Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s freezing. Cold seeps into her bones like medication, pulling the nerves into pieces of her reality. Aware of each sharp sting of anxiety, stiffening each tremble and awkward shuffle in a confined space like this.


Had this been expected, she would have prepared, she swore. But when she first woke up, Sophie was only in bed a few minutes prior, body curled up against pillows. Then, shuddering to life, she was rolling over on gritty concrete to make a means of her senses. Two full days passed since then, years in her mind, and the initial fear of waking far from home still hadn’t shaken out. The first night of the end of the world, Sophie raised herself to her feet. She trudged, listening to the sound of her voice ricocheting the walls of the buildings encasing her in the center of town. She remembers the soft growling of someone, something in the distance; a faraway stranger without any knowledge that she was alive.


It was the barest makings of a hooded man with dry, anxious eyes and a phone emitting with soft light that happened to find her first. Out of all people in the world, Simon was one of the only survivors left in the world, and Sophie had no other choice but to stay with him.


And so.


“...So,” She breathes out, crossing her arms. “What part of town are we in, again?”


Heartbeat. Her heart was beating fast, but comfort holds itself within it knowing she wasn’t alone. Not enough to keep her from shaking–but it’s better than nothing. Better than nobody.


David responds from his spot near the toilet, hugging the sides. He’s been staring down into the water and waiting for the acid to wash over, and yet for the past twenty minutes nothing’s come through. Maybe it won’t at all, he hoped through a whisper minutes prior that Sophie caught. “Somewhere… Somewhere downtown of Stockholm. Near the fuckin’, uh– hospital district.


David Leatherhoff. A name she heard, somewhere, maybe on a shoddy-taped concert poster plastered on the crackly bricks of a building near town square–she was familiar. Familiarity isn’t enough to feel comfortable around a man that’s the South pole to her North, but Simon claims he’s a friend. Acquaintance bordering on friend, but friend nonetheless. Now he’s stuck with them.


The price to pay to survive. One she’s paying against her will. Oh, well.


A sterile smell blankets the room, cut through by a lingering taste of iron. Crimson, dark iron, dusted along her clothes like the stars on a painting of skies above. Spread along Simon’s like a guilty murderer who desperately tried to wipe the blood off. Covered along David’s like the perpetrator of a massacre.


This isn’t supposed to be real. That’s what Simon told her– this is a mistake, they told me it wasn’t real, it shouldn’t be real. Simon’s mantra has been just about the same ever since he slumped up against the wall beside her, legs sprawled out in some haphazard attempt for rest. He’s walking, at least, which was one of the bigger shocks. In extreme pain, but he was walking. Confused, lost, walking.


Sophie sighs, sitting down. She’s tired of standing. Actually, she’s tired of everything, after walking for hours, searching, doing anything to find signs of civilization. All to find nothing, just like Simon had predicted. “Simon,” Sophie finally speaks again. This earns a glance up from Simon, who furrows his eyebrows. “Why’d you have this book, anyways? This feels a little, um.”


David answers for her, “Freaky. Freaky as fuck, man. No offense, but if you were planning to publish this I’d take it back to the drafts.” Sophie shoots him a look. He promptly ignores it.


Simon averts his gaze. Habit. “It was for therapy. My doctor told me to.”


David’s head raises, fully turning to look at Simon. “Jesus Christ, dude. I thought this was from, like, a bad acid trip or something.”


“I don’t take acid.”


“Really? You seem like the type of guy that would.”


“Fuck off.”


Sophie inhales, “So, Simon– this is, like, how you felt? About the town, or?”


Simon becomes uncomfortable again. He sort of glances at David, like he wants to be saved from the conversation, but David just shrugs at him. For two seconds of wordless conversation Sophie becomes a stranger, witnessing some private conversation from the sidelines like they were waiting for her to leave.  “They were, um… hallucinations.” says Simon following the beat of silence. “Um– of… just. Things that I saw. Doctor thought that if I wrote it out, they could… start seeing what was actually wrong with me, or something. I don’t know.”


Oh. “Jesus,” Sophie whispers beneath her breath. “Are you alright?”


He looks more than relieved that was the first question, shoulders relaxing. “I’m fine. Seriously, I’m not just– I’m fine. I’m just more worried about getting out. Of here.”


“If there even is a way out.” David interjects. “I mean, like. Whatever the fuck’s going on, obviously there’s not some sort of kill switch. Unless you wrote that in, right? If we’re going off of that. Supernatural ass shit.”


Simon shrugs. “No. There wasn’t a way out, it was just– the world was over. That was it.”


“So we’re stuck here.” David clarifies, bracing for the impact of Simon’s nod, which comes about two seconds later. Then, “Fucking awesome. Just what I needed– hell, their lives aren’t getting too interesting, let’s give ‘em an apocalypse!”


“We’re not stuck,” Sophie hopes. “We just have to get by until someone comes to help us. They have to have someone coming to get the survivors.”


“Judging by what Simon’s been saying, no, there’s not. He didn’t think about that shit.”


Simon’s face twists. “Sorry?”


He snickers back, “Thanks, apology accepted.” Which earns a rightful glare from Simon.


The conversation starts losing the plot. “Still-” She clears her throat,  “-we should start finding stuff to help keep us alive. And look for a place to stay that isn’t…” Her eyes drift around the bathroom, studying blood speckled along the counters and mildew coagulating in the sink. “...here.”


“Hospital might have a first aid kit or something.” Simon mumbles.


David cringes. “We’re going to a hospital now?” His voice strains.


She persists. “It’s our best option. We can’t really stay here, and… oh! It’s- connected to a nursing home, so it should have beds and things and we can rest there until we decide to move.” Simon agrees by nodding.


Through a heavy, reluctant sigh, he concedes. “Yeah, whatever.”


A beat of silence fills the room, stagnant. Nobody moves. Each linger silent agreement that, whatever is out there, it wasn’t taking too kindly to human presence in the breathing husk of Stockholm. The first time anything came for them it left bruises along the spine of Simon’s back and stifling, choking terror. The infected know how to search for those not of their newfound kind, and its only a matter of time before the seconds they had to react wasn’t enough to faire mercy. David’s the one to break the silence, though, with a faint little laugh Sophie could easily confuse for misplaced delight. Or it’s anxious. She can’t tell. “Should we even leave yet, anyway? Simon’s got his fuckin’...” He kicks a leg in Simon’s direction, nudging his legs. Simon huffs in protest. “...that.”


“I don’t even know why I’m walking,” Simon mutters quietly, hand running over his face. “This doesn’t make any sense…”


The look that spreads across Sophie’s face reeks of pity, but Simon doesn’t catch it. He’s looking down at the ground, eyes scanning over the tiles, chest rising and falling in shudders. She finally just sighs and turns away. “Yeah, we should probably stay for a while. Unless, we, oh– find a wheelchair or something? Just so that your legs don’t hurt walki–”


“Don’t need it,” Simon snips, almost urgent in his tone. “If I can walk, I don’t need it.”


Do you not need it or do you not want it?, is the question that surges deep in the throat, but never quite reaches far enough to bloom past the lips. Instead, she nods, slumps down, and softly says, “Okay. That’s fine.”


David lifts himself from the toilet and inhales deeply, pushing himself against the opposite wall. “Let’s think about this. Who would we sacrifice first if something comes for us again, go.”


“You,” Simon answers.


“Wow.”


“I guess it’d help to have some sort of job each,” Sophie offers. “That way it’s easier to handle things. Like David’s not really good with a gun, so Simon and I could focus on that and he could carry our stuff?”


“ Loww blow, Sophie. That’s insane.” David clutches at the fabric covering his chest and feigns a broken heart. Simon snorts.


Embarrassment surfaces on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way, I just–”


“No, it’s funny, keep going, seriously.” Simon persists. After a beat of Sophie’s stifled laughter, he continues, “I mean, yeah, David can’t hold a gun for shit, so he can do… I don’t know, first aid or something.”


“I see how it is. Resident nurse.” retorts David. “I mean, shit, I can wrap bandages. I’ve done it once before.”


Simon’s face twists into skepticism. “Once?”


“Yup. Trust me with your injuries now?”


“Hell no. I’ll take death.” Simon’s pseudo-riposte seems to make the end of the conversation, because afterwards the exchanged laughter slowly diffuses, leaving inner thoughts to fill the space left.


Her eyes trail away to the wall. The empty, tiled wall, lacking in any windows to expose her to the outside world. Dirt accumulates on the walls, the floor, everywhere, muddled and disgusting. She can’t see it, but silently Sophie hopes the world is moving on. If nothing else, the sun could be bound to rise within the next few hours, as radiant as it was the night before the world ended. The small chance it would is enough.

Sophie always liked the comfortable silence brought out in her company with Simon. Something soft ensues in the beats between conversation, broken by thoughts found in the walls of a mind usually sheltered from the other.


David, clearly, doesn’t share that sentiment. “I can’t believe you played Dead Space but not Resident Evil. Now I really know you’re insane.”


Beside him, Simon shrugs. “I was told it wasn’t even that good, I don’t know?”


“You liked Bomberman , you can’t use that excuse. Go play Resident Evil and get back to me.”


“ Bomberman was okay–I’m not buying Resident Evil , David.”


Simon and David both talk to each other rather than paying mind to the hallways of the hospital district. Sophie, though, navigates with eyes darting to each crimson blemish across white pristine walls.


“This is what I’m talking about. You need to get your head in the game, dude. You’re playing the worst games of the century, this is why you don’t like playing them.” Simon scoffs. So, David continues, snickering, “What the hell did you even like about Bomberman? ”


“I don’t know, it was fun?” Simon meets eye contact with him, a pointed, pseudo-annoyed glare.


David’s wearing a shit eating grin. “You don’t remember any of the story?”


Södersjukhuset hospital runs like various small buildings intertwined with one another into one central district; something Sophie’s never gotten the chance to fully explore. She’s been in therapist’s offices and sat in the waiting room of the base lobby for Simon (a memory she’s not eager to trudge up now), but never in the winding halls leading into separate trauma units, branching off into rooms she could only assume laid carcasses left in the hysteria of doomsday. She can’t imagine how many have been left. It’s a miracle Simon and David managed to find each other, and then her. Sophie tries not to think about the hypotheticals too hard.


