Dust and clay cake the bottom of my boots. The stench here is unreal. With no one to scavenge through the garbage left behind, it only festers and molds. I've seen one person so far, and it was just some hook addict strung out on the sidewalk. No ferals yet, which is a good thing.

  "Ash?" Ben asks, a popping sound filling his breath.

  "You need a break?" I ask.

  "Yes please." He says, trying not to cough all over me.

  I set him down on a nearby crumbled pile of stone and pull a rag out. He coughs almost immediately, blood accenting his lips. I wipe it away as I agonize over the hoarse popping sound I can hear from his lungs. He's suffocating. The meds have kept him at bay for a while, but it's been a week since I gave him his last dose. His body is giving out.

  As I wipe his cheek, I clench my other fist so hard I'm afraid i'll break my own hand. If I could take away all his pain and shoulder it myself I would. I rips me apart to see him this way.

  Finally, when his coughing fit seems to die down, I feed him some water I boiled a few days ago. The color is still murky, but it's safe enough by slum standards. He drinks just about the whole bottle, leaving a small amount at the bottom.

  "Sorry. I didn't mean to almost drink it all." He says.

  I shake my head, "no. Drink the rest."

  "You need some too Ash." He insists.

  "No, i'll be alright. You drink the rest." I say.

  He looks at me wearily, unsure of what to do, but I nod the bottle in his direction urging him to take it. He nods, allowing me to give him the last drink before stashing the bottle back in our pack.

  "Thanks." He says.

  "Feel better?" I ask.

  "A bit."

  I nod, zipping the pack back up and handing it to him, ready to carry him once again, but he doesn't take it.

  "You coming?" I ask.

  "I want to know why we're here first." He says.

  He gives me a stern look, demanding the truth with his eyes. I sigh, kneeling back down and nodding, giving in to his request.

  "Look, I'm sorry for being so short with you. I'm not trying to be an ass. I just-"

  I sigh, looking away from him trying to find the words. I don't want to admit that I can see his last days are just ahead. I can't even face that truth. If I do, then the realization that i'll truely be alone in this world will slam into me, and I don't know if that's something I can accept.

  I look back at him and find expectant eyes. He shows no fear. I see so much of myself in him. He idolizes me, constantly saying he wishes he could go on runs with me to help out. He wants to be just like me, no matter how much I try to discourage him. But right now, he's my biggest critic.

  "I got the opportunity to snag a revolutionaries tech and access card. So I did." I finally admit.

  "Is he hunting us?" He asks.

  I nod, "yes."

  I omit the part about me almost killing him, and that it's a familiar face. Someone I used to trust so much, but ended up stabbing me in the back in the end.

  Ben lets out a breath and looks off at the burned rubble. He says nothing for a long time, looking lost in thought. The dark redness under his eyes are so apparent, and his skin clings to his bones like a thin shirt on a hanger. It sickens me to see.

  This isn't my brother. He used to always carry a smile. His laugh used to light up the room once upon a time. But now he is silent. He takes too deep of a breath and his lungs pop and crackle. It nearly brings me to tears at times. This illness has taken everything from him, and in turn is taking everything from me.

  "I'm dying, aren't I?" He asks.

  Time freezes for a moment. Everything sits completely still. I'm caught off guard at his realization, because it's not even one I have really thought about more than just on the surface level. I never thought about what it would do to me when he's gone, but I surely never would have been able to cope with him knowing about his own fate.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "No, no you're not-"

  "Don't lie to me Ash." He says looking at me with the most maturity I've ever seen from him, "I don't have long, do I?"

  Tears begin forming in my eyes, and I force them away. I cannot let him worry about me. He shouldn't feel guilty for something that's beyond his control.

  "No. You don't. That's why we have to make it to where we're going." I say.

  "And if they have no cure for me?"

  "Stop!" I say sternly, cutting him off from furthering the thought, "they will, alright? But it's like I said."

  I pluck him up from the ground with ease and settle him back on my back, handing him the pack and moving forward again.

  "We just have to make it."

  I feel him lay his head on the back of my neck and squeeze his little arms around my shoulders tighter.

  "I love you Ash." He says quietly.

  "I love you too buddy."

  I don't really know where I'm going. I have a general idea of what I'm looking for. The symbol of the rebellion should mark the entrance. They gave me all the clues to find them at one point before I was blacklisted from entering. But i've never really been here yet.

  As the ash kicks up at my feet, I hear a strange noise coming from behind me. My hair stands on end as the guttural, throaty groans and hisses of ferals begin growing in number. I don't dare turn around. It would mean seconds lost, and that mistake could cost me everything.

  Instead I sprint forward, running as fast as I can in the other direction. What sounds like dozens of clumsy feet follow after me, desperate to tear me apart.

  "Ash!"

  "I know!" I say, hopping over a pile of skeletons in front of me, the bones cracking under my feet as I land.

  I feel a gust of air pass by my shoulder, and see the greying, sickly looking skin of a feral trying to grab me out of the corner of my eye. I push myself to run faster, to lengthen my stride to gain distance. They're right on my heels. I can feel spit landing on my clothes, and their hot breath as they screech behind me.

