𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖙

Pieces & Fragments

The day broke slowly, the muted light of the bloody sky casting long crimson shadows through the boarded-up windows. The apartment felt still, almost eerily so, as the group stirred awake in the remnants of their makeshift base.

Alessandra was already up, quietly moving through the living room, her footsteps barely making a sound as she grabbed a broom from the corner. The floor was littered with dust.

She swept the floor with rhythmic motions, her mind wandering as she worked. The silence was welcome, a moment of calm after days of chaos. They had uncovered secrets, dark truths about the situation, but the cost had been high.

Alessandra paused for a moment, leaning on the broom and looking around the room. The faint scent of mildew and dust hung in the air, but there was something comforting about the routine of cleaning, of putting things back into place. Probably a sense of normality.

The sound of footsteps broke the silence. She glanced up to see Emma walking in, her face pale and gaunt, dark circles still under her eyes from the lack of sleep. Emma nodded in silent acknowledgment, then sat down at the table where stacks of documents and files were strewn across the surface.

"These are a mess," Alessandra muttered, setting the broom aside. She joined Emma at the table, looking down at the piles of papers. They were the documents they'd pulled during the raid—files that contained the most vital information they had managed to steal from the United Nations building.

"Yeah," Emma sighed, rubbing her temples. "We need to go through them, organize everything. There's stuff here we still haven't even looked at."

Alessandra nodded, pulling one of the stacks toward her. Her fingers traced the edges of the papers, the ink smudged in places, making it hard to read. She picked up one of the folders, opening it carefully.

The first page was covered in numbers and dates—complicated stuff she didn't understand. This was all connected to the blood moon, to the events that had torn their world apart.

"I'll help you sort through this," Alessandra said, her voice quieter than usual." Emma shot her a tired smile, grateful for the help. "Thanks. It's been a lot."

They worked in silence for a while, their eyes scanning over documents, highlighting key points, and sorting the files into different piles—experiment notes, lunarist sightings, government conspiracies. All these files were lethal for their survival. They could possibly find something that could make this senseless reality clearer.

Hours passed as they sifted through the files. She spaced out, storing the information in her head and moving with pure instinct. It wasn't until she came across a particularly dense file that her mind snapped back to reality.

"This one's interesting," Alessandra muttered, flipping through a report marked Top Secret. Her eyes widened as she scanned the details.

"What is it?" Emma asked, looking up from her own pile of papers.

"Looks like... more experiments. Not just the blood moon. There are other... I don't even know what to call them. Events. It's like the government's been running tests on people, using different forms of science, and this wasn't the first time something went wrong."

Alessandra's voice was tinged with disbelief. "Except, this time it went very wrong. Affected the damn world."

Emma's face hardened. "That makes sense. The files we saw hinted at other locations, but nothing concrete. If this has been going on for that long..."

Alessandra didn't need her to finish the thought. The implications were terrifying. The blood moon wasn't an isolated incident—it was part of a much larger scheme, one that spanned countries and decades.

As they continued working, Alessandra's mind wandered. She thought back to her life before all of this, before the blood moon, when the biggest concern she had was her grades and petty school drama. It felt like a lifetime ago, like that version of her didn't exist anymore.