The ravine was a graveyard of forgotten machines.
Bent girders.
Crumbling concrete.
Rotten wood sinking into the muddy earth.
Fred pressed a scrap of fabric against Mira's ribs, trying to stanch the bleeding.
His own shoulder throbbed in sync with every heartbeat.
His vision blurred, but he didn't dare stop.
Subject 0 sat apart, knees drawn to his chest, silent.
Staring at the ground like he could dig into it and disappear.
Fred wanted to go to him.
To tell him it wasn't his fault.
But there was no strength left for that.
Not yet.
---
Above them, helicopters prowled the sky like iron vultures.
Floodlights sliced through the mist.
Dogs barked in the distance.
They had hours, maybe less, before Selene's forces closed the noose.
And no allies.
No safe houses.
No names they could trust.
Only each other.
Fred tightened the knot on the makeshift bandage.
Mira whimpered but nodded.
"I'm fine," she lied.
Her pale skin said otherwise.
But Fred smiled.
Because sometimes lies were kinder than truth.
Especially now.
Especially here.
---
Later, when the moon hung like a cracked mirror overhead, Subject 0 spoke.
A whisper.
A child's voice.
Broken.
"I killed them."
Fred looked up.
The boy wasn't crying.
That would've been easier.
He was just... empty.
"I killed them," he repeated.
"They deserved it," Mira said hoarsely, surprising both Fred and herself.
"No," the boy said.
"No one deserves to die like that."
Fred swallowed hard.
There were no easy answers.
No heroes here.
Only survivors.
Scarred and ugly and raw.
"We keep moving," Fred said finally.
"That's all we can do."
The boy didn't nod.
Didn't move.
But Fred thought—maybe—he understood.
---
By dawn, they had slipped away through the city's forgotten veins:
abandoned rail tunnels, storm drains choked with graffiti, alleys no one dared walk.
Each step was pain.
Each breath a battle.
But they moved.
Together.
Three broken souls against a world that had already written their obituary.
Fred didn't know if they would survive.
Didn't know if survival was even the right word anymore.
But when he looked back at the boy and Mira limping beside him, he knew one thing:
He wasn't alone.
And sometimes, that was enough.
Even beneath a sky that had already decided they should be dust.
---