Maren dies on what Ivo thinks is maybe day forty.
Not violently. Not dramatically. She just stops breathing in the middle of a sentence about her grandmother’s kitchen. Something about yellow curtains and the smell of bread. And then nothing.
Ivo’s sitting across from her when it happens. Watches her eyes go unfocused. Watches her mouth stay open around a word she’ll never finish. Watches her body slump sideways against the wall like someone cut her strings.
“Cosima.”
The other woman looks up from her section. She’s been scratching lines into the concrete with a loose thread from her jeans. Counting something. Days maybe. Or just making marks to prove she exists.
“What?”
“Maren.”
Cosima stands. Walks over. Looks down at the body that used to be a person.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
They stand there for a while. Neither of them touches her. Like touching her would make it real.
“What do we do?” Ivo asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Should we… move her?”
“Where?”
Good question. The pit’s twenty feet across. Forty feet deep. There’s no morgue. No corner to tuck a body. Just walls and floor and the gray circle of sky that’s been watching them do nothing for however long they’ve been here.
“Maybe she’s not dead,” Cosima says. But her voice says she doesn’t believe it.
Ivo kneels down. Puts two fingers against Maren’s neck like he saw in movies. Her skin’s still warm.
“No pulse.”
“You sure you’re doing it right?”
“No.”
Cosima kneels next to him. Tries herself. Takes a long time. Then sits back on her heels.
“Nothing.”
They look at each other. Two strangers bound by circumstance and now by this. A dead woman between them and no idea what comes next.
“The food cycle,” Ivo says. “Maybe when it happens…”
“Maybe what? They’ll take her?”
“I don’t know. They take the wrappers.”
“She’s not a wrapper.”
“I know that.”
The conversation dies. They both retreat to their sections. Maren stays where she fell. Neither of them wants to be the one to move her.
—-
The sleep comes.
Ivo fights it like he always does. Loses like he always does. His eyes get heavy and his thoughts go soft and then he’s gone.
When he wakes up, the first thing he sees is Maren.
Still there. Still slumped against the wall.
“Fuck,” Cosima says from across the pit. She’s already awake. Already staring.
The food’s appeared. Three protein bars. Three water bottles. Arranged in a neat triangle in the center like always.
Three portions. For two people and a corpse.
“They didn’t take her,” Ivo says.
“No.”
“Why?”
“How the fuck would I know?”
He walks to the center. Picks up two bars. Two bottles. Leaves the third set where it is. Brings Cosima her share.
She takes it. Doesn’t open it. Just holds it.
“We have to move her,” she says.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to touch her.”
“Me neither.”
They eat in silence. The protein bar tastes like sawdust. Same as always. But worse with a dead woman watching you chew.
—-
They move her eventually.
Not far. Can’t go far. Just to the south wall. Lay her flat on her back. Fold her hands across her chest like people do in movies. Close her eyes because leaving them open is too much.
Maren’s maybe fifty. Gray streaking through dark hair. Wearing a green cardigan over a white shirt. She told them she was a librarian. Or had been. Before.
“Should we say something?” Cosima asks.
“Like what?”
“A prayer. A eulogy. Something.”
“Did you know her?”
“No more than you did.”
Ivo thinks about Maren. What he actually knows. She was a librarian. Her grandmother had yellow curtains. She preferred the east wall. She talked in her sleep but never remembered her dreams. She laughed once, maybe ten cycles ago, at something Cosima said about parking tickets.
“She was here,” he says. “Now she’s not.”
“That’s not a eulogy.”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
Cosima doesn’t argue. Just stands there looking down at the body. Her face does something complicated.
“I didn’t like her,” she says quietly.
Ivo blinks. “What?”
“Maren. I didn’t like her. She talked too much about her grandmother. About bread and curtains and bullshit that doesn’t matter. And I’d just sit there wishing she’d shut up. Now she’s dead and I feel like shit for wishing that.”
“Wishing she’d shut up didn’t kill her.”
“I know. But still.”
They leave Maren against the south wall and retreat to their sections. The pit feels bigger now. Three people was cramped. Two people is something else entirely. The space where Maren used to sit is just empty floor.
Ivo finds himself staring at it.
—-
The cycles continue.
Sleep. Wake. Food appears. Three portions. Always three. They take two and leave one. The third portion disappears with the wrappers but the body stays.
Maren doesn’t decompose. She should be rotting. Should be smelling. Should be doing whatever bodies do when they stop being alive. But she just lies there. Pristine. Unchanged.
