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The world’s hopeless. There’s debris in the air, ashes on every tongue. Most everyone is dead save the wealthy. They were the First Evacuation, and the First was sent deep underground for eighteen years. They were safe-- safe, like they’d always been.
The Second Evacuation only got ten years underground. They had it much harder, and their hiding places weren’t as secure. The Sickness seeped in through cracks, and half the population was infected, but still-- still, they were safer than the Third.
The Third Evacuation was a disaster, and the Sickness was already airborne by the time they were allowed underground. Most were killed before they even went into hiding, and those that weren’t, wandered the world-- new age lepers with a worse disfigurement than the displacement of facial landmarks.
It was the Second Evacuation that was released first, after ten years. Ten years after the world ended, the ground opened up, and the first humans beyond the Infected crawled out. They were released to the tomb of the world. It was far more terrifying than the empty shell they feared they might find.
*
By the time the First Evacuation was released back into the world, the bodies were mostly skeletons. The Second hadn’t bothered to clean anything up. Those that survived went to the mountains where they attempted to rebuild civilization, though most had no memory of it.
Iker walked through the dust, shielding his eyes from the sun. He still took shallow breaths. The ground still felt strange. He tripped several times, and Sergio, a friend from the underground, helped him up. They barely smiled.
He looked around, still trying to find someone, but he looked around with the same wild, panicked look people always did when they got out. They’d already watched that person die; all they feared was their ghost now. The only difference between Iker and the rest was that Iker would welcome a ghost.
He looked down at his hands, at the dusty photograph he kissed every night for eighteen years. He always whispered a quick apology until Sergio heard it, had asked, “What do you apologize for?”
“What?”
“Every night. You kiss your picture. You say you’re sorry. What could you possibly be sorry for?”
Iker had shrugged, placed the picture carefully back in his jacket pocket, and laid back on his bunk. He waited for the lights to shut up, the curfew bell to ring. “I have a lot to answer for, Sergio.”
The lights shut off. “I don’t think I believe you.”
“You should.”
Iker winced at the memory, went numb at the memory of what he had to be sorry for. “I’m sorry,” he murmured down at the photograph, stumbling over more bones. The sun was making him delirious and the freedom was weighing down on him. He didn’t care if Sergio heard anymore. He didn’t care who heard. The one person he was apologizing to would never hear him again.
He remembered the bloody hand he’d tried so hard to grab, to haul up the tiny shaft, but it was bloody-- God, it was so bloody, and he was so weak, and--
Iker stumbled and knelt, pressed his hand against the ground and took deep breaths to steady himself. He checked his hands for blood, wiped them on his pants, blinked away the red. He checked them again. No blood, but it was always there.
“Iker, you okay?” Sergio was at his side, but Iker pushed him away. “Iker, come on, let me help.”
Iker kept his dusty hand against the ground, tried to feel anything but the blood there. He nodded once, but he wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to. Something Sergio said. A moment later, a bottle of water was pressed into his chest, and he took it gladly. He tried to wash down every horrible feeling, but the water just tasted like blood.
*
Most of the group broke off by the time Iker could see clearly. They headed to join the Second Evacuation in the mountains, but Sergio said it wasn’t safe, said he would go off on his own, but Iker followed. He didn’t know what else to do. The rest of the group looked at him like he had blood on his hands. He scratched at his hands until the sun went down.
They built their own fire next to a small stream, and Iker washed his hands again, washed until his throat stopped closing up. The tight feeling in his throat reminded him of the lack of oxygen down the old elevator shaft that day. He looked over at Sergio, watched him for a moment, thought he might have found some way to suffocate himself if Sergio hadn’t been there.
He buried his head in his hands, and the memories played over and over again on the backs of his eyelids. Underground, it hadn’t been as difficult. He whispered his apologies to the photograph, went to sleep in darkness, opened his eyes to darkness, felt like he was buried alive anyways.
But alive and breathing fresh air, he just-- He felt a hot tear against his cheek and angrily brushed it away. His eyes turned to steel again, and he forced himself to look up, smile at Sergio-- or smile as much as he ever did after that day.
“You okay?” Sergio was sharpening his knife, and he didn’t meet Iker’s eyes.
“Yeah, just--” Iker gestured to the empty space around him, still tasted the ashes on his tongue. “It’s weird being out here again.”
