The Hollowing

They made it through the night. That was the first miracle. The second was the stillness. The kind that only settles after something awful has finished its work. No more screams. No alarms. No rooftops on fire. Just silence. That sticky quiet that clings to your skin like wet ash.

They lay on the gravel, breathing in rust and rot. Coughing between thin, broken laughter. One of them held a cracked water bottle tight. White-knuckled. Whispering thanks to no one. Another clutched someone else’s shoe. Not theirs. Not anyone’s. Just a sole that lost its person, turned over and over like rosary beads.

They laughed the way people do when they’ve seen too much and can’t cry yet. Not because it was over. Because they weren’t. Because the body, ridiculous and loyal, still wants to live.

Someone said, We made it.

And for a second it felt like a statement. Not a dare.

Then the light came.

First gray. Then gold. Then too much.

It didn’t rise. It arrived. Kicked in the door.

And everything they thought they’d outrun came limping back. Slow and hungry

The road ahead was smeared in soot. Cars torn open like fruit. A swing set sagged sideways into a wall, half-melted and still somehow defiant. A child’s jacket clung to the chains.

A dog moved in sick, slow loops around a pile of ash. Its leash dragging behind.

And then the tree.

Old. Crooked. Bent like it had been asked too many times to hold what it couldn’t carry.

At its base, three children.

Tied at the wrists with faded ribbon.

Sleeping, maybe, if you squinted hard and told yourself stories.

But no.

No one moved.

No one screamed.

The sun didn’t blink.

Because dawn doesn’t comfort. It measures.

It spreads its palms and starts counting.

This is gone.

That’s broken.

These won’t be coming back.

It doesn’t soothe. It audits.

And you—you’re not spared. You’re just on the list.

Because the light doesn’t care who made it.

It only shows what the dark buried.

And what it uncovers... it hollows.

The laughter dies out without a sound.

The stillness tilts.

And breath becomes heavy again.

Something you have to drag behind you.