The others notice him leaving. One woman - younger, maybe twenty - makes eye contact. Her eyes are unsettling and peaceful, so peaceful. Accepting.
She looks at his long hair and recoils.
He looks away.
He starts to search.
The ruins are a maze. Collapsed buildings lean against each other, creating tunnels and dead ends.
He climbs over rubble, squeezes through gaps. His hands are still torn from the coffin and every surface adds new pain.
Doesn't matter. Has to find water.
He hears it before he sees it. The dripping. The trickling.
Follows the sound to a crack in what was once a wall.
But there's nothing.
The sound is from somewhere above, impossible to reach. But a little water is pooled in a depression in the rubble below, the rest probably drained away into cracks below.
*Oh.*
He crouches, looks at it.
It's tiny. So tiny. A depression the size of his palm and with depth of his finger.
It's clearer than the well water. Still has a faint brown tint but not that thick murk.
He tests it, watches the edges where insects might gather. There are flies - landing on the water, taking off, landing again.
They don't die.
He kneels and fits his face to the ground with skin harsh against rock and sniffs. It smells like metal and stone. No rot-smell like the well.
Sucks. Just a taste. Lets it sit in his mouth, tasting for anything wrong.
Just metal. Sharp. Unpleasant but not deadly.
He swallows, but barely feels it. Waits. Counts to sixty. His stomach doesn't cramp. His throat doesn't close. No blood.
It's not enough to know for sure but it is something.
He sucks again. Then drinks, his mouth shaped like that of a fish. The water is cold and tastes terrible but his throat is screaming for it and then it is finished. Gone.
Sits back, breathing hard.
Thirsty.
Still alive. His head aches.
---
He needs to find somewhere to sleep before it gets dark.
He goes back toward the square with the well. Because people are there. Being near people feels less dangerous than being alone.
The square is different now. Three more since he left, collapsed near the well, blood dried on their faces. The living step around them thankful for living another day. The well is tempting. Tempting.
A man is sleeping curled against one of the warm corpses, only space left that isn't rubble.
Others are settling for the night, finding corners, spaces between stones.
Nobody speaks. Just finding spots and lying down. Some are shaking - fever, cold, withdrawal from something. Others are too still. Might be dead already but nobody checks.
He finds a corner away from the well. Space between two collapsed walls, barely big enough but it's enclosed on two sides.
Shelter. Sort of.
He lies down. The stone is cold against his back and his torn clothes are still damp from the grave. He's shivering, exhausted but can't sleep.
His mind won't stop. And it aches.
---
A woman nearby is muttering. Low, constant stream of words he can't make out. Not talking to anyone. Just talking.
A man screams somewhere in the distance. Short, sharp, cut off suddenly.
Nobody in the square reacts.
Someone coughs - wet, rattling. The sound goes on for a long time.
Then voices. Quiet, a few corners away. Maybe two people talking. He can't make out the words.
One of them laughs.
He sits up, stares in that direction.
The voices go quiet again.
He lies back down, closes his eyes. Tries to sleep.
Can't.
Opens them. The sky is darker now, full dark coming. He can see shapes moving in the square - people shifting, settling, one person crawling toward the well on hands and knees.
He walks toward the well. Slowly. Then he walks back.
He rests his body and closes his eyes again. Head aches.
---
Dreams come eventually. Fragmented. Symbols he doesn't recognize floating in darkness - circles and lines and patterns that feel like they mean something but he can't grasp it.
A voice, low and distant, speaking in murmurs he can't understand.
Not words. Just sound shaped like words.
---
Day two and the thirst increases. He drinks again from the depression. The equivilent of two cups.
He overhears that the water at the well is poisoned from an artifact.
Day three and patterns began to emerge.
And hope.
He's seen salvage crews - groups of workers heading into the deeper ruins at dawn, coming back at dusk. Men and women with hollow eyes and full bodies that are not dead.
Sometimes they carry things. Strange objects that glow faintly or hum at frequencies he can barely hear.
Artifacts.
The crews that bring artifacts back get food. Rations distributed by men with better clothes and harder eyes.
He needs food.
The water is keeping him alive but his stomach is eating itself. His hands shake constantly now. His vision blurs at the edges. Three days without eating. Maybe longer - he doesn't know how long he was in the coffin.
After hours of observing he finds a refuse pile near where the salvage crews gather. Mostly trash. Artifact-tainted tools, scraps of cloth too rotted to use, empty containers.
But there's food sometimes. Some version of it. Scraps the crew leaders throw away.
He digs through it, trying not to think about what he's doing.
Finds something. Might have been bread once. Now it's hard as stone, spotted with mold. Barely edible.
But it's food.
He takes it.
"Give me that."
Turns.
An older man - maybe fifty, maybe thirty and just destroyed by this place. Gaunt face, wild eyes, clothes hanging off a frame that's mostly bone. Staring at the bread in Del's hand.
Behind him, half-hidden in shadow between two collapsed walls, something small and still.
A child.
Face smudged with dirt, hollow-cheeked, watching with eyes that reflect no light. Maybe six, maybe eight - too thin to tell.
Del's gaze catches there.
Lingers for a moment.
Then moves back to the man.
He tries to speak and his voice comes hoarse and stumbling before it finds the words.
"I need it," Del says.
"I need it more." The man steps closer, positioning himself between Del and the child. "Been here longer. You're new. I can tell. New people don't know yet. Give it."
"No."
"Give it."
"No."
The man's hand moves.
Metal glints. A knife - makeshift, just a shard of metal wrapped in cloth at one end. But sharp enough. Pointed enough.
"Give it or I take it and you."
Del backs up.
His shoulders hit rubble wall. The man advances, knife leading. Del's hands are empty except for the moldy bread.
No weapon. No plan.
Just -
The man lunges.
Del moves sideways. Not fast enough.
The man grabs his hair with a strength that betrays his frame. Del kicks the man as he stares at the maniac wide eyed and catches his breath.
The man comes again.
Del scrambles back, trips over loose stone, catches himself. His back is against a collapsed section now - a wall that fell inward, leaning against support beams that are barely holding.
The man is breathing hard. "Just give it. Don't have to die for bread."
"Neither do you."
"Then give it."
"No."
The man's face twists. Not angry - desperate.
Worse.
He lunges again and Del feels it - the stones shifting behind him. The weight of the collapsed wall pressing against beams that are cracked, rotting, held up by luck more than structure.
He sees it, the weakness.
The single support beam that's doing most of the work, already split halfway through.
If I kick it, I win.