“Yeah.” Sergio looked up, watched him carefully. “Everyone had a pretty tough life up here near the end.” He let out a sharp laugh. “Well, near the end of the world, I guess. But it’s not really over, is it? Everyone talks about post-apocalyptic humans, how we’re the survivors.” He shook his head like he wanted to say more, but didn’t go on.
Iker liked him. He was the first person he’d liked since--
Iker remembered; Sergio went on. “We’re just the lucky ones. We’re not survivors. You saw the group back there. Half of them can’t even hold a knife, let alone kill the Infected with it. We’re lucky most are swept away. 18 years, Iker--” He held up his flask. “18 years, but I know more are out there.”
Iker sighed, looked back down at his hands, panicked for a second before he remembered the red was just his imagination. He knew about Sergio, had heard everyone talking about him during the first week Underground. The blonde said he was crazy, said his whole family had been killed by it, so he joined a group, fell in love with someone-- they were taken too. And from that moment on, Sergio was never seen without a knife, always prowled the halls at night like somehow the sickness was seeping in.
For eighteen years, he was convinced they were still roaming around, that it was his job to track down every single one and kill them. If Iker hadn’t been so hellbent on dying himself, he might have felt sorry for Sergio. He scratched at his hands. He felt a little sorry for him anyway.
“Well, you already know my story,” Sergio said, poking the fire with his newly sharpened blade. “I know you heard it Underground. Everyone heard.” He shrugged. “So what’s yours?”
“What’s my what?” There was blood on his shoes and he froze, blinked, and then it was gone.
“Your story, Iker,” Sergio said patiently, and Iker thought he had an awful lot of patience for someone who supposedly went around slaughtering people with a fatal fever.
“Oh.” He couldn’t stop seeing it-- the blood, the memory, the face. He buried his head in his hands for a moment, and when he looked up, Sergio was staring at him with an odd sort of fascination. “Nothing, really. Normal. Just lucky, like you said.”
“Lucky,” Sergio murmured. “Yeah.”
He watched Iker until the fire died down, and Iker decided it was too dark to ignore his nightmares. Sergio took first watch, and Iker thought, you don’t have to watch this empty shell, and he couldn’t tell if he was referring to the world or himself.
*
(18 years ago)
Iker was never meant to be saved. He could already feel his body growing weaker, had already accepted that his fate was to die with the rest of the world. He took the medicine every day until the prices went up. Then no one could afford it.
He walked through the square every day, praying the prices had miraculously lowered, but each morning, he was disappointed, and he felt himself getting sicker.
He should have died the day he met Cesc. Eighteen years later, he wished he had. Cesc was wealthy and Iker was living in poverty. At the end, he was living under the bridge with the rest of the quickly deteriorating community. He was rolled up in a blanket, ready to die; he could feel the fever coming on, and he knew he was only a few hours away.
Everything was dark and painful for a few days, then a sharp pain at his arm, a pill forced into his mouth, and he knew nothing for a long time. When he finally awoke, a smiling face was staring down at him. Young and bright and smiling earnestly, softly asking if he was okay, was Cesc. His hands played with Iker’s sleeve the whole time he explained what had happened, like he had no concept of personal space.
“I’ve seen your group here the past few months. I’ve been walking by to check the prices, see if I could afford the medicine, like everyone else--” And Iker knew that was a lie, knew Cesc was one of the lucky few who had been able to afford the medicine from day one, and would have been able to afford them if the epidemic went on for the next twenty-seven years. His suit, his watch, his briefcase-- everything about him gave it away, and he had no idea.
“--I thought maybe I could help, so I bought a few extra cases of medicine, only--” Cesc cut off, checked behind him, and for the first time, Iker looked up at his camp. The last time he’d been awake, three others had been taking care of him.
“Where’s--” Iker started to sit up, but Cesc pushed him back down.
His voice shook when he answered Iker’s unfinished question, “They were all dead when I got here.”
Iker wrestled Cesc’s hand off his chest, took a look around, and found himself in the middle of a graveyard, unburied corpses in various degrees of decomposition. He turned to his side and was sick for what felt like hours. Cesc’s hand never left his back.
+
Two weeks later, the First Evacuation was announced. They were leaving in two days; Cesc was leaving Iker in two days.
