Chapter 20: The First Blood Is Always the Slowest
It started with silence.
Not the peaceful kind—
The kind that arrives too suddenly, too unnaturally.
Aria noticed it first.
Her fingers tightened around a bag of rice as she turned the corner.
The marketplace they'd passed just yesterday—
buzzing with arguments, bartering batteries, voices raw with panic and trade—
now stood still.
Fruit still sat in crates, only just beginning to bruise.
A shopping cart lay tipped on its side.
One shoe in the dust.
And at the end of the street…
A man stood.
Still.
Back turned.
—
"Selene," Aria whispered. Her voice barely held shape. "He's not moving."
Selene didn't look.
She reached for her blade without hesitation.
"Don't talk. Walk backward. Now."
"But what if he's hurt—"
"Aria."
The man turned.
His eyes were missing.
—
They ran.
Or—Aria ran.
Selene moved like a shadow, sharp and clean.
Eyes scanning, hand always near the blade.
Then it wasn't just one man.
It was three.
Then six.
Some stumbled.
Others sprinted.
None of them groaned.
They snarled.
As if language had rotted first.
—
Aria tripped over an overturned crate.
One of them got close enough for her to smell—
not decay, not yet.
Just rust.
And dirt.
And something deeply, elementally wrong.
It lunged.
Her hand found a wrench.
She lifted it—
And froze.
She couldn't do it.
Couldn't move. Couldn't—
The blow came from the side.
Selene's blade made no sound.
But the body hit the ground like thunder.
She was already pulling Aria up.
"You can't hesitate."
"I—I couldn't—"
"I know. But you will."
Aria looked down.
There had been a person.
There had been eyes, once.
A name. A mother.
Now just blood.
—
They ducked into a bakery.
Selene blocked the door with a table, a chair, and the last of her composure.
Aria sank into the dust.
"Why didn't you tell me it would be like this?"
Selene sat across from her, close.
Knees nearly touching.
"I thought you'd have more time."
—
Outside, the snarling continued.
Selene glanced at the windows like they were already broken.
Then turned back.
"You won't always have me to do the killing."
"I don't want to kill anyone."
Selene's voice softened—
Not with comfort, but with clarity.
"That's why you're still worth saving."
Aria looked up.
Their eyes met—
and for just a heartbeat too long,
it felt like this wasn't the first time.
Like they'd lived through this in a dream before.
Or maybe a nightmare.
—
The moment broke.
The bakery door shook.
A thud.
Then another.
Window glass spidered, cracked under pressure.
Selene moved to the back.
No panic. Just precision.
She slid a crate aside—flour dust blooming—revealing a narrow crawlspace in the wall.
Aria's pulse thundered in her throat.
"What—what is that?"
Selene didn't answer. She guided Aria with a hand to the shoulder.
"Get in."
It felt wrong—
A black, narrow hole that swallowed sound and light.
But there was no choice.
There never was.
Aria crawled in.
Selene followed.
They became shadow.
—
The world outside pressed in—
Rustling.
Snarling.
Thrashing.
Then: nothing.
Aria's heart pounded so loud it felt like betrayal.
She wanted to move. To check.
But Selene's fingers on her wrist said:
Still. Now.
Time dragged its body across the floor like another dying thing.
Then Selene whispered, breath brushing Aria's ear:
"We wait until morning."
"But… what if they find us?"
"They won't," Selene said, her voice a blade laid flat.
"Unless you let them."
Aria shivered.
She didn't know if it was fear or something darker.
Something that had started to live inside her.
—
She stared into the faint light slicing through a crack in the wall.
"Selene…" she whispered, "how long… how long until it's all gone?"
Selene didn't answer right away.
Just stared back, unreadable.
"I don't know," she finally said.
"But you'll survive it."
Aria swallowed hard.
She didn't know if she wanted to.
But there was no choice.
Not now.
Not anymore.