Whimpers of the Light

Light snowflakes fell all around in a synchronised dance, their layers erasing the telltale signs of a forlorn chaos. There was a sort of order in their erratic movement, a rhythm in their flow. Or maybe it was just him. A product of his mind struggling to find patterns.

His boots crunched over the snow, compacting it into a reminder of his presence. Soon it would be covered again, but soon would have to come quickly. His way should be forgotten, by everyone else but him. Yet control he couldn’t exert on the weather, so he worried about his destination instead: an old two-story brick house with roof beams exposed like broken ribs.

Everything in this city was either dead or dying. Those white specks were the only survivors, blindly crashing onto windows barred long ago. Barricades. They were remnants of a wave of despair, a folly that had forced many to hide inside their homes, waiting for the end to pass. Except it had never passed. It had only been the beginning of a long torment.

Despite the state of the house, a sturdy door still guarded the entrance. That was a good sign, mostly. Perhaps there would be resources worth finding inside.There’s always a chance.But the chance was always meagre.

He found his way towards the entry and eased the door open, focused on any movement inside. Nothing lunged. Satisfied, he clicked on his flashlight. Inside lay an old, decrepit couch left facing a lifeless fireplace. He could almost picture it: the fire crackling there, the heat reaching him. But there was nothing to burn… yet another futile thought.

He shut the door behind him.

Further inside the house, his light caught the haze of dust, turning it into a glimmering wall. He decided it would only parasite his vision, so he killed the beam and let his eyes adjust. The house creaked under the weight of wind and it almost gave the illusion that it was still alive, that it still held in its midst the care of a family, and the insidious solace of a place to call home. But if anything lived inside, it remained silent. Waiting. He waited, too, listening to the house breathe until shapes reformed in his vision. Then, room by room, he searched, sweeping each corner with muscle memory. He would instinctively turn his back to spaces already cleared and count the number of openings as he went; a small price to pay for survival.

Stairs led him to an illuminated second floor. Dust, wood and snow littered the ground there, and echoes of a life long past lingered in discarded relics: pictures of faces faded, books whose stories would never be told again, and toys left to gather dust.No surprises here. Nothing of value or life in this museum of an ancient world.

From the main bedroom, he could see the city lying below, buried in a fresh blanket of white. This time of year, it almost resembled its former self: no greenery, just an endless expanse of concrete and metal, a vast sea of stone. Humanity’s monument to hubris now crumbled under the weight of time. It had once been taller, sharper, its towers daring the sky. They were left worn and broken.

Someday, it will be nothing but rubble.

He shook off the thought; there were still unchecked doors. It was his routine, saving them for last.Safer this way.Downstairs, when he opened the last of them, something struck wrong. A staircase dropped into a pit of darkness but it was the smell that hit him first, a sickening blend of rot and abandonment, a mixture that took form as he descended deeper.The stench of death.

Bones poked through the tattered skin of three carcasses strewn on the floor. Some belonged to a woman, tall and slender, perhaps she had been beautiful once, and in a twisted way, she still was. Her dress clung to the stone floor where mould patches bloomed like flowers across the fabric. They marked the first stage of an infection that would spread.

The other two bodies had likely been male; it was always difficult to judge when the flesh had already melted away. One, the size of a child, sat slumped in a wooden chair, his head lolled forward as if napping, while the other lay sprawled on the floor, his skeletal hand resting on a metal handle embedded in the ground.

Wooden racks lined the square cellar, still holding in their care dusty bottles. But most had spilt their content long ago.Just like their owner.Kneeling, he checked their pockets and belts, searching for anything useful; they would have no use for any of it now. Civilians—he guessed—but their cause of death remained uncertain. Not that it mattered. They had died, as they all had ages ago. Only the vultures remained.

Somehow, he always felt more alone in the presence of the dead, their lifeless forms trapped between the old world and the new as a reminder that he belonged to neither. But he had forgone any sense of belonging a long time ago. Only the next objective mattered, the next reason to keep going. When the bodies didn’t offer one, his curiosity led him towards the handle. Dust coated a trapdoor’s edges, long undisturbed yet still there. Waiting as well. He nudged the body aside and brushed away the grime until the dark wood emerged beneath.

But just then, a sudden creak overhead stopped him.

It wasn’t just the wind or the house settling. Vultures. Slow steps crossed the floor above, searching the house at a measured pace. Just as he had.They followed the tracks.

He sized up his options. Going back up meant having to fight; the stairs would inevitably lead him straight into the blade of a knife, or worse, a gun held by a waiting man.No. Men.More footsteps had joined the first; two distinct pairs now wandered over his head. The trapdoor became increasingly tempting.Not worth picking a fight this close to the city.

He pried at the trapdoor, forcing it to give with minimal noise. The flashlight flicked, and he swept the beam below into a damp, narrow tunnel of expanding concrete. As good a place as any to vanish unnoticed. Without a sound, he let himself drop.

His leather boots splashed through a thin layer of water.

