Elena Vasquez

The tunnel air was thick with the smell of scorched circuitry and wet stone, a metallic tang that coated my tongue and made every breath feel like swallowing rust. I knelt on the cold concrete, Marco’s head cradled in my lap, his skin fever-hot under my fingers, the faint gold veins pulsing beneath it like living wires. His eyes were open but distant, reflecting the dying emergency lights in fractured shards, as if he were seeing something far beyond this grimy server room ...