The dark, persistent smell of leather hid what had happened in the warehouse before everything went mad. The chemicals used to tan hides had a strange beauty to them —the way they prolonged the usefulness of death itself.
Sunbeams slipped through the few windows that still clung to their frames, breaking apart as they reached the warehouse floor. The place looked almost safe. Hopeful, even.
Light rippled across the ceiling where it bounced off a shallow pool that had gathered in the center of the hall, colours drifting like ghosts as the reflections moved.
Even the blood staining the water — rising in slow red clouds — didn’t dispel the illusion. Nor did the low moans of the dying. Somehow it still felt like the safest place left.
He knew it looked safe.
He knew others would think it looked safe too — others who had food, weapons, materials.
He counted on that.
Cautiously, he moved from hiding place to hiding place, careful never to step into the light. Into the zone where survivors might be.
The last twitchers he passed were easy enough to finish — a firm stomp of his boot, or, when needed, a quick mercy cut of the blade.
He stepped around a small child of perhaps four, its blank eyes staring at the ceiling, unblinking. A woman lay curled around the body, shielding it with all her strength — to no effect.
He knelt beside her and noticed the trinket around her neck: a gold butterfly, red stones set into the wings. Gently, he loosened the chain.
Then he froze.
The woman was still warm. Little puffs of smoke lifted from her lips with every few heartbeats.
He nudged her with his boot. No reaction.
Knocked out cold.
Without hesitation, he unclasped the necklace and pocketed it.
Anything that had value — anything he could use — he took. You never knew when a scrap of gold or a shard of metal might buy you another day.
His pack was already full: containers of food and water, a few valuables, batteries. A good haul.
Time for the second part of his routine.
One by one he dragged his givers away.
Beside the warehouse, a deep pit hid them just enough that new givers wouldn’t notice. The cold kept the smell down. Come spring, you wouldn’t want to stand anywhere near this place.
The mother and her child were last.
He grabbed them by their clothes and hauled them toward the edge. The woman was still breathing—barely. She would perish from the cold soon; any blood from a mercy kill would only complicate the cleaning later. He pushed her into place, then tried to roll the child on top.
The motion jolted her.
She twisted suddenly, a ragged moan escaping her throat.
He froze—her eyes were open.
He flinched, instinct overriding reason.
As he stepped back, his boot found only air.
He slipped, lost all balance, and fell.
For an instant he felt weightlessness.
Then he struck the bottom of his own pit—the pit of death.
As he hit the ground, he caught a glimpse of what he had created: dozens of faces frozen in their final thoughts, staring straight through him.
He touched his side. A sharp pain bloomed under his ribs. His hand came away smeared with warm, brown mud.
He sighed.
Then he turned, climbed out, and walked away.
***
Halfway there — just a thirty-minute walk — he stopped.
Far enough to no longer hear the screams.
Far enough that, when spring came, the smell wouldn’t reach him.
He lowered himself onto the hood of an abandoned car. His hand went to his side again; the pain was sharper now, pulsing. The mud was still warm. He lifted his fingers to his nose.
The stench hit him.
He gagged, doubled over, retching into the dust.
For a long moment he held his head in both hands, breathing through clenched teeth. He had been so careful. So cautious. Every step planned. Every risk measured.
And now a simple slip had undone everything.
A puncture.
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His gut opened.
He wouldn’t survive this.
***
It took him longer than he could spare to gather his thoughts.
The sun was already sinking toward the horizon. Evening sounds crept in one by one — a dog barking somewhere far off, the wind rising for a moment only to fall still again. A single bright star appeared in the pale sky, twinkling faintly, as colourless as the people he had killed.
He reached a small park.
The trees stood like silent sentries, their branches raised in a stiff salute. The grass was green and lush, a strange pocket of life amid everything else. The remains of a failed garden lay scattered nearby, weeds winning the last battle.
Under the roots of an old tree, a trapdoor was hidden.
