Chapter 184: What Gets Worse From Here

Chapter 184: Chapter 184: What Gets Worse From Here

Vanya laid out the supply list across the small kitchen table, Harold hovering nearby with his own share of gear already assembled, and glanced up the moment Persephone let herself in without knocking, the same habit she’d fallen into weeks ago that Vanya had stopped bothering to correct.

"You’re coming?" Vanya asked, though it wasn’t really a question. Persephone rarely missed a run anymore.

"Wouldn’t miss it." Persephone dropped into the empty chair, reaching for the crossbow Harold had left leaning against the wall, checking it over with the same practiced efficiency she brought to everything now. "Where are we headed?"

"Pharmacy district again," Vanya said. "We’ve cleared most of the easy targets. What’s left is going to take longer, and I’d rather have three sets of eyes than two."

"Fine by me." Persephone finished her check of the crossbow and set it aside, something more subdued settling over her expression than her usual bright energy. "You heard about the murders. Down on fifteen."

"I heard." Vanya’s jaw tightened slightly. "Three this week, from what Harold picked up talking to the neighbors."

"Four, actually," Harold corrected quietly. "Someone found another body this morning. Fourth floor this time."

Persephone’s stomach dropped. "Four."

"In under a week," Vanya confirmed, grim. "No pattern anyone can identify. No witnesses. Whoever’s doing it isn’t sloppy."

"That’s the part that scares me," Persephone admitted. "Not the killing itself, though obviously that’s bad enough. It’s that nobody’s caught them. Not even a glimpse. In a building this crowded, this desperate, someone usually sees something."

"Not if the killer’s careful," Vanya said. "And not if they’re someone nobody thinks to suspect in the first place."

Harold glanced between them, uneasy. "You think it’s someone people already trust?"

"I think that’s the only way it makes sense," Vanya said. "A stranger moving through this building would draw attention eventually, especially now, with everyone locked down as tight as they are. Someone familiar wouldn’t."

Persephone considered that, something cold settling behind her usual composure. "That’s a horrible thought. Trusting someone you shouldn’t."

"It’s a survivable thought, though," Vanya said. "Better to consider it now than assume everyone you recognize is automatically safe."

They finished gathering the last of their gear in thoughtful silence, and by the time they made their way down toward the sixth-floor entrance, the building’s usual unease had settled into something heavier, more pronounced — doors locked tighter than Persephone remembered even from the worst of the early panic, voices hushed behind them as they passed, the particular, suffocating quiet of a community that had stopped trusting its own walls.

"It’s going to get worse," Vanya said, once they’d pushed off into the flooded street, the rain still falling steady and cold around them. "Not just the murders. Everything. The flood’s not stopping. The food’s not going to stretch forever. And now people can’t even trust their own neighbors."

"You sound very certain about that," Persephone said.

"I’ve seen this pattern before," Vanya said, careful, the same measured restraint she always used when skirting the edges of things she couldn’t fully explain. "Desperation doesn’t stay contained. It spreads. Once people stop trusting the person next door, they stop sharing information, stop helping each other, stop doing all the small things that keep a community functioning even in a crisis. And once that stops—"

"Everyone’s alone," Harold finished quietly, steering the boat carefully around a submerged car. "Even the people who used to have neighbors."

"Exactly," Vanya said.

Persephone was quiet for a moment, watching the flooded city slide past, thinking of her own family still somewhere out there, fighting their way toward her through whatever this drowning world kept throwing in their path. "My dad always said the same thing, actually. About people. That the world doesn’t need to end for someone to show you exactly who they really are. It just needs to get hard enough."

"Your father sounds like he understood people well," Vanya said.

"He ran an empire built on exactly that understanding," Persephone said, something wry entering her voice. "Not always for good reasons. But he wasn’t wrong about it."

They reached the pharmacy district a short while later, and the run itself passed with less incident than either of them expected — two infected cleared quickly, shelves picked over but still yielding a reasonable haul, the three of them moving with the same tight, practiced coordination they’d built over weeks of exactly this kind of work.

It was on the return trip, the boat cutting steady through the flooded streets, that Persephone finally voiced the thought that had been sitting uneasily in her chest since they’d left.

"Do you think it could happen to us?" she asked. "The building. What’s happening on the lower floors."

"You mean the murders specifically, or the general collapse?" Vanya asked.

"Either. Both."

Vanya considered the question carefully before answering, the same deliberate honesty she brought to most things Persephone had come to genuinely respect over the past weeks. "I think we’re better protected than most. Secured floors, people we trust, resources we don’t have to fight anyone else for. But no amount of preparation makes anyone fully immune to what desperation does to people. If it gets bad enough, close enough, we could see the same thing eventually."

"That’s not reassuring."

"It’s not meant to be reassuring," Vanya said. "It’s meant to be honest. I’d rather you walk into this world with clear eyes than false comfort."

Persephone absorbed that, something steadier settling into her chest despite the grim honesty of it — she’d rather have Vanya’s blunt clarity than anyone else’s easy reassurance, she realized, somewhere in the past few weeks of exactly this kind of exchange.

"My family’s almost here," she said, quieter now. "My dad, my sister. Once they arrive, do you think—"

"More people means more strength, generally," Vanya said. "It also means more mouths to feed, more variables to account for. I don’t think there’s a simple answer. But I think you’re lucky to have people fighting that hard to reach you. Most people in this building don’t have that anymore."

Persephone nodded slowly, watching the building come into view ahead, its flooded lower floors dark and silent, its upper levels holding whatever fragile safety still remained inside them.

"I hope you’re right," she said. "About us being better protected than most."

"So do I," Vanya admitted, something rare and unguarded slipping into her voice for just a moment before she steadied it again, guiding the boat the last stretch toward the sixth-floor dock. "But hope isn’t a plan. We keep our guard up regardless."

Harold, quiet through most of the exchange, finally spoke as they eased the boat toward the platform. "Do you think whoever’s doing the killing down there could ever make it up here? To us?"

Nobody answered right away, the question settling heavy over all three of them as they climbed out onto the platform, the rain still falling steady around them, the building rising dark and uncertain above.

"I don’t know," Vanya said finally, honest as always. "But we watch our own gate carefully regardless. That’s the only answer that matters right now."

They made their way up through the stairwell in thoughtful silence after that, carrying the day’s supplies and the day’s unresolved fears in equal measure, the building’s growing unease settling over all three of them the same way it had settled over every other resident still fighting to survive within its walls.

A/N: I sincerely apologize for not uploading over the past few days. I came down pretty sick and have been bedridden and completely out of it, so I haven’t been able to write or upload as I normally would. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding, Survivors. ❤️