feel them — waiting. Only now, they weren’t just waiting; they were hunting. Crawling and running around. And it would be a matter of time before they stumbled upon her. Before they gnawed at her skin, at her flesh, at her gut. Until there was nothing left of her and no one to remember.
Alek’s shadow appeared again in the dimness.
“They’re just passing through,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. He made it sound simple and logical as if fear had no place here. It was meant to calm her, but Victoria was elsewhere. Drowning.
The same question circled her mind again, tighter and tighter — one stupid, useless and entirely out-of-place question.
What will I become?
A hand touched her shoulder. Not rough or sudden, but the firmness snapped her back from the thought. Alek crouched beside her, his face partially shadowed. For a moment, his eye wasn’t the calculating thing she’d grown used to. There was concern in his expression.
“Victoria.”
His hand stayed, weighing softly on her shoulder. “They’re not coming. Just noise. That’s all it is.”
She blinked; his words felt absurd, but there was a silent certainty in his tone. It’s not just noise.
She wanted to tell him. Tell him about the crawling shadows and the piercing cries. But no words came. Only her shallow breaths, each one trembling more than the last. All she could do was focus on the steady weight of his hand.
“They hunt when they’re quiet,” Alek whispered. “When they’re loud like this? It means they’re chasing something else.” He paused to let her process. “We’re okay. Just breathe.”
The tightness in her chest loosened, if only slightly. She wanted to believe him. To let his words carry her to shore. But something still clung to her, dragging her further down in the abyss.
Her fingers peeled away from the car, and she let her hand fall on the ground. There was a coldness there, biting at her palm.
“Get up, Vic.” Alek stood, his hand brushing briefly against hers before withdrawing. He adjusted his pack, the straps creaking faintly. His hazel eye settled on her with the warmth of someone who understood. “We have to get moving.”
She nodded weakly, their new objective offering a distraction. You’re not afraid of the dark, Victoria. Everything’s going to be alright.
She pushed herself up, her legs trembling as though they bore the weight of the entire world. But she followed him. She always did. Through the unknown, the darkness and the fear.
And so the parking lot stretched on as they navigated layers of decayed vehicles sinking into concrete.
“Where are we going?” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
“Up.”
Up. She clung to the word as she would a lifeline, even as the wails outside echoed through the cavernous space. The shadows closed in around them, but Alek didn’t stop. And so, neither did she.
They walked through the complex for what seemed like an eternity. Victoria was lost in her thoughts, pulling her between fragments of memory and imagination.
At last, they arrived at a door. A faded sign hung above it, the image of a man walking through a doorway. Maybe he was running, fleeing for his life — the chipped white paint a metaphor for his ghostly nature.
But Alek didn’t seem to care. He placed his hand on the doorknob and turned to look at her.
“From now on, you stick close,” he said sternly. “Where we’re going, it’s going to be dark. But don’t let that fool you. There’s nothing to fear. The explosion probably drew most of them outside. As long as you stay close and follow me, nothing will happen.”
She wasn’t sure if there was any comfort in that. If she should look at him with courage and mutter something like: Don’t worry, Alek, I trust you. But the lie stuck in her throat. All she wanted was to disappear — to bury deep inside the ground and wait it all out. To hide until the sun rose, and the birdsong drowned out the wails, and the warmth drove away the cold clinging to her bones.
Alek’s gaze softened. He saw the hesitation in her eyes. The fear.
“Hey.” He pressed both hands on her shoulders, and the world seemed to shrink momentarily. “Everything will be fine. Just stay close to me. We’ll be somewhere safe in no time.”
She managed to nod and immediately regretted it. Because now his hands had parted, and the door had opened.
And darkness spilt out to meet them.
<hr>
Victoria’s footsteps rang hollow in the narrow stairwell. The shadows here were breathing whispers of a forgotten place. They retreated before Alek’s flashlight, letting him go through their shaky path. Cracked tiles and water-stained walls welcomed them into their decaying domain.
The landing above spilt into a service corridor, its walls smeared with dark streaks like the smudges of forsaken hands.
Victoria quickened her pace to keep up with Alek, but the sound of his boots had faded, and it wasn’t until she reached an intersection — a faint break in the dim space where the hall split into two directions — that she realised he was gone.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
Victoria’s breath fogged white.
“Alek?” Her voice broke the silence. Too tentative to carry far.
Nothing.
Panic prickled at her chest. She turned sharply, trying to guess his direction, except the shadows had swallowed every trace of him. Her hand flew to her pack, fumbling to pull out the flashlight he’d given her. Then she clicked it on and watched the weak beam tremble as she stepped forward.
