Two days later, the city changed again.
They had kept the same pattern—move at night, hide by day, keep west. They slept in a stairwell the first day, in the back of a shuttered ramen shop the second. They ate tight: rice stretched thin, two candy bars cut into four pieces, a little water each. No one complained. Complaining burned energy.
By the second night, the streets opened into longer boulevards. The buildings here were lower, wider, set back from the road. Weeds choked the medians. Billboards leaned at bad angles. A burned-out bus lay on its side, half melted into the asphalt like a fossil. The air smelled dry, dusty, with a hint of sea carried far on the wind.
"Feels… empty," Miko whispered.
"It's not," Riku said.
He was right.
