Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hunger. Hunger was the main thing she felt.

Not longing. Not anger. Not fear.

Hunger.

It was as if her very stomach had become a bottomless hole, screaming every second for something she no longer had. Time seemed to move slower since the building had been quarantined. The wall clock had stopped working weeks ago, but even if it had been keeping accurate time, she would still have trouble knowing what day it was. Every day felt the same: gray, silent, and empty.

Many things happen suddenly — diseases, tragedies, accidents. Life never warns before it turns upside down. Her building, overnight, had been sealed off, isolated from the world, because of an outbreak linked to water contamination. At first, she didn’t panic. She knew she was safe. After all, she had never trusted that muddy, tasteless water. She always bought small packs of bottled water, with the little money she had. She always thought the risks weren’t worth the savings. She had been obsessive about that since she was a child. Something about blindly trusting what came out of old pipes bothered her deeply.

She tried to explain it, several times. She knocked on the agents’ doors, shouted from the window, called emergency numbers, begging to get out. But no one heard. Or preferred not to hear. She was not a priority. She had no children, wasn’t elderly, wasn’t sick — in their eyes, she could wait. The truth was they didn’t believe her. And she realized, too soon, that it wasn’t enough to be clean. You had to look contaminated to deserve their attention.

In the first days, they brought food. Canned goods, saltine crackers, bags of rice. Sometimes a fruit, if lucky. But then… then they stopped. The distribution ceased without warning. And the neighbors, who before exchanged supplies with some sense of solidarity, also disappeared. They locked themselves in their own worlds, in silence. Or died. There was no way to know.

And there she was, sitting on the cold kitchen floor, staring at what was left with hollow eyes and a dry mouth: half a loaf of bread. Neither fresh nor old enough to smell bad. It was just… bread. A piece of the past, a failed promise of sustenance. She broke it into even smaller pieces with trembling hands, as if that could fool her stomach. She chewed slowly, savoring every crumb like a feast. She knew it was all she would have.

She was going to die. Anyway, she knew that. Hunger was a slow sentence, dragged out. Not like in movies, where everything happens in a quick sequence of sad images with background music. Real hunger was a silent killer, taking energy first, then clarity, and finally the will.

The world outside went on, unaware. Or maybe they knew but simply didn’t care. And she, sitting in her locked apartment, was just another number. A nameless face. A silence among many others.

But there was one thing still burning inside her. Anger. Not at the government, not at the neighbors, not even at the rotten system that allowed this to happen. The anger was against herself.

For believing that, if she was careful enough, she would be safe.
For thinking that her life, no matter how small, still mattered to someone.
For still feeling hope once in a while.

She looked out the window. Outside, the sky was a pale blue, as if mocking her with its useless beauty. The sun shone, but didn’t warm her.

With thin fingers, she held the last piece of bread. She hesitated. Part of her wanted to keep it. Delay the end. But the other part — the tired, hungry, exhausted part of waiting — just wanted to swallow it quickly.

She ate it.

And waited for the silence to grow a little more.

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Then a few more days passed.

Or was it weeks? She no longer knew. Time had lost its shape, slipping through her fingers like water. There wasn’t enough sun to mark the hours, nor noise in the hallway to signal life. Only the insistent sound of her own breathing… and hunger.

Her stomach growled loudly. So loudly that sometimes it sounded like a roar. A warning from the body. A cry for help that no one listened to anymore. Or they heard — and chose to ignore.

Her physical state was pitiful. The clothes, once loose by choice, were now too big out of necessity. The mirror that still hung in the bathroom no longer showed the reflection of someone — it showed a shadow, with sunken eyes, pronounced cheekbones, and cracked lips. Her skin was pale, thin, and the dark circles looked like marks painted with charcoal.

It was surprising she could still walk.

But she walked. Slowly, as if each step was a fight against her own body weight. Like a zombie, dragging her feet on the cold floor, bumping into walls, holding onto doors so she wouldn’t fall. But she still walked.

That was what kept her alive: movement. Small, weak, but still movement. As if, while she could still put one foot in front of the other, there was a chance. A breath. A miracle.

She went to the balcony. The fresh air there was all she had left for comfort. The wind hitting her face was like a forgotten caress. It cleared her mind a little, calmed the headache that hurt all the time. There was something almost sacred in that small routine. Opening the glass door, feeling the cold air against her skin, breathing deeply and remembering she was alive.

She leaned over the railing, her trembling arms holding her body up. Her eyes searched the windows of neighboring buildings, trying to find signs of life. A light on. A shadow. Anything. But everything was dead there. A concrete graveyard.

Deep in her chest, a dormant will stirred. She wanted to see her little brother. Just one more time. Just to be sure he still existed. Just to hear his voice calling her name, like he did when he was small. So small, with those big sweet eyes, asking if they could watch cartoons together, or if she could tell him a story before bed.

He was the only thing that truly hurt. The only longing that bled.

She tried to call him. Her voice came out weak, hoarse, almost inaudible. She tried again. And again. But all she heard was the sound of the wind, mocking her despair.

Slowly, tears formed in her eyes. Not those desperate tears, no. They were silent, flowing slowly, like everything else in her now. She had no energy to sob. No strength to scream. She just cried. And that hurt more than anything. It was a contained, tearing pain. An open wound that no one came to heal.

She looked at the sky. A clear, ironic sky. Too blue. Too alive for someone who was dying.

She thought about jumping.

But not on impulse. Not out of despair.

The idea was calm, almost logical. It would be faster. Less painful. She didn’t want to die screaming for help, with a dry throat and her body collapsing from the inside out. She didn’t want to rot in silence, forgotten in a locked apartment.