They’d been living together since Cesc saved him. He was seventeen; Iker was twenty-three. Iker always felt bad for him. He acted like an adult already. He’d had to take over his family’s business at sixteen when they were all killed. He dressed in a suit and tie every day, and if that wasn’t misery, Iker didn’t know what was.
Two days later, misery became something else entirely.
Cesc was sitting at the table with his head down, eyes red-rimmed, and Iker stayed in the doorway even though he wanted to go to him, bring him back to life in return. “Two days,” he said hoarsely. “I have to go in two days.”
Iker sat down across from him, kept his hands firmly in his lap. “Did you pack already?”
Cesc nodded. His jaw tightened.
“Did you remember socks?” Cesc rolled his eyes. “Did you?” He nodded, but still didn’t speak. “Good.” Iker looked away. “You always forget to put your socks away. I figured it’d be the same with packing. What about shirts? Did you pack enough shirts?”
“I packed enough shirts,” he said, his voice almost too quiet to hear.
“Good. Good. That’s good.”
“Iker?” Cesc’s voice was small and quiet and everything in the world Iker wanted to protect.
“Yeah?”
“Come with me.”
Iker almost laughed, held it back for Cesc’s sake. “You know that’s not possible. You know they’re strict about it. I don’t have the money.”
“I could pay for you.”
“You can’t, Cesc. You know there’s a list.”
“I could pay someone off. I could do-- fuck, I could do something.” His eyes were red-rimmed, and growing redder, wetter, more desperate. “Please let me do something.”
“There’s nothing you can do. I’ll stay here while you’re away.”
“And what then? Eighteen years and I’ll come back to your bones?”
“Bones,” Iker said thoughtfully, “Or nothing.”
Cesc looked at him for a long time, and something flickered in the depths of his eyes that Iker had never seen before. In a flash, Cesc’s lips were on his in a chaste kiss, and then it was over before it ever really began. Cesc didn’t apologize; Iker didn’t say anything. They looked at each other for a moment longer, and Iker felt his cheeks heat up. Cesc left, slammed the door on his way out.
+
Later that night, he came back home with a crumpled map in his hands. He raced to the kitchen and slammed it down on the table, pointing and jumping, and for once, looking his age. “I found it,” he shouted. “I found a way out. Or in. Or.”
He leaned down and pressed his lips to Iker’s again, and this time it was desperate, never seemed to end. Eighteen years later, Iker could still taste the kiss, and it was the only part of his mind that wasn’t covered in blood. Iker never forgot his soft hands or his lips, or the way everything shone red later on.
“My friend from work, David-- he’s worked in the mines for years down there. He knows this abandoned elevator shaft, a few miles away from his mine. He’s Second Evacuation, and he’s sneaking his wife and family in because they can only afford one spot-- so, so, I-- I thought-- maybe...”
Cesc moved his hands around when he talked; Iker blinked, tried not to watch too closely. “No,” he said simply, returning to the article about the rise of medicine prices. No one talked about gas prices anymore.
“Iker,” Cesc snapped, and his voice was stronger than Iker had ever heard it, “You’re sneaking in through that elevator shaft, or I’m not fucking going at all, and you can’t force me.”
Something like a knife pressed against his ribcage, and if he believed in that sort of stuff, Iker might have thought his heart was breaking.
“You’re going, Cesc,” he said flatly, balling up the newspaper, shoving it in the trash can. “You’re going whether you like it or not.”
“I go where you go, you fucking idiot. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see that I love you? I didn’t save you because you just happened to be alive. I saw you were sick on my way to work every morning, and I bought that medicine for you. Not for survivors. For you.”
Cesc shook and his eyes burned, and Iker had never seen anything so beautiful. There was something building at the base of his throat, and if he believed in that sort of stuff, Iker would have wondered if it was love.
“So you’re coming with me, or I’m not going at all,” Cesc shouted, and he banged his fist on the table. “I don’t care if you love me back. I care that I don’t come back to step on your skull in eighteen years, find it crumbling beneath my feet, because I love you, and I won’t kill you. You stay, and that blood is on my hands.”
“I go, and your blood is on mine,” Iker roared back. He found himself standing up, throwing something against the wall, bearing down on Cesc because he was so careless, so willing to help without getting anything in return. “We’ll get caught, Cesc. They’ll throw us both out and they won’t let us back underground. We’ll die. You go, please, go. Think of me from time to time, and that’s how I’ll live.”
