The tunnel was thick with silence, broken only by the distant, rhythmic drip of water.The man who saved them waited, silent, a dark silhouette against the faint light of the entrance.
Kale sat crumpled against the wall, Galvano nestled against her chest, tiny and unaware of the death that shadowed them.Her sobs had faded into trembling breaths, but her body still shook — from grief, from exhaustion, from something deeper she couldn't name.
Her mind slipped.
Reality thinned...And she remembered.
It was a warm afternoon, not so long ago.
Ivy laughed, tossing her head back, sunlight catching in the strands of her dark hair.They sat by a broken fountain in the ruins of an old town square — a forgotten place in a forgotten world — but for a moment, it felt almost... normal.
Ivy held a battered tin cup in her hands, filling it from a clear stream nearby.She winked at Kale and whispered, teasing:
"It's not about surviving, little sister. It's about living while you survive."
Kale had rolled her eyes then, pretending to be unimpressed. But inside, her heart had swollen with love and admiration.
Ivy — who had patched up her wounds, who had taught her to run, to fight, to hope — even when the world around them was a graveyard.
"One day," Ivy said, nudging her with a grin, "you'll be stronger than all of them. Stronger than me, even."
Kale had laughed. "Not possible."
But Ivy only smiled — that sad, knowing smile — and pulled her into a fierce, protective hug.
"Promise me," Ivy had whispered into her hair, voice trembling, "when the world comes crashing down, you'll keep moving. For both of us."
The memory fractured.The warmth disappeared.
Kale gasped as reality slammed back into her — the cold tunnel walls, the blood on Foden's arm, the emptiness where Ivy should have been.
Her hands tightened around Galvano, as if she could somehow protect him from everything waiting outside that sewer gate.
Foden crouched beside her, saying nothing, his face carved with grief and pain.
For a long moment, they simply sat there — three souls adrift in the wreckage of a broken world.
And somewhere deep inside her, a flame flickered to life.
Small.Weak.But stubborn.
Kale wiped her face roughly, leaving streaks of dirt and blood across her cheeks. She shifted Galvano more securely against her body, pulling strength from the fragile heartbeat she felt against her chest.
She would move forward.For Ivy.For Galvano.For herself.
Whatever the world demanded, whatever monsters it sent...Kale would survive.
Because that's what Ivy would have wanted.
Chapter End.