The flames shivered low, sputtering orange embers as the noodles boiled away, filling the small clearing with the thin, familiar comfort of hot soup. Jinju watched the steam curl and taste the memory of home in it — a ridiculous, fierce comfort in the middle of a ruined world. Her stomach gave a loud, humiliating growl and, for a second, they both laughed, the sound brittle but real.
Then something shifted in the air.
The cicadas that were singing so loudly went quiet all of a sudden.
Jinju felt it before she heard it: a prickle along her scalp, the kind of hair-raising awareness you get when a room goes suddenly too quiet. Her heart, which had been a slow, exhausted drum for days, began to thud — too fast, too hard. She pulled her coat tighter and looked away from the pan to the dark line of trees.
