"Nah bitch, you don't get to save my ass and then disappear like I was just another one of your stupid chores. It's time someone taught you a fucking lesson."
Her tram was late. Welcome to the wonderful city of Szczecin, 2038 - where "infrastructure" was a euphemism and "always on time" meant "sometime this week." The schedule flickered overhead like a broken promise, glitching between seizure-bright ads and yet another "service will resume shortly." Might as well have been the city's tagline, really. That, and "We Care." Which was funny, coming from a place that could barely keep its heating on or its citizens off the edge. "Floating Garden 2050," she thought, rolling her eyes so hard she almost saw her brain, "a cheap-ass marketing slogan for a fucking dumpster fire."
It wasn't the damn tram that had her blood simmering. No, it was the silent treatment. Void hadn't opened a single one of her messages. Not the "hey you alive?" ping. Not the follow-up that was practically begging. Hell, not even the dumbass sticker of a skeleton tapping its foot, waiting forever on a bench. That was her signature move - half-flirty, half-annoyed. Usually, Void bit. Even if it was just to ghost her again later.
Today? Nothing. Zilch.
Which was especially worrying given Void's promises about never leaving last night.
Keira's fingers curled tighter around the railing as the tram finally screeched to a halt. She shoved herself on, planting her boots with the stubbornness of a cat refusing a bath. One hand gripped the pole like it was the last lifeline on Earth; the other burrowed deep into the pocket of Void's hoodie - the one she "borrowed" just three nights ago with a clear intent of not giving it back.
Her foot started tapping a nervous rhythm against the shoddy floor. She didn't even notice until some poor schlub shot her a "what the hell is your problem?" look. Perfect.
"Yeah, fuck you too, buddy."
Keira froze, then kept the damn tapping going because goddammit, what else was she supposed to do with all this anxiety bouncing off her ribs like a damn pinball?
She played the options in her head, usual snark blazing:
"Maybe Void's just being a dramatic diva."
"Maybe she's too busy wallowing in another one of her own tragic playlists to text back."
"Maybe she's ignoring me because I finally said something that hit a nerve."
"Or maybe she's just ghosting me like everyone else, and I'm the fucking punchline again."
Her jaw clenched. Hard.
The tram rattled across the old steel bridge like it was about to fall apart any second. Outside, bright adverts flickered across crumbling towers, selling fake hope and expensive escape plans. Drones floated by, looking more tired with their "life" than like the latest marvel of automated transport. Somewhere beneath it all, canal water caught the red glow of a billboard and stretched it thin, like a wound left to rot.
Keira checked her phone again as her gut tightened.
"Yeah," she thought bitterly, "something's definitely fucked up. And if it isn't, you're about to be."
The tram coughed out its last breath and jerked to a stop.
Keira didn't wait for the doors to slide open. She spotted a guy standing a little too close to the platform edge - fidgeting, lost in his own world. Without a second thought, she shoved past him, hard enough that his feet scrambled to find grip. His balance wavered dangerously, and he almost pitched forward onto the cracked concrete below.
"The fuck is wrong with you?!" he barked, grabbing at her arm reflexively, eyes wide with a mix of surprise and indignation.
Keira didn't even look back. Her feet slammed against the platform as she sprinted, heart hammering with the weight of every missed message and every silent hour. The guy's voice trailed behind her, fading into the busy background of the city.
She barely registered it - she was chasing something far worse than a late tram.
The city stretched around her like a neon bruise-gray, chipped, and bleeding cold. Szczecin's streets were just as broken as the promises plastered across its towers. Each step she took echoed in the empty spaces between her racing thoughts.
" I'm fine," she said. "Just tired. Yeah, sure. Like when a fucking bomb's about to drop, you say you're fine." Keira's mind rattled with every clipped sentence Void had thrown her the last few days. "I don't want to be a burden. Like that bullshit excuse ever stopped her before."
Keira's fists clenched at her sides, her black-red nails biting hard against the insides of her palms. If "fine" meant disappearing without a trace, she was ready to rip the whole damn city apart to drag her out.
She veered off the main street, boots slapping against the synthetic panels lining the narrow alley to Void's building. The cold bit at her neck through the hoodie, but she didn't care. Her skin prickled with unease, every shadow folding around her like it knew something was up.
