Chapter 151: What He Carries Alone

Chapter 151: Chapter 151: What He Carries Alone

The rain had eased into something almost manageable by the time Killian left the truck two blocks from the pharmacy district, close enough to walk the rest of the way without risking the flooded intersections that had swallowed half the main road already.

He moved quietly, hood up against the drizzle, one hand resting near the knife at his hip out of habit rather than immediate necessity. The streets here had been picked over already, evident in the shattered storefront windows and the particular emptiness of a place that had already given up everything easy to take. Which was, in its own way, useful information — it meant fewer survivors competing for what remained, fewer complications to navigate. ℯ

He reached the first target of the night: a small, independent pharmacy that had somehow escaped the worst of the district’s earlier looting, its security gate still intact, its windows unbroken.

He rested his palm against the lock and let his ability do the rest.

The mechanism gave the way it always did — not forced, simply rearranged, its structure losing cohesion long enough to fall open beneath his hand. The gate rolled up with barely a sound.

Inside, the shelves stood mostly untouched. Killian moved with practiced efficiency, sweeping supplies into his own space — the same low, quiet pull he’d learned to trigger without conscious effort weeks ago now, objects vanishing into whatever place existed on the other side of his connection to the ring.

Antibiotics. Painkillers. Suture kits, gauze, antiseptic. He worked the shelves methodically, prioritizing what he knew the group needed most — infection control, wound care, anything that would matter more in a month than it did tonight.

He paused at a locked cabinet behind the counter, insulin and other refrigerated medications visible through the glass, the small backup generator keeping the unit humming despite everything else in the city that had already failed. He took all of it. No telling who in the building might need it eventually, and unlike food, medicine like this didn’t announce its necessity until it was already too late to find more.

Twenty minutes in, he’d cleared the pharmacy entirely.

He moved on.

The hardware store two blocks down had already been hit — shelves half-emptied, the distinct signs of a hurried, panicked raid rather than a careful one. Killian picked through what remained anyway. Nails, wire, tools left behind by whoever had come through first. A pallet of solar-powered lanterns sat forgotten in a back corner, apparently overlooked entirely, and he took every one of them without hesitation.

Ziki.

Present, Master.

Anything registering nearby? Spiritual density, artifacts, anything worth a detour.

A brief pause. Nothing of significant note within immediate range. There is a private residence three blocks west registering faint traces, likely a family heirloom of some kind, but the signature is weak. Not worth the deviation unless you have time to spare.

I don’t tonight.

Understood.

He continued through two more storefronts — a general store, mostly cleared already but still holding a decent stock of batteries and rope; a small electronics shop, where he collected a handful of battery packs and solar chargers, useful for keeping communication devices and lanterns functional without depending on a grid that no longer existed.

By the time he reached the edge of the district, his space held a considerable haul — enough medical supplies to keep the entire floor stocked for months, tools and hardware for repairs and reinforcement, lanterns and chargers to keep the lights on long after conventional power failed completely.

He paused at the last storefront, a small florist’s shop, oddly untouched, its windows still intact despite the chaos surrounding it on every side. He almost walked past it entirely.

Then he stopped.

Ziki. Anything here?

A pause, longer this time, almost surprised. Faint traces. Very faint. Difficult to classify.

Killian pushed the door open anyway, curious despite himself. Inside, most of the flowers had long since wilted and died, the shop’s refrigeration units silent and dark. But near the back, resting on a small display shelf, sat a collection of pressed flower frames — delicate, preserved arrangements sealed under glass, the kind of sentimental keepsake people bought for anniversaries or funerals.

One in particular caught his eye: a spray of orange and yellow roses, pressed and framed with careful precision, a small engraved plate beneath it reading Citrus Bloom Serenade.

Something in his chest tightened, unexpected and sharp.

He remembered that arrangement. Not from this shop, not from anywhere in this life — from a house he’d walked through two weeks ago now, in a body that hadn’t yet fully understood what it had returned to. A living room. A coffee table. A woman’s home, warm and familiar in a way that had unsettled him even then, before he understood why.

Penelope’s house, he thought. Her personal space. That same bouquet.

He didn’t fully understand the coincidence — didn’t know if it meant anything at all — but he lifted the frame carefully from the shelf regardless, turning it over once in his hands before letting it disappear into his own space alongside everything else.

"Strange thing to want," he murmured to himself, though he didn’t examine the impulse too closely. Some things didn’t need explaining. They just needed keeping.

Master, Ziki said, breaking the quiet. Ignis has requested I inform you that if you return again without something, in his words, suitably impressive, he intends to sulk for the remainder of the week.

Killian huffed out something almost like a laugh, glancing around the ruined florist shop one final time before heading back toward the door. "Tell him I have roughly two hundred pounds of antibiotics and enough solar lanterns to light up half the building. He’ll have to find his own definition of impressive."

I will relay that. I do not expect it to satisfy him.

"It never does."

He stepped back out into the drizzle, the haul from tonight settling quietly into his space alongside everything else he’d carried alone since this had all begun — medicine, tools, light, and now, tucked somewhere among it, one small, sentimental thing he hadn’t planned on taking and couldn’t quite explain wanting.

The walk back to the truck passed in comfortable silence, rain tapping steady against his hood, the city’s low, distant chaos the only sound accompanying him the rest of the way home.