He was out there somewhere.
Victoria chose to go left, the decision made without thought. There was no use debating. Alek would notice she was gone soon, and he’d come back for her. She clung to that certainty even as the corridor continued, its air growing thicker. Still, no sign of his light. No echo of his voice.
Instead, she saw them.
They didn’t emerge from the dark; they were simply there. As if they had always been part of it. Woven into its very fabric.
A group of figures crouched in the shadows just ahead. Their pale forms were barely visible in the trembling circle of her flashlight. They didn’t move or speak, but the way they hunched — their backs arched unnaturally, limbs too thin, fingers splayed against the ground — reminded her of starving dogs.
She couldn’t move but shakily let the flashlight sweep across them.
Their faces caught the edge of the beam; features twisted not with malice but with an expression ever disturbing. Eyes, sunken deep into sallow cheeks, stared at her without recognition or intent. Their cracked, chapped lips parted slightly, and a faint, pained whimper escaped one of them.
They looked human. So painfully human.
Their skin clung to brittle bones, stretched taut as the fabric of a worn drum. Scars laced their arms and torsos — marks of a lifetime spent in suffering. One of them — a woman, perhaps — shifted slightly as if even the light scraping her shape was an unbearable torment.
Victoria took a step back, her heel scraping against the gritty floor.
The sound made one of the figures flinch. Its head snapped toward her, and the eyes that met her… were empty, void as the space around them, and yet behind the veil, there was something she barely recognised. Fear? Recollection?
Or was it anger?
The beam caught another figure scuttling hastily across the light. It vanished into the shadows, and then it reappeared — closer this time. With the slow movements of a predator gauging whether to strike, he advanced towards her.
The faint whimpers grew quieter, the air thick with the weight of unspoken agony.
Then, suddenly, it paused. There was hesitation in its eyes.
A hand slid onto her shoulder.
“They won’t hurt you.”
She almost jumped as Alek’s mellow voice interrupted the silence. He walked before her, clenching his axe until his knuckles turned as white as their skin. And they seemed to retreat slowly. Painfully.
Soon, they had returned to the darkness from whence they came, and Victoria realised she had been holding her breath.
“Are those—”
“I call them the Hushed,” Alek said, answering her untold question. “People who’ve abandoned their reason for the darkness.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
“I’m uncertain about the cause of their condition — trauma, perhaps, or the aftermath of surviving the infection, which may have prevented their brains from fully recovering. All I know is…” He glanced at her, his eye filled with something that might have been pity. “They’re still human. In a way.”
“But he… he was ready to…” Her words faltered, slipping into the silence. She looked at the obscurity, where they had vanished. The shadows rippled with the memory of their twisted forms. Then she turned to Alek, searching his face. “Wasn’t he?”
The words left her lips raw and incoherent. And yet she knew he would understand. That somehow, he’d have an answer.
He merely presented her with the axe, its blade catching a faint glint. Of course.
“Come. We’ve got to reach the centre.”
She didn’t answer, her mind racing to process what she’d seen. What had they been ready to do? Victoria could only guess what would have happened had Alek not found her. But he was already turning away, and so she chased the distraction.
This time, she didn’t trail behind him. Her steps quickened, deliberate, until she was at his side, and her hand found the hilt of her blade. The leather grounded Victoria against the pull of the shadows pressing like a whispered secret she couldn’t unhear.
After some time, they reached a narrow passage lined with broken crates and rusting delivery carts. Alek stopped at a stack of wooden planks leaning haphazardly against the wall. He slid one aside, revealing a narrow gap barely wide enough to fit through.
“This way,” he said as he stepped inside.
Victoria hesitated, peering into the opening, then took a deep breath and followed, the planks’ edges scraping lightly against her jacket.
Inside, the space was even smaller than she’d imagined. Alek lit a single candle, and its light flickered from a wooden crate, dancing against the rough walls to reveal the makeshift shelter. A pile of worn blankets and tattered cushions had been shoved into a corner to form a crude bed. Rusted tins were stacked neatly to one side, and in the corner opposite the bedroll, there was a bucket.
“It’s not much,” Alek admitted, his voice low as he crouched beside the melting wax. “But places like this… they’re what kept me alive. When things go wrong.”
Victoria’s gaze wandered around the cramped hideout. It was a far cry from the underground rooms of Noxhold, but there was undeniable purpose in there. Every inch of space had been used with survival in mind.
“Do you have these everywhere?” she asked.