"You said you'd never leave me." The words echoed sharp and hollow in her mind.
The building loomed ahead, brutalist and indifferent. Peeling paint and flickering white lights barely masking the neglect beneath. Keira slowed for a beat, fighting the impulse to knock the whole damn thing down.
She swallowed hard, then forced herself forward.
Each step was heavy, dragging the weight of dread, love and a fury that didn't have an outlet yet.
"Just come if I go quiet," Void had said last night, like a warning wrapped in silk.
Keira pushed open the chipped metal door to the building and stepped inside. She squinted at the elevator's blinking panel.
"Out of order. Sorry for inconvenience."
She muttered, "Nothing in this fucking city ever works when you need it to." Then, without missing a beat, she sprinted toward the stairs, shoes clacking hard on the cracked tiles. Nearly tripped on a loose step but caught herself - too keyed up to care.
On the landing, she nearly barreled into an older woman carrying a basket of groceries. The woman blinked, startled by the sudden burst of energy.
"Hey," Keira asked breathlessly, "have you heard anything from that pink-haired girl today? She's... Usually loud. Machines buzzing, music blasting."
The woman sighed, settling her basket on the floor. "Yes... I noticed. It's been oddly quiet. No music, no banging against the floor. Honestly? It's a bit of a relief. I didn't think I'd get a moment's peace from it all."
Keira frowned, heart twisting. "Quiet's not always good."
The woman gave a tired smile. "Hmm... True enough. Sometimes silence tells you more than noise ever could..."
Keira nodded grimly, then moved past her, eyes fixed on the door at the end of the hall. This silence was screaming at her now.
At the door now, Keira's fingers rattled over the keypad beside the door, entering a string of numbers with practiced impatience. 4321? No. 8675? Too obvious. 1123? Nothing but a stubborn red glow.
She muttered curses under her breath, the cold biting through her hoodie as frustration bubbled up.
Then, she froze, thinking, "Maybe you're as lazy as I am..."
Her thumb hovered a moment, then punched in 2013.
The panel beeped once, twice, then clicked open with a satisfying mechanical clink.
Keira shoved the door and stepped inside, heart hammering like she'd just cracked a bank vault.
Too quiet.
Keira paused, her breath catching like it didn't know whether to keep going. Void's flat had always hummed with life - buzzing machines, candle flicker, incense smoke curling through the air like lazy ghosts. Always something crackling or spinning or singing. Now? Just silence.
The only tell-tale of "Void lives here" was the low shift of LED mood lighting bleeding over the walls, phasing gently from deep purple into slow, angry red.
Her steps hit the floor like gunshots in the quiet. She turned slowly, scanning the apartment. No soft, sarcastic "You're late" from the girl who usually met her at the door, arms crossed, that smirk doing half the talking.
Nothing.
Until she spotted it.
A smear. Barely there, but definitely there - dark and tacky across the pale flooring, like someone tried to wipe it away and gave up halfway. Keira stared at it a second too long. Her heart hitched, then restarted with a force that knocked air from her lungs.
"No fucking way."
She followed it. Quick steps now. Every inch of her body screaming ahead of her brain. Past Void's workbench filled with half-finished projects still blinking like they had a story to tell.
She reached the bathroom door.
It was ajar. Just slightly.
She pushed it open.
And everything stopped.
The smell hit her first - iron-heavy, humid, and something underneath that whispered too late. The air clung to her like steam, but wrong. Wrong everywhere.
Then her eyes adjusted.
Void - half-submerged.
Water in the tub matched the fiery scarlet of Keira's hair - only it wasn't dye swirling beneath the surface. Hair dyes don't smell faintly of rusted metal.
Void's head rested awkwardly against the back wall of the tub, tilted at an unnatural angle, like her neck was missing some bones. Her soaked fringe clung to her face, stringy and limp, dyed strands lost their fire, dulled and heavy with water. Her mouth hung open slightly, lips pale and slack. Her skin was almost translucent - like someone had taken all the color out of her and left a sketch behind.
