Chapter 1323: Story 1323: Honeymoon in Hell
They called it “The Crimson Motel.”
Half-buried in sand and surrounded by scorched cars, it stood like a forgotten tooth in the jawbone of the wasteland. Faded red doors lined the cracked walls. An old neon sign buzzed, flickering every few seconds—VACANCY—mocking the dead silence around it.
Ryder and Tess reached it first.
“We could keep moving,” Tess offered.
Ryder looked back at the others approaching—Milo limping, Lara coughing from the smoke of the last firestorm—and shook his head. “We rest here. One night. Like a honeymoon.”
She raised a brow. “In hell?”
He smiled, darkly. “Where else?”
They took Room 9. The door stuck, but Ryder kicked it open.
Inside, a heart-shaped tub sat cracked in the corner. The bed had no sheets. Burn marks crawled up the wallpaper like veins. A ceiling fan turned lazily, still powered by so forgotten miracle.
Tess dropped her pack and sat on the bare mattress. “Slls like lted dreams.”
Ryder stood at the window, staring out at the skeletal desert. “This was probably the kind of place couples ca when they were young and reckless.”
“We’re not young anymore.”
“Still reckless,” he said.
Milo, in the room next door, found a champagne bottle in the mini-fridge. Warm, flat, but sealed.
Lara patched his leg, then took a long pull from the bottle.
“To love,” she said, sarcastically.
“To surviving it,” Milo replied.
Later that night, Tess lit two candles she found in the front desk drawer.
Ryder sat beside her, knife laid on the bedside table.
“Do you ever think about it?” she asked.
“What?”
“What it would’ve been like. A real honeymoon. You and Lia.”
He nodded slowly. “All the ti. I used to imagine the sheets, the sll of her shampoo, the way she’d wake up just to talk in the dark. Like nothing else existed but us.”
Tess was quiet. Then: “What if it still can? Not with her, but… here. Now.”
He turned to her.
There was no seduction in her voice—just sincerity. Raw. Human.
“We could pretend,” she said. “One night. One heartbeat. A honeymoon in hell.”
Ryder hesitated.
Then reached out.
Their hands t, calloused and stained, fingers interlocking like jagged puzzle pieces.
No promises. No lies.
Just warmth in a cold, undead world.
Outside, wind howled across the sand.
Inside, two broken people held onto the only thing they could control:
Each other.
There were no rose petals. No champagne bubbles.
Only candlelight. Breath. The soft creak of a ruined bed.
And in that mont, hell bent around them.
Turned quiet.
Almost gentle.
Because even in a world drowned in blood, sotis…
Love still made the ground feel sacred.
As dawn bled over the wasteland, the VACANCY sign finally died.
Room 9 stayed silent.
But inside, two hearts still beat.
Not untouched. Not unscarred.
But together.
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