  A shadow blocks top corner of my vision, and I look up to find one leaping from a dumpster nearby, nearly missing us as I stumble out of its way. The feral lands on the others, snapping bones and slowing them down. I take the chance and sprint off, ducking into a nearby building and shutting the door behind me.

  I look for anything I can find to barricade ourselves in until these monsters pass. A few metal crates, most likely stolen from the shipping yards and stashed here, litter the room. I set Ben down quickly and shove them toward the door.

  Just as I'm about to slam them against it, a few hands push in, desperately grasping for anything within reach. I grit my teeth in anger and push with all my strength, slamming the heavy crates against the doors, slicing the arms off the beasts. My elbows slack and I fall to a knee, out of breath.

  Ben's breathing is shallow and labored. His coughing fits begin, preventing him from catching his breath. I rush to his side and rub his back, tapping it gently trying to help clear any blockages. Blood drips down his lips and I wipe it away from his face with my sleeve. I don't know where my rag went. It must have fallen out of my pocket in the rush.

  His little hand grips mine hard as his face shows panic. Blood rushes to his head and his eyes grow wide. His breaths are rapid, and I bury the fear gripping me now to walk him through slowing his breathing down. The coughing takes a minute to slow, but after a few times doing slow breaths with him, he finally is able to calm it down.

  "Better?" I ask, wiping the blood from his chin, desperately trying to get my heart to stop racing a mile a minute.

  He nods, catching his breath still gripping my hand. I wrap him in my arms and hold him tight, unable to control the shakiness in my hands.

  "I'm sorry." He manages after a few moments.

  I shake my head, "don't be. This isn't your fault."

  I rub his back for a moment, allowing us to calm down before continuing on.

  "Ash?" He asks eventually.

  "Yeah?" I say.

  "I don't want to leave." He says.

  On the surface, it seems like he's just fearful of going to a new place, or upset we're moving yet again. But I know what he really means.

  I pull back and grip his shoulders firmly, "you won't be. I promise."

  I scoop him back up, not allowing him to argue with me on it. We'll just end up wasting more time dwelling on what won't happen.

  I take in the surrounding room, trying to find a way out of here. There isn't much. Just burnt stone and a stair case. I start to venture up the stairs, trying to figure out what to do next. Remembering the device I swiped from the revolutionary, I grab it from my belt and try to crack into the device. It's encrypted with a passcode or a facial recognition scan.

  I think back to anything about him I used to know, wondering if I could somehow find something useful. It's a six digit passcode, and I would assume most people would use a date. There's only two possible dates I can think of he may use. I type in the first one, remembering the day like it was yesterday. The screen flashes red, and my shoulders slump in defeat.

  I take in a slow breath and close my eyes, hoping that I won't be able to crack the code. I can't allow that pain back into my life, and if my guess for this date is correct, then it'd be opening that door again.

  I let the breath out and type that dreaded date in, and the device opens. My birthday. My fucking birthday. I can't believe him. How could he hang on to me that way? After everything he did to me, he makes his password my birthday?

  "Ash? You alright?" Ben asks.

  I let tension out from my shoulders I didn't know I was harboring, shaking my head.

  "Yeah, sorry."

  "Why is the password your birthday?" He asks.

  I stay silent for a moment trying to compose myself before I answer, "doesn't matter. Let's just get to where we're going yeah?"

  "Okay." He says in a small voice.

  I stumble through the device, unsure of what i'm even looking at. But after messing around with it for a moment, I notice that the whole thing is pretty simple. Finding the map becomes easy, and the homing device built into this thing makes it even better.

  I head to the window and out onto the fire escape, where it seems like dozens of skeletons now rest. Avoiding stepping on the bones is nearly impossible, but I try my best to leave them undisturbed.

  Growling and screeching can be heard below me, and I'm careful not to get too clumsy as I climb the steps to the roof. From there, I hop the rooftops toward the direction the homing beacon is taking me. It isn't long before I reach the top of the building i'm looking for and head inside.

  As I walk down the stairs, I don't notice anything much different then what i've been seeing. Burned stone walls, ghosts and skeletons everywhere, but no real signs of any rebellion insignia's. The homing beacon shows we're right on top of it, but I don't see anything but an empty room.

  I look around closely, trying to find anything the sticks out. Nothing catches my eye, until I notice a strange marking behind the counter, barely visible. I walk over to it quickly, shoving the loose counter out of the way and find the rebellion's insignia. The familiar skull with spear tips surrounding it greets me, and I smile.

  "Is that it?" Ben asks.

  I nod once, "sure is."

  I press the insignia and it lights up at my touch. A holopad projects from the wall asking for credentials and the passphrase. I hold the ID I swiped out and it scans it with success. It cuts to the screen for the passphrase and I type in the rebellion's famous saying.

  Tip of the spear.

  The holopad flashes green, and the wall opens up and an elevator is revealed. The metal is clean, and the lights, while dim, are bright white. I step inside and the wall closes behind me, soon followed by our decent. My smile grows wide as I look back, barely able to see Ben's huge smile painted on his face too.

  "We made it."