He played a few chords. The sound was bright, piercing the heavy dampness of the cellar. "Teach me the one about the moon again," Sarah whispered.
For the next hour, the apocalypse paused. He restrung an old, battered acoustic guitar he’d hauled across three states. His fingers, calloused and scarred from sharpening shivs and strangling shadows, moved with a surprising, trembling grace.
"Because," Elias said, his voice cracking, "I need you to remember that this is a lie. The music, the strings... it’s a ghost. Out there is the truth."
The click of a dry revolver is a specific kind of silence. For Elias, it was the sound of another morning in the Seattle QZ outskirts.