I saw him before he saw me.
He stood near the corpse, half-turned, katana still in his hand. Not looming over it like a victor. Not kneeling like a mourner. Just… paused. As if he hadn't decided what he was supposed to be yet.
The fog did not touch him the way it touched the streets.
It lingered behind him instead, thin and distant, like it knew better than to get too close.
That was the first thing that felt wrong.
Up close, he looked nothing like the survivors I'd seen dragged along by the mist.
He was tall—close to six feet, maybe more—but lean, built for movement rather than endurance. His hair fell loose down his back in long pale strands, white enough that it nearly blended into the fog when the light caught it. It didn't look dyed.
It looked… drained.
His eyes were a washed-out blue, so pale they were almost silver in the gray air. Not sharp. Not empty.
Heavy.
Like they were holding too many moments at once.
Blood darkened the side of his coat. His breathing was slow and measured—the kind that came from learning, the hard way, that panic killed. His stance was steady despite the wound, feet planted with a precision that didn't match the damage above them.
I stayed crouched behind the broken cart and watched him breathe.
The body between us had already begun to change.
Skin grayed. Dark veins crept beneath it like roots under soil. Another shadow claimed.
I didn't look at it long.
I looked at him.
There was something familiar in the way he stood.
Not his face.
Not his clothes.
His posture.
I had seen that stillness before—someone waiting for an order that never came.
I shifted my weight.
The wood creaked.
His head turned instantly.
Not toward the sound.
Toward me.
The katana rose—not in threat.
In readiness.
I raised my hands slowly.
Not surrender.
Warning.
"Don't come closer," I said.
My voice sounded wrong. Too dry. I hadn't spoken in hours.
He didn't answer right away.
When he did, it was quiet. "I wasn't going to."
The fog drifted behind him, thin and watchful.
I hated that it stayed with him.
I stepped out from behind the cart. My legs trembled, but I didn't stop. If he wanted me dead, hiding wouldn't change that.
Up close, the exhaustion in his face was clearer. His jaw was set too tightly, like pain was something he'd learned to ignore instead of heal. The pale blue of his eyes never left me.
"You alone?" I asked.
He hesitated.
"Now I am."
Something in that answer tightened in my chest.
I glanced at the corpse.
"Hunter?" I asked.
"Yes."
Not a lie.
Not the truth either.
I nodded once. "You fight like someone who's been trained."
He looked down at his hands.
"For a while," he said.
That confirmed it.
The fog had been close to him once.
Maybe too close.
I studied him the way I used to study routes through the city—looking for breaks, for reasons not to trust what I saw.
He noticed.
"Why are you staring?" he asked.
"Because the last man I trusted died," I said.
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
His shoulders stiffened.
Just slightly.
Not enough for someone who didn't know what to look for.
Enough for me.
Silence filled the plaza.
Wind dragged loose paper across the stones. The fog did not move at all.
I thought of the man who had walked beside me through the streets weeks ago. The one who believed teamwork meant something. The one who stepped forward when he should have run.
I didn't say his name.
I didn't need to.
"I don't want to be alone out here," I said. "And you look like someone who knows how not to die. So we can either walk together… or we can walk in opposite directions and pretend this never happened."
He looked past me, toward the broken streets.
Then at the corpse.
Then at the fog behind him.
Finally, back at me.
"…We can walk," he said.
Not together.
Just walk.
I lowered my hands.
Behind him, the fog followed at a careful distance.
Not close enough to touch.
Close enough to listen.
(Next chapter: A Name Given)