The sky was bleeding orange as the sun dipped behind the ruined city.
We found a rooftop that hadn't crumbled, a patch of stillness in the chaos. Just bricks, rusted tal, and silence. The streets below teed with the infected—shadows dragging limbs, moaning for warmth they no longer knew. But up here…
Up here, it was quiet. Almost… peaceful.
"You ever miss warmth?" she asked , curling into the blanket.
I turned toward her, her face barely lit by the last dying light.
"I don't know if I ever had it," I said.
Her na was Lira.
She had freckles like fallen stars, and a scar on her lip from her first fight with a raider.
We'd been running together for three weeks—long enough to share food, trust, and silence.
Not long enough to say "love."
But sothing close.
That night, we didn't plan.
Didn't count bullets.
Didn't argue about rations or routes.
We just… stopped.
She laid beside , head on my chest, listening to the thud of my heart as though it were a lullaby.
Outside, the moans rose like a grotesque chorus.
But we had this one rooftop. This one blanket.
This one last warm night.
"I had dreams once," she whispered.
"What kind?"
She smiled faintly. "The kind where I wasn't holding a knife in my sleep."
I nodded. I knew the kind.
We shared half a protein bar, and when the stars finally blinked into view—faint behind ash and smoke—we stared up at them like we used to as children. Before.
We talked about nothing:
The color of the sky.
The taste of apples.
The way her brother used to play guitar so badly it made the dog howl.
And then, we didn't talk at all.
She reached for , and I let her in.
Every scar. Every heartbeat. Every last good thing we had inside us.
It was tender. It was slow.
It wasn't desperate, not like the others.
It was the kind of intimacy born from knowing tomorrow is a maybe.
The kind of love that says:
"If I don't wake up, at least I felt this."
Around midnight, the air grew colder.
The wind howled.
The infected stirred.
But we were tangled in each other—skin on skin, breath to breath.
Still human.
Still alive.
She cried softly before sleep took her.
I held her tighter.
Not because I could save her.
But because, in this world, warmth is rarer than bullets.
When morning ca, the blanket was damp with dew.
She was still beside .
Alive.
But we both knew—deep down—that last night had been borrowed from a life we no longer had.
She didn't speak.
Neither did I.
We packed.
Loaded our weapons.
And descended into the rot and ruin once more.
But for one night…
we weren't survivors.
We were lovers beneath the stars.
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