The central hall, leading into unique trauma units with locked doors, was one they’d been walking down for the past few minutes. Having entered through the emergency vehicle garage, entrance was easy, but nothing else was. Ever since scavenging a basic first aid kit from the ambulance sat stationary in the garage, they’ve found nothing worth taking with them. Medical supplies aren’t just laying about, even if she quietly hoped they had been. Notably, there had been a saw laying near the unlocked entrance to the hospital. David took it for keeps. She swears she can still smell the blood staining it.


“There is none?” Simon retorts, “You just shoot. What’s there to–”


“Sophie, get a load of this fuckin’ guy, dude. You play videogames?”


Sophie, blinking herself back to life, softly hums. “Yeah. I play them sometimes, I guess.”


“Name a few, gimme a few.” He coaxes.


Sophie smiles. “I played Silent Hill 2 recently.”


“Hell yeah!” David raises his palm and Sophie gives a high five. “I loved Silent Hill 2 , that shit was awesome. Big fan of the girl.”


“Which one? There’s, um, three different girl characters, I think–”


“Stop–wait, Sophie, stopstopstop. ” The first time’s enough. Sophie skitters to a stop, barely barricaded by the arm Simon holds out for David, who casually stops walking. Simon stares straight ahead, eyes wide.


David raises an eyebrow. “What? What the hell, man?”


“I saw something.”


It’s hard to argue with someone like him–usually, he’s hallucinating. Telling real from imagination wasn’t exactly Simon’s strongest suit, but meeting eyes with David, she promptly decides to not play the skeptic. Especially right now, where they were, the things they were surrounded by. “Saw what?”


“A person. A–down there, I saw it. Look, come on.” Simon takes no agreement before starting off down the hallway at anything but the leisurely pace they were taking before. Alarmed, David falls in tow, and with a look of confusion Sophie follows suit.


The end of the hallway is more than in sight, branching off into a left hallway with longer doors. The first sign she can get a visual hold of reads Radiology Center –long windows and doors peaking into an empty room full of equipment and scanners. Her feet nearly trip on some scattered equipment across the floor, circumventing abandoned IV poles. From there, Sophie can make out the end of the radiology hallway without running far, much shorter than the other hall. The end walls forks into two new, unknown areas, signs unintelligible. Simon hesitates, slowing down, and then veers right. They’re full-blown running, which leaves both David and Sophie huffing for balance against their sudden momentum in pursuit of Simon. She can hear David cussing and mumbling under his breath, whom stays almost beside her at that slower place. It’s at this pace they accept they’ll stay close but behind Simon, all until footsteps join theirs.


Thundering footsteps from the northern distance. As if he realizes at the same time, David speeds up, and despite everything Sophie feels inclined to do the same. From the radiology unit a central tunnel-way forms leading to unique units, each with labeling on signs fixed down from the ceiling. At the foot of the hall an open space leads into the separate paths. At the north bathrooms, a company break room in the east and a hallway to the waiting room back near the trauma unit to the west. Now that the stranger’s footsteps are audible, there’s no questioning Simon’s decision to turn west.


Simon yells. “Come back! I’m going to fucking catch up to you!” No response.


A few seconds later, though, he gradually slows to the same pace Sophie was keeping steady. As if silently signaled to, David takes the lead. Her breaths climb into her throat and choke out in stamina-clinging gasps, dulling the senses into watercolor blurs speeding past her much faster than she felt like she was running.


Beside her, Simon reaches into the side bag clamoring at his side and pulls out the glock sitting at the bottom. Snapped back into place after a quick ammo check, he taps David on the shoulder and watches as the gun is snatched from his hand in an instant. The silhouette of the stranger comes into view, stopping at the center of the waiting room and staggering to try and find somewhere else to go to lose them. David moves forward and skids to a halt in front of him, weight of the gun held in both hands pointed at the man. Aware of the danger, the stranger turns around and makes himself known. Sophie stops herself a few feet in front of the confrontation, wheezing and holding herself up against her knees. Simon walks beside her a minute or two later, staggering like he’s been shot in both legs.


The stranger turns to face David, fully backing up, hands splayed out on the wall behind him. “For christ’s sake, what?” The man huffs, “Chase fun for you?”


A first few details of appearance come to mind first. A gas mask covers the form of the man’s face, strapped tight onto his head and concealing everything but wide eyes. Blood–jesus, that’s blood. Blood on a white, pure jacket, reaching down just past the waist. A doctor’s uniform. Covered in the blood of something, streaked across light blue gloves and dotted underneath the jacket and onto the light blue suit top. A black tie reaches down, crinkled and old, matching black slacks hung tightly at the waist and bagging down to hunting boots. Like a rejected doctor, her mind considers, to which she tells it to shut up.


David fixates the gun at the man’s head. “Where’re you going, man?”


“Nowhere I’m telling you.” snaps the doctor. His eyes tighten into a glare.


Exasperatedly, Simon groans, “Why not? I wanna know what the–” He inhales, “--what in the fuck is going on!” He tries to step forward, almost in threat, but he glances at Sophie one time and then stops. She’s content with that. The doctor doesn’t look too willing to succumb under threat. Or make friends.


The doctor backs himself against the wall until the full back of his body hits it, a dog backed into a corner. “I can’t tell the infected anything. And I don’t know if you’re one of them.”


David audibly scoffs, gesturing his gun. “Riii iiight. How do we prove that we’re human, then?”


The doctor’s voice hushes, somewhere between understanding the gravity of the gun fixated at him and wanting to escape. “What do you want from me?”


“A way to get out of town. Don’t care where else, as long as wherever we’re going’s not under.”


“And if I don’t tell you?”


“I’ve got a gun to your head, I’m sure you get the idea.”


Both Sophie and the doctor stay put. It’s almost frightening; she can sense the connection of fear between the both of them, a deer in headlights sensation that shocks the nerves into compliance. A gun’s pointed, and its presence in the room completely demobilizes her, keeps her mouth shut, keeps the doctor in their sights. He’s just scared. This feels wrong.


The doctor shifts uncomfortably following a long, long pause. “Okay. Fine. If that’s what you want–do me a favor and I’ll give you the keys to the underground subway station down going into Solna,” His eyes dart between David and the west hallway, “and you can get on the next train. Is that what you want?”


“Yeah, actually.” David smiles. It’s more of a sneer. “We’ll do your favor, sure. What?”


“I need you to kill the human flower.”


A beat.


Simon’s the first to react. “Are you fucking joking?”


The doctor exhales hard through his mask, “No. I can’t do anything in Stockholm with the vines overtaking everything. And I can’t kill it on my own.” He sits himself up, preparing to leave. David tightens his grip on the gun, but with an ultimatum established there’s not much of a reason to fire anymore. The doctor knows. “You have to kill it from the source. Everything born from its vines will die– the infected won’t. Kill it and I’ll know you don’t belong to it.” Simon exhales into a laugh that sounds more hopeless than anything, both hands moving to cover his face. Mentally, she’s doing the same.


David, though, just concedes and drops the gun to his side. “Alright. Where is it? The source of the thing?”


“I don’t know.”


“You don’t know?”


“Are you stupid? Do I look like I want to turn into one of them?” snaps the doctor. “I’m not taking my chances wandering near it and waiting for it to take me, no. That’s why I’m asking you to do it. I wouldn’t–”


“I get the idea, jackass,” David says, taking a step back. “If we kill it, how do we find you to get the key?”


“I’ll be there.”


“At the source of the flower you don’t know the location of. ‘kay.” The sarcasm in David’s voice turns the sentence downright condescending. “Just get the hell out of here, man. Ten seconds.”


The doctor doesn’t take the chance to question what David meant, and instead scatters down the west hallway and disappears in the seconds after. His footsteps are loud, clamoring, and fade into the hospital district. Ten seconds pass. David doesn’t move, staring at the empty space where the doctor once pushed himself away from threat. Now, the poor thing's gone. Instead, he turns around and hands the gun back to Simon.


He’s on the verge of laughing. Simon devolves into a scowl. “David, I swear to fuckin’ god.”


“Did you hallucinate that too-?”


“I’m going to kill you.” At Simon’s words, David starts full-on laughing. Again. She’s not sure whether to feel comforted or unnerved by it anymore.


“What did he mean?” Sophie feels like she’s shuddering back to life like an old, worn down machine. Her legs ache. Everything aches. She’s not used to this type of overworked, eroded sensation. “The human flower? What’s that?”


“Gotta guess that it’s the thing infecting everyone.” David shrugs. Simon’s putting his gun back in his bag, readjusting it on his shoulder and recollecting his senses. “Are we actually doing that, or should we just take the key from him?”


“I don’t want to die trying to kill it,” Sophie fesses, uneasy. A thousand images of grotesque, mutilated beings formed in choking vines fills her head, creates static in her vision, buzzes in her ears. Her heart’s beating at a rhythm close to a bass drum. Everything aches. “There has to be another way.”


Simon and David glance at her like a defenseless, kicked cat. David shrugs, averting gaze. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”


Her hands reach to her sleeves and tug at them, tethering herself together by soft grip. Swirling thoughts form at the back of the head and eat away at the sides like a rushing storm eroding the edges and bringing about a headache. Simon takes a step towards her and softly nudges her shoulder, eliciting her to react. She doesn’t. Sophie knows damn well Simon was willing to walk onto the highway if it meant a chance at catharsis, and she’s learned enough about how David acted to assume he felt the same. She feels like the only shaking body in the room, now, too clung onto life to want to lose it, surrounded by the nihilistic. She has to find another way. There has to be another way. There has to. There has to be.


Either way, there’s blood on her hands, a tremor in her body and signs of a beating heart. She’s alive whether she wants to be or not. Sophie can’t stop shaking. She supposes it’s never going to.

Chapter Text

Let it be known that it wasn’t David’s choice to be here.


His first idea was to stumble into a slovenly, abandoned excuse for a pharmacy, find the nearest dose of medical marijuana and go out having the best night of his life. Simon later tells him it’s the stupidest idea he’s ever heard. You wouldn’t even make it out into the street, Simon said, rolling his eyes. As if that wasn’t the idea.


Now he’s roped into survival by raw vendetta, pushed to walk on feet that’d rather burn up than walk up another flight of stairs. The sound of the humming air conditioner overhead doesn’t fight the musky, barren smell of apartment halls. It’s reminiscent of a motel worth less money than its vending machine downstairs. Better put, it’s hell.


