It was a cold night in Hamburg. The kind that numbs your fingers before your thoughts.
I sat on the balcony of a half-dead hotel, one wall missing, the rest waiting for gravity to finish the job.
Screech.
That was Bill. The rat.
My roommate, landlord, and emotional support parasite.
He was chewing through a soda can again, chirping like the balcony wasn't about to drop us three floors to hell.
"Yeah, yeah, enjoy your dinner," I muttered, brushing ash off my sleeve.
I'm Dread. Thirty-two today. A "retired" soldier — not by choice, but because the war didn't exactly leave anyone around to pay me.
My mother died when I was seventeen, cancer. The rest of the family? Lost somewhere between the front lines and bad reception.
No power. No internet.
Every screen in this city is a blank stare.
For a gaming addict, that's not purgatory — that's personal.
So now I read.
Work out.
And occasionally stare at Bill to make sure he doesn't pack his bags and leave me too.
I reached for my bag, found the matchbox, and struck one.
Scratch.
Fssst.
A spark, a hiss — the flame bloomed on the matchhead, soft and alive, painting the cracked walls gold. The heat bit my fingertips, sharp but comforting. I held it longer than I should have, watching the flame tremble like it was scared too.
Fire's funny like that. Feeds on everything it touches but dies the second it runs out.
I used to light cigarettes the same way in the trenches. Never liked smoking — I just needed to see something alive.
The match burned down to my skin. I dropped it, watched it vanish in the dark, and lit the candle instead.
There. Warmth. Fragile, stupid, human warmth.
Its little pulse of light steadied my breath.
Some nights, I pretend I can hear people again. Laughter bleeding through the static of the radio, footsteps on the floor above me.
It's all in my head, of course. Has been for years. But silence gets heavy after a while. You start hearing things in the weight of it.
Before all this, I used to think solitude was peace. Turns out it's just company that forgets your name.
There's a notebook in my bag full of useless shit — ration counts, workout logs, and lines I copy from the books I find.
Stuff like "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."
Maybe that's what this is. Just me on a road that doesn't go anywhere.
"And if the road collapses, well… at least I'll get a quick trip down," I said to myself.
Bill squeaked like he found that funny.
Good. Someone had to.
From the bag came today's loot — a few battered books from what used to be the library. The covers were torn, but the words still lived inside.
My fingers landed on one: Alice in Wonderland.
"Huh," I muttered. "Been years since I saw the movie version."
I wasn't a fan of fairy tales. Never was. But sometimes reality's so rotten, even make-believe starts to smell sweet.
I pulled up a chair, creaking against the rusted balcony rail, and opened the book. The moon hung above me — pale, perfect, untouchable.
For once, the city was quiet. No gunshots. No screaming. Just wind and candlelight.
I flipped the first page.
All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide…
The words floated in that small pool of silence — soft, strange, too peaceful for a world like this.
I read a few lines, then closed the book gently.
"Golden afternoon, huh," I said to no one. "Haven't seen one of those in years."
Bill stopped chewing for a moment, as if he understood.
And for the first time in a long while, I felt something close to peace — thin as paper, fragile as memory.
The candle's flame trembled. I leaned back in the chair, the wood groaning under my weight.
The book rested open on my lap, its pages breathing in the wind.
Thus grew the tale of Wonderland…
My eyes dragged over the words, heavy and slow. They felt older than the paper — like they'd been waiting for someone stupid enough to read them again.
The wind picked up. The candle flickered sideways, shadows climbing up the walls like black water.
I blinked once.
Twice.
The moon blurred. The balcony swayed.
Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe the cold. Or maybe the way those words started to sound like they were whispered instead of written.
"Alice… a childish story take…"
The poem ended softly, like a whisper that didn't quite know when to stop.
The candle flickered once, twice. Then the flame steadied again — thin and stubborn against the night breeze.
My eyes felt heavy. Not from sleep — not exactly — more like gravity was quietly dragging me down by the skull.
Bill squeaked again somewhere under the table. That rat's been alive longer than he should've. I swear he's eating something I don't see.
Maybe he's been eating me — bit by bit, one thought at a time.
I leaned back, the wood creaking beneath me. The city outside was silent except for the occasional moan of the wind through broken glass.
No sirens. No gunfire. Just the kind of silence that felt… aware.
For a moment, I thought I saw lights flicker across the rooftops — like someone walking with a lantern far away. But when I blinked, they were gone.
Hamburg's been dead for years. If there are ghosts here, I'm one of them.
The words on the page shimmered faintly, as if the ink hadn't dried even after a hundred years.
"Thus grew the tale of Wonderland," I muttered, my own voice sounding distant.
"Yeah, tell me about it."
The letters twitched.
No — not twitched. They crawled.
Like ants made of ink, dragging themselves across the yellowed paper in a quiet, desperate march.
"…the hell?"
I rubbed my eyes, and when I looked again, they were still moving — rearranging themselves into words I didn't recognize.
You shouldn't have read that aloud.
The candle flame hissed. Smoke coiled upward, turning black midair.
Bill screeched again — not his usual chirp. This one was… human. Almost a word.
Something in the walls moved, soft as silk, heavy as a lungful of air.
Then came the scratching.
Not the rat this time.
Something larger, moving beneath the floorboards.
The wood trembled once. Then again. Then all at once — a deafening crack.
The chair snapped backward, and the world folded beneath me.
Dust and splinters filled the air as I fell — not through the floor, not really. It felt like falling through paper.
The air bent around me like pages flipping in a storm, words flying past, ink dripping upward.
My heartbeat roared in my ears, then slowed — like it was syncing to something else.
Something below.
I reached out, trying to grab the railing, but it wasn't there anymore.
Only words — lines of text stretching into the dark like rungs on an invisible ladder.
I thought I saw Bill above me, perched on the edge, watching me fall.
For a second, I could've sworn he smiled.
And just before everything went black, I heard his voice again — clear this time.
"Welcome down the rat-hole, soldier."