“I’m not going,” Cesc yelled back, and his voice cracked at the end. “I’m not leaving you. Where you go, I go. If you forget to take your medicine and die tonight, I’ll throw mine out the window because there is nothing left in this world to live for.”
“You’re an idiot,” Iker spat savagely. “I wouldn’t die for you in a million years. The only thing there is to do is to move on, to just keep going, and ignore the way the world is falling apart all around you. If I died tonight, I wouldn’t fucking let you throw your life away because you’re worth too much to me-- God, you don’t even fucking see it, do you?”
“Come with me, Iker,” Cesc said, and his voice was quiet, and sad, and pleading. “Or wait for them to stop selling the medicine. You’ll probably go first because they’ll keep delivering mine until the Third Evacuation leaves. And you can wait for me on the other side because I’m sure as hell not letting you go alone.”
“Fuck you, Cesc,” Iker snarled, his hands balled into fists. “I’m not letting you risk your place to take me with--”
“You’re coming, Iker, or I’m not going. Last chance. That, or we’ll stay and watch the world fall apart from here.”
Iker’s eyes narrowed, he pictured the Infected falling to the ground on the streets while he and Cesc used the last of their medicine. He pictured Cesc tricking him into using the last bottle, watching Cesc die on his bed with the fever meant for Iker-- he nodded, yes-- yes, he would go.
+
The elevator shaft was dark, sharp corners, and Iker pricked his hand twice. His hands were slippery with blood until he tore off bits of his shirt and bound them around the cuts. They kept climbing. Iker carried the bag on his shoulder with both their clothes, Cesc’s identification, and his own fake registration papers.
They climbed for what seemed like hours. Iker checked back every few minutes. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t cut your hand on this rock here.”
“I won’t.”
“There’s something sharp up ahead. Be careful.”
“Iker, I got it.”
“Cesc--”
“No, shut up. There’s something up ahead. Wait.” He clung to the metal bar with one hand, reached into his pocket with the other, and withdrew the map. Iker held his breath, held back the lecture. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s the way in. Right up there. See it?”
“Yes, I fucking see it. Now put the map away and hold on with both hands, or I’m going to kill you.”
“You might not have to,” Cesc teased, pretending to slip. Iker didn’t laugh.
They climbed the rest in silence, and when they reached the ledge, Iker motioned for Cesc to climb up. “Go. Pull me up behind you.”
“I can’t. I won’t be able to,” he panted. “You’re stronger, taller. Throw the bag up now, climb up, and pull me up after you.”
“Cesc, I’m not going before you--”
“Iker, I can’t pull you up.” And his voice was absolutely wrecked. Iker realized he wouldn’t have been able to pull himself up if he tried.
“Okay.” He paused, shut his eyes, said the first real prayer of his life, and threw the bag to the ledge. It landed perfectly and Cesc cheered weakly. “Okay. Hold on.” Iker counted to three, hauled himself up with the most strength he could muster.
His feet connected with the metal ledge, but the momentum sent him farther than he anticipated. He fell to his knees, and something sharp sliced into them. His legs were bloody, the wounds on his hands starting to bleed through the t-shirt bandages, and Cesc was hanging by a thread.
“Hold on,” he said again, and he held out his hand.
Cesc shifted up, stuck out his hand, and their fingers just met. Cesc’s eyes were shining with something like excitement, only farther and more dangerous, and when he let go of the metal bar to allow himself to be pulled up, Iker knew something was off.
“Cesc, don’t cut yourself there. Careful. Just--”
But Cesc’s foot hit something, he cried out, there was a flash of falling metal, a sickening crunch, and Cesc’s hand slipped from Iker’s entirely. There was a tight, panicked feeling in his chest, and for the first time, he began to understand what Cesc meant about not having a reason to live if Iker was gone. If Cesc was gone-- God, if he were gone--
But he wasn’t-- he was hanging on somehow, but something red was seeping through his shirt and tears were shining on his cheeks, and Iker knew something awful had happened-- or was about to happen.
When Cesc finally managed to find Iker’s hand again, his hands were sticky with blood, his eyes were drooping, and he was losing too much blood. All Iker could think of was when his family used to make water balloons every summer, and every summer, he would throw them at his brother, watch the burst balloon on the ground, and watch the water seep slowly out.
