The Fallen by Elle Richards EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Elle Richards
- Language: English
- Genre: Action & Adventure Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
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My home was a modern, two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a
building in central Melbourne. I’d lived here for a decade—long before the
pandemic raged through—and although my new life had been comfortable
enough, my food supplies were dwindling and my options for finding more
were risky in a city overrun with dangerous humans and the dead.
The rational side of me knew it was time to leave the place I’d called home
since I was eighteen, but one emotional factor stopped me from taking that
step; my eighty-year-old neighbour, Haruto. I’d convinced him to move in
with me back when production shut down and it became obvious life
wouldn’t be returning to normal. The rest of his family lived in Japan, he
had no children to care for him, and his wife died from the airborne virus at
a time when dying meant being gone for good.
As far as I knew, Haruto and I were the only two people living in the
building, but the dead still roamed the halls, bumping into doors and
moaning throughout the day and night. I could have cleared them from this
level and freed us from the sounds and smells, but I saw them as the
equivalent of having guard dogs protecting us from fellow humans. Haruto
agreed.
When society first showed signs of becoming a slow-moving car crash, I
bought brackets and wide slabs of timber to reinforce my door. Each piece
of wood could be slid free in an emergency, but we hadn’t needed to use it
since Haruto came to live with me. Whenever I left, I went out through the
balcony, climbed down the rope ladder I’d secured to the room below, then
slipped in through that door and out into the cleared hallway.
After that, it was a straight run down the fire stairs to access the streets and
try to remain invisible until I returned home.
The process probably seemed a little over the top, but the second I left the
safety of my apartment, every movement required thought and care. Being a
woman alone in this world made me hyper-aware of my vulnerability, and I
couldn’t risk leaving Haruto alone to fend for himself. Luckily for both of
us, he seemed content with only hearing about my adventures rather than
experiencing the outside world himself.
“I’ll be back at the usual time,” I told him as I sheathed my tantō, the short
sword he’d gifted me that his father had passed down to him. “I’ll see if I
can rustle up some painkillers while I’m gone. Is there anything else you
want me to look out for?”
Since the beginning, I’d given myself a two-hour limit outside each
morning, mainly so Haruto would know something had gone wrong if I
didn’t return within that time. We had no technology for communication,
and spending longer away from home felt like I was tempting fate. I’d
created a safe little space for myself here, and I wanted to keep it that way
until the time came for me to leave for good.
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