But then… she heard something.

A sound.

Weak. A metallic snap. A click. The noise of a door?

She froze.

Waited.

From the balcony next door, a slight movement caught her attention. A figure. She squinted, frowning to focus better. It wasn’t an illusion, nor a shadow. It was real.

A boy.

Thin, tall, messy hair, and green eyes. He was leaning on the railing of the neighboring balcony, holding a lit cigarette between his fingers. The orange glow of the ember highlighted the thoughtful expression on his face, as if he were in another world.

She hadn’t seen anyone in weeks. Everyone seemed to have disappeared. Lost in fear, seclusion, the inertia that quarantine had forced down everyone’s throat. Seeing someone there, so close, so human… was almost a shock.

She hugged her arms around herself, trying to ignore the cold of hunger, and gave a small — but sincere — smile.

“Hey!” she called, her voice hoarse and low, but with an almost childish effort to sound light.

The boy turned slowly, surprised. Their eyes met, and he hesitated a moment before taking a quick drag from the cigarette.

“Ah. Hey,” he said, awkwardly, blowing the smoke to the side. His eyes scanned her from head to toe, and what he saw clearly affected him. “You okay?”

She let out a weak laugh, almost breathless, heavy with exhaustion and irony.

“As okay as someone starving can be,” she replied, trying to laugh again, but the sound died halfway.

An uncomfortable silence fell between them. It wasn’t exactly tense, but… sad. Painful. A kind of silence that only two people abandoned by the world could share.

He looked away. Pressed his lips. And, without saying more, stubbed out the cigarette on the balcony railing and went inside his apartment.

She sighed. At least she had a bit of company.

Closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the breeze touch her face, as if the world were saying, “you’re still here.” And just as she was about to go back inside — to the dark, the silence, and the hunger — she heard something.

A light sound. Footsteps.

The boy had come back. In his arms, he carried a white plastic bag, one of those grocery bags, a little crumpled but visibly full of something.

“It’s not much,” he said, his voice crossing the space between balconies firmly, “but it should help.”

Before she could react, he threw the bag. Luckily, she had enough reflexes to catch it against her chest.

She looked inside. Three apples. Red, clean, almost shining in the pale light of dusk. Her eyes widened in surprise, and something inside her — something she thought had died — warmed.

She pressed the bag against her chest, as if it were a divine gift. Her eyes, once dull, now shone with something like emotion.

"Thank you..." she whispered with a tender smile, the kind of smile given when the heart softens without permission.

"You're welcome," he replied, shrugging, looking at her as if he didn't understand why such a simple gesture caused so much emotion.

"What's your name?" she asked, still holding the apples as if they were jewels.

"Andrew," he answered, clearing his throat. There was something kind in his tone, something that escaped the coldness he seemed to want to maintain.

She nodded, smiling again.

"Well... thank you very much, Andrew."

And then she turned, still smiling, and went inside the house. But this time, with something new in her heart: relief.

Inside, she sat on the kitchen floor. She had no strength to reach the table. It didn’t matter. The bag still pressed against her chest, as if afraid it would disappear.

She opened it slowly.

She took an apple.

She rolled it in her hands, observing its perfect shape. The sweet smell already made her mouth water, but she hesitated. It had been so long. So much misery, so much absence of flavor, so much waiting.

She bit.

And for the first time in weeks, she cried with pleasure.

It wasn’t just hunger.

It was everything. It was the emptiness being filled, even if only for a moment. It was someone saying “you exist” with three fruits. It was knowing the world still had people like Andrew.

She ate slowly. She carefully kept the other two apples, as if they were relics. Each bite seemed to heal a crack in her soul.

When she finished, she stood up. She wobbled a little, but went to the balcony again. Andrew was no longer there.

But she whispered anyway:

“Good night, Andrew.”

And that night, for the first time in a long time, she slept with a warm stomach... and a warm heart too.

Chapter Text

Katie felt a little more revitalized after eating the apples. They had become her small personal miracle—three red, juicy fruits, big enough to last seven long and silent days. She had sliced them with precision, dividing each piece as if she were sharing treasures. Every bite was a dose of strength, of clarity.

In the first few days, just half a slice had been enough to silence the insistent growl of her stomach. Later, when her body got used to the reduced hunger, she started eating out of necessity, not desire. Her muscles still ached, her steps remained slow, but now there was something inside her that hadn’t been there before: a thread of control.

Control. Something almost no one had anymore in that miserable quarantine.

Katie knew she couldn’t overdo it. Sudden movements, racing thoughts, or anxiety attacks would only make her body burn through the little energy she had regained. That’s why everything about her was measured: her steps, her gestures, even her breathing.

The silence in the building was so deep that any noise became an event. The ticking of the clock, the creak of the windows, the distant barking of a dog that might not even be alive anymore. So when the sound echoed—two dry, direct, insistent knocks—she knew immediately who it was.

Knock. Knock.

"Hey, you alive in there?"

She approached the door without hurry, as she always did. Avoiding wasting energy and also… staying protected. She rested her hand on the worn wood of the door and took a deep breath before answering.

"Yes. I’m still alive."

On the other side, the laugh was low and irritating. She could hear the disgusting smile in his voice.

"Wow, what a surprise," he said, with barely disguised mockery. "So... have you thought about my offer?"

Katie closed her eyes. Her hand still resting on the door. Her stomach twisted, but it wasn’t from hunger. It was from disgust.

He repeated that almost every week, always in the same tone, always with the same smirk in his voice. An offer—as he called it—that was really just a way to exploit other people’s desperation. The promise was clear: food in exchange for sex. A filthy, disgusting trade, and he repeated it like he was offering some divine favor.

