1
SERA
Six ration tokens. Five portions.
I stare at the shallow clay tray and count again, because hunger makes a liar out of the eyes. One twist of dried meat wrapped in reed fiber. Two bitter cave roots, scrubbed clean but still smelling of dirt. A palmful of gray seed mash pressed into a leaf. A strip of smoked hide-meat tough enough to chew for an hour if someone has the patience.
Five portions. Six tokens.
The math doesn’t change just because I hate it. Someone goes without.
The ration chamber is quiet except for the scrape of charcoal on slate. The room sits in the depths of the City, far below the killing glare above. No lamps burn this late after sunrise. Instead, thin shafts of reflected daylight spill through angled cuts in the ceiling, pale and dusty by the time they reach the counting tables.
The City has no power. Only stone. Shadow. Hoarded stores of precious water. Old tunnels that remember cool better than we do. And rules. Always rules.
Move before the suns climb. Rest when the heat turns vicious. Speak only when silence will not do. Do not eat more because fear makes you hungry. Do not ask for what cannot be given.
I think about my group. The people I’m responsible for. Mira, old enough that her fingers shake when she holds a water cup. Tal, only twelve or thirteen and too thin already. Jessa, nursing an infant though her own body has nothing left to spare. Anik, who lost two toes in an accident. And Orin, who has the fever spreading through the city, claiming most of those who catch it. And me.
Six people and only five portions.
Beyond the arch, there are more bodies than there were a week ago. The newcomers. Other humans. Other survivors. I wish they were a welcome addition. They arrived with travois full of supplies and weapons, but they also brought wounded and more children. And the desperate hope travelers carry when they believe somewhere else might save them.
Though they brought supplies, it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. By the time Rosalind’s people staggered into the outer shade of the city, what they carried was less than what they needed. It’s not a condemnation of them. It’s worse. It’s arithmetic.
Emon leans on the counting table, bracing his hands against the stone. He’s City like me, narrow from years of hunger. Like most men, he keeps his hair cut close to avoid heat. Sweat shines at histemples but doesn’t fall. Most of us learn young how to hold still enough that sweat stays, cooling.
“There should be six,” I say.
“There should be sixteen more from the newcomers’ second pack line,” Emon says.
“That pack line never made it.”
“I know,” he says, with nothing but resignation in his voice, which makes it worse.
From the corridor comes a low murmur. The newcomers have not learned our silence yet. They whisper while waiting. Shift their weight. Ask questions no one wants to answer.
“They said there were stores here.”
“Quiet.”
“We gave them what we had.”
“And what we had wasn’t enough.”
“My brother died carrying those packs.”
“So did mine.”
The silence after that is thin enough to cut with a knife. There’s nothing I can offer to comfort them, so I keep my eyes on the tray. The City leaders counted what entered the gates. The newcomers’ Council counted what left the valley camp. Both numbers are true, and neither number feeds anyone.
Two groups of survivors share the City’s shade now. Those of us who have endured here by obeying scarcity, and those whocrossed death to reach us, led by Rosalind and the others who carry authority like a blade they haven’t decided where to point.
Even though I can understand both sides, that doesn’t create food. I touch the smallest cave root, then slide one ration token back across the table. Emon looks at it.
“No.” His eyes jerk up to meet mine as he shakes his head.
“It’s mine.”
