I crouch to get a firm grip on the handle and, with teeth clenched, I lift it gently off the floor. Adam doesn’t stir. Sweaty hand clasped around the handle, I retrace my steps back to my sleeping bag. I move slowly, quietly, then climb over my things into the aisle I raided earlier.
The darkness seems thicker when everyone is asleep. It must be the silence. It casts an eerie blanket over me. Chills prickle my skin into little bumps beneath the thin fabric of my cardigan the further down the aisle I wander. The lantern illuminates the sparse leftovers on the shelves, the dust coating them. Magazines, broken glass bottles, scattered blocks of chocolate that weren’t gathered before the evacuations.
At the end of the aisle, a row of glass-door fridges lines the wall. I don’t dare open them. I know from experience the pungent stench of old, rotting meat and curdled milk. The off-meat stink doesn’t bother me as much, not when I’ve been walking the continent for a year, through villages where bodies were left to rot in the streets. It’s not uncommon. But it is unpleasant. Especially when, in the blanket darkness, you find yourself tripping over corpses.
I follow the fridge-lined wall to the left, where a small door stands open. We came in through that way, after breaking the window at the back of the shop. There’s a crammed hall beyond the door that I squeeze into, tucking the lantern closer to me, and I find another door that I suppose leads to the washroom.
The handle is covered in a sticky paste, the colour of burnt oranges. Not unlike rust, I think. I pull my sleeve over my hand and use it to bring down the handle. I move it slowly. Any squeak or creak can draw unwanted attention our way, betray our presence to outsiders. It’s not just the roaming dark fae we have to worry about, but other survivors too. Most of the others out there don’t take kindly to strangers, especially when you’re in their territory.
It has become a dark world.
Maybe it has always been this way—dark. It just took the loss of the light to reveal what we really are. Monsters. Just like the beasts hunting us to the ends of the earth.
I throw those thoughts away as I slip into the washroom. It’s smaller in here than it is in the tight hall-space. I’m wedged between a dirty toilet and a stained sink.
Carefully, I set the lantern on the edge of the sink, then test the taps. Water still drizzles out. Some must still be left in the pipes.
I wet a cloth with the tepid water, then wipe down the toilet seat. Once it’s as clean as I’ll get it, I use the cloth on the mirror above the sink. The layer of dust is caked over it. But the cloth works well enough for my reflection to wisp back at me. It’s muddy and murky, like seeing yourself in the ripples of a stream, but it’s the first time I’ve seen my face in a long while. Don’t spend too much time looking for mirrors these days. And as I stare at my reflection, I realise why. I look ghastly.
Once upon a time, I used to dye my hair all different colours. I’ve been blue, pink, red, even green. Every strand had been bleached to within an inch of its life. Those days are gone now, and I’m staring at the ordinary yellow hues of my hair. All traces of dye have long since faded.
My grandma used to call me a ‘dirty blond’, but I always thought that was just a nice, British way of saying dull blond. I hated the dusty tint to my hair, hated it so much that I just had to paint it every other colour I could find in a bottle.
Funny how much you miss the little things when everything is gone.
I miss the concealer I would wipe over my faint freckles, and the smell of sunscreen when it was summer, and a hot, freshly brewed cup of coffee. I miss the screech of coffee machines, and how I used to watch the sun set so I could capture the colours in the sky and sketch them with into my notepad with my coloured charcoal sticks, and how I would always have chalky stains on my fingertips after.
I grip onto the sides of the sink and look down at the drain. Water seeps out from the taps, still running, and I watch it twirl around the drain like a whirlpool that I want to suck me in and take me away.
That’s one thing I don’t miss about the old world—the way I always wanted to leave, to disappear. That feeling has stayed with me into the darkness.
One hand still on the sink, I reach around my back and slip out the pair of heavy scissors from my waistband. I let the scissors fall into the sink with a clatter, then slowly roll up my sleeve. Even in the dim lantern light, I see the gleam of scars cutting across my flesh like whip-lashes.
I wasn’t built for this world. Or for the old one.
But I’m too much of a damn coward to do anything about it. For now. One day, I’ll find the courage to press harder into my skin, to fight the urge to wrap a bandage around my wounds. One day I’ll leave.
One day.
Just not today.