"The answer is still no," she said, with a dry, firm tone, dripping with disdain. Pure disgust.

The security guard let out a short, cynical laugh. Didn’t even try to hide the sarcasm.

"Well, suit yourself," he replied, and she heard the sound of his footsteps moving away. "Hunger’s gonna get stronger at some point."

Silence.

Katie stayed there for a few more seconds, staring at the door as if she could burn it with her eyes. Her chest rose and fell slowly. She didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. Just let out a huff, short, muffled, full of rage.

She knew he would come back.

She knew the world was turning into a place where the weak were devoured not only by hunger but by those who took advantage of it.

But not today.
Not now.
She was still alive.

She headed to the balcony, like she always did when the silence inside the apartment became too heavy. There was something freeing about that small outdoor space, even surrounded by bars, even with the stench of the rotten city spreading with the wind. The sunset was especially beautiful that day—shades of orange and purple blending across the outlines of the buildings, as if the sky were trying to hide the rot growing below.

Katie leaned her elbows on the railing, took a deep breath. The air, usually foul and heavy with pollution, was fresher than usual. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to forget the hunger, the isolation, the disgust still lingering from the last conversation with the guard. She just wanted five minutes of peace.

That’s when she felt it. A presence.

She opened her eyes and looked toward the balcony next door.

Andrew.

He was there again, cigarette burning between his fingers, gaze lost on the horizon. Hair a bit messy, oversized T-shirt, apathetic expression—typical him. But just seeing him there made Katie’s chest warm a little.

"Oh, hey!" she said, brightening up, giving him a genuine smile.

Andrew turned his head. "Hey," he replied simply, barely moving.

Katie blinked. He was strange, no doubt. One of those guys who seemed to prefer silence over any kind of contact. But… there was something about him that made everything feel a little less suffocating.

"You look good," he commented, giving her a quick once-over, without judgment, just stating a fact.

"Yeah," she said, still smiling. "Thanks again for the apples."

Andrew looked visibly awkward. She noticed the faint blush rising on his cheeks.

"It was nothing," he mumbled, looking away.

"Nothing what?"—a female voice came from inside Andrew’s apartment. Katie turned and saw the source: a girl with a hard expression, eyes digging into her like blades. The hostility was almost tangible.

Katie kept her smile, trying not to let it bother her. "I was just thanking Andrew for the apples he gave me last week."

"Apples?!"—the girl turned to Andrew like a bomb about to go off. "Is that why I couldn’t find them in the fruit bowl?!"

"Oh, can you relax?"—Andrew responded, visibly frustrated.

"Relax?! We have to ration food and you gave it to her?!"—the girl, whom Katie now knew was called Ashley, exploded.

Andrew growled in irritation, grabbed her arm, and pushed her back inside. The door slammed shut. What came next was inevitable.

Shouting.

Katie closed her eyes for a moment. Tried to focus on the sky. But the voices echoed too loudly to ignore.

"She needed it! I just wanted to be kind!"—Andrew’s voice sounded muffled, but full of anger.

"Kind?! Yeah right... You just want to screw that slut!"—Ashley screamed, her tone hysterical, cruel.

"I don’t want to sleep with her, stop being crazy!"—Andrew shouted back, even louder.

"You do! You always get like this when you see a girl! And what, just because we’re in quarantine?! You have me!"—Ashley’s voice was now pure fury, mixed with something else… desperation maybe.

Katie took a deep breath, trying not to let it get under her skin. She gripped the railing tightly. The anger surged, but she pushed it back down. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t ask for the apples. Didn’t ask for the attention. She just survived, the way she could.

But the girl’s words still echoed: slut.

The truth was, for some people, women alone in times of crisis would always be targets. Of anger, of envy, of desire, of judgment. It didn’t matter if they were starving or just smiling at someone.

She bit her lower lip hard, the sun almost gone from the horizon.

Andrew might be strange, but he’d been human. She knew Ashley was wrong. But she also knew that small moment of comfort—that brief feeling of not being completely alone—had been ripped away.

Again.

She turned back inside and closed the balcony door.

In the end, she could only count on herself. Like always.

Andrew didn’t show up on the balcony in the days that followed.

Katie found herself looking toward the space next door as if she could will his presence to appear there, cigarette lit and that slouchy posture that, strangely, she had started to associate with comfort. It was odd how his silence could fill hers. Even the short conversations, the dry responses, the socially awkward way… all of it had become part of her routine, part of the minimal human contact she had left.

But now, nothing.

Sometimes, during the night or early in the morning, she still heard their voices arguing on the other side of the wall—muffled, as if they had learned to fight more quietly, maybe out of shame, maybe out of exhaustion. Neither of them seemed willing to give up on that destructive coexistence. Neither of them left. It was always the same pattern: him trying to explain, her attacking with words, him retreating, her exploding. Repetitive, predictable, suffocating. And, in a way, still better than the complete emptiness dominating the rest of the building.

Katie didn’t deny it—she was upset.

She missed Andrew’s presence more than she cared to admit. It wasn’t about infatuation or some silly hope. It was need. Andrew was the only familiar face, the only one who didn’t look at her like she was a burden, an exaggeration, a liar. The neighbors from the floor above had stopped showing up even before the sirens began to fade. Those on the ground floor, hopefully, were dead—because the alternative was much worse.

Her friends… well, if they could still be called that, had disappeared long before any of this.

