Azra toyed with the cash in her hands and stared out the front of the bus window from her seat in the very back. Streetlights in the dark passed rhythmically, her eyes following each as they passed. This was a route she knew relatively well, having taken it several times in her teen years to do just this. The motions were the same, even if the person who took her money looked and sounded different. Even as she arrived in the city and boarded a bus, her conscience screamed and begged to go home. It wasn’t too late to pull herself out of the spiral. But the part of her exhausted with all of this shouted louder that they were going to die, that she made the wrong decision, and the crumbling of the council would be her fault.

Naturally, she knew that was wildly inaccurate, but the guilt rotted in her chest all the same. She folded the few bills between her fingers again, idly halving them until she couldn’t anymore, then stuffed the cash into the pocket of her jeans. I don’t care anymore, that’s what she told herself. Perhaps it would sting later, but she would do anything to numb what she felt now. She struggled silently as she ambled down the sidewalk, bottom lip between her teeth and eyes unfocused as she watched cars roll past.