Alek leaned back against the wall, the candlelight catching the faint smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. “Enough of them,” he replied. “You never know when you’ll need to disappear.”
He placed his axe within arm’s reach and gestured for her to sit. “We’ll rest here until sunrise. I’ll keep watch so you can get some sleep. Then we’ll cut through the shopping centre and head for my other hideout. A bigger one — there’s food there, gear and supplies. I’ll be able to give you what you need to survive on your own.”
Victoria lowered herself onto the blankets, their coarse fibres scratching her skin. The tension in her chest began to loosen, but with it came an unwelcome weight. She was reminded that he didn’t want her there in the first place. That if something were to happen to him, she would be the reason.
Out here, she was nothing but a liability, a burden for Alek. And she resented the feeling.
“Do you ever feel safe?” she asked suddenly.
Alek’s eye drifted to the candle, watching the flame as if it might hold the truth. “Safety is a choice,” he said finally. “It’s a moment, a combination of circumstances. And it doesn’t last.”
I don’t know what answer I expected.
Victoria pulled her knees to her chest, her mind racing with everything she’d seen and had yet to understand. In the flickering light, the hideout felt like a fragile bubble — a brief pause in a world that refused to stop.
“Here.” Alek extended a protein bar, the wrapper crinkling as he held it out. “Eat. Then rest. You need it.”
She took it without protest, the stale taste forgotten in her hunger. But when the last bite was gone, and the silence settled once more, sleep eluded her.
Instead, she remained perfectly still, locked in a protective embrace. Her eyes were closed, but she could see clearly. Shapes swirled in her mind — nightmares, memories, hallucinations. Only now, she knew they were all too real.
At some point during the night, something stirred her awake.
Her lashes parted reluctantly, catching the faint glow on Alek’s face. He sat with his back against the far side of the hideout, his axe balanced across his knees. His fingers moved absently over the steel, tracing the sharp contours in slow motions. Whatever thoughts visited him were locked behind his usual walls.
But something else caught her attention.
A glimmer outside. Just beyond the planks, through a narrow crack, the moonlight reflected on something smooth, wet. Her sluggish mind fumbled to grasp the image, and then it clicked.
Two eyeballs. Staring.
Something bound her in place, her body locked beneath the blanket. The gleaming eyes shifted ever so slightly, the figure crouching just beyond the shelter. Breathing.
She blinked.
The form had disappeared. The eyes were gone. Swallowed by the dark.
She stared at the crack for an eternity, her senses straining for any hint of movement. But it had left, for now. And when she finally closed her eyes again, it was not to rest but to pretend she hadn’t seen at all.
<hr>
A deep creak echoed through the familiar space as Milo pushed open the heavy wooden door. Rain-soaked to the bone, each step left a trail of muddy footprints on the once-polished marble floor. Dog limped in behind him, its mechanical leg dragging with a painful screech.
“Sit here, Dog,” Milo whispered, guiding it to a corner where an old rug offered some semblance of comfort. Dog’s eyes, usually a soft blue, now dimmed, flickering in and out like fluttering fireflies.
Milo knelt beside Dog, his small hands trembling as he examined the damage. Then, he rummaged through his belongings, pulling out rusty tools, broken screws and frayed wires. Satisfied with what he had found, he approached his injured friend.
His fingers fumbled and twisted until frustration welled up inside him. “You’re hurt, Dog, I need to do something,” he pleaded, his eyes starting to sting with unshed tears. But nothing he attempted seemed to hold. The leg dangled in his hands.
“I don’t have the right stuff,” Milo admitted, his voice small and defeated. He looked around the rows of books and the corners of his furniture. Searching desperately for anything that might help. But he knew there was only one place where he could find the parts to fix his friend.
His gaze drifted to the rain-streaked windows. The thought of going back to that place made his stomach churn.
Although the memories of his meeting with Dog were found, they had been tainted by his dangerous encounter. A fear that had kept him away ever since. But now, he was left with no other choice.
He stood, wiping his hands on his wet clothes and got ready, starting with putting on dry, warm clothes. Once comfortable, he put on his usual parka and crouched next to his friend. “Don’t worry, Dog. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Just stay here.”
As he turned to leave, the weight of the task ahead pressed down on him. Yet, he had survived a close encounter with the scavengers. Only someone brave could have done that!
The night was dark, clouds blocking the moonlight, but Milo’s eyes adjusted quickly. He set out into the street, ready to face whatever lay ahead, and looked for his usual landmark, a crooked sign. Dark letters were printed on a white background announcing his target:
“GRAND RIVERVIEW SHOPPING CENTRE”
***