Chapter 224
The truck rumbled steadily across the cracked asphalt, its thick wheels crushing the blackened gravel beneath. Smoke coiled up from jagged breaks in the road, like the very ground was exhaling heat.
The ruins of once-proud buildings loomed in the distance, jagged silhouettes of steel and concrete half-eaten by time, fire, and rot.
It looked like midday, but time had been unreliable since the world fell.
The sky was a grayish-yellow hue, sunlike but wrong, like a faded photograph of summer overexposed by radiation.
From the truck, everyone could see the mirage-like shimmer of heat rising outside, warping the horizon into a dance of flame.
Inside, the hum of the truck’s engine mixed with the quiet breathing of those aboard. The cool air drifting from makeshift vents was a sharp contrast to the inferno outside.
Leo, tucked securely in Winter’s lap, had finally relaxed after an hour of anxious fidgeting. His tiny hand clung to Winter’s jacket, eyes wide as they took in the hellish world outside.
But now, something shifted in him. His small body twisted, arms reaching up. Winter blinked and looked down.
Zara was already watching from beside them in the narrow space. Winter passed the boy gently, and Leo clambered over with little grunts, burying himself into his mother’s arms.
She cradled him close, her expression relaxed as she pressed her lips to the top of his head.
"Don’t want to hang out with me anymore?" Winter murmured, feigning a pout as he reached for the child.