Brad woke up to the sound of breathing that wasn't his.
Not heavy.
Not panicked.
Not desperate.
Just close.
So close that for half a second, still trapped between sleep and consciousness,
he thought the sound was coming from inside his own chest.
He didn't move.
The Lower District taught people one thing very well:
moving too fast was how you broke fragile things.
Fillia lay beside him, turned slightly away, her back warm against his bare arm.
Her breathing was even, soft, unguarded in a way that made Brad's stomach twist.
She slept like someone who had never needed to fear the walls listening to her.
Upper District daughters didn't learn that fear.
Lower District men learned nothing else.
Brad stared at the ceiling.
The paint above them was cracked in thin, spiderweb lines, yellowed by age
and humidity and the faint residue of chemical cleaners the building manager
used once every few months to pretend he cared.
The ventilation fan hummed weakly from the bathroom.
One.
Two.
Three.
Brad counted with it.
One for his heartbeat.
Two for the ache behind his eyes.
Three for the lie he would tell himself when morning came.
Today was supposed to be normal.
That was the lie.
Normal meant classes at the medical institute.
Normal meant hospital rotation under supervisors who never learned his name.
Normal meant pretending his address didn't exist when asked where he lived.
Normal meant Fillia leaving before sunrise, taking the service stairwell,
covering her hair, hiding the accent that gave her away.
Normal meant surviving another twenty-four hours without being seen.
He breathed in slowly.
Fillia shifted beside him.
"Brad…?" Her voice was still half asleep, soft around the edges,
as if it hadn't fully decided whether to be sound or thought yet.
"I'm here," he whispered.
She turned slightly, her fingers brushing his wrist.
The contact was small, absentminded, affectionate in a way that carried
far too much meaning for a place like this.
Brad closed his eyes.
Upper District daughters didn't touch Lower District men like this.
Not in daylight.
Not in public.
Not ever.
But here, in this narrow room with peeling walls and borrowed silence,
she did.
The hum of the fan changed.
So faint Brad almost missed it.
Then—
Knock.
Not loud.
Not sharp.
Not the kind that came from fists angry enough to break bone.
It was controlled.
Measured.
Deliberate.
Brad's eyes snapped open.
Nobody knocked in the Lower District.
They shouted.
They banged.
They kicked.
They left notes under doors if they were polite,
and if they weren't, they didn't bother announcing themselves at all.
Fillia lifted her head. "Did you hear that?"
"Yes," Brad said.
His chest tightened.
The air felt wrong.
Cooler than it should have been.
Sharper.
As if the room had inhaled while they slept and forgotten to exhale.
"I'll check," he said.
Fillia frowned. "Brad—"
"I'll check," he repeated, already sitting up.
The mattress creaked softly beneath his weight.
He moved carefully, stepping over the scattered clothes,
the medical textbooks stacked unevenly by the wall,
the single chair they owned that wobbled if you leaned too far back.
The floor was cold against his bare feet.
Brad reached the door and rested his hand against the metal.
He didn't open it yet.
Another habit from the Lower District:
listen first.
Nothing.
No footsteps.
No voices.
No shuffling in the hallway.
Only the distant sound of the city waking up:
sirens far away,
a train rattling on elevated tracks,
someone yelling two floors below.
Brad unlocked the door slowly.
The hinges didn't squeal.
He had oiled them himself.
The door opened just enough for him to see—
And his breath caught.
A basket sat neatly on the floor outside their apartment.
Woven.
Clean.
Expensive.
The kind of basket you saw in Upper District markets,
displayed under white lights with price tags no one in this building
could afford to read, let alone pay.
Inside it were oranges.
Perfectly round.
Bright.
Unblemished.
Their color was wrong.
Too vivid.
Too alive.
Nothing this fresh belonged here.
Brad's first thought was that someone had made a mistake.
His second thought was that no one made mistakes like this.
He leaned forward.
And smelled them.
The scent hit him like a blade driven straight into the base of his skull.
Sharp.
Sweet.
Aggressive.
It wasn't citrus.
It wasn't food.
It was something else wearing the memory of fruit like a mask.
Brad's vision blurred.
The hallway tilted.
His heart slammed once—twice—then accelerated into a rhythm
his body recognized as danger.
Violence surged through him.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Something older.
Something that didn't ask permission.
His hands clenched.
In his mind, images rose uninvited:
fingers closing around a throat,
pressure increasing,
the sudden quiet that followed.
Brad staggered backward.
He slammed the door shut so hard the frame rattled.
The lock clicked into place.
"Brad?"
Fillia was standing now, her hair disheveled,
concern already creasing her brow.
"What is it?" she asked.
Brad opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Don't come closer.
The words clawed at his throat, desperate to escape,
but something darker pushed them down.
Instead, another sensation rose.
Heat.
Tension.
A pull in his muscles like he was about to sprint—or strike.
Brad looked at her.
And for half a second, his mind betrayed him.
He saw himself hurting her.
Not by accident.
Not in panic.
Deliberately.
The image was so clear it stole his breath.
Brad recoiled as if he'd touched fire.
"Stay back!" he shouted.
Fillia froze.
"Brad—"
He didn't wait for her to finish.
Brad turned and locked himself in the bathroom.
The door shut between them with a finality that made his chest ache.
He collapsed against it, sliding down until he hit the tile floor.
The room spun.
Brad retched violently into the sink,
his body rejecting something it didn't understand.
His hands shook so badly he had to grip the porcelain to keep from collapsing.
What the hell was that?
He splashed water onto his face.
Cold.
Real.
The scent was still there.
Not in the air.
Inside him.
Like it had soaked into his nerves,
rewired something fundamental,
turned a switch that had never existed before.
Outside the bathroom door, Fillia's voice trembled.
"Talk to me," she pleaded. "Please."
Brad pressed his forehead against the cool metal of the door.
"I—" His voice cracked. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
Sirens screamed in the distance.
Closer now.
Not one.
Not two.
Many.
Then shouting.
Then the unmistakable sound of something breaking.
Glass.
Metal.
Bone.
Brad lifted his head slowly.
Dread settled into his bones,
heavy and absolute.
This wasn't just him.
Across the city, something had begun.
And whatever it was—
It had smelled him first.