Her arms floated just beneath the surface, drifting gently with every ripple. Fingers loose. Palms turned upward. Scars new and old crisscrossed her forearms like a half-forgotten map of pain - deliberate, unhealed. Each one a sentence she never got to say.
Eyes half-open. Glazed. Still.
Not peaceful.
Not poetic.
Just... gone.
Keira's lungs forgot how to function.
Her feet locked to the floor, her stomach dropped so hard she nearly threw up right there. Her legs buckled under her like a puppet with cut strings. She caught herself on the frame with a violent clatter of boots against tile.
She tried to speak. Tried to call out.
"Vo-"
Her throat closed around the name like it was too sharp to say.
A beat passed. Then another.
And then Keira moved.
Everything in her body launched forward. She didn't think - there was no time for thinking. Her boots slipped on a patch of wet tile just past the bath's edge. She crashed into the rim hard - hip slamming into metal, her palm sliding out from under her. Her knee cracked against the floor.
Didn't matter.
Pain was irrelevant. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.
She plunged her arms into the water and grabbed hold of Void's shoulders. Her skin was cold. Not "left-the-window-open" cold - hospital slab cold. Keira's heart thrashed against her ribs like it wanted to escape.
"Void- hey- hey, stay with me-" her voice came out shredded.
She tried to lift her. The weight felt wrong - too loose, too heavy, like her bones weren't holding her together anymore. Water sloshed violently as Keira dragged her upwards, nearly tripping over herself. Void's head lolled forward against her shoulder. A breath ghosted out of her - shallow, rasping.
Keira choked out something between a sob and a curse, cradling her closer like the warmth from her own body might be enough to reboot Void's. Her hands scrambled to find a pulse, trembling so hard she could barely keep them still. The beat was faint. So faint she thought she imagined it.
She looked down at the water. At the smeared red circling the drain like it wanted to leave too.
Then she looked at Void's arms - wrapped in blood, sliced four times. Something inside Keira snapped.
"Stupid bitch. Fucking idiot. I'm gonna fuck you u-"
Void groaned. A breath. Barely. She was alive, but clearly on her way out.
"Fuck- fuck, fuck, okay, okay," she whispered, over and over like a broken record. Her fingers scrambled to find a pulse - neck, wrist, anywhere. Thready, weak. But there.
Blood. There was so much blood. Still leaking from the slices across Void's forearms. Angry, trembling lines. Deep, desperate cries for help.
Keira pressed her palms against them, instinct and panic colliding in her chest.
"Why- why didn't you- fucking tell me-"
She was crying now. Didn't even notice. Couldn't feel her own face. Just heat. Rage. Terror. Salt on her lips. Her hoodie sleeve was already soaked. She tore it off. Wrapped it tight. Pressed it down. Then the other arm. "Pressure. That's what you're supposed to do, right? Stop the bleeding. Keep her here."
Void's body was ice. Her lips tinged blue. She twitched as her system was desperately trying to keep the brain alive.
Keira shook her. "Don't you fucking dare."
Then she remembered something.
A joke? Maybe?
Void, laughing, muttering something about "the stash in the bathroom. Just in case," while she was busy fixing the workshop's transformer wiring a day ago. Something about black market blood. She said she'd be deep in trouble if someone snitched.
Keira's head snapped toward the cabinet under the sink.
She shoved it open. Tossed boxes. Towels. Cosmetics. Bottles.
Then finally a door with a green, blinking LED and a keypad. Luckily, this one was already unlocked.
She tore it open.
Four labeled bags. Three of them red, one deep orange. A post-it with "B+ / 3RBC + 1P. Hope we never need this. Love, Aura." written on one of them. Next to them, a packet of cannulae, alcohol swabs and neatly coiled tubes.
Keira laughed. A raw, broken sound that felt more like choking.
"Whoever that Aura is, I owe that cunt big-time." Keira said, voice cracking.
Then she grabbed the kit. Laid it out with trembling hands and got to work.
"Fucking hell, how does this even work?"
She'd seen it in videos. She knew the vague theory, but it was all blur now. Her hands trembled so violently she nearly tore the IV set trying to unroll it.
She peeled open the alcohol swab and wiped the crook of Void's elbow. The skin was clammy. Veins barely visible. Her fingers traced along the inside of the arm, trying to find something with enough bounce to take a line.
