The captain's words were followed by a heavy silence.
Everyone there had the same expression on their face: exhaustion, relief, and guilt. The guilt was the most real of them all — it looked like it was leaking out through their eyes.
The captain gave everyone a tired smile — or whatever came closest to that.
"Go down."
The order came out dry.
The darkness of the stairs looked ready to swallow us whole. From a distance, it reminded me of an animal's mouth about to swallow someone… in this case, me.
But the others just obeyed. Without hesitation, they went down as if it were a safe, well-lit street.
Me?… yeah, I was pushed.
I stumbled on the first steps, their boots hitting the damp concrete echoing like hammers inside my skull.
That place smelled like mold, rust, and stagnant water.
Who would call a place like this home?
It was suffocating.
And the farther down we went, the colder it got. The air turned so cold it raised goosebumps on hairs I didn't even remember having.
I was shaking. My gray T-shirt was thin and now even more disgusting because it was wet… clinging to my skin like a second, soggy layer.
I sighed.
Maybe because of how absurd everything was, or maybe because my body needed some kind of human reaction before finally snapping.
Water dripped from the ceiling in an irritating rhythm, and the sound of their heavy breathing echoed through the tunnel like we were walking inside an old, sick lung.
After a few minutes, a faint light began to appear ahead.
"Lights… we're almost there," the captain murmured.
Almost where?
I thought, but didn't say. My mouth was too busy trying not to tremble.
When I finally stepped off the last stair, a yellowish glow lit up the tunnel…
And then it appeared.
The purple screen.
Floating and unstable. Flickering like a glitch in my retina as the letters slowly started to form.
SAVEPOINT
I froze.
The fear came back like a punch to the gut.
I had forgotten about that thing.
Shit.
"Move it."
The man beside me shoved me again, annoyed like I was a sack of sand in his way.
I looked at him… at the others… and nothing.
None of them reacted to the bright screen floating in front of my face.
They don't see it?
They didn't seem like the kind of people who could fake it.
Before I could think of anything useful, the screen just vanished.
Evaporated like it had never been there.
The two holding me exchanged looks of disdain, like they thought I was planning to run.
I couldn't have run even if I wanted to. My legs still felt like they were made of overcooked noodles.
We kept walking.
The yellowish glow got stronger, revealing the floor better — covered in dust, broken glass, and rubble. With every step, the feeling that we were walking into the guts of some giant creature only got worse.
Until the corridor opened into a wide platform.
A rusty sign still showed:
PLATFORM B-2
Old signs hung from the walls, coated in soot and smeared with handprints everywhere… small ones, large ones, some with too many fingers.
A barricade of metal and wood blocked the entrance, but they just pushed it aside, and we went through.
As we stepped in, the air changed.
The smell of smoke mixed with burnt oil, stale sweat, and despair.
It was an old station… turned into a shelter.
There were canvas tents, twisted metal, and torn blankets. I could see people sleeping, some cleaning weapons, others lighting candles in front of symbols that looked cursed.
They all had the same look: total alertness, mixed with exhaustion and some fear pushed far down.
When we walked in, it was like someone had kicked a beehive. Chaos sprang up instantly. People backed away, children were yanked aside… no one wanted to be in our path.
What kind of people am I with?
The captain didn't seem to care about the chaos. She simply stopped in the middle, turned toward me, looked me up and down… and then just kept walking. Like I was just extra dead weight.
Well… maybe I was.
The sound of her boots stood out above everything else. Each step was a warning. I couldn't see her face, but judging by how fast people cleared a path, it had to be terrifying.
Then something happened.
First, a small clatter, like something light falling to the floor.
Then, a muffled cry.
And everyone froze.
They all looked in the same direction — and I looked too.
A child… maybe eight, nine years old, had tripped over a piece of rubble and fallen right in front of us.
The small body slid across the dusty floor, kicking up a thin cloud that caught the firelight from the barrels.
She stayed still for a second.
Dirty, torn T-shirt. Bare feet full of dark wounds. Hair matted to her face.
When she lifted her head…
My chest tightened.
Her eyes were huge and trembling. They reflected the flames like they were about to melt.
I could see the fear there.
Thick tears rolled silently, spotting the ground with tiny dark stains of rust and dust.
She didn't cry out loud — on the contrary, it looked like she was choking it back with all she had — but the terror spilled from her eyes like liquid.
No one approached her. If anything, they stepped further away.
I was stunned.
It's not that serious, is it?
The captain stayed completely still.
The man beside me clicked his tongue, annoyed, and the others looked away, too tense to move closer.
The girl tried to stand, but fell again — and this time a strangled sob escaped.
Her stifled sob echoed in a way that tore through my chest.
Why do I feel like this?
Almost on instinct, I tried to take a step forward, but they caught me before I could move my whole foot.
The captain sighed and took a step.
Just one step — and the silence around us seemed to deepen, thick as mud.
She knelt down in front of the girl.
The hardness in her posture… softened. Just a little.
Enough to look human for about three seconds. But around me, the other members of the group stayed rigid.
It was like the captain was about to defuse a bomb.
It's just a child…
And then I saw it.
Under the girl's torn shirt… there was something.
A bulge, pulsing — like a living apple pushing the skin from the inside. The skin around it glowed in shades of sickly purple and yellow, inflamed.
My stomach turned to ice.
I looked around and, in my head, it was like I heard a click.
That's when I noticed…
Everyone there had something similar.
Swellings. Nodules that seemed alive. Lumps that rose and fell slowly. Wounds covered with dirty cloth, others exposed and leaking pus.
Some were so deformed they barely looked human.
But… they were still human. That alone was enough to smother the fear and make room for pity.
I looked back at the girl.
She was, too… still human. Too human.
And that hurt.
Her eyes met mine for a second before going back to the captain.
The captain, still kneeling, extended a hand.
"It's okay, little one," she said, in a tone I'd never heard from her before. "No one's going to do anything."
Her voice…
Her voice sounded tired and more human than at any other moment since I'd met her. Somehow, it didn't fit in that horrible world.
The girl was shaking so hard she practically vibrated.
When the captain leaned in to help, I heard a collective gasp from the refugees.
Her companions tensed, and the man who'd mocked me in the corridor was the only one to speak:
"Don't touch her!"
"Are you insane?!"
"Do you want to doom us?!"
But he didn't move to stop her — he seemed more afraid of something else entirely.
The girl looked at him, then at the captain, hesitating.
"C-can I go?" she asked in a thin voice.
The captain didn't answer right away. Her eyes shone — not with tears, but with something someone holds back for years.
Finally, she nodded.
And placed her hand on the girl's head.
A small gesture.
Simple.
But enough to set the entire shelter on fire.
A shout rang out from one of the tents, then another… and another.
Within seconds, the panic was back.
Women grabbed children, men stepped back. Everyone was scared and shouting at the same time.
The captain sighed like she was used to making every place she stepped into worse.
She stood up, looked at the girl one last time, and said:
"Go. Get back to your tent."
The child ran off, limping and stumbling. She looked back at every step until she disappeared between the tarps.
Silence.
The captain kept staring at the spot where the girl had vanished before murmuring, without looking at anyone:
"It's fine… carry on."
And we did.
But the screams… the screams stayed with us.
They walked beside us like shadows.