September 29 — Early Morning to Night
Cold water around her feet and dark in every direction. One hand on the wall. Moving.
Her throat burns. She swallows and nothing comes. Water — she needs water. Palm flat against the concrete, she keeps going.
Something shifts in the water behind her. She stops and presses against the wall, cheek against cold concrete, and waits. The sound moves away down another branch and fades. She waits longer, then continues.
Wrong turn — wall ahead. Dead end. Back to the junction, the other way. The next corridor narrows until both walls are within reach. Too tight. Back again. Third branch. The air moves differently here, a faint draw from somewhere ahead. She follows it.
A door, already standing open.
Inside, a dim emergency unit casts yellow across metal shelving and scattered boxes. Water on the lower rack — sealed bottles. Her hands don't cooperate with the first one, but she gets it open and drinks without stopping until it's gone. The water goes down warmer than it should. She drinks the second one slower and doesn't stop.
Dense sealed food packets on the middle shelf. The first one standing, the second with more patience. On the third she slows and stops halfway through.
More on the top shelf. A fallen chair — righted, climbed, two bottles and another packet brought down. A small pouch with a shoulder strap on the desk near the door. Everything loaded inside, strap over her shoulder.
Then against the wall, knees up.
Nothing moving outside. Her shoulders drop. Breathing slows, finds a rhythm. Her pulse takes longer to follow. She notices, then lets it go. Her eyes close.
Different light under the door when she wakes. Brighter, cooler. How long — unclear. Her mouth is already dry again. Her shoulder pulls when she sits up. Her balance lags a moment — she catches herself on one hand before standing fully.
It works. Pouch checked. To the door.
The maintenance hatch opens onto an alley. Cold air. Old smoke. The sky above the buildings is pale and washed out — evening, or close to it. Both ends checked. The right opens onto a side street. The left is blocked.
Right.
Two of them at the far end of the side street, slow, facing away. She waits at the alley mouth until they drift further, then crosses fast and low, reaches the opposite wall, moves left into the next alley.
A building to the left has a back door that gives. Through a storage room into the next space — and from the front of the building, a dragging sound getting louder. Back out. Moving on.
The next alley runs longer. At the end, a wider street. Three of them visible — one close to the building opposite, two further along. The closer one moves away. She crosses and steps into a recessed doorway on the other side.
Her right foot comes down on something loose. The sound snaps sharper than it should. She stops.
Neither of them turns.
She waits. Then continues.
A jacket on the floor just inside. Checked, then on.
The next stretch goes the same way — in through back entrances when they give, through rooms when quiet, out again when something stirs at the front. In one building, a spray canister on a shelf, white casing, Umbrella markings. Taken. A wrapped bandage from a broken cabinet goes into the pouch alongside it.
A shop front with a wide dark window — she slows.
Her reflection moves with her in the glass. Her eyes catch the light and hold it a fraction too long — yellow, almost — before it passes.
She moves on.
The alley opens onto a wider street and she stops.
Stone-fronted. Tall. Exterior lights still running along parts of it, pale and steady against everything around it that has gone dark. A fence runs along the near side and she follows it until she finds where one section near the base has been forced outward, the links bent just wide enough to pass if the angle is right. Not a gate — something broken and left that way. She turns sideways and slips through, fabric catching briefly before giving, and steps into the yard beyond.
Around the side of the building, a window sits open where it shouldn't — glass broken out, frame bent inward. She stops a few steps short and listens.
No movement close enough to place.
Debris beneath the window — bins, broken boards, something dragged there earlier and left. She tests it with her foot, then climbs, one hand on the frame as she pulls herself up. The edge catches her sleeve on the way through, a brief resistance, then she's inside and dropping harder than intended, knees taking it, one palm catching the floor.
Stillness.
Bodies across the hallway floor. Not arranged. None of them move. She waits. Nothing changes.
The corridor stretches in both directions. She moves first toward the nearest door — East Office. The handle turns a quarter-inch and stops. A chain runs through the interior handle on the other side, looped tight, padlock seated. Secured.
Another door further down — blocked, frame buckled at the top corner, immovable.
Behind her, the window sits higher than it looked from outside. The debris has shifted from her weight. Not a clean climb back, and nothing to stand on from this side.
No way out.
She turns and moves deeper into the hallway, keeping close to the wall. The space tightens near the bathroom section — air cooler, sound smaller, the corridor narrowing even where it isn't.
A door ahead, set into the corridor toward the main hall. Not open. Not fully shut. Something on the floor has kept it from seating, leaving a gap at the bottom just wide enough to try.
She crouches and pushes against it. Holds — not locked, just weight and position. Lower, then. She turns her shoulder and works through. The edge catches her back, fabric dragging, the angle tighter than it looked. A shift, an exhale, and it gives just enough. Through, palms on the floor on the other side.
She stays low.
The air on this side is different. Heavier. Warmer. Something beneath the rot — closer.
She holds still and lets the corridor resolve.
Metal first — a hollow impact from somewhere south. Then again. Uneven. Forced. A voice behind it. Male. Strained. Breaking before it carries.
Movement in the hallway.
The shape near the water fountain turns first — slow, incomplete. The one near the lockers stops its arc and goes still.
She steps back once toward the bathroom corridor, keeping them in view.
Another impact. Harder. The voice rises with it.
Both shapes shift south.
She moves with the noise, slipping into the narrow space near the bathrooms, putting the corner between herself and the hall.
Stops. Listens.
A door from the south.
Fast.
Footsteps — wrong for this place. Too clean. Too direct.
She turns her head just enough.
A figure cuts across the far end of the corridor — dark, moving low and fast, one hand catching the wall to keep balance, already past before she fixes on it.
Gone toward the sound.
The shapes react immediately. Both turning after it.
Not toward her.
She presses flat against the wall.
Ahead: movement closing on something she can't see. Behind: the bathroom door. The space between them narrowing.
Her hand finds the handle.
Holds.
Another strike. Closer this time.