Chapter 29: Nothing Happened
The Apocalypse – The Escape from the Safe Zone
The morning was eerily silent.
Too quiet.
It felt like the world had taken a deep, reluctant breath, pausing just long enough for the weight of everything — every mistake, every loss — to crash down. The safe zone they'd left behind felt miles away, even though it had only been hours. And with each step farther from it, Aria felt the threads that once held her together starting to unravel. The city was no longer familiar; it had transformed overnight into a graveyard of memory and ash. Rubble littered the streets, glass sparkled like salt across cracked pavement, and the skeletal remains of buildings stared back with broken teeth.
Aria stirred slowly, her eyelids heavy, her body sore and trembling from a night spent in uneasy, restless sleep. Her joints ached, muscles tight from holding herself together through another stretch of impossible hours. She barely remembered falling asleep — just the distant sounds of gunfire beyond the cracked walls, the slow collapse of silence, and Selene's steady presence beside her like a tether to reality.
Now, in the fragile calm of morning, she could breathe a little easier. Her skin, once burning with fever, was cool again, but the heat that had filled her chest the night before lingered. It clung to her like a secret. She tried to dismiss it as nothing more than sickness — but her heart knew better.
She remembered fire.
And lips.
And a voice — low, desperate, aching.
"…Selene?"
A soft rustle answered her, faint but real.
Selene stood near the shattered window, the pale light of dawn pouring in through fractured glass and painting her in ghostly hues. She looked like a dream barely held together, a statue carved from stormlight. Silver hair tousled and falling loose over her shoulder, body tense, shoulders squared — but her face was unreadable. Unmoving.
Her gaze turned slowly toward Aria, and in that moment, something flickered. Not fear. Not pain. Something more dangerous. But just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.
"Morning," Selene said, her voice smooth and practiced, devoid of warmth. Controlled, like it always was.
Nothing else. No explanation. No trace of guilt.
Aria blinked through the remnants of sleep, struggling to connect the fog of last night with the reality standing in front of her. "Did I… say anything strange?"
Selene's lips quirked, a near imperceptible motion. "You had a fever. Nothing more."
But Aria wasn't convinced. The silence in Selene's tone wasn't empty — it was defensive. There was something crackling beneath the calm, something unspoken that pressed against the inside of Aria's skull like a half-forgotten dream. She could still feel the ghost of Selene's touch, the memory of lips against hers, warmth blooming in the dark. It hadn't been imagined. It couldn't have been.
"But I…" Aria trailed off. The words broke apart as soon as they formed, dissolving into silence. Her breath caught. There was something so vivid in the memory — hands, mouths, desperation threaded with fire. She could feel it like a pulse in her chest.
Selene moved without answering, crossing the room with that infuriating, gliding grace. She knelt beside the mattress and held out a bottle of water, her fingers steady, her face unreadable. But the gesture felt strange — too gentle, too rehearsed.
"You're better now," she said quietly. "Your power was adjusting. Awakenings like that… they're never gentle."
Their fingers brushed as Aria accepted the bottle. The contact was brief, a breath too short, but it echoed louder than any words could. The chill that settled between them afterward made Aria shiver.
Selene was unreadable — guarded behind steel and silence. But Aria felt it, the storm beneath her stillness. The ache behind her eyes.
Selene didn't flinch. Didn't waver.
But Aria was sure now — something had happened. Something Selene was hiding.
Inside, though, Selene was anything but composed.
She still felt Aria's fevered hands on her skin, the way Aria had pulled her close like she was drowning. The kiss hadn't been a mistake. It had been everything — raw, aching, desperate. Aria's lips had searched hers with a hunger that still echoed in her bones.
But Selene had buried it. Deep. Locked behind the walls she'd built long ago. Aria didn't remember — not fully. Not yet. She didn't know what Selene had sacrificed to get them this far. She didn't remember the years they'd lost, or the girl Selene had once been.
Selene couldn't afford to crack now. Not when Aria needed protection more than truth.
She stood, posture clipped, voice flat. "We should move before the streets fill again."
Aria hesitated, her fingers still curled loosely around the bottle. There was something in Selene's tone, something cold and careful, like she was pulling away one calculated step at a time. The silence that followed wasn't just awkward — it was suffocating. Aria felt a thousand unsaid things clawing at her throat, begging to be voiced.
But she said nothing.
Because she didn't know how to ask.
What had happened between them? Was it real? Was it only a dream, conjured by fever and fear?
She followed Selene without a word. Not because she wanted to pretend nothing had happened — but because she didn't know how to make it real.
Outside, the city was a skeleton. Every street told a story of collapse. Dust clung to the air, thick enough to choke. The wind whispered down alleyways like the voice of the dead. Here, in the open, there were no illusions left.
Selene led the way, eyes sharp, scanning every shadow. Her hand rested loosely on the hilt of the blade at her hip. She didn't look back.
Aria trailed her, watching the way her shoulders moved, the tension in her spine. Selene was more than just distant now — she was unreachable. She walked like someone who had already decided not to be touched again.
Aria's heart ached. She didn't understand it — didn't want to. All she knew was that something had broken last night, or maybe something had bloomed, but it was being buried in silence.
She remembered too much to let it go, but too little to confront it. The memory of Selene's mouth against hers, the fire it lit inside her, it lived just beneath her skin — but now Selene wouldn't even meet her eyes.
She wanted to scream. To grab Selene by the shoulders and demand to know why she was pretending. Why she was so calm when Aria couldn't stop shaking.
Instead, they moved wordlessly through the debris of the world that had died. The air smelled of ash and rust. The sound of their footsteps was the only noise that marked time.
Aria tried once more. "Selene…"
This time, Selene glanced back. But her face gave nothing away. Only those eyes — those maddening, infinite eyes — looked at her with something almost like regret.
"We need to stay ahead," she said.
A pause.
Then softer, almost inaudible: "It wasn't your fault."
Aria blinked. "What wasn't?"
But Selene didn't answer.
The words echoed in her mind. A riddle. A warning. A promise.
She didn't know what she was more afraid of — that nothing had happened… or that everything had, and Selene was pretending otherwise.
They moved on, the silence thicker now, heavy as smoke. Aria's throat burned with unshed words. She wanted to ask if Selene had kissed her. She wanted to scream that she remembered. That she wanted more.
But Selene didn't give her the space.
Later, Aria told herself.
Later, she would ask.
Later, she would remember everything.
But as the wind picked up and the ruins of the city groaned beneath the weight of morning, all she had was silence.
All she had was the ghost of Selene's lips, fading like a dream she wasn't ready to wake from.
And the ache of a kiss neither of them would admit.