In the beginning, Katie still sent messages, trying to explain, telling them that something was wrong, that she wasn’t receiving the food packages, that the government had stopped responding to requests. That the emergency card they’d given her only returned error messages. She tried to show photos. Voice notes. She asked for help in discreet ways, afraid they’d think she was overreacting, like so many others had. But the answer was always the same:

“You’re probably confusing the delivery times.” “It’s just a system glitch.” “Oh, come on, no one’s going hungry anymore.” “You still have internet, right? Then relax.”

After a while… not even that.

The replies stopped. Their statuses stayed filled with memes, photos of well-served meals, random conversations about games and theories, as if the world wasn’t quietly collapsing. As if she didn’t exist anymore.

Katie tried not to care. She tried to distract herself with anything: organizing her few clothes, rereading that old horror book for the thousandth time, the one she already knew by heart, sleeping as much as possible to trick the hunger. But at the end of the day, the absence weighed. Andrew was the only voice that entered the apartment without being part of her own head. And now even that had vanished.

Of course, she still spoke to someone. Her brother.

But he was something else.

He answered the phone when he could—usually at night, with a tired voice, always sounding rushed. It never lasted more than five minutes. He asked if she was okay, if she still had food, if the building remained quiet. And she said yes, even when it wasn’t true. Because what else could she do? He worked too much, two jobs since the outbreak, and said he could barely take care of himself.

Katie understood. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t either of their faults. But the loneliness still hurt.

At night, when the world grew even quieter, she thought about the three apples she had received. How she savored each one, cutting them carefully, saving the smallest pieces like they were gold. How that simple gesture had brought tears to her eyes. Someone remembered she existed.

Now, with Andrew gone and Ashley acting like a lioness guarding the last bone, Katie felt the small miracle had passed. A flicker of humanity that didn’t last—and maybe wouldn’t come back.

She closed her eyes, leaning against the balcony wall, and stayed there, trying to convince herself everything was fine.

Even with no one around.

As if on cue, like the universe had finally decided to give her something, Andrew appeared on the balcony around two in the morning. The cigarette glowed faintly between his fingers, and the night air was particularly cold, even for a place like this. Katie couldn’t help the small jump her heart gave in her chest, like his mere presence returned something she hadn’t even realized she’d lost in the past few days.

“Hey,” she said, her voice low, as if the moment could shatter if she spoke too loudly.

Andrew looked at her. His expression, as always, was hard to read—a mix of apathy with something deeper he refused to show. But he replied:

“Hey.”

She leaned on the railing, feeling the cold concrete against the skin of her arms. His eyes looked a little sunken, the dark circles more pronounced. There was a weariness there that seemed to have nothing to do with sleep.

“You okay?” she asked, a bit hesitant. She didn’t want to intrude, but also... she wanted to know.

“I’m fine,” he replied, with that emotionless tone he seemed to use to hide everything. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

She smiled, a small but genuine smile.

“That’s good... I’m sorry for making you and your girlfriend fight,” she said, trying to sound light, but there was a weight of guilt in her voice. It was genuine. She didn’t want to be a problem—especially because, in this world, almost no one had anyone left nearby.

Andrew looked at her, and for a second he seemed surprised.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said. “She’s my sister.”

Katie blinked, her eyes widening instinctively.

“Oh... well... sorry anyway,” she said, embarrassed. Everything about the girl he called Ashley screamed possessive girlfriend—the way she looked at him, the jealousy, the tone of voice. But sister? That changed everything.

“It’s fine,” he replied, like it was nothing. Like it didn’t matter. But it did. A lot.

She stayed quiet, staring at the deserted city ahead, where the streetlights flickered like they were about to go out. She thought about how the buildings looked like stacked tombs, all empty or inhabited by people too invisible to make themselves known. She didn’t know if Andrew was really okay... or if he was just pretending as well as she was.

The silence stretched. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but it was full of thoughts neither of them seemed willing to say out loud. Until, like a betrayal of her own body, Katie’s stomach growled. Loudly. She turned red immediately, placing her hand over her stomach as if she could silence it with the force of shame.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, staring at the floor.

Andrew, however, didn’t laugh. Didn’t mock. On the contrary, his expression barely changed—just a slight raise of an eyebrow, almost imperceptible. Then, as if to ease the weight of the embarrassment, his stomach rumbled too.

“We’re not that different,” he said.

Katie looked at him. And for a moment, they laughed together—a short, dry laugh, without much strength... but genuine. Rare. Almost like a memory of what real laughter used to feel like.

“Those apples worked miracles, but they don’t last forever,” she commented, trying to keep the mood light.

“Yeah. I should’ve saved more food. But... Ashley eats like a damn tractor when she’s nervous,” he replied, scratching the back of his neck. “And she’s always nervous.”

“I see,” she said, though she didn’t really understand. How could someone live under constant tension with their own sister, in a tiny apartment, with no food and no space? She wasn’t sure she would’ve survived it.

Andrew let the smoke out slowly, and for a moment it seemed like he was about to say something else, but didn’t. Instead, he looked up at the sky—which, that night, even had a few visible stars between the clouds.

“I thought you were going to disappear,” Katie commented, her voice almost vanishing.

“Why?” he asked, without looking at her.

“I don’t know... you disappeared. I thought... you regretted talking to me. Or that she wouldn’t let you anymore.”

Andrew stayed silent for a few seconds before saying:

“I just... didn’t want to make things worse. She’s... complicated.”

“I noticed,” Katie said, trying to smile, but it came out crooked. “But you don’t make anything worse. Actually, talking to you is the only time I don’t feel like I’m... I don’t know, fading.”

He looked at her. Really looked, this time. And kept looking for a few seconds. There was no judgment in his eyes. Just... understanding. That quiet, strange kind of understanding that hurt because it was so intense.

