Harold died on the thirtieth day.
Gray found him first. The old man's breathing had been labored for days, each breath a battle against a body that had simply worn out. Gray had checked on him before dawn, as he did every morning, and found him still. Quiet. The rise and fall of his chest had finally stopped, the thread that connected him to the world gone dark and still.
For a long moment, Gray simply stood there, looking down at the old man's face. In sleep, in death, the lines of pain had smoothed away. Harold looked peaceful, almost content, as if he'd simply decided that he was tired and it was time to rest.
Gray had seen death before. He'd seen it in the hospital, in the streets, in the faces of people who had given everything they had and still couldn't survive. But this was different. This was someone he'd known, however briefly. Someone whose thread he'd watched flicker and fade.
He didn't know what to feel. Grief seemed too large, too heavy for a man he'd barely known. But indifference felt wrong too, a dismissal of a life that had mattered, even if only for a few days.
In the end, he simply felt the absence. The space where a thread had been, now empty.
---
Mina took it harder than he expected.
She came to check on Harold an hour after Gray had found him, her hands still damp from washing up, her face still soft with sleep. When she saw the stillness, the absence of breath, something in her expression cracked.
She didn't scream. She didn't collapse. She simply sat down beside the body, her hands folded in her lap, and began to cry.
Not loud, wrenching sobs - just tears, streaming silently down her face, her shoulders shaking with the effort of holding everything else in. She sat there for hours, motionless except for the trembling, her gaze fixed on Harold's peaceful face.
Gray didn't know what to do. He'd never been good at comfort, at the soft words and gentle touches that seemed to come naturally to some people. He stood at the edge of the space, watching, feeling useless, wishing there was something he could say that would make a difference.
But there wasn't. There was nothing to say. Harold was dead, and no words could change that.
Elias appeared at some point, his face grim but composed. He studied the scene - Mina's silent grief, Harold's still form, Gray's helpless vigil - and made a decision.
"We need to move him," Elias said quietly. "Staying near a corpse invites disease. Predators. We should bury him before the day gets too warm."
Gray nodded. Elias was right, of course. He was always right about these things, always practical, always focused on what needed to be done. But looking at Mina, at the way she held herself like she was trying not to shatter, Gray couldn't bring himself to move.
"Not yet," he said. "Give her time."
Elias's expression flickered - something that might have been frustration, or understanding, or both. But he didn't argue. He simply nodded, once, and retreated to organize the others.
---
The morning passed slowly.
Gray stood guard while Mina sat with Harold's body. He didn't speak, didn't try to comfort her with empty words. He simply stayed, a presence at the edge of her grief, a silent acknowledgment that she wasn't alone.
The others gave them space. Sarah took Emma outside to gather supplies, keeping the girl busy, keeping her away from the stillness inside. David checked the perimeter with renewed intensity, his movements sharp with the awareness that death had come close. The silent teenager watched from his corner, his eyes dark with something that might have been recognition, or memory, or both. And Ren - Ren stayed close to Gray, his small presence a quiet comfort, his thread humming with a resonance that felt like understanding.
Around midday, Mina finally stirred. She reached out and touched Harold's face, her fingers gentle, her expression shifting from grief to something softer.
"I couldn't save him," she whispered, her voice rough from hours of silence. "I eased his pain, but I couldn't fix what was broken. I couldn't give him more time."
Gray didn't know what to say. He'd been thinking about Harold's death in practical terms - an old body, a bad fall, the inevitable decline that came from age and injury. But Mina was thinking about it in terms of failure. Her failure. As if every death she couldn't prevent was a personal shortcoming.
"You gave him comfort," Gray said finally, his voice quiet. "You eased his pain. That mattered."
"Did it?" Mina looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed, her face blotchy from crying. "He still died. He was still alone in a pharmacy for days before we found him. He still spent his last weeks in a ruined world, surrounded by strangers, unable to walk, unable to do anything but wait for the end."
