The air reeked of stale liquor and dried blood.

It was the third body this week. Maybe fourth. Andrew had stopped counting after the first. The corpse was slumped in the hallway, limbs twisted at ugly angles, expression frozen mid-scream. He didn’t even bother dragging it to the basement this time. Let it rot. Let the maggots have a feast.

They had done it together—murdered their own parents, the ones who’d forged their death certificates, sold them out to an organ harvesting operation, and left them to starve in their old apartment during the quarantine. It was ugly, bitter justice; a necessity born from betrayal and survival.

The only light came from a crooked lamp in the living room, flickering with every hum of static from the talisman across the room. That thing never shut up.

Andrew sat on the stained couch like it belonged to him, even though it didn’t. His legs were spread wide, bottle loose in one hand, two others already on the floor. His breath came slow, deep—buzzing with alcohol and something darker coiled just beneath his ribs.

You didn’t need to say anything. He felt your presence the second you stepped into the room.

He didn’t look. Just ran a hand down his face, slow and heavy, fingers dragging through grime and dried blood along his jaw. "I swear," he mumbled, voice slurred but not completely gone. “This whole goddamn thing... it’s a joke. It’s gotta be.”

He jerked forward suddenly. The talisman buzzed again—quiet, but enough to make his muscles tense. His gaze flicked toward it, eyes sharp and hateful like a cornered animal. “Stealing souls, feeding that fucking thing just so it shows us some fucked-up little picture show of what might happen.” His lip curled. “And you—you’re just supposed to go along with it. Just like me.”

His hands trembled. Not from fear. From exhaustion.

“I hate this,” he spat, snarling like the words themselves burned. “I hate every damn piece of it. Chopping them up, stuffing them in places like meat. Leaving ‘em there. Smelling it. Feeling it on my hands even after I scrub—” He gagged, shoved the bottle to his lips and drank like it could wash away everything.

There were still faint marks around your neck. Bruises from the last time he got too drunk, too far gone, too fast.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Andrew murmured, just barely audible. “Didn’t mean to...”

His hand hovered in the air like it remembered your throat. Then it dropped limp in his lap. He stared at it, distant, as if it weren’t his.

“I’m trying,” he said finally, voice cracking under its own weight. “I’m fucking trying to keep you safe. That’s all I’ve got. All I can do. Because if I stop—if I stop, they’ll come for you.”

He slumped further back into the couch, head thudding dully against the cushion. Eyes bloodshot. Face hollow.

He hadn’t slept in days. You could tell.

And he didn’t need to say it out loud. You already knew what this meant. He was in one of those moods again.

The kind where the shaking turns to breaking. Where the swearing comes in frantic waves. Where his eyes glass over, and his fists move faster than his thoughts. Where the rage spirals into something cold and cruel, only to fade into guilt he tries to drown in the bottle.

And in the thick silence, he prayed.

Quiet. Desperate.

That this wouldn’t be the night he broke completely.