“Andy!”

Ashley’s shrill voice sliced through the air like a dry snap, coming from inside the apartment. Katie froze for a second, her spine stiffening like she’d been caught red-handed by some invisible authority. She didn’t even have to think twice—she turned and slipped back inside her apartment, her steps silent and hurried. She didn’t want to cause another fight. It was almost automatic now: hear that voice, disappear from sight.

“What are you doing out here? You promised not to come here anymore!” Ashley yelled, with the same bratty tone as always, like a spoiled child who’d just lost a toy.

“She’s not even here,” Andrew answered, with that dangerous calm in his voice that he carried when he was already at his limit. “And I need a smoke.”

“You should quit that anyway,” Ashley snapped back. The sound of her impatient footsteps could be heard even from the other side of the wall. “It’s going to kill you faster.”

“Good. Then this will all be over,” he said.

The silence that followed was heavy, almost suffocating, like Andrew’s words had pushed all the air out of the room. But Ashley, as always, pretended not to hear the weight of what had been said—or simply ignored it, like she did with everything that didn’t fit into the fragile reality she had built for herself.

“Come on,” she said, her voice a little lighter, like she was trying to convince herself. “You have to admit that, aside from the hunger... it’s not that bad here.”

“Yeah. Whatever,” he replied, in a dry, almost apathetic tone.

From her room, Katie heard everything. She didn’t want to, but she did. That kind of conversation was a perfect portrait of their coexistence: tense, dysfunctional, and with layers no one could fully reach. She curled up on her makeshift bed, the thin blankets pulled up to her chin, even though the room was stuffy and hot. Andrew’s cigarette was still burning outside, she knew, and he was probably staring at the sky like he hoped something would fall from above and pull him out of there.

But even with the argument and the silence that followed, a stubborn smile still lingered on Katie’s face. The conversation had been short. Quick. But it was enough.

She knew she wouldn’t talk to him again tonight. She didn’t want to provoke Ashley, didn’t want Andrew to pull away for good because of some pointless argument. It was already enough. Their moment, brief as it was, still existed. And that was more than she’d had in a long time.

The hunger still burned in her stomach. Her body still ached with exhaustion. But for the first time in days, her mind felt strangely light. Revived.

And while the outside world remained a cold, dead, and silent place... inside her, there was still a flicker of warmth. Of life. Of hope. All thanks to him.

Chapter Text

Grrrrrr.

Katie’s stomach growled with an almost painful force, the sound echoing through the silent apartment like a cruel reminder that she was still alive. Too alive, maybe. The feeling was no longer just discomfort — it was pain, burning, a constant stabbing that made her shut her eyes and wish, for a second, that it would all just… stop.

She knew, deep down, that this wasn’t the first growl of the day. Not the second either. It had been at least two days since the last thing she’d eaten — a nearly dry piece of apple she had hidden at the back of a drawer. Before that, the pieces had gotten smaller, more spaced out. And now, finally, there was nothing left. Nothing.

She wouldn’t dare ask Andrew for anything else. She’d already gotten too much from him. Besides… just reaching the balcony was an insurmountable task now. Her legs didn’t respond the way they used to. They were soft, heavy, empty. Like every muscle had been drained with an invisible syringe. She stayed on the couch, her body sunken into the already misshapen cushions, her head tilted back, staring at the ceiling like it might reveal some sort of answer.

The ceiling, of course, said nothing.

The light from the window was pale, diffuse. Neither sunlight nor shadow — just a constant shade of late afternoon blended with dust. The silence in the apartment was absolute, except for the occasional groan of her stomach or the muffled sound of footsteps above. Katie blinked slowly, feeling the burn in her eyes. They were dry, like her mouth, like everything inside her.

Weakness was a suffocating blanket, slowly replacing the cold of hunger with a dangerous numbness. She let herself close her eyes for a few seconds, listening to her own body fail her. She didn’t feel anger. She didn’t feel despair. Only a vague apathy — the same she had seen in the eyes of the people in old newspapers she read at the start of the quarantine — before everything collapsed.

She tried to remember the taste of the apple. Faint sweetness, firm flesh. She tried to remember Andrew’s voice saying she helped him too. Had that been… real? Or just another delusion born from loneliness?

Her stomach growled again, louder this time. Almost a roar. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could escape her own body for a moment.

Katie didn’t have the strength to stand. Not to walk to the door. Not to talk to her brother, who barely showed up anymore. She didn’t have the strength to think much beyond what was in front of her: the ceiling, the couch, and that all-consuming void inside her.

But still, deep down, way down, there was a tiny flicker of something she couldn’t name. Something that made her keep breathing.

Maybe it was stubbornness.
Maybe it was hope.
Maybe… it was Andrew.

She just wanted something to eat.
Anything.

A dry piece of bread crust, a forgotten fruit pit, some moldy thing in a corner drawer — anything. But nothing. The house, small as it was, felt like a bottomless pit, and all she found was dust, stale air, the silence of hunger screaming inside her.

Her stomach seemed to shrink more with every minute, growling like a wounded beast. Her eyes stung, her head throbbed. Thoughts came in spasms, like lightning: quick, confused, dangerous. She stumbled to the doorway, breathing deep like the air might feed her.

I can’t die here. Not now.

Her dry throat swallowed in vain, and her fingers gripped her dirty shirt tightly. She closed her eyes, trying to think of something else. Anything else. But the void inside her wouldn’t allow it.
Hunger. Hunger. Hunger.

And then, as if pulled by some ancient instinct, she turned and, trembling, made her way to the kitchen.

