Title: Derelict Buildings

A/N: Muggle AU! because I don't want this to be over in three chapters.

9:28 AM

The bells continued to ring at random; a thousand cries, more or less distinct, mingled with the bursts of musketry and the roar of artillery from the galleys — well, not really. Perhaps in Harry's head, the store's ceramic floor was covered in blood, but the only thing worthwhile was the thick layer of black and white mould in the corner of the room. The broad katana he had found weeks ago was laying at his feet, his plaid shirt stained with the likes of ichor and fermented beans, and his lips were stiff and numb to the touch — maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have practised until his fingers bled and skin peeled. It was stupid, really.

But, oh-so-addicting.

He couldn't practice in his cramped apartment nor could he do anything in that damned room, the katana would rip right through his linen sheets. The walls were as thin as paper, and the floorboards were waterlogged and curling at the edges — vile, really. Hell, he swears on his very life that he saw an earwig scurry beneath his bedside cabinet, and Harry is usually pretty cool with bugs. Just not ones that crawl into your ears and lay eggs, that's a definite no from him in all perspectives. Besides, the complex itself wasn't anything special, anyway.

The derelict buildings were a dilapidated mess, like rows of broken teeth with remnants of shattered glass in rotting wooden frames, mortar and stone crumbling beneath feathered fingers, invasive moss in walls, black and empty doorways, and ghosts of the past — it wasn't the epitome of beauty, sure, but it was better than living in a cardboard box underneath a bridge. But, perhaps that wouldn't be half bad; he could practice without worrying about the neighbour's corpse crashing through his wall and sinking its teeth into his throat.

Though that would be an interesting tale to tell at a bar, if he drank, that is (and more so if bars were even around anymore and whether or not he actually lived to tell the tale). Coffee was enough to subdue him, but he did read an article about how caffeine was the gateway to a crack addiction — an enthymeme if he ever saw one, and he never did study logical fallacies. But, that's beside the point, he was alone. The world had gone to shit not even a few months ago, and for once, he could safely say it wasn't his fault — his relatives couldn't blame him anymore, they were dead, their heads served nicely upon a silver platter.

It was lovely, at least, for a little while. He couldn't say he missed them, they were horrible and cruel and just as ugly as the animated corpses, and he only just came to terms with that, but he missed the idea of someone, not just him, being alive. Sure, the corpses were walking, snarling, and ready to tear his flesh from his bones like string cheese, but they weren't human, not anymore. But, it was something, anything to keep a hold of his waning sanity, and maybe it was helping, but he couldn't be sure. He had corpses as friends, for fuck sake.

Well, maybe not friends, but —

That wasn't cool, not cool at all, but he didn't exactly have the time to set an appointment with a therapist — it wasn't as if he could fucking hold the hand of a wilting, green and grey, counsellor and write down his problems word by word as if conducting some sort of self-diagnosis, cause no, he wasn't that delusional. It was just lonely, and he wanted to have one-sided conversations — one-sided because she was smart, and he wasn't — with Hermione and play a solid game of street hockey with Ron, but he couldn't because they were just as dead as his relatives.

He tried, god did he try, to save them, but Harry wasn't fast enough, and he wasn't strong enough, and he just wasn't good enough to do anything but cry and feel the bile rise in his throat as he was forced to watch behind paned glass. The corpses had grinned lewdly at him, almost, as if knowing it was his friends that were being torn from the inside out, like maggots eating away at a rotten slab of meat, slow and torturous and downright heinous, but just he couldn't look away. Hermione had begged as her mousy, brown hair was skinned from her scalp, and Ron had screamed as his chapped lips were ravaged by yellow teeth — a slick, black tongue licking at the gore rolling down his chin like a sickly puppy.

There was nothing left of them but remnants of pink, spongy matter all over the corpses hanging jaws, balanced at the tip of their rotten lips like drool. But, hell, the corpses didn't care, they just kept scrapping their nails against the glass, as if they could taste him through it, but fuck, maybe they could. Harry didn't want to think about that, though, because he would live to see another day, and he did.

Sure, the days leading up to now were shitty and far from ideal, but he was able to scavenge scraps of beans and peaches (far more than what he ate at the Dursleys, honestly) and find himself a working faucet, and somehow, it wasn't all too bad anymore. Hermione always disliked beans, anyway, and Ron's stomach was like a never-ending abyss — they were better off wherever they ended up, anyway. Surely, where they were was an empyrean much brighter than the meat locker he lived in; no, that's not right, he didn't live. Harry didn't even know what that felt like anymore, he only survived, and he was barely doing that as it is.

But, yeah, here he was, on top of the world with a katana at his feet and a can of beans at his disposal in the early moon of fluorescent lamps. In a way, it was calming, but in the grave reality of just what his life had become, it was more than terrifying. Harry was a madman because fuck he shouldn't feel proud, but he does — he survived, yet at the same time, he didn't. It wasn't what he wanted, but he can't complain now, can he? Well, maybe he could, but he sure as hell wasn't the type to.

He wasn't about to cry about it, either. He was okay, he supposed.

And, no, he wasn't broken like the shattered shards of glass and bone littering the streets. Okay, maybe he was nearing that stage, but that's because surviving this madness alone was a bitch.

But, in all actuality, he was just too lazy to move from underneath his blanket of security and find a new area that was inhabited by a little more than just corpses, perhaps he'll wait until the neighbour really does crash through the walls of his apartment.