Sophie’s idea to walk through the apartments was taken well by Simon, and thus he follows in tow. She wants to look for survivors, which he assumed there wouldn’t be many of.  Either by the bloodied gloves of some off-his-rocker doctor or the vines consuming various buildings and roads inbetween each location, he’s more than ready to find a corpse or two lying about.


The other idea, and the more important one shared between them, was to find the source of the human flower. Simon’s trailing his fingers through the dust-laden windowsills and ferreting around for any signs of it on the streets, down many feet beneath them. Or, if they do find someone, they could give better pointers to it than the jackall they were gifted beforehand.


“I still don’t think we should try and kill it.” Sophie presses. Throughout the past 48 hours, Sophie’s been repeating the same mantra. He’s not listening, and neither is Simon. She lags behind, collecting anything off the ground she feels will be useful for later. David’s caught her picking up a few papers, looking around for any ammo. He doesn’t think it’ll be worth anything, but if it settles her nerves, then he’ll keep his mouth shut.


David turns back. “If you have a better idea, shoot. I already said we could just kill the guy and get over it.”


“Mhm, but if he doesn’t have it, then we lose any chance of leaving.” She says. “We could try to talk to him again. Or find some other way to convince him we’re human?”


“I don’t know, Soph,” Simon mumbles from beside her, eyes glued onto the window. His reflection paints itself against the windows when they pass them, giving David the clear view of nervous eyes for just seconds at a time. “He’s not going to listen to us, of all people.”


“If he has no other choice…” She trails off, “...God. Okay. Nevermind.”


Uncomfortable silence follows. As it has been since they first found Sophie; sometimes Sophie and Simon have the atmosphere of unsatisfied college students. He’s heard more than enough reason why, but it doesn’t help bring some energy into the otherwise still tension between them. Fun news. Amid an apocalypse, he has to seize tension between silent, unmoving forces of people. He doesn’t have to, but he’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t at least slightly worried on Simon’s behalf. Boredom proposed itself as a decent enough excuse, but within it was a willingness to make it easier for him.


Not because he cares that hard. They’re not really friends, not strangers anymore and like hell they’re lovers; a secret other thing without a name to it. A friendship that’s easy to walk away from. No boundaries, no guilt. The way they both wanted it. It’s hard to keep anything more than that with how they’re going, even if they wanted to, but that’s gone generally unsaid.


David’s slowing down in his walk, and upon breathing back to life he catches up. “Get anything, Simon?”


Simon’s in front of him, holding his phone with one hand and using its glow as a guide light down the hall. The same message has been sat on the phone screen for the past few hours: Where are you? Come home as soon as possible. It’s getting dark. From his mom. Now Simon wants to go find her before they leave town, meaning there’s even more on their to-do list to count for before they can escape.


Simon glances back to David, still walking forwards. “No. Don’t have any signal, either. If I’m getting texts they’re probably not even going through.” Simon turns back, and softly hisses a curse under his breath, shaking his phone.


“You gotta get something eventually.”


“Nobody’s working the phone towers, so no, it’s not gonna magically happen.”


“Just trust me. You should go up to the roof and climb on the fuckin’ lightning rod and try to get some signal from there.”


“I wonder why that sounds like a bad idea.”


“Buzzkill,” He scoffs with a grin, to which Simon elbows him in the shoulder. He nudges back, makes Simon stagger a little bit, and he pushes David’s shoulder until he stumbles a little more. “Come on, man, shake the thing a little bit. It’s gotta work. Imagine your phone working or something.”


“That’s not even how it works.” Simon glowers.


“Oh, so you know what’s going on now?”


“Vi, shut the hell up.”


“I’m good, thanks, Si. We’re not getting anywhere with your shit idea.”


“And you have a better one?”


“Yeah, watch.” David reaches over and takes his phone from the tight-fit palm of his hand, against Simon’s attempt to try and stop him, grumbling. He holds it up closer to the window to the left of him, shakes it a little, and waits for a response. “See, there. Just give it some motivation, man.”


“Like it’s a flower?” Sophie giggles a little bit from behind. Her tone speaks that he’s cutting some relief into an otherwise tense venture, and he’s satisfied. More than worth it–he can’t take the time to look close enough from his new spot closest to the window, but he imagines Simon’s doing that little frowning-smile thing again, and it’s worth it.


“You get it. Simon, you should start being more like Sophie. Have some optimism.”


“Like you’re the most optimistic person on the planet.”


“A little bit, yeah.” Unsatisfied with the lack of an answer from the phone, he shakes it again.


Simon rolls his eyes, then lets his gaze flit back up to David. “What do you even think you’re doing with that?”


“Making it work.”


And, beats later, a soft notification ping sounds off from the phone, buzzing in his palm.


“Are you joking.”


A genuine look of confusion washes over Simon’s face, grabbing back the phone as both Sophie and David dissolve into a chorus of quiet laughter. “No way. No way that actually worked?”


“Told you,” sneers David. He gets another push against the shoulder. “Ouuuch.” He looks down at the notification Simon was reading, snorting at his expression before fixating on the words, focusing.


From an unknown number. Not another text from Simon’s mom, all concerned and caring for his well-being—which was new, to put it bluntly. For a whole year Simon spent torn to shreds over her blatant ignorance, lamenting in one-sided conversations unfurling frustration sunk deep into the gut ever since he met him. He supposes it does take something like this for someone to remember their son exists.


Help! I’m three doors to the left. In here.


David scrunches his nose. “Damn. Not ominous at all.”


Sophie steps forward, between them, to read the message. It brings her a little more urgency than the other two, who lag and try to decipher whether or not this was reasonable to follow. “They could be dying. Simon, c’mon, we have to help.” This was her idea from the start. Not that David was against helping those in danger, but on the other hand, he’s not enticed by the idea of being a nameless body in a trashy motel.


“I don’t know, I…” Simon trails off, then looks up at him. Oh. Shit. Okay.


Simon and Sophie look to him for an answer and he can feel the remorse of what’s potentially the wrong choice curling in on him, thick smoke in the lungs. The end to the hallway was already locked off–they couldn’t go any higher than they were, but where they came from stayed as their exit if they needed it. If anything happens, it’s on his hands. And Simon doesn’t want to take that responsibility. He trusts David with the fall.


His gut pushing forward the answer that falls, “Well. Sophie said let’s go, so let’s go.” And, hell. Simon doesn’t question it.


Sophie, making good use of the adrenaline shocked into her system by panic, rushes ahead of both of them. Three doors to the left, she almost dashes, the first to settle her hands on the doorknob. Waiting for the other two to stand ready behind her, Simon catches up to her speed, skittering to a stop just before the door. David’s still a few feet behind when Sophie takes the executive decision to push the unlocked door ajar.


Few things to note when the door opens. First, the blue-blur of a creature that immediately hurls towards Sophie.


View obstructed by the bodies of Simon and Sophie, David still reacts faster than the rest. One hand reaches behind him into the half-open backpack strapped across one shoulder, grasping a hold of a handle sticking out of the bag. An axe unsheathes from the empty space in the backpack as he pushes himself past Simon and Sophie, letting both stagger back in the shock of the muddled second passing, and he takes the ricochet of the creature’s impact.


His back slams against the wall opposite to the entrance hallway of the apartment and, instinctively, his axe swings. A thick, mutilated stinger for an arm dis into the drywall next to his body, missing the intended target of flesh. His axe collides with its neck and the thing screams against the blunt force, crashing to the floor of the apartment. Warm blood reaches his face, a dark spatter.


Now he gets a good look at it, in the seconds given to recuperate. A gaping mouth squeals against the ground, clawing however it could with singular, lethal claws for hands. With a ratted dress and multiple, bared claws for feet, it pushes itself against the ground in a shoddy attempt to raise itself to its feet. A gash in its neck shrieks, blood rolling out of the wound and staining the hardwood floor beneath their feet.


As it begins to reach for David’s ankle (against his stumbling-back will), a gunshot rings in the air. Simon stands next to him, both palms against the wait of his pistol, and he shoots at the head of the creature until it completely stops moving.


The air holds bated between all three of them until the moment Simon stops shooting. To which, through a shaky little laugh, David says, “You think you got it?”


“I’d fuckin’ hope seven bullets is enough,” Simon mutters flatly. A free leg kicks at the monster, rolling it over. Its eyes are closed. Good as gone.


Behind them, Sophie’s violently shaking, gripping onto the door frame for dear life. “Oh my god.”


“That’s about the fifth time I’ve almost died.” David snickers. Nothing’s funny. That was fucking terrifying. All it took was another few seconds and that thing would’ve bit him, and he’d become as malformed and disgusting as the rest of them. The sight of a human-turned nasty carcass will haunt him forever.


Sophie, too, who looks up at him with wide eyes. It’s like he can already see the vision of the initial collision against the axe flashing across her vision, burned into her retinas. “You saved my life. Thank- thank you.”


David shrugs. “‘s fine. Least I could do, I’d think.” And you’re my friend, he doesn’t say, because he’d be embarrassed if Sophie admitted she didn’t feel the same. His eyes fall to the decorative surroundings of the room, away from the both of them, whose presence started to feel tense among one another again. He clears his throat to scatter the comings of silent exploration. “Might as well look around, then. Christ.”


Past the entrance hallway, the apartment was absolutely desecrated. Papers scattered among the floors, spattered in almost paint-like amounts of blood. Now the smell of metal was pungent, clearer among anything else. It sinks into his skin and body and makes him feel gross. What was once a dingy, low-cost apartment meant for one morphed into a slaughterhouse for one lonely victim. Pots and plates sit in the kitchen sink, untouched for what looks to be weeks. Opening into the living room, the various papers stuck by magnet onto the fridge stared at an inactive box television whose tapes sat clustered on the coffee table with one lone resting chair.


To Simon’s right, a closed door leaked blood beneath the crack-space before the floor. Still by now—but nevertheless a puddle that only hints at what could be inside. Simon takes a step into the heart of the apartment, phone idle in hand with the same resting text message. “It doesn’t look like anyone made it,” says Simon.


Sophie softly closes the door shut behind them and keeps her hand on the doorknob, as if anything were bound to corroborate the desires of the last creature and settle their fates. “What about in that room?” She points to the door next to Simon. He takes a step back to look at it, hood blocking David from getting a flicker of what must have been an expression of disgust.