“It’s not natural,” Cosima says on what might be day forty-five.
“Nothing here is natural.”
“This is different.”
She’s right. The pit’s always been weird but this is a new kind of weird. A dead body that won’t rot. Food for someone who can’t eat. Rules that make no sense but keep getting followed.
“Maybe we should try something,” Ivo says.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Put the food in her mouth. See if it disappears.”
Cosima stares at him. “That’s fucked up.”
“So is everything else.”
“I’m not feeding a corpse.”
“Then I will.”
He doesn’t know why. Curiosity maybe. Or just the desperate need to do something. Anything. To prove that actions still have consequences in this place.
He walks to the center. Picks up the third protein bar. Unwraps it. Walks to Maren’s body.
She looks peaceful. More peaceful than she ever looked alive. The constant low-grade anxiety that lived behind her eyes is gone.
Ivo opens her mouth. It moves easier than he expected. No rigor. No resistance.
He puts the protein bar inside. Closes her jaw.
Then he steps back and waits.
Nothing happens. The bar’s just sitting there in her mouth. Visible through her slightly parted lips.
“Well?” Cosima asks.
“Nothing.”
“Take it out.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s disgusting.”
He takes it out. Puts it back in the center with the wrappers. Sits down in his section.
They don’t talk for a long time after that.
—-
The body vanishes on maybe day fifty-three.
Ivo wakes up and the south wall is empty. Just concrete where Maren used to be. No stain. No impression.
“Holy shit,” Cosima says.
She’s already awake. Already staring at the empty space.
“She’s gone.”
“I can see that.”
“Where?”
“How would I know?”
The food’s there. Two portions this time. Not three. The pit has acknowledged her absence.
Ivo walks to where Maren was. Puts his hand on the floor. Same temperature as everywhere else.
“It’s like she never existed,” he says.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t get philosophical. I can’t handle philosophical right now.”
Fair enough. He sits down in his section. Takes his protein bar. Eats it mechanically.
Two people in a pit now. No buffer anymore. No one to redirect tension toward. Just him and Cosima and whatever’s left of their sanity.
“We should talk about it,” Cosima says.
“About what?”
“What happened. What it means.”
“Does it have to mean something?”
“Everything means something.”
Ivo shakes his head. “Not here. Here things just happen. She was here. Then she died. Then she wasn’t. That’s the whole story.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It’s all we’ve got.”
Cosima’s quiet for a while. Then she says something that sticks.
“What if she wanted to die? What if she found a way to just… stop?”
Ivo considers this. Maren dying mid-sentence about bread. No warning. No struggle.
“You think she chose it?”
“I think maybe the pit lets you leave if you really want to. Deep down. Past the survival instinct. If you truly don’t want to be here anymore.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“More terrifying than being stuck here forever?”
He doesn’t have an answer for that.
—-
Two people.
The pit adjusts. They adjust. The routines shift. Where three people made triangles, two people make lines. Across from each other. Watching each other. No escape from each other.
Ivo starts talking more. Has to. The silence is too big otherwise.
He tells Cosima about his job. Something in logistics. He can barely remember the details anymore. Just the feeling of spreadsheets and deadlines. The grey cubicle. The coffee that was never hot enough.
She tells him about her sister. Or maybe daughter. She keeps changing the relationship and Ivo’s not sure if she’s lying or forgetting.
They play games. I spy with my little eye something that is… gray. Concrete. More gray. Different shade of gray.
The games get old fast.
“Do you think about dying?” Cosima asks one day.
“Sometimes.”
“Like Maren?”
“I don’t know how she did it. If she did it.”
“But do you want to?”
Ivo considers the question seriously. Does he want to die? Does he want to slip away mid-sentence and have his body hauled to a wall and eventually vanish?
“No. I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to be here.”
“Same thing maybe.”
“It’s not. Dying is giving up. I’m not giving up.”
“What are you doing then?”
“Existing. Persisting. Fucking enduring.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Because stopping isn’t an option I’m willing to take.”
Cosima nods slowly. Like she’s filing this information away.
“I’m not going to die on you,” she says.
“Okay.”
“I mean it. Whatever Maren did. I’m not doing that. You’re not going to wake up alone.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s selfish. I don’t want to be here alone either.”
They sit with that. Two people making a pact to keep existing for each other. It’s not hope exactly. But it’s close enough.
The gray circle of sky watches them not give up.
And for now, that’s enough.