By the time they found the trapdoor, he needed to be well out of their reach, as far away as this wretched gallery would allow him. Perhaps not far. But deep down, he hoped his instincts were right and that this corridor wouldn’t betray him with a dead end. Once, tunnels snaked through the undercity, and he had known them well back when they still teemed with purpose. Now, they were hollowed-out veins, stretching empty and silent. Empty, save for thethingsthat had made it their refuge. Things he’d rather leave undisturbed.

This particular tunnel, though, felt different, built with a purpose beyond the mundane, some forgotten plan buried under the years. But for him, there was only one purpose now: finding an exit. Preferably, he would clear the city’s edge before nightfall, before dusk reclaimed every corner of the ruin above. But the tunnel stretched on until, finally, a shape appeared ahead. A wall that split the corridor into two paths. There were no signs or clues as to where to go, so he gambled on the left, brushing his fingers along the wet stone of the outer wall.

After a while, his flashlight picked up something new: tiny particles dancing in the air. This time, it wasn’t dust.

Spores.

With an ingrained reaction, he dropped his backpack and tore it open. His fingers scrabbled through the contents, feeling each precious second slip by with every breath he held. Eventually, his fingers found it, and he yanked the gas mask over his head, sealing it in place before taking a long, steadying breath.

It had been a mistake: entering the house.

He should have known it would be stripped of anything worthwhile. The looters had combed through most corners of this land long ago. The city was but an empty carcass and each search was a gamble, too high a risk for too small a reward. And still, he couldn’t stop. Staying still meant a slow death; moving, even with the risk, felt like living. Survival required the gamble.

He had been blessed with a few lucky finds over the past few weeks. Winter’s approach brought an eerie quiet to the city, and with it, he could afford to make moves he would have otherwise relinquished. He had scored canned food—enough to stretch a fortnight with careful rationing—and a stash of mostly corroded batteries. A few of them still miraculously held a charge.

It had been just enough luck to give him a taste of possibility… and renew his addiction. Maybe that was the reason the house had caught his interest.I thought I’d win again.

His breath came in short bursts, fogging the mask’s plastic lens. The tunnel conspired to blind and trap him, it would seem, so the spores thickened. They were closing in on him. His flashlight sliced through them, but visibility had dropped to mere meters. And yet, he couldn’t risk switching it off down here; his eyes would never adjust to such darkness.

Compensating for the lack of vision, every nerve strained to listen. That’s when he caught it: faint rhythmic scrapes mingling with the drip of water.

Something darted across the ground with a scurrying squeak.

A familiar shiver went through him.It’s just a rat,he had to remind himself.They were a sight becoming rare, their numbers dwindling every season; their food source had died long ago, and the leftovers were unwilling to share. At least, that’s the theory he’d come up with. Either that or something hunted them to extinction. A less pleasant prospect.

As quickly as it had appeared, the rodent had vanished. He felt his focus vanish too. He despised this: the sensation of slipping control. Control was survival. Carefully measured steps and calculated decisions. A recipe to stay alive. But out here, the choices weren’t entirely his. For years, he had clung to his rules and hard-learned lessons, yet the irony wasn’t lost on him: he was never in command.

Even then, his life had followed a path others paved for him. A future laid out by his parents, like stones on a road. Biology, that’s what they had suggested, a field safe and sensible. So he’d spent years in lecture halls before the collapse, following teachers who didn’t care to teach and students who didn’t care to listen. He had been more attentive than most simply because it was better than doing nothing for hours. Yet none of it had mattered when everything crumbled. None of it safe or sensible.

He had met his girlfriend there, someone who brightened his dull routine.Girlfriend.The word sounded like a relic of an old language, a term foolish now more than ever. At the time, she had made all the decisions just as easily as he drifted along with them.

The details were fading, but the warmth remained, a ghostly echo of her laughter, the way she would follow the beat of whatever song played in her car on a summer day. A memory dulled by time. She was gone, probably. And surely, that was for the best.

He had stopped thinking of her by name; that, too, had melted like the wax of a bitter candle. Instead, he called her Sunlight because he needed a term for when he thought of her, and the memories were warm and bright.

In his reverie, the torch beam caught on a metallic object. A ladder warped and bolted to the wall, going up, hopefully to the surface. This was it. Soon, he would be out in the open air. He brushed the metal, and rust flakes crumbled under his glove, but it felt sturdy enough.

He caught movement in his peripheral vision.

When the flashlight swept ahead, he saw it. It stood there, just meters from him, tall and waiting. It was humanoid in a way, but its arms were too long. They almost dragged along the floor. Bloated, pinkish flesh glistened in the beam, and the air around it shifted with every laboured rasp.

Paralysed, he stared back at its black, hollow eyes, empty as the tunnels themselves, yet still fixed on him. A primal terror submerged him, an urge no amount of years had taught him to master. Then, the thing made a clicking sound, like a roller coaster coming to a stop.

The creature’s joints snapped as it pounced.

Fuck.

In the darkness of the tunnel, the unbidden thought of Sunlight flashed in his mind. The rasping breaths were louder now.

I didn’t turn right,he thought, wishing he had.