Their footsteps sounded loud over the broken asphalt as they walked. The buildings on both sides leaned inward, windows shattered, signs rusted.
Johnquis kept walking, eyes on the cracked ground ahead, but his mind was still trapped in the dream. The laughter. The stew. The blood.
The Runner walked beside him, steps light, always just a pace behind, as if tethered to his shadow. Neither spoke for a while. Just the wind. Just their breath.
Finally, Johnquis muttered,
"I didn't want to wake up. That place... it felt like home. For kids like us. Ones who lost everything."
A gust of wind rolled through the hollow buildings, rattling loose shutters. A paper fluttered by, too faded to read.
"Everyone there was family. Didn't matter where they came from or what they'd been through. We treated each other the same. We cared. We looked out for one another…"
His eyes were teary.
"I miss everyone. The kids. Nana. Father Jose. My sister…"
He wiped at his face, but the tears still came.
"I remember how they laughed… even when there was nothing to laugh about. We were always hungry, always scared, but somehow… we felt safe. We had each other."
He looked away.
"Now they're all gone. And I'm still here."
The Runner bumped its head lightly against his shoulder. He let out a quiet chuckle.
"Yeah… right now, I've got you. Just last night, we almost had our best moment yet. Nearly getting flattened by a damn Tanker."
He smiled.
"Argh, I miss the stew. I still remember the smell… how it filled our stomachs. Just whatever vegetables we could find, maybe a scrap of meat if you were lucky."
He glanced at the Runner.
"What? Not a crime to talk about food. Well, maybe it is for me. I'm half-Eater. If I eat too much, I might want more. Then more. And lose whatever's left of being human."
Suddenly, the conversation stopped.
Clink.
Clatter.
He stopped.
The Runner stopped too, head snapping toward the noise.
Another clang. This time sharper. A can bouncing off concrete.
Johnquis raised a hand slowly, signaling silence.
He crouched, pulling the cloak tighter around the Runner and motioning for it to stay back. He crept forward, keeping low as he approached the crumbling shell of a nearby convenience store.
The glass was mostly gone. A few bent bars of the security gate stuck out. Inside, shadows moved.
He stepped closer and he heard it.
Laughter. Human.
"Man, I forgot how good this stuff tastes even if it's, like, a hundred years past expired."
Another voice, deeper, chuckled.
"Bro, I'm pretty sure this expired in the old world. Look at this date. It's so old it's in a different calendar."
A woman joined in.
"So? We're half-Eater. Our guts can handle anything."
Johnquis eased to the edge of the doorway and peeked in.
Three figures. Eater Blades. One woman, two men.
Their armor was worn but intact, each with their colored stone embedded in the back of their right hand, all bronze rank.
The woman sat cross-legged on the dusty counter. The woman sat cross-legged on a dusty counter. She'd cracked open an old MRE, steam rising from gray paste.
"I don't care if it tastes like dead fungus. It's warm, and it's food. After a month of starving, this is a feast."
The guy near the door opened a dented can. No label, just thick red syrup and mush that might've once been cherries.
"Still sweet. Probably radioactive. Whatever. We're half-Eater. What's a little gut cancer?"
The last one dug behind the counter, tossing out old packets of noodles, crackers, anything salvageable. Then he checked a rusted fridge.
"Yo—found a treasure chest!"
He pulled out a stack of dusty cans, smiling like a kid, and raised them up like trophies.
"Alcohol! Real stuff! They say it gets better with age, right? So what does a 333-year-old vintage taste like?"
"Time to find out, let's toast!"
The woman laughed.
"I badly need this. After all those damn monsters? I'm drinking until I forget what they look like."
Johnquis exhaled slowly. His shoulders eased. Not Eaters. Just a squad on break.
"They don't watch what they eat... It'll catch up to them eventually. Half-Eaters with no discipline, might as well be monsters waiting to happen."
He turned to leave but the next words made him stop in his tracks.
The woman drank the alcohol, her tone sharp and bitter.
"Whoo! So this is what freedom feels like. Freedom after Rex ditched us. BURRPP! Didn't even check on us after the quest. Soon as he saw Lex's corpse, he just snapped and went on a fucking rampage."
The guy with the can of cherries speaked.
"He was obsessed. Only cared about her. His little sister this, his little sister that. We were just extras in the story of Saint Rex and the Tragedy of Lex."
Johnquis stayed low, listening. The third man joined, cracking open a dusty bottle with a quiet pop.
"Guy scoured every damn building, sniffing for the Runner that killed her. Didn't even help bury the others. Just kept mumbling that she was warm, like he was hoping she'd still wake up."
The woman drank again from her bottle, then wiped her mouth.
"Idiot. Lex is gone. That thing ripped her open like sack of meat. And now we're stuck finding a replacement. Fuck him. Fuck his sister too. Dumb girl ditched him for some creepy grown-ass man. Stupid slut."
The others laughed, bitter amusement echoing in the empty store.
The cherry-can guy raised his bottle.
"To Rex, the babysitter. Could've been Silver by now if he just moved on to the next zone. But no, he kept dragging his baby sister around like she was some fragile egg… and chose to rot here in the south. And then the second he steps away, what happens? Boom. She's dead."
The other man laughed.
"Now he's carrying it. Thinks it's all on him. Guilt's eating him alive."
The woman added,
"If I were that Runner... and I saw the look on Rex's face when he found her body? Yeah. I'd just kill myself before he caught me."
From the doorway, Johnquis's eyes burned. His hand clenched slowly at his side, the faintest twitch running through his fingers like a warning.
He looked at the Runner beside him. Didn't know what had just been said. What it meant. Didn't know what could happen next.