Marrow led them by firelight through a half-collapsed passage hidden behind the food crates. The rest of Hollow City stirred in its sleep — coughing, murmuring in nightmares. The hush pulsed far above like a heartbeat they'd learned to ignore but never forgot.
At a rusted gate choked with moss and old warning signs, Marrow stopped. She spat into the mold-dark earth and jabbed her spear toward the stairwell beyond. Her voice was rough as a saw blade.
This takes you to the old municipal wing. Lots of ghosts up there. Steel doors, broken beds, cabinets with locks rusted through. If you find meds, don't wake the hush's roots. They snake through the floors like veins.
Rafi nodded, his grip tight around the braid girl's wrist. She had the sick boy strapped to her back now, wrapped tight in a ragged blanket. The braid girl's eyes flicked over Marrow's shoulder to the black mouth of the stairwell — gauging shadows, listening for something only she seemed to hear.
Marrow leaned in close to Rafi's ear, her breath carrying the sour tang of starvation. Bring back extra. Fever pills, bandages, cough syrup, anything. If you don't— She tapped his chest with the spear's splintered point. Then Hollow City forgets you ever crawled in.
Rafi didn't answer. He simply pushed through the gate before the hush's whispers found the courage to drag him back.
---
The stairwell reeked of mildew and old rot. Each step moaned under their weight. The braid girl led now, moving quick and silent despite the burden on her back. She paused at every landing, testing the air with the cautious tilt of her head. Rafi wondered what she heard in the hush's veins — words he couldn't translate, or simply the warning growl of a sleeping beast.
At the top, they pushed through a warped metal door and spilled into the clinic. Rafi sucked in a lungful of stale air that smelled faintly of alcohol wipes and antiseptic, ghosts of an order that had died long ago.
Rusty stretchers blocked the halls. Cabinets sagged open, their glass teeth cracked. Faded children's posters peeled from the walls: cartoon bears and smiling nurses who promised It Won't Hurt a Bit!
The braid girl found the pharmacy room first — a side office with bars twisted by age and time. She slipped the sick boy down beside an overturned gurney. His lips moved in a dry rasp of nonsense words.
Rafi rifled the shelves like a starving raccoon. Bottles with labels half-melted by humidity clinked under his shaking hands: antibiotics, painkillers, dusty boxes of bandages that crumbled at the edges.
A soft click snapped his eyes up.
The braid girl held out a small plastic bottle: Children's Fever Reducer — Cherry Flavor. Mostly full. She had found it under a shattered drawer, tucked behind a nest of rat droppings and forgotten needles.
Rafi laughed, but it cracked in his throat like dry glass. He nearly hugged her but thought better of it — she hated sudden touches. Instead, he wiped the bottle on his shirt and forced the cap open with trembling fingers.
They dribbled the syrup between the boy's cracked lips. He gagged, then swallowed. Color returned to his cheeks as if pulled from the depths of the hush's gut.
For a moment — one heartbeat only — Rafi allowed himself to believe this would be enough.
Then a low hum tremored through the ceiling. Dust rained from the tiles. The braid girl grabbed his arm so hard her nails drew blood.
The hush had found them. Or worse — something else had.
Through the broken windows, a breeze carried the faintest echo of children's laughter where no children should be.
Rafi cradled the boy closer. The braid girl lifted her knife, eyes wide, daring the darkness to step closer.
They'd come for medicine.
They'd found echoes instead.