Every step was a battle. Every meter, an eternity. The kitchen mocked her with its empty cupboards and unplugged fridge. But at the back of the broken drawer, there it was: the knife.

The blade, dull and rusted at the edges.
But it still cut. She knew. She had seen it happen before.

My arm... has meat.

She looked at her own body. Fragile, thin, exhausted. But there was still muscle there. That kind of meat people call “fresh.”

I have two arms. One wouldn’t be missed that much, right?

“No, no… this is sick,” she whispered, but her hand was already gripping the knife.
She took a deep breath and sat on the cold floor, leaning back against the empty cabinet. Her eyes fixed on her forearm, tracing invisible lines with the knife’s tip.

Maybe just a small piece.
Something that won’t make me pass out.
Just enough to trick the stomach. Just until something better comes along.

“You’re losing your mind,” she told herself, trying to laugh, but the sound came out as a dry sob.
But the knife didn’t leave her hand.

She tried to think of something else. Someone else.
She thought of Andrew.

The way he talked with that tired sarcasm, like he’d given up on the world — or was laughing at it from the inside.
The way he looked at her from behind his greasy bangs.
Would he have done this?
Maybe. Maybe he wouldn’t even hesitate. Maybe he’d even say something like:
“Just get it over with, Katie. You waiting for the arm to slice itself?”

She bit her lip.
She didn’t want to think about him. Not now.
But it was inevitable. He was in every corner of the house. In the smells, in the stains on the floor, in the broken dishes.
He was part of the madness too.

And deep down, a part of her wished he was there.
Even if it was to laugh.
Even if it was to criticize.
Even if it was just to see.

“You’re not here,” she murmured, the knife pressed to her skin. “And no one else is.”

A small cut.
A trace of blood.
The skin opened like wet paper.
It burned, but she didn’t flinch.

This was choice. It was control. It was survival.

She licked the blood instinctively, gagging at the metallic taste. And as disgusting as it was, her body responded with relief. The pain, the taste, the act — it all reminded her she was alive. That she could still do something.

If she was quick, maybe it wouldn’t hurt too much.
Maybe.

But first… she needed a tourniquet.
Her tired eyes swept the filthy kitchen floor, until they landed on the belt around her waist. She yanked it off with trembling, numb fingers and wrapped it tightly around her left arm. She pulled. Hard. Until she could feel the veins scream. Her hand was already going cold.

Sweat dripped down her forehead, mingling with tears. The hunger was so deep it felt like her organs were being eaten from the inside. Her head throbbed. Her eyes couldn’t focus. At any second… she might pass out.

The knife was on the counter.
The red knife.
Still covered in blood from the previous cut.

Katie grabbed it with her right hand — the only one that still responded properly. The blade felt as heavy as solid iron. She stared at it for long seconds.

“Will God forgive me for this?”
Probably not.

She took a breath. One. Two. Three times.
Then placed the blade on the skin of the tied arm.

The first cut was shallow.
She screamed.

The pain was hot — sharper than anything she’d ever felt.
The second cut went deeper.
The skin split under the blade, revealing muscle, nerve, raw flesh.
She screamed again, a grotesque, primal sound.

But she didn’t stop.

With each centimeter sliced, reality broke a little more.
Tears streamed down, but she couldn’t wipe them. Her trembling hand kept cutting until she reached bone.

And then her scream changed.
It was a wail.
A plea for help that no one would hear.

The blade hit bone. It no longer cut.
She looked around in desperation — and saw the hammer near the bucket. She crawled to it, swallowing her cries. With inhuman effort, she raised the hammer with her good hand…

CRACK.

The sound of bone breaking echoed through the kitchen like a snapped dry branch.
She fell back, gasping, her vision swimming.

On the floor, what was left of her arm.
Limp.
Bloody.

She leaned against the wall. Everything hurt. Her soul hurt.
But the hunger was still there.
Stronger than everything.

With fingers soaked in blood, she pulled her own arm back to her.
The metallic smell hit hard.
She gagged. Threw up a little. But still…

She bit.

The taste was awful.
Like chewing steel and fat at once.
But it was food.
It was what her body was begging for.

She cried as she chewed.
Cried as she swallowed.
Each bite was a sentence against her sanity.

But she was alive.
For now.

And in the darkness of that damned place, Katie realized:
Some things are worse than death.

And what she was becoming…
Might be one of them.

What did she do?! It was the only thing she could think as the cold shower water pounded violently on her trembling body. Every drop hit like needles, but nothing cut deeper than her own thought, hammering nonstop, What did you do?!

The blood mixed with the water on the shower floor, creating a pink stream that curled toward the drain. Red, thick, dripping from her pale skin like it was trying to escape — like even her body no longer wanted to carry that weight. Her arm — or what was left of it — throbbed with a pain that made her grit her teeth. The mutilation was grotesque — exposed flesh, half-broken bones, muscles twitching as if they still hadn’t understood they had been betrayed.

She had torn off her own arm.
Eaten it.

The word echoed in her mind like a muffled thunderclap. She didn’t want to say it aloud. Didn’t dare. It was madness. Desperation. It was… survival?

This can’t be real. she thought, clinging to the shower bar, her body swaying. The dizziness came in waves, bringing with it flashes of what she had done. The teeth sinking into flesh. The revolting sound of chewing. The warm blood dripping from the corners of her mouth.

She had tasted it.
She had tasted it.

It wasn’t like normal meat. It was… metallic, bitter, intense. Something that should never be known. Not by anyone. And now, she knew. Now, she was that person.

She sat on the bathroom floor, letting the cold water hit her face. The pain was unbearable, but worse than that was the disgust. The disgust with herself. She could’ve cooked it, at least… Maybe with boiled water, maybe with some old seasoning still in the cupboard. But hunger... hunger didn’t let her.

