The credit union had been beautiful once.
Gray could see it in the way the light fell through the collapsed roof, in the skeletal remains of marble columns and the ghost of a fountain that had probably sung with water in the before. Now it was a tomb of commerce, its vaulted ceilings cracked open like eggshells, its floors carpeted with broken glass and the kind of silence that had weight.
Elias led them through the ruin without hesitation, his footsteps finding paths that Gray would have missed entirely. Around a fallen beam. Through a doorway that had been partially blocked by what looked like the remains of a chandelier. Down a stairwell that had somehow survived the collapse above, its concrete walls still solid, its steps still climbable.
The darkness swallowed them as they descended. Gray felt it pressing against his skin, cool and thick, and somewhere in the depths of his chest, the cold-water sensation pulsed. He reached out with his strange sight, trying to read the threads in the darkness, but there was nothing here except stillness and stone.
"Watch the last step," Elias said, his voice echoing strangely. "The bottom one's cracked."
Gray filed the warning away. He'd noticed it already - had seen the way the shadows pooled wrong at the base of the stairs - but he didn't say so. He was still watching Elias, still trying to understand the man who had appeared from nowhere and driven off a pack of twisted dogs like he was herding sheep.
The vault door was open when they reached the bottom. Not forced - open, as if someone had simply turned the handle and walked through. The metal was thick enough to resist a battering ram, and yet it swung on its hinges with barely a whisper, revealing a space that made Gray's breath catch in his throat.
Light. Warmth. Order.
The vault had been transformed into something that shouldn't exist in this new world. Battery-powered lanterns cast a golden glow across shelves lined with supplies - canned food, bottled water, medical kits, blankets, tools. A camp bed sat in one corner, its sheets neatly made. A folding table held maps, notebooks, a collection of pens that looked almost new. The air smelled of coffee and something herbal, and the temperature was comfortable, neither too hot nor too cold.
It was, Gray realized with a start, the most normal room he'd seen in two weeks.
"Welcome to my humble abode," Elias said, and there was a thread of humor in his voice that didn't quite reach his eyes. "It's not much, but the neighbors are quiet."
Mina made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sob. She stepped past Gray into the vault, her eyes wide, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten. "This is... how? How do you have all of this?"
"Preparation." Elias moved to the table and began clearing a space. "I told you. I've been ready for something like this for a long time."
"Something like this." Gray's voice came out flat. "You knew the world was going to end?"
Elias paused, his hands stilling on a stack of notebooks. When he turned to look at Gray, his expression was unreadable. "I knew something was coming. Not this specifically - I'm not a prophet, and I don't have your gift for seeing patterns. But I could feel it. The way the world was straining at the seams. The way people were looking at each other like they were waiting for permission to stop pretending."
He gestured at the shelves, at the careful organization of supplies. "I started preparing three years ago. Slowly at first - extra food, some medical supplies, a generator. Then more seriously when the feeling got stronger. I found this place, reinforced it, stocked it. Told myself I was being paranoid." His smile flickered, there and gone. "Turns out I was being optimistic."
Gray watched him, the cold-water sensation pulsing in his chest. He reached out with his strange sight, trying to read the threads that ran through Elias, trying to understand the pattern of him. But where other people were chaotic, tangled, their threads fraying in a dozen directions, Elias was... contained. His threads were organized, deliberate, woven into something that looked almost like a net. It was stable, solid, and completely opaque.
It was like trying to read a closed book.
The sensation made Gray's skin prickle. He'd been able to see something in everyone he'd met since the sky fell - fear, hope, desperation, the raw edges of survival. But Elias was different. Elias was hidden, even when he was standing right in front of you.
"Sit," Elias said, gesturing to a pair of folding chairs. "You both look like you haven't slept in days. There's food, water, clean clothes if you want them. The bathroom in the back actually works - I rigged a filtration system for the water."
Mina was already moving, her exhaustion reasserting itself now that the immediate shock had faded. She sank into one of the chairs like her strings had been cut, her eyes fluttering closed. "I don't understand," she murmured. "Why are you helping us? You don't know us."
Elias's expression softened. "I know enough. I know you're tired. I know you've been running. I know you've seen things that would break most people, and you're still standing." He crouched in front of her, his voice gentle. "That's worth something. That's worth a lot, actually."
Mina opened her eyes, and something passed between them - a recognition, maybe, or a moment of trust that Gray couldn't quite parse. He felt a flicker of something uncomfortable in his chest, something that might have been jealousy or might have been fear.
"Elias," he said, and his voice came out harder than he intended. "You said you've been looking for people like us. What did you mean?"
Elias rose smoothly, turning to face Gray. His storm-colored eyes were calm, measuring, and Gray had the uncomfortable sensation of being catalogued, assessed, filed away for later reference.
"I meant exactly what I said," Elias replied. "I can see the threads too, Gray. Not as clearly as you can, maybe, but enough to know when someone's been touched by whatever happened to the world. You've been changed by it. Both of you." He nodded at Mina. "Her especially. There's something about her that's different from anything I've seen before."
Gray's hand moved to his rebar without conscious thought. "What do you want?"
"Right now? I want you to sit down and eat something. I want you to let your guard down for five minutes and realize that not everyone in this new world is trying to kill you." Elias's voice was still calm, but there was an edge beneath it now, something harder. "Later? I want to understand what's happening. I want to figure out why the world broke, and whether it can be fixed. And I think you might be able to help me with that."
He gestured at the chairs again. "But that's a conversation for when you're not about to collapse. For now, just... rest. Please."
The please was unexpected. It softened something in Gray's chest, loosened the knot of tension that had been building since they'd descended into the vault. He looked at Mina, at the way her head was already drooping toward her chest, at the dark circles under her eyes that spoke of exhaustion beyond anything sleep could fix.
"Fine," he said, and lowered himself into the chair beside her. "But I'm not letting my guard down."
Elias smiled, and this time it almost reached his eyes. "I wouldn't expect anything less."
He moved to the shelves and began pulling down cans, his movements efficient and practiced. Gray watched him, his strange sight reaching out again, trying to find a crack in the man's composure, a thread he could pull to unravel the mystery.
But Elias remained opaque, a closed book in a world of open wounds, and the not-knowing settled into Gray's stomach like a stone.
The vault was warm. The light was golden. The supplies were real, the food was real, the safety was real. And yet Gray couldn't shake the feeling that they had stepped into something deeper than a shelter, something that would demand a price he couldn't yet calculate.
Elias handed him a can of beans and a plastic spoon. "Eat," he said. "Tomorrow we can talk about what comes next."
Gray took the food. He ate mechanically, his eyes never leaving the man who had appeared from the shadows and offered them everything they needed. Mina slept beside him, her breathing slow and even, her face peaceful for the first time in days.
And Elias watched them both, his expression unreadable, his threads a closed pattern that Gray couldn't penetrate.
The firelight bargain had been struck. Gray just didn't know yet what he'd agreed to pay.