The Branded Cage

Alone 2

I flatten myself to the wall and risk a look. Five, maybe six of them, bodies pressed together like a school of fish, each elbow and shoulder in constant motion. They wear the bare minimum—cargo shorts, torn tanks, one in a threadbare blazer with no shirt beneath, their skin bright with sweat despite the chill. Their feet are wrapped in rags or scavenged sneakers, legs painted with old blood or marker ink. They push and shove, one slapping another hard across the back, laughter rolling out and bouncing down the empty block.

They are not Godless Brothers—I know that at a glance. These men move with the swagger of street survivors, but lack the discipline and uniform cruelty of the Brothers. They are dangerous, but they’re amateurs. I take comfort in that, briefly, before I realize it only makes them more unpredictable.

They veer toward my building. I freeze. If they come in here—if they see me—there will be nothing but the counter between me and whatever they want. I clench my jaw, swallow, and hope the darkness behind the register is deep enough to hide me.

But they don’t stop. They surge past the door, arguing about something in words I can’t catch, too fast and loud to be careful. One of them peels off, kicks a bottle across the street, and yells after it as if it had betrayed him. The rest follow, momentum pulling them forward. They turn the corner, voices fading but never quite gone.

Except for the last one.

He lingers. Maybe to piss on the wall, maybe to collect himself. His head is shaved, but he wears a filthy bandage around one ear. He glances at my window, eyes narrowing as if he senses the change in air. For a moment we lock gaze—his, sharp and animal, mine, terrified. My body goes cold. He says something, a single word, and leans closer.

But then the others call. “Come the f**k on!” One of them laughs, a high, yapping sound. The moment snaps; the man shakes his head, spits, and jogs to catch up, his rags trailing behind him. Their voices recede into the city’s hollow, until nothing is left but the afterimage of their presence and the hush that returns like a punishment.

I slump against the wall, heart still thrumming, legs weak. That was too close. Much too close. They didn’t see me, but that means nothing—the next ones might, and they might not be amateurs at all.

I gather myself, counting my breaths. If I am to get out of here, I need to move now, while the street is still half-empty and the men are busy tormenting something farther down the block.

I pick up a jagged chunk of brick, more talisman than weapon, and edge out the door, my soles raw and screaming at the cold. I stick to the wall, moving in the wake of the group, but on the opposite side of the street, ducking into every shadow, every doorway. My head throbs with every heartbeat, but adrenaline pushes me forward.

I do not know where I am going, only that I cannot stay here. The silence presses at my back, and somewhere in the city a new sound begins—a siren, maybe, or a woman’s voice carried on the wind. I do not stop to listen. I do not look back.

I go. Because that is what Mercy does, even when there is no one left to witness it.

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I follow them. There’s no other option. The city is strange to me—different in daylight, even this flat, lightless hour, every landmark distorted by collapse and weather and the slow gnaw of years. I keep to the edges, darting behind trash bins and half-standing walls, the raw soles of my feet leaving prints I hope the rain will erase. The men are loud, careless, but I am not fooled; any pause, any mistake, and they will double back and find me trailing, and I will be at the mercy of their boredom.

But I know how to follow. I know how to make myself small, how to move only when their shouting peaks, how to breathe when the wind is in my favour. I stay just close enough to keep them in sight, but not so close that I have to see their faces. I let their voices guide me, ricocheting through the ruined boulevards, sometimes growing faint when they duck into side streets, sometimes swelling as they round the corners and close the gap between us. This might not be the best way forward, the ricocheting voices fooling me into wrong turns here and there, but it is the only way to find the centre.

I am losing blood, maybe—not much, but enough that my fingers feel cold, and the world comes in sharp, bitter flashes. Once, I stop too long, waiting for a horse to pass on the main drag, and when I look up again the men are gone. The panic is total, a black hole opening under my ribs. I scramble, nearly falling, chasing the echo of their laughter. I find them again on the far side of a drainage ditch, hurling stones at the windows of an office block. Their aim is terrible, but the glass gives in the end, raining blue shards across the sidewalk. They howl like children at a game, then sprint on, ducking under a collapsed footbridge and into the deeper city.

I lag behind, careful not to silhouette myself against the open spaces. My skin crawls at every alley, every doorway. Somewhere a dog barks, thin and defeated. The wind lifts, and I taste ozone and the bitter chemical tang of the factories near the city’s edge. It makes my nostrils sting, but it masks the blood, the sweat, the animal stink of fear I am sure trails me like a flag.

It takes an hour, maybe more, before the city begins to resolve into something I recognize. The trading centre is always marked by sound—the low, constant buzz of voices, the clatter of carts, the occasional shout when someone gets bold or careless. But today the Centre is quieter, the usual chaos stifled to a murmur. The men ahead of me fall into step, straighten their shoulders, and check themselves, as if bracing for the rules that hold here, the brief interlude of law that keeps this place from burning.

I follow, head down, arms wrapped tight around my ribs. The foot traffic thickens, but no one looks at me. I am dirty, barefoot, blood streaked; I look like every other desperate, castoff soul that haunts the city’s margins. Inside, the trading centre is exactly as I remember it: the gutted shell of the old train station, its grand clock still frozen at 3:12, the battered length of tables running the span of the concourse. Flags and tarps in the colours of each faction. The stench of sweat, wet cloth, and smoke. The air feels charged, full of the possibility of violence barely held at bay.

The men angle for a table at the far end. They jostle a pair of smaller traders out of the way, laughing, their show of force as casual as breathing. I hang back, letting the crowd fold around me, shrinking into invisibility. I scan the room. The New Humans’ table should be near the centre, marked by the green-black banner my mother embroidered herself, but I see only the blank strip of wood and, behind it, the tent—a single sagging structure, canvas folded and lashed, abandoned.

My heart clenches. The others—my mother, the rest of the trading party—they are gone. No presence, no banner, no sign that they were ever here. They have left me, or worse.

I circle the perimeter, eyes searching for anyone familiar. At another table, a pair of women from the east side barter strips of jerky for a battered radio; they ignore me. A group of men in matching armbands—Blue hands, maybe, or a splinter—huddle around a map, whispering. None of them look my way. My body, in its current state, is beneath their notice. Or maybe that is the point.

I drift toward the New Humans’ tent. There’s nothing to see: the camp bed has been stripped, the pack of tools gone, the scraps of wire and felt that usually littered the space swept away. Even the small lamp, my mother’s prized lantern, is missing. The only thing left is a single length of green ribbon, looped around the tent pole. I snatch it, fist tight, and let my anger burn bright enough to hold back the cold for a few seconds.

There is a ripple behind me. I turn, expecting threat, but it’s only the shaved-head man from before. He watches me, one eye bloodshot, the other ringed in yellow bruises. His mouth curls, but he says nothing. I wonder if he remembers seeing me in the window, the brief electric lock of our gazes. I do not break from his stare, not even when he snorts and turns away.

My feet hurt. My skull is splitting. There is no one to ask, no way to know if I have been written off or if they wait for me somewhere farther in. I feel the old panic rising, but I force it down, counting the seconds, focusing on the weight of the ribbon in my hand, the sour burn in my throat.

I sit on the tent’s edge, blood drying in a rough mask on my face, and let the trading centre’s noise wash over me. I am a ghost, and no one cares to see me. But I am still alive, and I will make them see me, if I have to walk this ruin barefoot to the next outpost.

I wrap the ribbon around my wrist. I will not give them the satisfaction of being the first to break.

The day grows brighter outside the shattered windows. The other factions close their deals, shift their wares, barter lives and calories in the old language of want. I watch. I listen. I wait for the world to blink again.

It will, eventually. It always does.