Cesc was split open and seeping like a broken water balloon. And there was nothing Iker could do about it.
His hand kept slipping and Cesc’s face was desperate. Finally, he grabbed Iker’s hand and Iker pulled as hard as he could. All he wanted the whole time was to be able to turn back the clock, force Cesc to climb up first, and take the falling metal and the gash in his side.
When Cesc reached Iker, it was bad. He fell on him, and Iker could tell his leg was broken. His side was split open, and Iker felt something split him from head to toe when he lifted Cesc’s shirt to see the wound. He could see bone. He felt dizzy.
Cesc’s breath sounded like how it must feel to breathe underwater, and Iker held him to his chest, just sobbing quietly over his broken body. Cesc coughed and a spray of blood hit Iker’s back. He remembered the first day, when Cesc had saved him, wondered, why can’t I save you?
“I’m going to die,” Cesc said, and his voice was shaky but quiet, like he was trying to sound brave. But he’d always been too stubborn to be at peace with his end. “Aren’t I?”
“No,” Iker whispered fiercely. “No, you’re going to be okay. Just stay here. Just stay here a little while. I’ll make it better.”
“You can’t make this one better, Iker,” Cesc said, and he laughed, and there was more blood. Iker kept thinking about the water balloon, how there was only so much time before it drained completely. “I’m bleeding out, but I remembered the socks.” He laughed again, and his eyes were glazed over like the blood loss was making him lose his head.
“Yeah.” And Iker was crying into his hair, and there was blood on his hands, all down the front of his shirt-- everywhere, and he’d never get his hands clean enough. “I knew you wouldn’t forget.”
He coughed again, more blood, and Iker watched the exposed bone. “I could get you inside. We could-- we could make something up. I could say--”
“I’m going to die, Iker,” he said, and this time his voice was much quieter, no trace of fear, and Iker realized his whole plan all along wasn’t to get both of them through. It was to get Iker in. Both would be nice, but Cesc just needed Iker to be in.
“I love you,” Iker said, instead of telling him he wasn’t going to die. He was sick of people giving the world a chance. Everyone was going to die, and Cesc was going to die right then and there, and Iker would cease to exist. Whether he was alive or dead didn’t matter; he would be a blank slate either way. “I’m sorry,” he said, and kissed Cesc’s bloody lips. “God, I’m so, so sorry.”
“Think of me, from time to time,” Cesc said with a grin. His lip split and more blood ran over. “And that’s how I’ll live.”
He didn’t say anything after that, and he passed out before he died. Iker didn’t get to watch the light leave his eyes, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. He was sobbing over his unconscious body, numb over his dead one. He stayed in the elevator shaft for two nights.
When he was starving and it was too cold, he cried over Cesc again, rubbed his bloody hands over his cheeks with tears, and there was a bloody smear everywhere-- the same bloody smear he could never completely erase from his vision. When he was finished crying, he picked up Cesc’s body, and dropped him down the elevator shaft.
He watched the body fall the whole way, tore at his own skin when he heard the sound it made upon impact. He leaned against the stone wall entrance, banged his fists against them until they were bloody all over again, and then, exhausted, collapsed to the ground.
He wanted to die then and there, but he remembered his promise to Cesc. I would never die for you, not in a million years. He wiped the tears from his face, vowed never to cry again so long as he was Underground, and set his shoulders for the long descent to the tomb beneath the tomb of the world.
*
Iker awoke from his nightmares early to see a lone figure approaching their burnt out fire. Her hands were shaking badly, her hair falling out in chunks, her eyes rolling back in her head. She looked like something out of a horror film, and Iker recoiled.
He woke Sergio with a kick, and a knife appeared. “Infected,” he murmured sadly, and Sergio was the only person Iker knew whose vendetta was based more on sorrow than bitterness.
Iker started forward, remembered the way Cesc’s face appeared over his, bright and happy and brilliant, everything that disappeared entirely from the world with his death. He reached his arm out to help her, and she looked lost, her eyes glazed over like Cesc’s had been at the end.
“Iker, no--”
Iker stopped, turned slowly back to Sergio with his knife and his fighting spirit-- his will to live after losing everything, and Iker thought, he’ll be here until the end of time; he’s a survivor, that one.
“It’ll kill you. Helping her, being near her. You’ll die.”
And Iker almost smiled. “I know.”