There's a ritual before sleep that nobody sees — three locks checked, twice, then the knife comes out and I clean the grease from under my nails like it's a prayer. Keeps my hands steady and my mind from wandering where it shouldn't.
29 Jul
There's a ritual before sleep that nobody sees — three locks checked, twice, then the knife comes out and I clean the grease from under my nails like it's a prayer. Keeps my hands steady and my mind from wandering where it shouldn't.
When the workshop empties out and the generators hum low, I let myself listen to the old country tracks my father used to play — the ones about heartbreak and open roads. Something about a pedal steel guitar makes the concrete walls feel less like a cage.
I name every engine I fix — this one's Bertha, and she's been stalling for three days just to spite me. Finally got her purring again, though she only responds when I sweet-talk her in Swedish. Some machines are stubborn like that.
Pot's been burning since dawn and the coffee's turned to tar — exactly how I need it. Anyone who wants it smooth never stayed awake through a three-day siege.
Climbed to the top of the blast furnace again — the toxic sunset burns orange through the smog, and for a few minutes I can pretend the world isn't broken. Some things still work the way they're supposed to.
Found fresh tire tracks half a mile east — Astraea's scouts have been circling closer. Time to reinforce the eastern checkpoint before they get any ideas about testing our borders.
Snuck away to the storage locker where I keep my stash — six bottles of floral perfume I'll never wear, just sniff when the weight gets too heavy. Some people collect weapons; I collect the memory of what flowers smelled like before the world burned.
Everyone looks to me like I've got the answers, but half the time I'm just making it up as I go. You don't lead because you're ready — you lead because someone has to be the one still standing when everything else falls apart.
Spent the last three hours coaxing a dead generator back to life — she's humming now, and I've got the grease stains to prove it. Nothing like the sound of a machine that finally remembers how to breathe.
Three years since the Great Deletion, and I still catch myself looking for faces that won't ever walk through those gates again. Some mornings the silence hits harder than any raid.