He didn't write. He didn't draw a map. He didn't watch the monsters, and he didn't wait for night to fall.
On this day… all he did was try to stay standing.
His body felt light, as if his bones had started to forget their weight. His lips were dry, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Water… he hadn't drunk any in two days. The blood he had sucked from the corpses was no longer enough. It was as if hell had begun to press on his heart slowly, drop by drop, until it would collapse.
He tried again.
He crept toward a spot where he had seen one of the monsters. It was of a different kind—fast, deformed, moving in uneven leaps as if its joints were broken. He tried to use the screamers on it.
Same plan. A stone is thrown, a movement is made, and the open-mouthed monster is lured.
But the plan failed. The target monster was faster. It jumped before the sound reached, fled far away, then disappeared.
And the screamer… found no prey, so it started roaring into the air until the walls of the buildings cracked. And the boy… fell to the ground.
He wasn't injured, but… something inside him broke.
He sat in a corner, under a rusted staircase, his back to the wall. His breaths were slow. He didn't cry. No tears were left.
**
He said to himself, in a hoarse voice:
"I repeat… and fear changes."
Then he looked at his hand, trembling, thin like a skeleton's.
"I'm not dead… but I'm not alive either."
He wanted to drink… but found no water. Everything he saw on the road were dried blood stains or fluids leaking from monsters—not even worth thinking about.
**
In the dark, he sat, his eyes half-open.
He began to feel this world was draining him… not killing him, but emptying him quietly.
As if his body had become a ghost, and the voice inside him was drifting away.
"I don't want to die… but I don't know how to live."
He sat there, half-asleep while awake, his body caught between life and nothingness.
Then…
A drop.
Something cold fell on his hand. He slowly opened his eyes. A dull look, expecting nothing.
Then… another drop. On his cheek.
He raised his head, with effort, like lifting a skull heavy with mud. He looked up at the dark sky… torn with fog… silent for twenty days.
Then he saw the miracle:
Rain.
At first, light. Just cold touches.
Then it grew stronger.
It poured as if the sky was weeping for him.
He opened his mouth, raised his hands, and sat on his knees.
He didn't scream, didn't laugh, didn't move much. He was melting. Everything inside him started to return… little by little.
The dried blood on his lips, the mucus in his throat—all of it dissolved. He swallowed what he could. Let the drops gather in his palms. Drank. Then drank more.
And he cried.
Not with sobs… but with silent tears from eyes that had been dry.
He drank the rain… as if drinking himself, returning to himself.
**
He looked at the sky and whispered:
"Why now?"
He didn't expect an answer. But the sky responded in its way… a distant thunder, and a cold wind.
Then he smiled.
A small, broken smile—but real.
But the sky never gives without a price.
While drinking from the rain, he felt something different… something strange.
Not danger… but a sensation, like the earth pulsing beneath him.
He raised his head.
The world had changed.
The usual sound of monster screams had faded.
The moisture made the ground slippery… and the smells had blended.
And despite the rain, the air was eerily quiet.
He stood, supporting himself against the wall.
Then he heard footsteps.
Not heavy steps… but a soft, faint crawl.
He turned.
There was a creature… unlike anything he had seen before.
Small in size, like a dog, but its skin was smooth like a snake, and its eyes looked like two bottles filled with milk.
It was drinking the rain.
Just like that.
As if it hadn't seen him… or didn't care.
The boy froze, then slowly began to back away.
But the creature suddenly turned toward him.
Its blank, expressionless eyes… fixed on him.
It didn't move.
Nor did he.
Then… it went back to drinking the rain.
**
The boy stepped forward.
Stopped.
Stepped forward again.
And the creature still drank.
Then… it opened its mouth.
Its mouth was full of small, sharp, numerous teeth… but it didn't seem tense. It didn't growl.
As if it were saying, "Drink… I have nothing to do with you."
The boy sat a meter away from it. Drank from the rain.
And fatigue overtook him.
He slept, for the first time, without hearing screams.
He slept with the rain washing over him… and the strange creature beside him… silent.
And in his sleep, he dreamed.
But it wasn't a nightmare.
It was a dream about light… and warm bread… and his mother's voice.
**
Day Twenty-One – First Blood
He woke up to a different sound.
Chewing.
He opened his eyes. The rain had stopped, but the air was still humid.
He turned.
The creature that had slept beside him… was no longer drinking rain.
It was eating.
Something human… a small arm, smeared with mud and blood.
But what truly shook him was the calm with which it ate. It wasn't a savage beast, but a being that knew what it wanted.
This time, the boy didn't back away.
He stood.
His hand on his pocket.
The dagger.
How many times had he not used it? How many times did he think it was useless? But now… as he looked at that engrossed creature, something inside him stirred.
Something old. Primal.
He reached out and drew the dagger.
Its sound as it left the sheath felt like the first real sound he had heard in days.
Step.
Second step.
Then… he jumped.
A faint scream escaped him, like the whimper of a dying animal.
The dagger sank into the creature's neck.
Its body trembled and seized.
The boy didn't stop.
He stabbed again… and a third time.
Until the creature went still.
His hand trembled… but not from fear.
His body was soaked in blood… but he didn't feel disgusted.
Instead, he felt something strange…
Power.
He stood, his breath hot, his eyes wider than before.
He looked at the creature's body, hesitated a moment.
Then sat.
And began to eat.
**
The taste was disgusting… but his body screamed with hunger, so he swallowed.
He swallowed… until he felt life returning to his limbs.
**
Inside, only his voice remained, saying:
"I'm no longer weak. I will not wait for death."