About two years later.

I dipped the mop back into the bucket with tired hands. The slap of the wet strands on the tiled floor echoed through the hallway.

Slap, dip. Slap, dip.

The hall stretched past me in both directions, as desolate as an abandoned hospital ward. The only light emanated from my flashlight, and I grimaced as the ceiling of the old building creaked and dripped. Just as shitty as the rest of Karakul. With a groan, I hefted the bucket onto my cart. When dawn finally broke, my shift would come to a blissful end.

Irregular footsteps echoed behind me as another custodian, Chester, pushed his cart back to storage. He walked with a heavy limp, an ailment that had absolved him of military duty. “Morning, Anabelle,” he said. I grunted in response, wanting to avoid a conversation.

“I hear the effort goes well,” he continued, using Karakul’s most common greeting. I smiled politely, pushing my disgust below the surface. You know it isn’t going well, you bootlicker. We’ve been in a stalemate for months.

“Yes, I’m sure we’ll break through soon,” I lied.

I began to push my cart down the hallway, but the irregular footsteps chased behind me. “Are you returning home?”

“Yes.”

“I heard that you live in the Tin District. It’s not safe for a young woman like yourself.”

I stopped, causing him to nearly crash into me, and fixed him with an impassive stare. The grease on his cheeks gleamed in the beam of my flashlight. “Maybe not, it’s what I can afford.”

“I could help you, you know.”

A vein pulsed near my throat. “So you’ve said, but I remember declining. On multiple occasions.”

His smile dropped, but he only shrugged. “You might change your mind.”

I grunted noncommittally and bid him goodbye. His footsteps continued to follow me down the hall, but I outpaced him. I took a sip from my water bottle, trying to wash the bad taste from my mouth. Chester’s moderately good looks and status as one of the few eligible bachelors left in Karakul had given him an inflated ego and slimy personality. Still, it would be better not to insult him–he had seniority at work, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was one of Keon’s “justice collaborators,” civilian informants whose job it was to report suspicious neighbors or coworkers.

Sighing, I pushed open the door to the janitorial closet and I tipped the bucket over the edge of the sink, watching with heavy eyes as the brown water swirled down the drain.

***

I gripped the hanging loop of the night bus and leaned toward the open window. The air was cool, and the streets were lined with dirty snow from the snowstorm a few days prior. The dim lights of the bus illuminated the smog suspended over the city and the column of smoke rising above the skyscrapers. Mountain peaks loomed in the distance, giving Karakul a claustrophobic, walled-in ambiance.

The ride was habitually silent, since the wartime curfew left very few cars on the streets. I glanced around the bus, recognizing several of the other night workers. All were women―most of Karakul’s able-bodied men had gone to war during the past year. They mirrored my own posture, with stooped shoulders and drooping eyelids, evidence of the city’s deteriorating morale. I had the eerie sensation that we were all sinking in on ourselves.

We passed through Karakul’s warehouse district, an industrial area that had been converted for war production. Another factory was being constructed, and at night it was crowded with shadowy, abandoned equipment. The scene was bathed in the red light of the air raid sirens, towers as tall as streetlights with loudspeakers attached to the tip.

The buildings thinned as we passed into the Tin District. The bus screeched to a stop, and its doors swung open. The cold air rushed in, ruffling the hair framing my face. I disembarked, sticking a hand into my pocket to feel for my apartment key, then pushing it between my pointer and middle finger so that it stuck out like a thorn.

Glancing around, I made the short walk from the bus stop to my apartment building. A homeless man was leaning against the lobby doors, his upper lip frozen with mucus, and his body wrapped tightly in ragged clothing. I felt a familiar dull ache in my chest. His appearance resurfaced memories of my time in Karakul’s homeless shelter, a prison-like compound for the city’s jobless. It wasn’t much better than the streets, but it had helped me to make connections and find work. My eyes scanned over the man’s face. His skin was pockmarked, but unwrinkled. He’s of conscription age, I realized, so he’s not eligible for aid.

I unlocked the right door, leaving the man sleeping. The lobby smelled of mildew, urine, and sweat. I took the stairs slowly, using a beam from my flashlight to light the path. A rat turned on the landing, fixing me with a beading stare. “Scram!” I snapped, and it skittered away.

The fourth floor was eerily quiet. The stained carpet muffled my steps, and a single, bare bulb flickered on the ceiling. I stuck my key in the door and forced it open with my shoulder. I’d left the bed folded down, and it filled almost half the room. Squeezing between the sink and toilet, I locked the door behind me.

Inside, the air was frosty. I turned up the thermostat and the heater groaned awake, filling the room with a burning smell. My whole body seemed to relax as the chill abated. Undoubtedly, Karakul was cold–it snowed almost year-round, and I couldn’t afford the furs that would keep me warm. The constant stiffness left me irritable and frustrated.

The lights were out, so I lit a candle and splashed my face at the washbasin, then pulled my wet mess of hair into a loose bun and dried my neck. Sighing, I peeled off the grey jumpsuit, damp from the moisture in the air and stained with the remnants of a year’s worth of messes. Finally, I stuffed it into the sink to soak, sending droplets of water flying onto the floor.

I turned toward the small mirror hanging above my bed. I was an eerie creature in the candlelight, with ribs emerging from taut flesh. My blonde hair, once voluminous, hung limply over my shoulders. Homelessness and war rations had ravaged my form, stripping my limbs of muscle and fat.

My stomach grumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since before my shift. I opened a cabinet above my sink and felt around in the dark, my fingers finally settling on a metal cylinder. When I pulled it out and popped it open, the smell of old, grey beans filled the room. Absent-mindedly, I brought spoonful after spoonful to my mouth and chewed the tasteless mixture. When the can was empty, I tossed it into the garbage and washed my face again.

My neck itched, and I pulled off my lanyard and tossed it onto the bed. It landed face-up, mocking me with my own image: eyebrows lowered, jaw set with determination. Anabelle Laurent: Night Custodian, was boldly stamped over my forehead. My eyes slid over the wording easily; my new name had become such an integral part of my life that I had almost forgotten the old one. I flipped the lanyard over, refusing to dwell on the irony of working as a school janitor when I had not finished school myself.

I untied my boots and I slipped into a simple nightgown. After I had checked and re-checked that the windows were firmly latched, I blew out the candle and laid down on the stiff mattress. As always, the quiet awakened my exhausted mind, with every groan of the building making my skin crawl. I rubbed the calluses on my fingertips, hard from gripping wooden mop and broom handles.

I forced myself to breathe rhythmically, refusing to let paranoia take hold―or worse, the memories. I imagined myself drifting away from the tiny apartment and from the tightening of my chest. It had been my routine for the two long years since I’d stepped off of the semi-truck in Karakul. Since then, I’d lived in a shelter, a hostel, and two apartments—always poor, always alone.

For a moment, I hung unbalanced between exhaustion and insomnia. Finally, after another breath, I was whisked into a dreamless sleep.