She no longer knew what it meant to think clearly.

She bandaged the stump with what was left of gauze and clean cloths. Her hands trembled. Blood kept dripping, even though she’d done everything she could to stop it. It was a miracle she was still conscious. Her body was weak, dehydrated, broken.

She looked into the mirror. The reflection was nearly unrecognizable. Deep circles under her eyes, pale face stained with dried blood, hair plastered to her sweaty forehead. Her eyes… her eyes didn’t look like hers anymore. They were empty. Dull. Like they’d witnessed something that shouldn’t exist.

Katie tried to smile, but what she saw in the mirror was a twisted, sick grimace.

“You’re alive,” she whispered, barely audible. Her voice cracked halfway through. “You’re still alive…”

But at what cost?

She leaned her head against the tiled wall and closed her eyes. The pain was real — and as sick as it was, that meant something was still there. There was still her. Or what was left.

Her left arm… now was just a memory. An eternal scar she had made herself. Out of hunger. Out of fear. Out of desperation.

Andrew can’t know. she thought, throat tightening. No one can know.

There was no going back now.

She ran her fingers over the damp skin of her face, feeling regret weigh on her like cement. The water kept falling. The blood kept flowing.

And the hunger…
She’d deal with that later.

Chapter Text

She was going insane. Definitely. But considering she had amputated her own arm and eaten part of it raw, maybe “insane” was too mild a word. She didn’t cry anymore. Her body no longer had the strength for that. The sobs had turned into dry, silent tremors that took over her body during the coldest nights, when the pain of what she had done spoke louder than her survival instinct.

What was left of the arm was now wrapped in plastic film, at the bottom of the freezer. Between a cracked ice tray and a few dirty ice cubes. There were three very clear reasons for that. First: she didn’t want to look at it — almost completely gnawed, with bite marks that looked more like those of a wild animal than a human being. Second: she didn’t want to remember, as if hiding the piece could erase what she’d done. Third: she needed to save food.

Food, she thought, disgusted with herself.

At what point had all of that turned into this? When had despair become a constant presence, a shadow following her through the dark corners of the room? She could’ve just screamed for help — pounded on the windows, shouted until her throat bled. She could’ve begged for food. Even if no one heard her, even if she knew it wouldn’t change anything… it still would’ve been less insane than eating her own flesh.

But she didn’t scream. She didn’t allow herself to. Something in her had broken long before the hunger became unbearable. Something deep, a part that whispered, “you deserve this.” So when her stomach started to ache so badly it made her see stars, when hallucinations began to play at the edges of her vision, she chose to live. She chose the most horrific way to stay alive.

Now, sitting in the corner of the couch with the blanket up to her chin, she simply watched. She didn’t dare go out onto the balcony anymore. At 2 a.m., like clockwork, Andrew appeared. And she, like a child spying on something forbidden, curled behind the torn curtain of the glass door, watching in silence. He was always there, with his cheap cigarette between his fingers, taking deep drags, his face worn with that exhausted expression — a kind of tiredness that didn’t just come from the body, but from the soul.

He looked deader than she did.

Sometimes Ashley showed up. Always out of nowhere, like a bitter presence in the middle of the smoke. She talked to Andrew with that irritating, shrill voice, like she owned him. She touched his arm like someone claiming property. It was suffocating just to watch. Katie would never understand it. That wasn’t sisterly affection. It was something off. A kind of obsession that made her stomach twist even more than when she looked at the freezer.

The arguments happened quickly, almost automatically. Ashley always seemed to crave control, while Andrew answered with that same look of boredom, as if he wasn’t really listening at all. He just wanted to smoke. And hide. As if, on that little balcony, he could forget the rest of the world existed.

And she...

She just wanted to talk to him again.

But she couldn’t. Not now. He couldn’t see her like this — pale skin, purple circles under her eyes, and the missing arm covered with makeshift, filthy bandages. He’d hate her. He’d think she was sick. And she was. But she didn’t want him to know.

Time passed slowly. The silence of the house was disturbing. Only the ticking of the old clock, and sometimes the distant echoes of muffled arguments between Andrew and Ashley. Katie wondered how long she could hide what she’d done. How many days were left until her body finally gave in to the infection that was probably already taking hold. The smell of dead flesh was starting to mix with the air, even though she cleaned the blood every day.

She hugged her legs with the arm she still had, hiding her face between her knees.

“I just wanted food,” she whispered to herself, voice broken. “I just wanted to stay alive…”

But she no longer knew what being alive meant. The line between that and surviving was getting more and more blurred. Thinner.

And the freezer, there in the corner, hummed softly. Keeping what was left of the choice she never wanted to make.

----^⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠^----

It was strange how the world was fucked up. Completely fucked up. Andrew thought about that as the cigarette burned slowly between his fingers, the orange ember glowing briefly in the darkness of the balcony. The smoke rose, swirling in spirals before dissolving into the cold night air. The whole city seemed silent, dead, suffocated by that damned quarantine imposed because of the contamination of the water company. It was ridiculous — a kind of cruel irony that by now he couldn’t even bother laughing about.

Being locked up was annoying enough. Having to endure Ashley clinging to him 24 hours a day was a kind of torture not covered in any emergency protocol. She was always there, with that grating voice, that bossy attitude, invading every space, every thought. It was suffocating. Sometimes Andrew thought he would explode, that one day he’d just snap and do something impulsive.

But then she slept.