David cringes. “Might be another freak in there, honestly.”


“Might as well look?” She tests, another offer bound from her initiative. Another shot at her nearly getting tackled down by the grotesque. He’s much less excited to agree than last time—like his willingness could drop any lower— but she doesn’t need to ask permission.


Simon must’ve been thinking the same thing, because he holds his gun out for her to take. “Take this, then, I don’t want anything to come for you.”


Hesitation contorts her face into the briefest frown, and disappears once she concedes. She takes the gun from his hands, nodding. “Thank you, Simon.” She smiles. He can’t see it, but he knows Simon’s smiling back at her. She holds the weight of the gun in one hand, keeping it ready at her side as, slowly, she opens the door again.


This time, nothing runs at her. To David’s sighing relief. As the door creaks open, though, the smell of rot pushes its way into the main living room, bubbling a gag into his throat that he chokes down in hard swallows and biting against the back of his teeth. A hand ghosts over his mouth and he draws to get a look at what Sophie and Simon see.


Simon’s voice quiets. “Did he do this to himself?”


She takes a step back, and, closing her eyes in grievance of a man she never met, accepts defeat in her cause and exits into the living room. David replaces her spot in the bathroom, joining Simon’s side. Against the opposite wall of the bathroom to the entrance lies a bathtub, filled to the point of overflowing with water thickened by blood. The water sits hugging a corpse laying within the tub, water dragging the life from its body. On a first glance, it’s not full rigor–-he hasn’t been here for a while. He doesn’t point this out. Instead, he just hushes the barest “Jesus,” and hopes that’s enough to be said.


There must have been little water dragging out the wounds in the first place, because the substance beneath their feet and staining the white-pristine bathtub and encompassing an unknown corpse looked just as thick as blood. A warmth emits from the crime scene, accumulating sweat on his forehead and back of his neck. They just missed death’s ceremony. No signs of a chance he would have survived. No signs he wanted to survive at all.


After what feels like a lifetime a silence, Simon speaks. “There’s a key in the tub.” He takes a few, half-steps toward the bathtub, eyes observing for signs of danger.


There he goes. God. “Oh, dude, no. Don’t go get that, that shit’s gotta be disgusting–Simon. Simon, man, I swear to– okay.” David’s damn near speaking to himself in his nauseated turn of phrase as Simon kneels down, and puts his bare hand in the bathtub to dig for the key. He doesn’t rummage for long, almost immediately finding the key floating to the surface and plucking it out of red depths. “You’re insane. The water pipes don’t even work anymore, and I’m not wasting a water bottle on your stupid ass.”


“Do you wanna get out of here?” Simon turns back with a skeptical look, like this was something normal to do.


“If I didn’t, I would have pulled the trigger on myself so I didn’t have to see that.”


Simon scoffs, wipes the blood on his jeans and stuffs it in his hoodie pocket. “You’re being dramatic.” Despite his dramatized objections, David concedes, gesturing out to the door to motion for Simon to make his way on out. Without much hesitation, Simon moves past him and into the living room, sparking up conversation with Sophie faintly heard even from the short distance. He’s not exactly listening, to be fair.


Something about the grotesqueness prompts him to stay a little longer, eyes staring. The unnerved, weird sensation of it all is more than familiar, warm-coursing anxiety prickling as sweat out of his skin beneath a thick-cloth hoodie. His eyes meet closed, resting ones, most features doused in blood. He’s barely able to make out the shape of anything through the trickling, staining maroon. Brown hair, ratty and unkempt, with some semblance of facial hair along the chin and falling just short of sideburns. A black hoodie, striped at the sleeve, one arm fully in view as it hangs out of the bathtub, once grasped onto by the now dead soul.


It’s a funny. He could swear that the stranger almost looks like him.


The end of his disjointed train of thoughts is way more than dis-satisfactory for all his staring, and thus he snaps himself back to life. His exhales a breath of warm, unwelcoming air, turning around and holding onto the edge of the door as he exits. Has to be his imagination. He has a longstanding track record of staring blankly at what others call empty space–anything could be fake nowadays. He doesn’t take his chances anymore.


The door clicks shut, and the scene breaks into something more serene in the living room. Quiet, untouched now that the creature was gone, and home to Sophie clutching papers to her chest and moving about the room. David walks in just in time to hear the last of whatever she’s saying, “--There has to be some reason why this was left here. I don’t understand.”


“I don’t understand a lot of things, either, to be fair.” Simon replies softly, hands reaching to secure his hood prior to turning back and seeing David. “Hey. Sophie found some journals.”


“Cool. What gives?”


She steps out of the open kitchen and brings her attention to him, approaching forward with the journals. “Look. They look like they’re written by the same person, but it’s detailing killing someone. And they have an order–the dates.”


“Guy that died could’ve just been a murderer. Kind of their thing, right? Killing people?” There’s his solace. It’s not him. Even so, the words feel rotten in his mouth.


“I don’t know. It just doesn’t make sense. They were laid out in a certain order and I just thought that. If a monster like that was already in here and destroyed everything, why were these left out?”


David sighs. Unfortunately, it’s a good idea to look into it. He’s not looking forward to mulling over whatever crime scene unfolded over the past few hours, especially since it’s one of thousands rotting about in their homes, but he’s starting to get desperate for an answer that doesn’t end in I think. I hope. I hope this is right. I think we’re going to be okay. “Yeah, alright. Lay ‘em out.”


And so, she does. She kneels to the ground and begins to set papers in order, allowing Simon to sit next to her and insist on helping. They murmur between each other. Meanwhile, his eyes wander. The creature must have gotten through the window, because it’s open, gusting in the cold winds of Stockholm despite the curtain’s best attempts to let the nighttime out. The sun hasn’t risen in so long David wouldn’t even know how long it’s been since he last slept if not for Simon’s calendar on his phone softly pushing them along. He wonders when human became creature. If there was ever a difference to begin with. If the room was always smeared in blood like a mixed-media painting, wallpaper covered in colors he’s grown sick of, an altar of wasted human life. He wonders what the room once looked like.


And thinks about that a little too hard, because before he knows it Sophie’s standing up and backing away slowly to eye the bigger picture. “Okay. Some of these are from the hallway. They just led in here, but. I can’t find the connection between them at all.”


In order, the stained, lined sheets of paper looked damn near scrabbled in words he could barely make out. David kneels down to get a btter look, squinting, reading the journals from left to right.



February 12th, 2005. This one got away from me this time. The rush is exhilarating–frightening, but exhilarating. I must move apartments for the night to stop them from catching me. I must go find him. 59 to the north the subway lies, a train waiting for my departure, and I am eager to finish what I’ve started.


February 29th, 2005. The winds from the north sink into my skin and claim victim. I have done it, but at what cost? Though exciting in the moment, I now live with the haunting of this man’s life, his peers, his foes and his children. His ghosts trails after me like the droppings of rotting, sickly fruit. Will I survive the next 20 days?


March 3rd, 2005. Blood lies in the carvings of this journal, forever immortalized by my gentle hands. They are stained and I am not afraid. I am God’s martyr sent to Earth to serve the jury’s executioner, and I am proud. 23 minutes to the north a siren sounds, and the storm trailing in denounces my efforts and drags me to the avenue. My final resting place.


March 24th, 2005. They are after me. I can see their bright flashing lights, blinding my exposed eyes. Red and blue. Blue, purple, red… it’s mad. They are born to an institution poisoned by mankind’s greater intentions. They want to cage me for what I’ve done. Those men deserved it. They reaped the nature sewn deep into their heart. 18 to the east they lie, beneath the carcass of a squirrel. The men will never know.


June 16th, 2005. My heart bleeds the empathy once birthing remorse into the womb of the stomach and remains with nothing. I have been unsexed of my lesser self and born into something new. God has welcomed my title of the judge and put the rope of the guillotine in my hands, and it is his jurisdiction whether I let go or not… one, 2 seconds…wind blowing east…


July 1st, 2005. A ripped journal with pieces stuck together in Sophie’s attempt to make sense of something. Will be tried… they will never find me here. On the 13th avenue to the east… forever sealed.



Beside him, Simon fakes a gag. “What the hell?”


David turns to Sophie. He’s about the least bothered by what he’s read. Call him crazy for expecting a little bit more. “That’s it?”


She just shrugs back at him, face unsure. “That’s all I could find. The only thing I see is that they all say a direction–but it’s not really like it leads anywhere. It’s just random numbers and directions.”


He begins to consider that they’re doing this for nothing. There’s no methodical pattern to the way they’re placed, just numbers and directions in no particular order. He’s almost ready to decide that these really were just ramblings of a lunatic, panicked by time and directions and finding his pathway, unsure of how to communicate it. Even if Sophie wanted this to be a clear answer, he’s not seeing it. If it were exact directions, he imagines there must have been an east and west to it, pinpointed. Casual directions would’ve had a “turn left on this street” type of way to them, a message to nobody in a private diary. Shit, if the guy was trying to send a message, some proper directions from the apartment would’ve been nice. Some coordinates at least, to make it easier to—


Coordinates. Without thinking of explaining, he holds out his palm. “Simon, gimme your phone.”


Simon draws up a skeptical look, but hands it over. “Okay?”


David fumbles with the controls of the phone. With a device as old as this, he’s surprised it hasn’t shattered to pieces at this point; it takes much longer than he’d like to find the search directory. His eyes flit between the journals and Simon’s phone. 59 north. 20 north. 23 north. 18 east. 2 east. 13 east. It doesn’t sound like the coordinates to a place, but it’s better to check, or at least get a general direction they could—


The page loads. The maps location to Saxxon Avenue, Stockholm sits comfortably on the screen.


He turns the phone for Simon to get a look at it. Sophie takes a few small steps over to peek at it just the same. Directly in the center of an intersection the coordinates lie, a fair enough walk from their location. “Guy left coordinates for us.”


Simon’s eyes flit up to him like he’s been shot. “That’s where the Black Day happened.”


The Black Day. Shit. “Is it?”


That’s one of their more unspoken topics. Sometimes Simon would tell him about how he visited the location again over the phone, mumbling and exhausted, unsatisfied by the nothing he found. Like he was waiting for something to change. For time to go back and not let him make the same selfless mistake he committed to the first time. Now that topics back, and Simon’s wildly uncomfortable, shoulders raised and arms crossing in on each other. “Yeah.” He says, solitary, turning away.


