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The corridor stretched in both directions, dim and gray, vanishing into the bluish fog of recycled air. Pipes ran along the ceiling in tight bundles, rattling every few seconds with the rhythm of the generators. The walls were damp, rough concrete scarred with patches of frost, the cold seeping through the fabric of their work jackets. Somewhere down the tunnel, steam hissed and curled before evaporating into the mist.
They’d found a spot that almost passed for comfortable. Almost. The wall was unyielding against her back, gritty through the thin material, but it was solid - that was enough. Thera let out a breath that came thin and white in the cold. Her body ached from hours of work - lifting, hauling, the endless grind of the tunnels - but beneath the pain was something stranger: a weariness that lived deeper than her muscles, as if she were remembering something her mind couldn’t reach.
Jonah sat a few inches away, boots leaving wet prints on the floor, knees drawn up, elbows on them. The overhead light strip hummed and flickered, dropping a faint halo around him. He looked like the rest of them - tired, smudged with grime - but when his eyes met hers, there was something steady there. Something that didn’t fit this place.
“Get some rest,” he said, voice rough but quiet.
She managed a small smile. “You should, too.”
He didn’t answer, of course. Typical. A word that didn’t seem to belong to this life, but still felt right. She let her head drop sideways until it found his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt was worn thin, soft from use, carrying the scent of metal and dust - and something else, something familiar that tugged faintly in the back of her mind, out of reach.
The silence didn’t feel empty. Air circulated above them with a constant drone, water dripped somewhere unseen, and every few minutes the low tremor of machinery beneath the floor made the wall pulse faintly behind her. Yet, here in the middle of it, their small patch of quiet felt like a world of its own.
He shifted, slow enough not to disturb her, and slid an arm behind her back. His hand came to rest lightly on the curve of her shoulder, the warmth of it a shock against the chill. The gesture wasn’t protective so much as instinctive - a quiet echo of something they shouldn’t have remembered.
She should have moved. Should have kept alert, should have stayed aware in case someone passed through. But her body wouldn’t listen. The rhythm of the machinery blurred into the rhythm of his breathing until she couldn’t tell one from the other.
At first, his hand stayed still, just an anchor. But after a while it began to move - soft, absent strokes along her sleeve, fingers tracing meaningless patterns that sent faint sparks across her skin.
It wasn’t calculated. It was as if his touch had its own memory.
Her body relaxed automatically, responding not to thought but recognition. The warmth spread, chasing away the tunnel’s chill. Somewhere in the gray blur between fatigue and slipping consciousness, she wondered why it felt so natural. Why every steady breath beside her carried a strange sense of home.
She couldn’t have said what was missing, only that it lived at the edge of awareness - like a word she once knew, or a rhythm she used to follow. When she tried to focus on it, it faded, leaving only the steady rise and fall of his chest and the muted hum of the power conduits.
And she didn’t want it to stop.
The thought slipped through before she could catch it, carrying no logic, no explanation - just truth. Her muscles softened, her head shifted slightly against his shoulder, and his fingers kept tracing that same slow path. Up. Down. The smallest movements.
Maybe later, when the lights buzzed back to full brightness and the next shift began, they’d both pretend it hadn’t happened. Pretend the warmth was just exhaustion, the quiet just chance. But as sleep tugged her closer, she felt it - an invisible thread between them, ancient and unspoken, something that neither name nor memory could erase.
When she finally drifted off, she carried with her the hum of the tunnels, the echo of his breathing, and the sure, unconscious rhythm of his touch. The only real thing in a world that felt borrowed.
THE END