Survival

It had only been fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes since they walked out of that office building.
Fifteen minutes since they left that sterile room behind.
Fifteen minutes since everything changed.

He got the assignment.
K. didn’t.

And K. had been right all along.

They weren’t looking for the smartest. Or the kindest. They didn’t care about theory or loyalty. They needed someone willing to act — someone quiet, someone efficient. Someone detached enough to read between the lines… and cross them if necessary.

A person who could betray.

It wasn’t about knowledge. It wasn’t about skill. It was about survival. There wasn’t enough room on the other side for everyone. Not enough air. Not enough water. Not enough space to dream.

This wasn’t a mission. It was an evacuation. A ship designed to save the species, not the individual.

You could bring someone with you — but everything would halve. Rations, water, sleeping space.

If one of you said no — they’d take the one who said no.

He said: I’ll go alone.

And K., being K., said something else.

That’s why K. was now sitting alone on a rusted bench outside, waiting for the bus that would take him back to the slums. Back to nowhere. Back to the end.

He would probably be dead by nightfall.

The thought hit him like acid in his stomach. He stumbled to the nearest bathroom, retching until there was nothing left inside him — nothing but the hollow ache of survival.

When he finally looked up at the mirror, he barely recognized the reflection staring back.

Twenty-five years old.
But he looked forty.
And for the first time, he didn’t hate what he saw.

There was a stranger in the glass. Someone tougher. Colder. Someone who could make it.

The band on his wrist buzzed — the final call.

He made his way to the meeting point.

Around a hundred of them waited by the ship. All of them looked about forty. None of them had wrinkles. None had gray hair. But they all shared the same expression — blank, hardened, already halfway gone.

He spotted a man sitting alone in the shadows, back against the wall. Something told him he might need a friend out there — in the silence between stars.

He approached and offered a small, almost desperate smile.

The man looked up — eyes flat, untouched by anything human.

The man grinned — sharp, hollow.

“So,” the man said, voice dipped in dry irony.
“We’re friends now?”