“The Black Day?” repeats Sophie, confusion written in her voice.


His eyes stay on the ground, kicking at the debris scattered about the man’s home. “Where I got hit. The place where my accident was. I just- remember it because I’ve been there a few times, and.” David wants to jump in. He doesn’t. It’s something he doesn’t get to speak on. “I haven’t been there in a while, but. Still.”


“You gonna be alright?” He asks the minute Simon’s done talking, despite trying to cover up the urgency.


He doesn’t look up. “Yeah, I’m gonna be fine, dumhuvud . I can handle an intersection.”


David hopes he’s telling the truth. He lets himself smile and plays the game of the blissfully ignorant for Simon’s enjoyment. “I don’t wanna hear lip from you, okay. I’ll throw you out the window.”


“You couldn’t even pick me up if you tried.”


“Watch me.” David sneers. Simon snatches his phone back.


His eyes drift and catch Sophie, who ghosts between the conversation and her own thoughts, eyes scanning over the journals. She takes small, silent steps away from them and sits down next to the papers. Her hands move carefully to avoid glass and collect each scrap. David watches absentmindedly, reading the words fluttering around each point of location again. The last destination of a damned man, trailing towards Saxxon Avenue of all places. They’d likely just find the skeleton in the closet in the form of a bastard man lying dead at the epicenter, a testament to his rambling promises. He’s not sure if it’s even worth wasting their energy. But there’s a reason they found this location among any, right? There’s little chance the world happened to be working against Simon’s favor by way of coincidence.


Especially since it was the hell Simon created for himself. “Christ, Simon, you dumbass.”


Phone cradled in both palms, he looks up again. “Can I fucking help you?”


He elbows Simon in the ribs. “Why didn’t you tell us where the Black Day place was earlier?”


“I don’t know, because it didn’t fucking come up? Because I wasn’t trying to think about it?” Simon grits through his teeth, elbowing him back.


David continues on, without making a taunting remark, even if his best wishes wanted to. “If this is based on your book, wouldn’t the human flower—start of the apocalypse or whatever—be at the spot that your book started?”


And they do. Simon blinks. “Right.”


Sophie laughs a little bit from where she’s sitting, collecting the papers. “I thought you guys had already realized that, sorry.”


This time, David and Simon both look lost. “What?” They say in unison, eyes on her.


“When you- when Simon told me about the Black Day thing. I just kind of thought it was obvious, I would’ve told you a little sooner if I didn’t know neither of you knew that.” She brings herself to her feet and moves to tug at the backpack across David’s shoulder, gently setting the scraps inside and zipping it mostly shut. Only the axe pokes out of the bag’s confines, everything else inside. Mostly all of Sophie’s things. David didn’t need much. Better wording: didn’t want much.


Well, he could’ve done with the memo Sophie must’ve been keeping in her back pocket, but hell, looks like he didn’t need it. “I mean, shit, alright. Wayfinder here knows what we’re doing.”


She snorts. “Not really. If anything, both of you have done more than I have.”


“You have, come on.” David reassures lightly, mentally reminding himself not to lay it too deep. As much as he’s starting to care about Sophie’s wellbeing, the last thing he needs is to start an impromptu therapy session when they all look like they’re about to be sick from anxiety. He can still feel the bile creeping on him from the decay swallowing the room whole.


He’d rather get the hell out of here, so, he gestures for Sophie to lead them. “Faster we get there, the faster we can find a way out.”


He watches the skepticism run through Sophie’s thoughts, staying put out of hesitation, then inhaling in on herself and soothing whatever’s causing her feet to lock in place. She takes the lead. Simon stays close to David, eyes glued to the phone.


Sophie takes a step back as the door creaks open, opened by her hand. She peeks outside, makes a sound of disgust and reels back. “There’s vines on the exit door.”


“Goddamnit.” David huffs, “Hold on, I wanna see.” She steps out into the main hallway and allows both of them to follow suit, making haste of the sight at the end. At the staircase leading down to the main entrance of the complex, vines unfurl from beneath the door’s crack, crawling onto the walls and the double-doors and engulfing everything it slowly reaches. They move at slow pace, sluggish, but it’s taken half of the damn town. He feels lucky they’ve made it this far without them blocking their way. Now they’re at an impass. Vines block the exit to the main entrance and, upon shaking the handle, the stairs to upper levels are locked. Must have been locked off by whatever bastard thought escaping to higher floors was a good idea.


“Saxxon Avenue isn’t far from here,” Simon reports, eyes darting between the vines and his phone. “As long as we, um. Find a way out, then we can make it out there pretty fast.”


“There’s probably a fire exit at another level,” David offers, hoping he’s not talking out of his ass. “Might also be blocked, but it’s worth a shot. I don’t even know if you can cut those things down, and I’m not checkin’.”


Simon turns back, looking through the opened door to the opposite end of the apartment. The curtains to the window blow faintly. “I could use the porches to climb up to the next floor and unlock it from the other side. It would… take a minute, if you’re willing to wait.”


“I mean, I guess, but you’re not the one going.” David insists. “You’re the only one here that shouldn’t do something like that, actually. I’m gonna need you to use your brain.”


“I’ll be fine,” is Simon’s only defense, already stuffing his phone in his pocket.


“The fuck you will.”


“David.” Simon snaps, ruder than David assumes he intended, eyes squinting at him. “Let me do this.”


It’s a plead. He’s more than familiar.


Simon’s been stubborn with him more than once, but something in him says that he needs this, even if it puts him at risk. Sometimes he just needed to be in danger to feel alive—to feel needed. Universal feeling. He can’t say he doesn’t feel the same. Danger’s a thing that never leaves a well-lived life alone. “Alright,” He drops his backpack onto the floor, back hitting the wall. “We’ll stay here. Do what you gotta do.”


Almost surprised by his letting go, Simon opens his mouth to say something, but eventually fills the emptiness in his throat with, “I will.” and makes his way back into the apartment. Thus he disappears out of their view, footsteps fading away as he steps onto the porch and makes his way to the higher floor. The sound of distress never comes. He’s alright.


Relaxation wrings out his body into a mess aware of every piece of clothing clung to the skin, every bead of sweat, every worry pushed off back into the mind. Sophie’s been sitting herself on the ground since the moment their conversation started, and pulls their mutual backpack away from David to dig into it.


She’s got a sense of self to her that can’t be read.


Simon’s an open book. It doesn’t take much to know what’s going on with him when his emotions are painted on his face in excruciating detail. Any denial of his own vulnerability just becomes a blabbering excuse pushing back the inevitability of the eventual confession, and it’s only to Simon’s relief that David chooses to ignore the physical cries for help every time. Sophie’s not like that. She keeps the signals to herself and wields a flare in the pocket when she decides she can’t bear it anymore.


Must have been why they got along for a while, up until the fallout. Speaking of which–that. That’s on his mind. He’s aware of what happened, but more-so became a bystander, listening to only Simon’s frustrated side of the incident. And now that they’re here, they’re forced to know one another, whether Sophie likes it or not. He’s gotten the idea, vaguely, that she doesn’t. David’s going to have to find out her side one day if they’re ever going to try to work together. Their cooperation with one another currently felt so forced it was hard to watch. She’s here for survival, for damn sure. None of them have to get along to survive.


But, selfishly, he’d be lying if he said that the cold of the disconnect was comfortable living with. He’d rather die content or die going out in a bang, and with the other two around he’s had to rule out the latter. Maybe, though, Sophie didn’t feel the same. Maybe she’d rather be alone. She hugs her knees and lingers behind the conversation and David wonders if that’s ever good enough for her.


Unfortunately, they’ve got time to kill, and David’s bored. She’ll just have to suffer with David trying to create suitable company between them for a little while.


“I wish we had some nausea meds.” Sophie comments faintly, like a hum to herself. “They’d be really helpful right about now.”


“Don’t have that, but I have a couple cigarettes if you want those.” He’s joking.


Until her face lights up. “Can I have one?”


“That’s what they’re there for.” David muses, watching as she rummages through the contents until she feels along the edge of a cigarette pack and pulls it out. “I didn’t know you smoked, honestly.”


Sophie takes out the lighter from one of the side pockets it poked out of and opens the pack. She doesn’t look at him. “Where did you think Simon got it from?”


“He got it from you? ” David retorts back, voice ridden in disbelief. He always just thought it was a habit he picked up out of necessity. Something to do with himself in the subway or to kill unwanted, meandering thought.


She laughs. “Yeah! He used to borrow cigarettes from me in highschool ‘cause his mom didn’t want him to have any.”


“Holy shit, he’s never living that down.”


She brings the lighter to the end of the cigarette and flicks it to life in two tries. “Don’t tell him I told you that.” The faintest smell of smoke enters the room, welcomed in his lungs. Sophie takes a drag. It’s enough for him to want one, so he holds his hand out and gestures for her to hand over the pack and the lighter. She does.


“No promises.” He lights the end of his cigarette. She exhales, smoke nothing in the long hallway. The vines must’ve moved by now, tendrils slowly reaching upon the ceiling but for now falling just short. David can’t notice.


Silence again. David takes this as an opportunity. “Soooo.” Sophie looks up, waiting for him to finish the huff of his drag. He speaks through the smoke, “Are you and Simon alright now?”


She falters. “I don’t know. I was waiting for him to tell me if he was but he’s not saying anything.”


“Probably feels awkward about it.” David drags from his cigarette.


She pauses to do the same. “I guess. I mean, he’s apologized to me about it before it was just… over the phone, and we hadn’t really talked in person since.” Sophie looks up. “I’m guessing he told you about it?”


“Little bit.”


“I figured,” She exhales. “I’m sorry you had to be caught up in that.”


“I’m not ‘caught up in it’, you’re fine. You’re allowed to be mad about it, anyways, who cares if I’m caught up in that shit.”


Sophie’s cigarette stays between two fingers as her shoulders relax, somber but calm. Decidedly, David slumps down to meet her level, sitting against the opposite wall of the hallway. The backpack sits between them, waiting for another cigarette to be pulled if they needed it. Knowing the topic, Sophie might. “It doesn’t feel like it.”


“Yeah?”


