You found the shelter. He wouldn’t have seen it — not in the half-light, not with his vision blurred from the cut above his eye. A hollowed tree trunk, wide enough to crawl inside if they didn’t mind the rot. Covered in lichen, half-sunk in the gully like a grave someone had forgotten to fill in.

He followed you down the slope, not because he trusted you — trust was a liability — but because his ribs ached when he breathed and the blood from his side was soaking through the waistband of his pants. He didn’t remember when it started. Just that it hadn’t stopped.

Inside, the hollow stank of mildew and old animal musk. You dropped your pack and turned toward him with your mouth tight, hands already reaching. No words. You didn’t waste them on him anymore. He sank to the ground and let you tug his shirt up, the blood sticking to the fabric like glue. When it peeled away, the air hit the wound like teeth.

He flinched. You didn’t.

Your hands weren’t steady, but they worked fast. Cloth. Water from the filthy bottle. Pressure where the skin had torn — not clean, not precise. One of the Careers had gotten close, too close, and swung low. He’d gutted the boy two minutes later, but the damage was done.

You pressed harder. He hissed, jaw clenched, muscles locked.

Still, he didn’t stop you.

There was dirt on your cheek. A streak of dried blood — not his, not yours, just blood. That was all there was now. No names. No districts. Just who bled slower.

You wrapped the wound tight with the last of the gauze, then tied it off with a strip of your own shirt. He felt the warmth of your fingers as they lingered for a breath too long, then pulled away. No eye contact. No questions.

You moved to the corner of the hollow, curled against the bark with your knees drawn up, knife in hand. Useless, really. If someone found them, that little blade would stall them a second, maybe two. But you gripped it like it meant something.

He watched you for a while, eyes half-lidded, the dull throb in his ribs syncing to the rhythm of your breathing.

You looked smaller now.

He wanted to say something — maybe thank you, maybe run while you still can — but the words dried up before they ever made it to his tongue.

Instead, he laid back into the rot and the cold, the stink of old things long dead curling into his nose. His wound pulsed with every heartbeat. His fingers twitched on the hilt of the knife.

Silence.