Move like shadows

Solace wasn’t alone forever. Eventually, people found him. Or rather—they found the places he had prepared.

A mother with her child stumbled into one of his waystations—stocked with food and thermal blankets. She wept when she saw his notes, not because she understood them, but because someone had cared enough to prepare.

A scavenger followed the same chalk markings Solace had been using and begged for a way out—“I’ll dig, I’ll haul, I’ll fight.”

And then another. Then a dozen.

And slowly, Solace began to teach.

He taught them to read the walls. To listen for the hum of the grid. To move like shadows. He trained them to walk the quiet paths, the invisible roads of the underworld.

It was then he understood: The real city wasn’t above anymore. It was below.
Hidden. Silent. Waiting.

And so, Solace became something more than a man. He became the cartographer of a new world. The architect of the last sanctuary.

He walked the tunnels in silence, like a priest in a cathedral of concrete and rebar, whispering prayers through chalk and map, preparing the reckoning to come.