He found it by touch, by memory. With effort — his side now screaming with each movement — he dragged it open.
He sat for a moment, taking the minute he needed for himself.
He wiped his face clean.
Washed the drying mud from his hands.
He unloaded his grief, his sorrow and his pain until the void itself was filled.
Down a rough ladder waited a bold step into the dark.
***
“Daddy?”
A bright, happy voice greeted him the moment he stepped into the small room.
The little girl who owned that voice was sitting on the floor, building a crooked tower from wooden blocks. Other toys lay scattered around her — some of them stained in a familiar shade of red.
“Daddy, you don’t look so good.”
She got up on two small, determined feet, toddled toward him, and wrapped her arms around his legs as if they were mighty trees.
“Mathilda,” he whispered, his voice hoarse — fighting tears and panic at the same time.
“Are you back from the store?” she giggled. Sometimes he brought a present home.
“I’m back, little one.”
He sat down harder than he intended, a streak of pain crossing his face like lightning.
“Daddy?”
Mathilda’s voice held no fear. Her father was stronger than everything else in the world combined.
“Shall I bring bandages?”
He shivered.
If only bandages would do the trick.
He looked around the small room, as if a solution might appear by magic. Shelves lined the walls — most empty. A few held cans of food, folded clothes, anything salvaged and neatly stacked, carefully labelled. His preparations. His life reduced to inventory.
“You got me a present?” Mathilda asked, eyes wide with giddy anticipation.
He managed a smile.
One last present. Why not?
He searched himself, fingers brushing useless scraps, then found the butterfly necklace. He held it in his hand for a long moment.
“How cruel this world is,” he murmured.
Then he placed it gently into his daughter’s small, waiting palms.
***
“Get your coat, honey,” the man said, breathing in and out with careful, deliberate control.
“We need to go to the store together.”
***
It took him longer than ever to make the short trip.
At first he had to sit down every five minutes.
Near the end, every few steps.
“It smells funny here,” Mathilda said, wrinkling her nose as the first hints of leather and blood drifted toward her. She knew, by now, what that meant. Something was wrong.
But she didn’t ask. Her father looked busy with other things.
They entered the warehouse from a side door he rarely used.
“It’s so pretty here,” Mathilda said, delighted by the way the broken moonlight danced on the walls. “So quiet.”
She smiled.
Her father nodded — a thin, bleak laugh escaping from a face drained to pale grey.
***
He saw her before she saw him.
“Mathilda,” he whispered. “Stay here.”
A broken smile. A gentle pat on her back.
He walked toward the woman. His side burned so fiercely it was all he could do not to collapse on the floor and scream. He looked back once more, trying not to break.
She waved.
He broke.
Sobbing, he stumbled closer to the woman — the mother — who knelt before her dead child, wailing, cursing every living thing.
Then she saw him.
Recognition snapped across her face. She rose to her feet, fists clenched, and with a scream so sharp it made Mathilda cry “Daddy?” from somewhere behind them.
“Mathilda, stay there!” he tried to shout back, uncertain whether his voice even carried.
He didn’t dodge her blows.
He didn’t raise an arm to shield himself.
He didn’t flinch when her teeth tore at his skin or her nails raked across his face.
After long, agonising minutes, her rage burned down to trembling exhaustion. She stared at him, hatred still alive in her eyes.
Then Mathilda rounded the corner.
Her father turned toward her — his face smeared with blood, his eyes already dimming. Mathilda froze, everything she carried falling from her hands.
“Daddy?”
He lifted his shirt for the woman to see.
The woman, still shaking with fury, extended one finger and pressed it into the wound.
He folded to his knees from the pain.
He blacked out.
***
He rose through the cold like a man waking underwater.
The pain was gone, but fear filled the space it left behind.
He kept his eyes closed.
He knew that if he opened them, he might find a smaller body beside his own —
and he could not survive that sight, even in death.
