Despite everything, the corner of my mouth twitched.
I glanced toward the interior door that led deeper into the aquarium, and back at him.
“Do you think we can access the roof?” I asked. “Even with the shutters down?”
He frowned slightly, thinking.
The roof access was mostly internal—emergency maintenance ladders, service corridors that ran above the exhibit halls.
“Possibly,” he said. “Why?”
“I want to see,” I said, “what’s happening out there?”
The words came out harder than I expected. Saying it out loud made it real in a way that thinking it hadn’t.
He studied me for a second, his eyes searching my face for something—for what, I couldn’t name. He nodded once.
“Maybe,” he said again. “But first…”
He glanced down the hallway.
“Let’s go to the cafeteria. Make some coffee.”
Coffee.
The word alone did something to me, small and stupidand completely disproportionate. My throat tightened, and for a second I didn’t trust myself to speak.
Normal. The idea of something normal.
I nodded.
We started towards the cafeteria, our footsteps echoing through the empty corridors.
The aquarium seemed different now, not simply quiet. Every door we passed was closed. Every light dimmed to its overnight setting.
There should have been voices. Laughter. The squeak of shoes on polished floors. Kids pressing their faces to the glass.
* * *
We reached the cafeteria, and I stopped inside the doorway.
The space was massive. Rows of tables stretched across the floor, chairs tucked neatly into place, everything still arranged for a crowd that would never show up. The industrial kitchen beyond the serving counter gleamed faintly under the low lighting, all stainless steel and clean surfaces.
This place fed hundreds of people every
day—school groups, families, staff grabbing lunch.
I felt some relief because that meant food, supplies, enough to last, to buy us time.
Thank God for that.
Callan moved behind the counter without a word. He grabbed a pot, filled it with water, and set it into the industrial coffee machine. His hands moved with the easy,automatic efficiency of someone who’d done this a thousand mornings before.
The machine clicked on, started to gurgle and then hiss.
The sound filled the silence, and something about it—the sheer normalcy of it—made my shoulders relax.
I leaned against the counter across from him, arms crossed tightly over my chest.