And in that brief moment of peace, he could go out. Just go out. Breathe, even if the air was heavy with smoke and tension. Smoke his cigarette — which, by the way, was running out, another reason for the resentment lodged in his spine. He counted the last ones like a man counting the days of a death sentence.

And there, with his face turned toward the void of the night, his gaze slipped, almost reflexively, toward the balcony next door. The neighbor’s balcony.

She wasn’t there anymore.

He no longer saw her silhouette behind the curtains, nor the shadow of her hidden face. It had been a while. At first, he didn’t care — why the fuck would he? But over time, he noticed. She was gone. And even though they’d barely exchanged a few words, she had been a presence. A kind of... distraction.

An interruption in the madness.

Andrew knew she was still alive. That, at least, he was sure of. Sometimes, when he was in the laundry room — which shared a wall with her apartment — he heard things. Faint, muffled sounds, almost whispers. Crying. Shuffling steps. A chair being moved. Little things that said more than any scream could. And he listened. Pretending not to.

He was never the type to get involved. Never had a savior complex. But something about her absence hurt in a strange way. Not that he cared. Of course not. He wasn’t that kind of person. But she...

She was interesting.

In a quiet, broken sort of way... but interesting. She had a look that always seemed to apologize for existing. A way of taking up as little space as possible, yet being impossible to ignore. She made him forget, even for a few seconds, that his life was a pile of miserable shit.

And now she was gone.

Andrew took a deep drag, closing his eyes for a moment. The bitter taste filled his mouth, burning his throat slightly — a comforting, familiar pain. Ashley mumbled something in the bedroom, probably tossing on the thin mattress while dreaming of more control, more shouting, more domination.

He looked again at the balcony next door. Dark. Silent.

Maybe she was sick. Maybe she’d run away. Maybe she was just tired. Or maybe... she’d reached her limit.

“Fuck it,” he muttered under his breath, to no one. But the discomfort remained. That uncertain sting that clung to the back of his mind.

He flicked the ash from his cigarette, watching the ember scatter to dust on the floor. The sound of the city was dead. Nothing but the distant hum of streetlights and the faint electric buzz coming from inside the apartment.

Andrew wasn’t a hero. Never wanted to be. But... maybe, just maybe, he’d look again tomorrow. See if a light turned on. Or if there was any movement. Not that he cared. But it was better than thinking about the last cigarette.

Or about Ashley — who never slept as much as she claimed to.

----^⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠_⁠^----

Katie didn’t know what was happening anymore — or maybe she did, and that was the problem. Everything was tangling inside her mind, like the rotten, moldy threads of a net growing out of control. The quarantine, the silence of the building, the smell of mildew mixed with her own dried sweat, the constant hunger that came in waves and never really went away... all of it felt like a diluted reality, as if she were living inside a sick dream, slow and looping, trapped in a cycle of repetition and noise.

And then there was that damn neighbor. Not Andrew — at least he was predictable. Rough, a bit arrogant, the kind of guy who always had that irritated, bored expression and didn’t bother pretending to be nice. She actually found that oddly comforting sometimes. But the other neighbor... that idiot who’d decided to turn his balcony into some sort of esoteric stage, playing weird music almost every night — that was what was driving her insane.

Katie didn’t know if it was some kind of ritual, if he was trying to summon something, or if he was just a bored bastard trying to piss off the few neighbors still alive and barely conscious in that building. But always between 2 and 4 a.m... always during the hours she most tried to sleep — or pretend to.

It was almost mental torture. The songs were slow, dragged out, filled with sharp noises that cut through the walls like knives. And she was at her limit. Exhaustion made her eyes burn, the purple circles under them piling up like eternal bruises, and her thoughts came in chaotic bursts. Sometimes she just cried, without knowing exactly why. Sometimes, she wanted to break something. Sometimes, she wanted to break herself.

But that night... that particular night, the music started again. Soft at first, like the melody of a broken toy, then louder, distorted, unbearable. That was the last straw.

She jumped out of bed, chest heaving with pent-up rage, her bare feet hitting the cold floor as if she couldn’t feel anything anymore. The hatred boiled so violently she barely remembered having bandaged her own arm days ago. She didn’t even think. She yanked the glass door to the balcony open with a crash, the sound echoing through the dead silence of the building, and with all the air left in her lungs, she screamed:

“SHUUUUUT THE FUUUCK UP WITH THAT MUSIC!”

Her voice came out desperate, hoarse, almost animal. And the building, once so silent, seemed to freeze for a second.

Then she noticed.

Andrew was there.

On the balcony next door. Sitting, a lit cigarette between his fingers, his face partially lit by the ember. He didn’t move, didn’t react right away. Just stared at her. Incredulous, maybe. Confused. Probably pissed. But what caught her attention most was his gaze... that fixed gaze that dropped subtly.

It took a second. Just one. But she realized. His eyes were locked on the empty space where an arm used to be.

Her scream still echoed in her head even after silence fell. The night wind brushed against her thin skin, raising goosebumps over the scars. The loose tape, the missing flesh, the grotesque outline of absence. And Andrew... still staring. His eyes half-open, confused, maybe trying to understand if he’d really seen it. If it was real.

She followed his gaze, as if only now realizing what she was showing. Her stomach twisted. The shame — or what was left of it — hit like a punch. What had she done? For a second, she forgot. Forgot her body, her flesh, her pain. Forgot she had eaten herself.

Before he could say anything, before he could even part his lips to form a word, she ran back inside. Escaped. Like a wounded animal dragging itself back into its den.

The door shut with a dull thud. She slid down the hallway wall until she hit the floor, heart racing, breath quick, eyes wide open.

She hated him for seeing.

But she hated herself even more for letting herself be seen.