“Yeah.” She inhales sharply, “He’s just so tortured about everything, I feel bad. I didn’t know what else to do but just leave him there. And then that accident happened, and I just.”


David puffs out the offerings of his cigarette. “Just because he’s got a lot goin’ on doesn’t mean he didn’t break your boundaries. You said no, he pushed, you walked away. What else were you supposed to do?”


“I don’t know,” She fesses. “I want to be friends with him again, I really do.”


“So why aren’t you?” David lets the question sit while she smokes. He’s not a good therapist, he’s a damn bad one at that, but this was something that had to be done. The tension flexes around his neck and makes it harder to breathe, and it’s not even his issue. He can’t imagine how they feel.


She averts eye contact now. “I don’t think he’s going to change. But I need him to. Just a little.”


Simon’s told him about this. Their friendship’s a codependent, radioactive little thing, a barrel full of waste waiting to overflow and spill over. Born from the angry remains of being ridiculed and bullied out of being a person, they held hands and claimed solace within one another. Vented. Shared silent space. Cried. The only safe space in the world was with another person just as tortured as they were.


And so when Sophie no longer felt the need to cower from the rest of the world, the friendship turned strained and stagnant, a rope waiting to break. Simon told him through bitter mumbles that it’s like Sophie’s gone because she doesn’t need him anymore.


So. “Can I say something that’s probably gonna piss you off?”


She snickers a little. “Yeah, okay, sure.”


“I think you both have to change.” David waits for a response, but doesn’t get one. Which pushes him to explain: “Yeah, Simon’s gotta change how he reacts to some of his issues– he can’t treat you like that just ‘cause he thinks you’re going to leave. But I also think that there’s ways you could work with him to change your friendship, y’know? He’s still depending on you because he never knew he was supposed to stop.”


She’s actually listening. “...I didn’t think of it like that.”


“I don’t think it’s your fault, though.” David shrugs. “Definitely his. But I don’t think he’s a bad person for his mistakes or a good person just because he’s mentally ill. You feel me?”


Sophie nods, dragging from her cigarette. “Mhm.”


He hasn’t taken a drag in a minute, now focused on the conversation. “Neither of you can change that you’ve got issues, but you can work around ‘em. Find something in the middle. But you gotta talk about it. And if he doesn’t want to meet you in the middle or he doesn’t do what you two agreed on—then you stop being friends.”


“That’s… really good advice, actually.” She smiles fondly. “Where’d you learn that?”


“I meet new people in bars, I know way too much shit about cutting off weirdos. Simon’s not one of ‘em, surprisingly.” David doesn’t have to wait for a laugh. He earns it immediately.


The conversation softens. He can’t really tell, but he hopes Sophie’s taken it to heart, with her looking down in thought and everything. It’s a sign that she’s taking it in. “Should I wait for him to talk to me? I don’t want him to do that again.”


“If you want him to, I can try to light a fire under his ass to go talk.”


“Would you really?”


“‘Course.”


A beat follows. David finally drags from the smoldering cigarette and Sophie stands up to burn out hers beneath her shoe, throwing it down the hallway to discard it. After a moment of resting her hands on the black bag, she pulls back, leaning against the wall instead. A silent refusal of another. “Thanks, David. That really—it really does mean a lot to me. I don’t really know how to show that, but, like-”


“I get it.” David holds a hand up to rest her explanation. “You’re alright. We’re friends, right?”


It’s a genuine ask, so he’s content when he gets an answer that at least sounds genuine. “Yeah,” She says. “Yeah, we’re friends. And hopefully Simon and I can be, too. That’d be nice.”


“Please,” David adds jokingly. “I can’t take it anymore, you’re both so fucking quiet with each other all the time, Jesus Christ.”


“We’ll figure it out.” Sophie assures him through a soft laugh. A habit of hers, laughing through everything. Now he’s picking up on the little things like that.


They’re friends. The sound of it brings to him the comfort of the only straight answer he’s gotten from her since they met that felt like it really mattered. Small, but good enough for him; he’s got one more friend he’s traveling with and a means to an end on tension that’s tearing his current friend up alive. With it comes one trembling step closer to escape. Dully, he knows even after escaping there will always come a reunion with death, something similar to the near-death experiences he faces daily now, but somehow the thought of knowing there’s some guaranteed company when it comes quells the malicious corners of his head.


The metal double-doors to the higher floor clicks, and both of their heads turn. Within a moment, Simon’s in view once again, pushing the door open with a grunt and the effort of both arms. Had it been that long already? He looks relieved, even through the shades of crimson covering his body. Things have fell to create a safer path, one Simon’s carved, mostly out of guilt. It’s a path nonetheless. “Come on,” Simon ushers, leaning against the door for a momentary break.


“Took you long enough,” taunts David, rising to his feet and turning to offer a hand to Sophie.


She grasps onto their bag and takes his offer by the wrist, hoisting herself up. The bag’s slung across her shoulder, a new type of familiarity in the eyes with him that feels more open than most things from her book she’s given him. Sophie’s hand comes back to her side. “Do you think we can find a good place to stay for the night?” She asks, turning to both of them.


Simon nods. “As long as we, um. Hurry, I think we can.”


“Then let’s go.” David takes the first few steps just to get past Simon, letting both of them follow. Up the stairs and to the next hallway will hopefully be the light at the end of the tunnel, somewhere far. But they’re not wandering aimlessly anymore, and that’s a start. That’s more than a start. The faintest chance finally presents to him that he’s going to be okay. (He’s starting to think this whole having-life-goals thing is much more fulfilling than just walking into death with an open embrace. Pretty insane for him, of all people, isn’t it?)

Chapter Text

Voices climb into ears, grating against the fluorescent hum of hospice-induced silence. They’re talking about him.


Frigid hands hesitate at his side a few feet before the door, steps slowing to a complete stop, silent and complacent to eavesdropping. He picks up the sound of conversation emanating, quiet, from the opposite side of double doors. Simon hears his name. He hears laughter, pieces picked up of the ghost of a conversation that blooms the worst case scenario in his mind like a thick illness. They hated him, he decides, or he did something wrong. In the past few nights he did something to piss off David just as bad and they’re discussing it the moment he’s turned his back.


Or he’s insane, and it’s another product of an unreliable brain and he can’t think of any other situation besides the worst.


This hurts. It’s hurt since he woke up, and he can’t blame anyone else for the ache, even if he wanted to. Isolation swallowed him into a thick, rain-heavy cloud, consuming all reckless abandoning and bleeding into reality. Still depending on you, he hears David say, and a nasty wave of sweat surfaces on his skin.


Simon shouldn’t trust inhibition formed solely by idiotic assumption, and accompanied by a unfortunate track record of paranoid shutting his mouth always proved the best option. If they hate him, then following his death they’ll at least have everything he brought; a means of survival. They’d make it home. If they don’t, he’ll never know. He doesn’t know much of anything anymore. Words from his therapist brew beneath the guise of help and branch into thoughts rooting at the walls of the skull.


He’s standing on two, dully aching feet and breathing. If Simon flinches, the ground beneath distorts into thick crimson and a woman overhead hangs from the ceiling, strained by rope, groaning and wailing and clawing at throat restraints. Then the room’s sterile again, just barely stained in the crimson consequences of his blistering desire for self-defense. The reminder of his lack of choice in pushing forward pesters, and gloved hands settle on the metal push-handle of double doors, hoisting it open with the strength scoured after exhaustion’s fair share of mental scraps. Escape was still an option if he was delusional enough to believe it.


Taking his hands into Sophie’s, he’s sure he already is.

He collapses somewhere in the market district tucking away the corners of drug trade in Stockholm and, against his will, he’s hoisted over David’s arm as support. Together they find shelter. Shelter ’s a kind word, really, gutted remains of what must have once been a crack-house, a singular-room building stuffed behind a bar and pharmacy sandwiched into a sub-district of addiction. Several floors follow up creaking stairs, with the same general layout upon each level: a mattress stained of rotting in bed and drawers near glued shut with its lack of use over the years. Carpets with unintelligible burns. Food stains messily hidden under the rug. Much less than shelter, let alone a home.


The fault of being forced to stop here falls into his lap. Simon chews the inside of his lip and fought back any climbing desire to succumb to legs screaming at him to rest for just a few hours. Running off of the hopeful future of a train ride out of the city and nothing else, David and Sophie shared only occasional conversation betwixt each other and then silence. The night drags on. Sunrise never approaches. He almost wonders if that’s his fault, too, another figment of a pessimistic mind.


“Looks like my apartment,” David snickers.


Simon gestures to the conveniently-emptied Ziploc bags perched on top of the dresser. “That’s not a good thing.”


“I wasn’t saying it was, who do I look like. Wow, this is a five star vacation. I wish I’d brought anything at all, so I could swim in the free pool.”


“Okay, shit, I’m sorry we have to stop here. We could’ve kept going, you chose to stop.”


“Dude, we’re not going to keep on going when you look like you’re getting stabbed every time you walk. That’s common fucking sense, I don’t care about that right now.”


Arms cross in on each other, body unsettled by a thin, worn mattress. Away from their conversation, Sophie idly walks around the room, looking into the drawers with shy peaks before moving on to the next sight. If she’s looking for anything useful, Simon’s sure she won’t find it. “I’ll be fine. I don’t need that, I told you this.”


David, moving to sit down next to Simon and lean against the wall beside him, grins. “Okay, smartass, get yourself up then. If you can do that you can leave, right?”


“I need you to die by firing squad.”


“I feel like,” Sophie interrupts, faintly. “We’re making a bad decision. Going after it.”


The weight of reckless action settles thick in the room once more, bearing its taste like the poison-chlorine presence of mold in the air. He can feel the waves of David’s tired disbelief, “I feel like you don’t really get that we don’t have any other choice.”


“Like there’s no other way out than the train station?” She’s pacing. Simon bites his tongue and stays silent. “Nothing? Nothing else? Have we even tried yet?”


“Planes aren’t flying. Can’t ask the corpses for directions. No way out.” David reiterates, stubborn. “Sophie, we’re not going to get you hurt. Last thing we want is to lose someone, ‘cause then we’re all dead. Worst case scenario we realize we’re fucked, back the hell out ‘n come back to it later when we know more of what we’re doing.”


Sophie pivots on the ball of her foot, turns, and burns the patterns of carpet further into her memory. “That’s our plan? Surely someone else tried to kill it and just couldn’t? What if we die before we have the chance to say anything? I don’t even think guns work against it.”


