The hallway swallowed the sound of his steps.He'd stopped using the flashlight
beam directly ahead of him; now he angled it down, letting the light slide
across the floor instead of against the dark.The air was thicker here, carrying
the sweet-metal scent of coolant and dust.Somewhere a single droplet of water fell from a pipe, each impact sharp as a heartbeat.He'd lost track of time.It was hard to know when day ended down here.His watch had stopped an hour ago,
the second hand frozen between ticks.He turned it toward the faint glow from a sign—CANTEEN / STORAGE / EXIT A—and decided "canteen" sounded like survival.The door to the kitchen opened with a reluctant sigh.Inside,the air was still and heavy, but not entirely dead.Tables stood where people had left them, half-cleaned trays, sealed containers,chairs stacked crookedly like bones.One wall of refrigerators hummed softly.He approached them,slow, cautious, half expecting movement inside.Nothing.Most were empty,
but one still held a few cans stacked neatly in a plastic crate: beans, corn,
something unlabelled.He didn't question the miracle of unspoiled metal.He
gathered what he could and carried it to the prep counter. The stove's pilot
light refused to spark.He found a small portable burner in a drawer and set
it up on the counter,coaxing a flame from the last of a butane cartridge.It
hissed alive and threw a circle of light across the steel.For the first time since
entering the building, warmth touched his hands.He opened the can with
a rusted opener, poured its contents into a dented pot and stirred until the
smell became something that could be called food.The steam clouded the air,
making the walls feel closer.When he sat to eat, the journal lay beside him
on the table, its leather darkening from the damp.He chewed mechanically,
eyes fixed on the book.Part of him wanted to keep reading, to find out what
came after the mice.Another part wanted to never open it again.But the quiet
here made choices feel like habits—one always led to the other.A gust passed
through the vents, rattling a spoon against a plate.He froze, listening.It came again, a slow, deliberate breath from the building itself.He looked toward
the door, half expecting to see it move.It didn't.When the sound faded, the
silence that followed seemed heavier.He reached for the journal, then stopped
himself."Tomorrow," he whispered."Tomorrow I'll keep reading."He needed
sleep.Every muscle told him so, and the warmth from the burner was already
making his eyelids heavy.He scanned the room for a place to rest.The pantry
at the back was narrow but enclosed, lined with shelves of sealed supplies.He
dragged a metal cart across the doorway until it wedged tight.The clang
echoed longer than it should have.He spread his coat on the floor, set the
flashlight beside him pointing toward the door, and turned it to its lowest
setting.Light pooled softly against the threshold, enough to see shapes but
not the dark beyond them.He lay down, listening to the low hum in the pipes,
and tried to imagine it was the sound of the sea.His mind kept returning to
the words he'd read:"We can make the body remember what it used to be."He
wondered what his own body remembered.Sleep came slowly, layered with fragments of sound: a faint knock from somewhere distant, a low electrical
pulse, something that might have been whispering or only the hiss of the
burner dying.When his eyes finally closed, the light flickered once, then
steadied.The building exhaled, and the survivor slept inside its lungs.