The thirst came back faster each day.
He'd rationed what little water he'd found under the overpass, but it was gone now, and the ache in his throat had turned sharp. The air was dry enough to sting when he breathed.
He followed the sound of dripping somewhere ahead — faint, rhythmic, impossible to tell if it was real or imagined. The ground here was cracked and uneven, the ruins thinning into a district that might once have been industrial. Rusted signs leaned out over broken streets, and weeds had started to force their way through the asphalt.
Something about this area felt different. The wind carried smells — soil, damp metal — things that shouldn't have existed in a dead city.
He slowed his pace.
Among the cracks, he saw footprints. Not his own.
They were too fresh for that — pressed deep in the dust, small at first, then larger ones overlapping. Two sets, side by side.
Leo's breath caught.
Someone else was alive.
He crouched, fingers hovering over the prints as if they might vanish. They led down a slope between fallen buildings toward what looked like a stream of runoff cutting through the debris. The faint glint of water shimmered in the distance.
He hesitated, scanning the horizon. Nothing moved.
Carefully, he followed.
When he reached the base of the slope, he knelt beside the stream. The water was cloudy, but it flowed, real and cold. He cupped a handful to his lips and drank.
The moment the water touched his mouth, a sharp voice cut the air.
"Don't move."
He froze.
The sound came from above, clear and close.
"Hands where I can see them," another voice ordered — lower, harder.
He raised his hands slowly. The metal rod he'd been carrying clattered into the dirt.
A figure appeared on the ridge: a woman with short hair and two small, curved horns rising from her forehead, catching the light. She held a makeshift rifle aimed straight at his chest.
Beside her stood a man — tall, broad-shouldered, his ears tapering to points through his hair. He carried a jagged spear that looked welded from rebar.
"Who are you?" the woman demanded.
Leo swallowed hard. "I'm not— I'm just passing through."
The man stepped forward. "You're too clean."
"What?"
"Your skin," the man said, voice sharp. "No burns. No rot. You're not one of us."
The woman's eyes narrowed. "Show your hands."
He did. They trembled slightly, ash still clinging to the creases.
"Arms."
He hesitated a fraction too long. Her rifle clicked.
He rolled his sleeve up slowly, careful to keep the Bracelet hidden beneath the fold. The faint light under his skin had dulled overnight, thank God.
The woman lowered the rifle a few inches but didn't relax. "You're lucky," she said. "We've had worse things come crawling out of the ruins."
"Worse things?" he asked, voice rough.
The man's lip curled. "Things that look human until they start moving."
Leo didn't answer. He couldn't. The image of the glowing corpses flashed behind his eyes.
"Where's your camp?" she asked.
"I don't have one."
"Liar."
"I'm alone."
"Everyone says that," The man muttered. He stepped closer, spear angled just under Leo's chin. "You smell wrong."
"I said enough." The woman pushed the man's weapon aside. "He's exhausted. Look at him."
Her tone softened by degrees. "What's your name?"
Leo hesitated, throat dry. His mind flickered through a thousand wrong answers. The truth wasn't an option.
He forced the first false one that sounded real. "J- J- Junius…"
The word left his mouth before he could think. It felt foreign — but it fit, somehow.
The woman studied him a long moment, then nodded once. "Alright, Junius. If that's true, you'll come with us."
"Why?"
"To prove you're not one of them."
The way she said them made his skin crawl.
The man didn't lower his spear. "He moves funny," he muttered.
The woman ignored him. "You drink any more of that water, and it'll kill you. Come on."
Leo looked at the stream again. For a moment he considered running. But the idea of being alone in the ruins again—
He followed.
As they climbed the ridge, the woman's horns caught the light again, faintly glimmering.
The last thing he saw before cresting the hill was his reflection in a puddle — pale, gaunt, eyes too bright. The stranger named Junius stared back.
They led him along the ridge in silence.
The woman walked ahead, rifle steady at her side. The tall man followed close behind, the tip of his spear grazing the small of Leo's back whenever he slowed. The gesture wasn't accidental.
The wind carried the dry smell of rust and ash. Beneath it, a faint sweetness — the odor of decay that had become the city's breath.
After a long stretch, the woman stopped beside a fallen overpass that arched above the ruins like the ribs of some colossal skeleton. She crouched and lifted a cracked canteen from a pile of rubble. "Here," she said, tossing it toward him. "Drink."
He caught it awkwardly. The water inside was murky, but he forced down a mouthful anyway. It tasted of metal and dirt, but it stayed down.
The man snorted. "Don't thank us or anything."
Leo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Didn't think I should waste breath."
The man scowled but said nothing.
The woman straightened, her tone even. "You said you're alone. Since when?"
"I don't know," he said. "Days blur together."
"You came from the city?"
He hesitated. "What's left of it."
"That's suicide. Nothing lives there."
He almost smiled — a hollow reflex. "I noticed."
The man stepped closer. "Then how are you still breathing, Junius?"
Leo kept his eyes on the dirt. "Maybe I'm just lucky."
The man's voice sharpened. "Luck doesn't stop radiation. Or the sickness."
The woman cut in. "He doesn't look sick."
"Exactly," the man snapped. "He doesn't look anything."
The two exchanged a glance — practiced, wordless, the kind that comes from surviving together too long.
The woman turned back to him. "You said you're just passing through. Looking for what?"
He shrugged. "Somewhere the sky doesn't burn."
Her mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "Then you'll be walking forever."
"I already am."
A short silence followed. The woman studied him, weighing the tremor in his hands, the exhaustion clouding his eyes. She must have decided he was more broken than dangerous.
Finally, she lowered the rifle.
The man made a noise of protest. "You're serious?"
"He's one man," she said. "Starving, half-dead. If he wanted to hurt us, he'd have done it already."