Nothing.
"C'mon," she muttered. "Don't pull this shit now."
She flexed Void's arm, gently. Massaged it - there. A faint blue thread just beneath the surface. "Oughtta be good enough," she muttered. She ripped the cannula pack open with her teeth, spit out the plastic.
She pinched the skin, aligned the needle. Hands wobbling. Her breath hitched.
She pushed.
The resistance felt wrong. Too shallow? Too deep?
Void flinched - barely.
Keira froze. Blood beaded at the tip. But it wasn't flowing.
Wrong spot.
"Shit- shit, fuck." She pulled back, just slightly. Then reinserted at a shallower angle, adjusting her grip, eyes locked on the faint blue line like it was the last chance in the world.
A flashback of that video Void once showed her on disaster prep played in her mind - "Bevel up, 15 to 30 degrees."
Bevel up. Right.
She rotated, carefully.
This time, blood slipped into the chamber.
Vein.
Keira jammed the line into place, taped it down with shaking fingers, then fumbled the IV tubing into the port of the blood bag. Clipped it, and hung the bag off the towel rail with a makeshift loop from her hoodie drawstring.
She slid down the tile, crashing hard against the floor, but she barely felt it through the adrenaline and panic coursing through her like battery acid. The blood, sealed away for this exact kind of nightmare - trickled through the tubing, sluggish at first, then steadier. It slid into the cannula with clinical indifference, the crimson thread disappearing beneath skin far too pale.
Her hand gripped Void's. Cold fingers. No resistance.
Keira's breath came in wet, uneven gasps.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, blurring her vision until the whole room was just a smear of red and blue. She tried wiping them away, but her hands were soaked with water and blood. They just kept coming. Sobbing, heaving, raw.
Void's mouth still hung open a fraction, her chest rising in shallow, uneven intervals - barely enough to be called breathing. Her body looked weightless in the worst way, like there was no one left inside it.
Keira pulled her closer.
"C'mon," she muttered, brushing wet strands of hair from Void's face, "You don't get to peace out just because things got hard again."
Her lips trembled as she pressed them to Void's temple, salty tears trailing down onto her cheek. "You promised," she whispered. "You promised me you wouldn't go quiet. That if things got dark, you'd tell me. You said you gave a fuck. You swore-"
A ragged sob tore out of her like it was punched from her lungs. She clutched Void tighter, her whole body shaking.
"I need you," she choked. "Don't you fucking get it? I can't fix anything, I can't do a damn thing right, but in a matter of days you- you made me feel like I wasn't broken. Like I was... Allowed to be."
Her eyes flicked up to the bag. Half-drained now. Keira followed the liquid's path with shaking, tear-blurred focus, willing every single drop to work, to matter, to reach her.
Keira had lost track of time.
Seconds bled into minutes, minutes into something uglier. Time became elastic, warped by the gravity of fear. There were no more numbers, no more check-ins, just the unbearable wait.
The only rhythm left in the world was the quiet drip of blood through the IV line - soft, steady, cruel in its calm. Each drop echoed in her ears like a countdown, but to what, she wasn't sure... Death? Mercy? Maybe a miracle?
Any movement remaining was Void's breathing: if you could even call it that. Ragged, inconsistent. Just the barest lift and fall of her ribs beneath the soaked fabric. Keira found herself counting them, each one a whispered bargain with whatever the fuck passed for a god these days.
One... two... pause.
Wait.
Three.
It was maddening - how slowly it all went. Like watching a dying star from the edge of the universe - too far to help, too close to look away.
She kept looking for signs. The way Void's lashes trembled. The flicker of her pulse in her throat. But the stillness... That was the worst. It made Keira feel like the world had muted itself just to spite her.
Like even time was tiptoeing around the bathroom, afraid to disturb what might already be gone.
She sat pressed against the cold tile, one arm wrapped tight around Void's torso, the other still tangled with her hand, fingers clinging like lifelines. Her legs had gone numb long ago, and her back ached from the awkward bend, but she didn't dare move. Not if it meant losing even one degree of contact.
