The air still tasted like ash.
It had been weeks, and the taste of it still hadn’t left his mouth. The food tasted like ash, the water tasted like ash, he woke up brushing his teeth with the taste and he smacked his lips as he fell asleep with it.
He only got a break from it when he woke from his nightmares of his mouth filling up with blood. Then he coughed trying to forget the taste all over again. This was one of those times, shaking and coughing in this tattered broken bed. He tugged the curtains he was using as a bedsheet tighter around him.
He tried to focus on the ceiling, counting all the new holes it had gotten in it after last night. He was getting really fucking tired of patching it up, but like hell was he going to sleep without a roof over his head. Even if all he had was a shack made out of metal scraps stuck together with Tears. All this group said it was a waste to use them for that, but they shut up real fucking quick the first night they got rained on. It took them forever to get the blood out of their clothes.
He used to be a construction worker, before all this happened. Not that it made the huts any less ramshackle, but at least he knew enough to give them a little structural integrity. Didn’t mean shit when it got shot at though. Wasn’t even any of the hosts. He didn’t know if it made him feel better or worse that they were just looters, and not survivors. It made them easier to kill, at least. Especially after what they did to Damien. He probably wouldn’t have lived if it wasn’t for-
It’s 12 holes, by the way. In his fucking ceiling. They didn’t even make any holes in his walls. It was just his ceiling. Fuckers. At least they found their camp, and were able to take all the food they had. It should last them a few more weeks. More time for the front to come find them. More time to survive.
(Nobody was coming. Nobody thought that they were alive.)