"He wasn't alone at the end," Gray said. "He had us. He had you."
Mina was silent for a long moment, her gaze returning to Harold's face. Then she said, so quietly Gray almost missed it, "I wanted to do more. I wanted to fix him. But I couldn't. I can't. Some things are just... beyond me."
"That doesn't make you a failure," Gray said. "It makes you human."
She looked at him again, and something in her expression shifted - a flicker of surprise, or recognition, or something else he couldn't name. Then she nodded, almost to herself, and began to rise.
"Thank you," she said.
Gray didn't understand what she was thanking him for. He hadn't done anything. He'd just stood there, useless, while she grieved. But he didn't argue. He simply nodded, and helped her to her feet, and stepped back to give her space.
---
They buried Harold in the afternoon.
Elias had found a spot behind the laundromat, a small patch of earth that wasn't too rocky, that wasn't too visible from the street. David and the silent teenager dug the grave, their movements efficient, their faces set with the grim focus of people who had learned to do what needed to be done.
Mina watched from a distance, her arms wrapped around herself, her face pale but composed. She'd stopped crying, but the grief was still there, visible in the set of her shoulders, the tightness around her eyes.
Gray stood beside her, not speaking, just present. His pattern-sight reached for the threads around them - the living threads of the group, tangled together in their shared loss, and the empty space where Harold's thread had been. The absence was real. The absence mattered.
When the grave was ready, they carried Harold's body outside. Sarah had found a clean sheet to wrap him in, a small dignity in a world that had stripped away so many. They lowered him into the ground with careful hands, and for a moment, everyone was still.
No one knew what to say. There were no priests, no rituals, no words that had been passed down through generations to make sense of death. They were just survivors, standing around a grave, trying to find meaning in a moment that offered none.
Then Mina stepped forward, her voice quiet but steady.
"I didn't know him long," she said. "But he was kind. And he was brave. And he didn't deserve to die alone in a pharmacy, waiting for someone to find him." She paused, her breath catching. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more. I'm sorry I couldn't save him. But I'm glad he wasn't alone at the end. I'm glad he had people who cared."
She knelt beside the grave, her hand pressed against the wrapped body, and whispered something too quiet for anyone else to hear. A goodbye. A prayer. A wish for peace in whatever came next.
Then she stood, stepped back, and let Elias and David fill the grave.
---
That night, the laundromat felt emptier.
Gray sat by the window, watching the wrong-color stars pulse in the sky, his pattern-sight reaching outward into the darkness. The threads around him were quieter now, subdued by the day's events. Even Ren, who usually hummed with a faint resonance, seemed dimmer, his small body curled in sleep beside Emma, his thread flickering with dreams.
Mina hadn't slept. She sat across the room, her back against the wall, her gaze fixed on nothing. She'd stopped crying, but the grief was still there, a weight that she carried in the set of her shoulders, the stillness of her hands.
Gray wanted to go to her, to say something that would help. But he didn't know what. He'd never been good at this - at the soft words, the gentle touches, the comfort that came so naturally to some people. All he had was presence, and silence, and the willingness to stay when staying was all he could do.
He thought about what she'd said. Thank you. He still didn't understand what she was thanking him for. He hadn't done anything. He'd just stood there, useless, while she grieved.
But maybe that was the point. Maybe sometimes, the only thing you could do was stay. Maybe sometimes, that was enough.
He filed the thought away, adding it to the growing collection of observations that would eventually become the Proof Codex. Not everything could be documented in words. Not everything could be explained through pattern and intent. Some things - the threads between people, the weight of grief, the comfort of presence - had to be experienced to be understood.
Harold was dead. The first death of the new world, at least for their group. There would be more. Gray knew that with a certainty that went beyond logic. In a world this broken, death was inevitable. It would come for all of them, eventually.
But for now, they were still here. Still breathing. Still connected by threads that pulsed with life and warmth and the stubborn refusal to give up.
And maybe that was enough. For now, maybe that was enough.