"Or he's bait," the man countered.
She didn't answer that. Instead, she nodded toward a pile of debris nearby. "You want to prove you're human? Help me move that."
Leo hesitated, then stepped forward. The two of them dug through the rubble in silence. Beneath the layer of ash were old supplies — a crate of tools, a few sealed cans. He pulled one free, handed it to her without comment.
When she glanced up, something flickered across her face — not kindness, exactly, but recognition.
"Where'd you learn to scavenge?" she asked.
"Necessity."
"You speak like someone who used to have choices."
He met her eyes briefly, then looked away. "Not anymore."
The man stood a few paces off, spear resting against his shoulder, still glaring. "Lilia, this is a mistake."
"Maybe," she said. "But we all started as mistakes, didn't we, Rio?"
That shut him up.
They finished clearing the pile. She divided the cans — two for them, one for him. "We've got a camp a few kilometers west. Shelter, water. You can come if you keep your head down."
He blinked. "Just like that?"
Her gaze hardened. "Not just like that. You'll pull your weight. And if you try anything…" She gestured to Rio. "He's faster than he looks."
Rio smirked. "And meaner."
Leo nodded once. "Understood."
They started walking again, slower this time. The sun dipped behind a curtain of smoke, painting the world in dull orange. Shadows stretched long across the cracked road.
Lilia walked ahead, rifle slung now, her horns glinting faintly. Rio followed beside Leo, eyes never leaving him.
After a while, Rio muttered, "You're hiding something."
"Everyone's hiding something," Junius replied quietly.
Rio snorted but didn't argue.
They passed the rusted shell of a bus half sunk into the asphalt. As they climbed over it, Leo glanced at their silhouettes — the curve of horns, the pointed ears. Their mutations were strange, yes, but not grotesque. They moved with the ease of people who had adapted, not suffered.
He wondered, not for the first time, if maybe the world had changed and he hadn't.
And which of them was the monster now.
The sun had already sunk behind the haze when they left the broken road.
The landscape changed subtly as they walked—less metal, more soil. Patches of brittle grass pushed through the cracks, and the air smelled faintly of life again, though it was the dry, iron-tinged kind that came after storms.
Lilia led, quiet and watchful. Rio kept his spear in hand, every so often glancing over his shoulder to make sure Junius — Leo — still followed.
They hadn't spoken since the last ruins. The silence between them felt deliberate, like a test.
Finally, Lilia broke it. "You really don't remember where you came from?"
Leo shook his head. "I remember too much. None of it matters now."
"That so?"
"Yeah." He kicked a loose stone aside. "Everything that mattered burned."
She didn't press him, but her expression shifted—something halfway between sympathy and suspicion.
They crossed a field littered with rusted solar panels, half buried in dust. The fading light caught their surfaces, flashing in fragments like scattered mirrors. In one of them, he saw his reflection walking beside theirs: one man, one horned woman, one sharp-eared shadow. He looked more ghost than flesh.
Rio's voice cut the quiet. "What did you do before all this?"
Leo hesitated. "Work."
"Convenient," Rio muttered. "Camp always needs a handyman."
"Better than a thief," Leo said.
Rio glared, but Lilia laughed—a short, dry sound that startled him more than the ambush had. "Careful," she said. "He's got a temper."
"Noted."
They kept walking until the ground began to rise. Beyond the ridge, faint lights shimmered—orange pinpricks flickering through the dust. The sight stopped him.
Firelight.
Real people.
Lilia noticed his stare. "Don't get ideas," she said. "You're not one of us yet."
"I didn't say I was."
"Good."
She adjusted her rifle strap and started up the slope. Rio fell in behind her, muttering under his breath.
Leo trailed a few steps back, each footfall echoing the pulse of the Bracelet beneath his sleeve. The rhythm had steadied again, faint but constant, like a second heartbeat.
He pressed his wrist against his side to hide it.
As they reached the top, the camp came into view—tents made from scavenged fabric and bent metal sheets, a few fires burning low, the silhouettes of people moving between them. Not many. Two dozen, maybe less. Some had horns like Lilia, others animal features or scaled patches across their skin. The air was thick with woodsmoke and murmured voices.
The sight hit him harder than he expected. He hadn't realized how long it had been since he'd heard people talking.
Lilia turned to him. "You speak when spoken to, you eat what you're given, and you don't touch anyone without permission. Understood?"
He nodded.
Rio leaned close, his voice low enough that only Leo heard. "If I catch you lying, I'll cut your throat before Lilia can blink."
Leo met his stare. "Then you'd better be fast."
Rio's grin was small and unpleasant. "We'll see."
They walked into the camp. Heads turned. Conversations faltered. Leo felt the weight of every gaze—curious, suspicious, some openly fearful. He kept his eyes down.
A child whispered something, tugging on a woman's sleeve. The woman hushed them and stepped back, watching.
Lilia gestured to a patch of ground near a firepit. "You sleep there. Tomorrow, we'll see what you can do."
"Thank you," he said.
She paused. "Don't thank me. Prove you belong."
Then she walked away, rifle slung across her back, horns catching the firelight in twin arcs. Rio followed, giving one last lingering look before disappearing into the shadows.
Leo sat by the fire alone. The heat licked his face, but it didn't reach the cold inside him.
He rubbed his wrist beneath the sleeve, feeling the Bracelet's faint hum against his skin. For a moment, the light bled through the fabric—thin, white, and alive. He pressed his palm over it until the glow dimmed.
From somewhere deeper in the camp, a voice called Lilia's name, followed by laughter. Ordinary sounds. Human.
He closed his eyes.
The lie settled in, heavier than the bracelet, heavier than the ash. Junius.
It wasn't a disguise anymore. It was the only name the world would let him keep.