She had grown lean from the wandering, from months of sleeping on stone and breathing the stale air of forgotten corridors. The softness from her past life had burned away, and what remained was tempered like steel. The tunnels, cruel though they were, had forged her into something unbreakable.
She walked now not just to find Solace, but because she knew—people needed to see that someone still walked forward.
Every station she passed bore signs of despair. Families huddled in shadows. Ragged survivors traded batteries for food, painkillers for silence. The surface had devoured itself in flame, and now only these shattered veins below held what remained of a people too scared to fight and too stubborn to die.
She became a whisper of her own—the girl with the lantern. Those who saw her spoke in low voices about the one who wandered without fear, whose eyes never looked back. A symbol, perhaps, even if she hadn’t meant to become one.
No comments:
Post a Comment