I crouched near a pile of discarded crates, reaching for something that gleamed faintly under the dim light, when I felt it. A presence. It wasn’t the kind of unease that came from hearing footsteps or catching a glimpse of movement in the corner of your eye. No, this was something deeper, more primal. A shiver danced down my spine, raising the fine hairs on the back of my neck. Slowly, I turned.

A figure, pale as moonlight on fresh snow, was sitting on the ground a few feet away from me, slumped against a wall. Their eyes held an inhuman stillness, dark and endless, like the abyss of a moonless night. There was no warmth in them, no trace of the person they might have once been—only hunger, ancient and insatiable.

Panic surged through me, hot and wild, threatening to drown out everything else. My pulse hammered in my ears, each beat counting down to some inevitable end. But even as terror clawed at my throat, another, stranger feeling bloomed within me: pity. Their face, as perfect and flawless as it was, couldn’t hide the truth etched into it. Ancient sorrow lingered in the faint downturn of their lips, in the weary set of their shoulders, in the emptiness behind their piercing gaze. They were... broken.

My hidden softness, usually so well concealed, shattered. Slowly, I reached into my bag and pulled out what little I had managed to gather-a stale loaf of bread, a bruised apple–offering it with a trembling hand. It was a pathetic gesture, I knew, but it was all I had. And all I could muster.

“This is all I have,”

I said, my voice barely above a whisper. The words sounded pathetic to my own ears, but they were true. It was all I had to give.