The bathroom light continued its slow, automatic shift - from magenta to cobalt, to violet, then back again. It painted Void's face in bruised shades, made her look like an ethereal entity. Every time the shadows shifted, Keira's heart stopped, afraid it had been the light leaving her eyes instead of just a trick of color.
Her head sagged more than once. Muscles slackened. The panic had drained her dry. Her cries had quieted, tapering into shallow, jerky breaths and a sick exhaustion that made the floor feel more like a grave than a room.
But she didn't leave her side - not for a second.
She muttered things, now and then. Little strings of words that passed for comfort. Useless? Perhaps. But the silence was a rather terrifying alternative.
"Your hair looks like shit," she whispered hoarsely. "I'm gonna cut it crooked just to punish you."
She reached up with trembling fingers and brushed some of the wet fringe from Void's cheek, tucking it behind her ear.
"You think I wouldn't get it? You think I'd just leave?"
She sniffled hard, wiping her nose on her sleeve without grace.
"Look, I know I'm loud, awful, dramatic. I come with all kinds of fucked up things. But if you wanted me to shut up and just sit next to you, I would've. I will. Every time. Just... Don't go under like that. Don't drag me into this nothingness without warning."
A long silence.
Another slow, shuddery breath from the girl in her arms.
It wasn't strength, or stability. But it was some kind of rhythm. A rhythm that hadn't been there before.
She blinked hard, wiped her eyes with her blood-stained wrist, and reached up with shaking fingers to check the line. The first bag - half-drained when she'd started - was nearly empty now. She waited for it to sputter, that soft gurgle that would signal its end.
When it did, she moved with mechanical precision, fueled by sheer desperation. Tore it free, replaced it with the second unit she'd found in that grim little stash. Her hands were clumsy, fumbling, trembling all the way through, but she got it done. Clamp-unclamp. Watched the crimson life thread itself into the tubing again.
She barely breathed as the color began to travel.
And then it started again. That unbearable waiting. Watching Void's chest rise just enough to keep Keira from screaming. Feeling her own muscles ache from being too still, too rigid. Not daring to leave, not even for water, not even to stretch.
She whispered to her. Soft nonsense, apologies. Pleas. Laughter that dissolved into sobs.
She replaced the second bag when it was spent. The third was colder - literally. She hadn't warmed it enough, just shook it in her hands, cupped it to her chest, cursing herself, time, Void and this whole goddamn city.
The third bag went up.
The IV line pulsed slowly, little crimson beads crawling down toward Void's veins. Keira leaned against the wall again, arms once more cradling Void like she was a fallen angel made of porcelain.
She didn't know what hour it was. The bathroom lights had gone through their full color cycle at least twice. Her phone buzzed somewhere outside the room. She didn't even care to look.
All that mattered now was the last bag - nearly flat.
Only a few slow drips remained, dropping one by one into the line like the world giving up on her inch by inch.
And Void still hadn't woken.
Keira reached up and clamped the flow off before it ran dry completely, heart thudding at the idea that maybe it had worked. That she'd done enough. Maybe Void had just needed this. Needed someone.
Her hand trembled as she checked the cannula. Still in place.
Void's skin wasn't cold anymore - it wasn't warm, either - but it sure as hell wasn't dead.
Keira let herself slump back again, resting her head against the side of the tub, tears dried in rough, itchy patches across her cheeks.
The city murmured faintly beyond the bathroom window - distant hums, whir of drones. The outside world had kept moving, uncaring. She hated it for that.
She didn't realize she'd dozed off until the sound stirred her.
It was small, nearly inaudible - air catching against the wrong side of a thought.
She blinked, sat up fast, eyes wide. Her neck popped from the movement.
Void's eyes were fluttering open - very slowly, like she was surfacing from aeons of sleep. Her pupils dilated unevenly, tracking nothing, then something, then everything. She looked dazed. Her lips were parted, dry and colorless.
Keira leaned in so fast she nearly headbutted her. "Hey- Hey. Void?"
Void didn't respond initially, after a while, her gaze shifted gently.
Her fingers, weak and slow, curled around Keira's hand. Her motion was soft and tired. Like everything else had been.
Finally, her mouth moved.
A faint breath followed by one word.
"Hi."