David shrugs. “I’d just behead it, then. That’s what the axe is for.”


“Would you get close enough?”


“If we had no other way to kill it.”


“If? Everything’s just an if now? What if we become one of them? Can you believe how much that’d hurt?” Distress trickles in.


Each time silence enters the room, it’s thicker in his throat than before. Rot in the air circles him like buzzards to a carcass–lacking care and attention to dirt-streaked clothes. “Soph,” Simon offers as a means for comfort, proving his existence in the conversation. The never-ending battle to stay tethered to the moment continues.


She’s not having it. “I don’t know,” decides she, inhaling sharp. “I’m not sure. I—I need a minute. I just need a minute, and then I’ll come back. I’ll yell if I need anything.” Near the trail end of her sentence she’s making her way up the stairs and into the next room, door creaking open behind her and staying there. David and Simon’s eyes follow as she disappears out of view.


“I don’t think you should…” David’s voice trails off at the sight of her making her way up the stairs, one hand rubbing against her face, pushing open the door into the next apartment. The door creaks open and stays there, beating against the wall once, and then silence once more.


An overwhelming urge to move bristles against his body.


David must’ve been on a similar train of thought. “Go talk to her, man.”


Simon’s eyebrows scrunch. “What? No. She’s upset. I can’t help her.”


“I thought you said you’d do anything for her.”


“That was before the apocalypse, David. What am I supposed to say now? Sorry for fucking dragging you into this? Sorry for making everything worse again?”


David nudges him, jabbing him in the shoulder, earning a scoff in return. “Just keep her company or something, fucks’ sake, Simon. Go. Better, apologize, since you’ve been waiting more than a year for that.” Begrudgingly, Simon brings himself to his feet, legs wobbling under new weight. “Are you not gonna make it up there?”


“No.” Simon snips. “I just don’t know what to say.”


David straightens his back against peeling, thin drywall, arms folding in on each other. “Go for it. Always better unplanned.” As of late, it’s been like this. David’s looking up at him and yet Simon feels beneath him, in a way, beneath his cradling hands and callous fingertips moving slower for cradling, gentle comfort. He’s forced to slow down. Forced to act like he cares infinitely more about Simon than he does, just out of sheer obligation to keep Simon on the edge of the bridge and never over.


“...Alright. Whatever. If this goes wrong I’m blaming you. I told you so.” He scorns. Satisfied, David hums in response. Thus, Simon trudges his way up the stairs behind Sophie’s trail and into the next apartment, refusing to catch his mutual’s gaze on the way up.


He pushes the creaked door the rest of the way open and pays little mind to the similar image encased within a drug house’s walls. Half-open drawers and littered coffee tables trap in the memories of bright, bubbly children reduced to rambling addicts. Simon tries not to catch the gazes of wandering children looking for home at this hour, unaware their families lie in rot upon various locations of the city. In one room the bed’s made with shaky hands and in another is appeared as though it was just in use the other day, two pipes still on the top of the wooden drawer pressed to the wall. Secrets lie within the furniture. Simon clutches onto the handrails and pushes past chronic ache.


Sophie went to the rooftop. He’s attributed that knowledge to the repeated habit of hers; overwhelmed with bristling emotions too volatile to be depression and too scared to be anger, she slips her sneakers on and leaves the house. Calls Simon on some rooftop downtown detailing where she is, just in case someone wandering the street takes her hold. The sound of paranoid exhales through the phone keeps his initiative.


In all fairness, he’s learned to do the same a few years prior. Back when he could walk, anyways. David used to complain that he never answers his texts, running off into the city and refusing to crawl back until the dogs of his longtime worries began to settle to their low tides. If he had the chance, he’d tell himself to get in a good habit of it. Sophie learned not to scare him–she was much smarter. Simon almost wished, during those years, more people were scared for him.


Hands press against the double-doors opening to the rooftop. The brisk air of the night swishes against his face in insistent gusts, pulling him out onto the concrete expanse. “Sophie?” His eyes gaze about the empty makings of the roof until they rest on her.


Sophie sits at the ledge, palms flat against gritty concrete. Legs dangle off, kicking slightly, eyes occupied in an ongoing train of thought. Luckily, she looks more at peace, even despite her dangerous distance from the end of the roof. Another inch and she’d be plummeting to the bottom. Momentarily, his body freezes in a show of anxiety.


She is the midnight chime of Stockholm. She is the soft brown colors lining dead trees and autumn leaves touching snow grounds and reviving the dull hues of fall. Diluted solution of a girl sinks into the rot of his bloodstream, purifying something disgusting and breathing new life. Maybe that’s it, the festering impression in his veins, that convinces him to continue holding on as tight as he has been.


Her head turns, slowly, eyes rested in a soft glance. Delayed to register. “Simon?”


He winces. “Why’d you go all the way up here?” Empty conversation. Simon already knows why.


She turns her head back, eyes to the city. He can’t see the buildings or the mark of the horizon in night skies. He can only see her. “Just wanted to get a look at the view,” Sophie admits at length. Then, decidedly, scoots over to gesture for Simon to sit, patting down. “Are you staying?”


“...Yeah.” replaces a discarded if you’ll let me, because by now he’s sure she’d be dead honest if she wanted him to leave. So, Simon breaks out of the freezing in his limbs and makes a beeline to where she offered for him to sit.


The trail doesn’t last long, though, as just before he brings himself to sit hesitation reaches up the ankles and worms into his brain as a nauseous expectation of another worst case scenario. He slows to a halt just behind her, hands fiddling with his gloves at his sides. “Do you want us to do this without you? You can. Stay here, I guess?”


“I can’t do that,” She rebuttals in soft tunes. Her shoulders slump, overcome with bittersweet anxiety. Like a moldy pomegranate never taken care of. Hands that fear the stains will never dig within. “I can’t let you do that.”


“But you don’t want to go.”


“But I have to.” Sophie’s hands meet one another in her lap. “And that’s okay. I think. You and David need help.”


“Nn-ah, I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like anything’s okay.” It felt wrong to say, in some sense. Bitter about gut-twisting events all trailing up to this and the selfish instinct to latch onto any sympathy Sophie lad left for him, hook, line and sinker.


Whether he meant to or not, it works. “Simon.” She turns back, barely, again. He feels his shoulders hunch. Mentally, he swears to kill David, kill the trains of thought that all crashed at once, a violent collision that salvaged nothing in its fiery wake.


“I’m not wrong. It hasn’t been.” Simon’s voice dips into a mutter. “You’re basically fucking stuck with me.”


Sophie’s face creases. “...I don’t. I don’t know what to say.”


“I’m sorry. I just mean that I—I don’t want you to think you’re stuck here, ‘cause you’re not.”


Her face’s half visible, and yet the worry rolls off her in waves. Dully, he almost thinks it’s for herself just as much as him. “Even if I was stuck here, I’m fine with it. It’s just about survival now, we haven’t had time to talk about it.”


A staggering step back. “It’s not okay that I haven’t said anything, though. You’re ffucking- clearly uncomfortable. It’s not–all this, all of this is my fault. You shouldn’t have been with me at all, ever, and then you might’ve been saved and all of this would’ve–” She’s standing up. “--been at least better for you. It’s been this long and I never even apologized for treating you like that, I just didn’t-”


“Simon, slow down. Please.” Hands raise to pat down his worry.


Both hands reach to clutch at the handle of his bag. “I can’t even say it won’t happen again because I don’t know, I don’t know what’s wrong with me—I mean, shit! My therapist doesn’t know either—and now you’re stuck with me and I have to do something, and I don’t know what.”


“Simon, I can’t talk to you if you don’t slow down!”


He breathes. The world slows around him, panting in his same rhythm, cold air pushing through the fabric of his hoodie and into skin. Sophie’s putting her hands on his shoulders. “Sorry.” An exhale.


“I know you didn’t mean it to happen the way you wanted to.” She prefaces. There it is; the confession finally breathes into the conversation, a choking gasp of a conversation starter. “But I wish you would’ve told me sooner, Simon. I wish I would’ve had time to process.”


Slowly, he nods. When his chest rises and falls at a more digestible pace, Sophie takes a step back, creating distance between them and allowing her hands to stuff themselves in her hoodie’s pockets. “I didn’t want you to leave.” serves as a pathetic amount of explanation.


“I don’t think you should’ve done it then. You had a lot of things going on.” Her shoulders hunch once more. “You still do.”


Words congeal in his throat. Somehow, he doesn’t expect her to say that. It’s like something else should happen, familiarity so palpable when in contact with the unknown and the unimaginable. Acknowledging the incoherent cacophony in Simon’s own mind that’s damn near scared Sophie at times acknowledges the shades of gray that make something like this feel damn near impossible. He’s not accustomed to wanting an apology and wanting to apologize in unison.


“I don’t know how to fix it,” Simon says, indulging in the quieter hues of his voice. Somehow he expects her to take another step back, to increase the proximity between them. And he swears she does, although it could’ve just been the tunneling of his vision, common in his newfound lightheadedness. Pain and hunger collide.


He’s never gotten close enough to need to have a confrontation. Never admitted feelings at length to feel outwardly, audibly guilty for them—Sophie’s one of the only people he’s ever had. And that makes this worse, almost, because it’s not the same for her. She has other friends that would treat her better. Love her without condition. Love her in platonic melodies when romantic was too daunting. Comfort her when he didn’t have the words to. This is all he has.


“Sometimes just wanting to fix it’s a good start.” Sophie muses. “And… you’re, sorry? For…?”


“Yes! Yes, I am! I’m sorry!” Simon has to reel in the desperation before it raises his voice. “I don’t know how to make it up to you, I just didn’t want you to leave, and I was scared you thought I was crazy—”


“Thought you were crazy?” interjects she. “Simon, please. I never thought you were crazy. I related to you. I always have.”


Something fragile shatters in his system. “It felt like you were. You never wanted to talk about anything like that, a-and I guess I just thought that.” He inhales. “I don’t know. That you just- didn’t want to hear about it, or something.”


“I just wanted to try and escape it for a little, Simon. With you. Especially back in highschool.” Her words begin to blur. She’s defending herself in this soft, comforting tone that eases the argument from escalating, more solemn than confrontational. Despair underlines the tone of every word and then it’s muddled, thick mixed watercolors of an explanation. Eyes flit up. And when they stare for long enough, her face contorts into this unrecognizable look of nihilistic tragedy, the ultimatum of death reaching her eyes by something else’s hand or her own, or Simon’s, volatile dangerous Simon’s. Her hands leave her pockets to scratch at the edges of her nail beds, absentmindedly, voice muted in his world.


His breaths sound over anything else, frozen into inaction. This isn’t real, he wants to think, deterred by whispers in the back of his mind promising him that it’s only a matter of time before Sophie takes the step. His love’s dead to her, his comfort, his promise to help when she was scared of her eyes being unable to open to see the next orange-red sunset. He’s inhaling, and she’s saying something, and when he blinks the world takes on the blood-red shades of what’s soon to come when she steps off the edge of the roof, welcoming the afterlife into cold arms and.


And. And. Simon’s hands, panicked, take Sophie’s wrists in an ironclad grip. “Sophie.” The worlds fly out of his mouth. “Sophie, don’t–” don’t leave, he says only within his mind, gripping onto her tighter in a subconscious motion to keep her afloat. She makes an audible, melted sound of confusion of which seeps incoherently into both ears. Stockholm takes on the form of the darkest shades of black around him, lethal mold in form, conformed into his mental rot.


And before he has a chance to choke once again, she’s moving forward and embracing him, forcing his hands to let go and absentmindedly clutch onto the back of her hoodie. The warm embrace of company slows his blood pressure until adrenaline’s a lifted memory. Her voice eventually comes back to his senses, fading in through his slowing breaths, “Are you alright? What happened to you? You’re scaring me.”


Déjà vu settles in. “I’m okay. I’m alright.”


“Do you need, like. Grounding? I haven’t tried it before, but I can—”


“No. Nno, I…” Simon holds on tighter, the soft sensation of worn down fabric between the fingers. “I don’t. You being here is enough.” Sounds wrong. Desperate, he follows it up with a shakier, “Fuck, I didn’t mean to do that.” An unspoken sorry breathes into the air.


“You can’t control it. You just—” Sophie laughs weakly, more to her mental detriment. “You scared the hell out of me. Please warn me when that. That starts happening. From now on. I feel like it’s been happening more lately.”


“What, that?” He’s still struggling to breathe. So is she. Sophie seems to be grasping onto the straws of the moment just as hard as he was, messy and all. This isn’t how he wanted it to go. In unison, it’s the relief he needed.


“Mhm. You just…zone out, and I lose you for a little bit.”


“Sorry.”


“Don’t apologize. What were you saying, before?”


He wants to flinch. She’s not just supposed to forgive him like this–somehow he’s sunk his feet so far into the concrete that he’s solely convinced Sophie would’ve felt despaired at this, losing her last best friend to the real version of him, less welcoming and more desperate. He’s more convinced she would’ve told him to leave. It almost hurts that she doesn’t. “That I’m… Sophie, I’m not better,” Simon reminds, dull. “And I don’t want you to get hurt again. I’ve always liked you Sophie, I never wanted this to happen. Ever.”


Months of time strung between then and now. Months of failed rehabilitation in the hospital turned to legs bound to a wheelchair and frantic scribblings upon a journal Sophie would never read. Time only parted by short, awkward bouts of phone calls, with brief life updates and a million words unsaid for the sake of maintaining static-filled peace. He doesn’t think he could ever do it again. Somehow he knows he’ll have to, for her safety. He can’t leave her trapped in here with him. Not now.


His eyes waver between her short distance from the edge of the rooftop and from her eyes, which soften with pity. Stress rolls off of him in waves and, eventually, disappears. “Oh, Simon, I. I don’t know what to say. I’ve always liked you too… but not in that way. I always thought you were just a friend. Nothing more.” Ow. “I’m sorry.”


A frown permeates his features. “Can we still be friends?” The note stings a little too miserably.


“I think we can.” Sophie reaches out her hands. Simple ritual. Simon places his upon hers, allows them to rest. “I don’t forgive you. Yet. But I want to. I think that—we can work together, and we can find something that’ll work out for both of us? Whatever we need to keep being each other’s friend, and be happy, I want to do.”


Another breath. “Okay,” says he, solitary. He’s not sure if he’s satiated by the idea of talking later, letting his thoughts simmer any longer than they already have, but he’s not equipped to talk now. That much was obvious.


“Now now. Obviously.” Prepared words fall with ease. “Just… when we make it out of here—how about this. Once we’re out of Solna, we can say what’s been bothering us and we can figure out what we’re gonna do about it. Maybe?”


He could do that. Even if he falls short of anything Sophie ever did wrong, especially now, carrying the conversation affirmed by trailing-off mutters. “I can do that.”


“Okay. Okay, that’s good to hear. We can talk about it later. You just think about it.”


“Thank you,” Simon says, suddenly. “for letting me, um. Have a second chance.”


Sophie takes a deep breath that stretches all too long. “As long as I know you didn’t mean it, and as long as I know you can let me go, then I still want to be your friend. Do you promise, Simon?”


Simon bates his breath. He’s already grown accustomed to cold hands missing hers. If it means his oldest friend can stay around for a little longer, Simon would agree to anything.


“Yeah. I promise.”


A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Thank you. I’m happy we got to talk. This is a really, really good start, I think.”


“Felt like a fucking trainwreck.”


“I think you did well.” Sophie muses. “For someone that doesn’t really do this.”


He should have done this a year earlier. At some point Simon had thought it was too late to reconcile. And all this time Sophie was just waiting for him to say something. It’s embarrassing, is what it is. “...Thanks.”


More than eager to move on, Sophie pats the spot next to her once more. “Come on, come sit. I think the higher up you look at the city from the nicer it looks.”


Subject change, eased into effortlessly. Against all past memory, against his inhibition to grab her arm and tug her away from the edge as far as he could manage before she wrenched from his grip, he nods. Sophie sits down first, near the same spot as before, legs dangling off the edge of the tall rooftop. He follows in tow, sitting beside her, keeping friendly distance and settling both hands in his lap.


Despite everything, she’s right. Initially his glance flits down to the daunting proximity between him and the asphalt road. From here he can see cars stalled in parking spaces ext to market buildings or apartment complexes, long overdue their stay. It’s too high up to make out any body, dead or alive, that might be scattered across the street. Should be better off that way. Maybe that’s what Sophie meant. The view’s higher from above; close to no way to know of the apocalypse other than branching vines poking through the shard-laden open windows shattered by pressure and bricks used as stepping stones for the human flower’s travel.


Cold air breezes in and he reminds himself to look higher, to the skyline Sophie’s attached to. In a palette so dark he can barely see where the edges of rooftops meet the nighttime sky, the exact line of difference, but it’s there. Clouds hang overhead and block only pieces of a moon much brighter than its ever been, a constant he’s grown long familiar with. Nights wandering Stockholm as a means of haphazard escape always end in looking up, reminding himself of the eye watching overhead, forgiving and quaint. Sophie comes to rooftops to get closer to it, feel her soon-to-be presence among the stars, connected to whatever death might grace her. He reminds himself he should start doing the same. The view from the forest’s much more dreadful.


Sophie’s leaning over slightly to get a look at him, concern evident on her face, accompanied by that of a small smile. It’s always there. “What are you thinking about?” Reminds him of time altering conversation pieces. Some time in the past, Simon’s a highschooler, arms crossed in on themselves, comforting the trembling form of a new, un-welcomed student.


“Looks better from up here,” Simon answers. Now, somehow, he feels less stable than he ever did. Unfurled into his most vulnerable self by hands that have seen everything, feared everything, comforted everything. Touch he’d grown to forget the warmth of in the long-spanning months leading up to here. “...Sort of.”


“Kind of reminds me of all the stupid things counselors used to tell me. Maybe you just need to look at it from a different perspective.” Sophie glances down, then trails up once more, eyes eventually resting on the same thing his were: the buildings. Complexes they were both familiar with. “I’m mad they were right.”


He scoffs a laugh. “Like that one from junior year.”


“Don’t remind me, I hated her.” giggles Sophie.


“I guess she was. Kind of right, though.” Simon’s legs curl in on themselves, prompting him to use them as a rest for his crossed arms, sinking into the comfort of the fabric of his own hoodie. “I don’t know. I don’t understand anything now.”


Her head turns to get a good, sympathetic look at him. “I don’t, either.” A beat, “But I’m better now that you’re here.”


“Yeah?” Simon turns to meet her eyes. “I’m… glad you’re here too, Sophie. I don’t know what I’d do if I was here alone.”


“Pfft–and you were saying I was stuck with you and you’d be fine with me staying here.” A choked, caught noise wrenches its way out of his throat and Sophie laughs, hand moving to ghost over her mouth.


“Well, I just-!” exhales he, “No, you’re right. Whatever.”


Through her quiet bout of laughter, she muses, “Siiimooon…” As she speaks, he swears he hears something momentary from the opened door a few feet away, but he finds it in himself to ignore it.


“Shut up, I’ve. I just thought I’d offer anyways, in case you were thinking about it.”


“How much did you think I hated you? God, I wouldn’t do that. Especially not here.”


“I don’t know? It’s not like I wanted to call and ask you.”


“That’s another thing we can talk about later, then—what. Was that?” Sophie’s head whips around to the opened double-doors. Oh. It wasn’t fake. His attention snaps focus, looking over to the same thing she was, like dogs to volatile signs of noise poking from the hallway to the back porch door. The wind grows stronger in its gusts.


“What was what?” Simon prods, instinctively, as if it’d offer any help. The silence between doesn’t feeling as deafening as it did downstairs in the stifling, mildew-infested room together. Air’s clearing, for once, strung together by a mutual sense of connection. Even now, waiting for a reason to panic, it’s cathartic.


“I swear I heard yelling.” Her eyebrows scrunch. “I just want to be careful, David’s by himself and he.”


A gutted, strangled scream wrenches its way into the air, shattering the brisk, quaint air.


In the silence, he swears he makes out something rustling. A struggle. It’s a struggle.


Breath hitches in his throat. “Vi.” He’s never launched himself to his feet with more haste in his life. Panicked, shaking hands grab Sophie’s arm to bring her to her feet. “Sophie, Sophie, Soph, come on, it’s David, fuck! Let’s go!”