Seven years had passed since the bombs fell. The sky, now gray, permanently hid the sun. Despite the ruin and desolation that spread, a vast expanse of lemon trees still stood by the sea, like an absurd and defiant miracle. The trees simply existed, they bloomed and bore lemons, repeating the cycle year after year, steadily, oblivious to the catastrophe that had consumed everything in its path.
In nothing that remained could vestiges of humanity be recognized; only rubble and a heavy silence filled the empty horizon. Bitter no longer remembered his true name or who he had been before the bombs fell. Back then, he had been a child when the sky collapsed. And now, as an adult, he cared little about such things. His life was now reduced to a singular mission: to protect the last vital resource that remained immune to the poison of human stupidity. Each of those trees ignited in him a strange and distant spark of hope. Those trees and their lemons were a living contradiction, alien and out of tune in a world where they did not belong. And yet there they were, as if time and the radiation that devoured everything in its path had granted them inexplicable clemency for reasons Bitter would never understand.
But Bitter didn’t need to understand it. His life, once a puzzle in the shadows of oblivion, now had a clear purpose. Protecting the lemon trees, those trees that seemed to belong to a sweet time before, had become his only reason to keep going. And though the rest of the universe was in ruins, as long as they continued to bloom, he would continue to fight.
He patrolled with his rifle down, alert to any sign of intruders. Since the sky had turned gray, the Citrus Cartel had emerged not only as a family of strangers who watched over the welfare of the entire group, but they had also become its guardians, for these lemons contained the last breath of humanity. Bitter-Soldier had earned his nickname among the ranks of the cartel, surviving a great battle fought under the shadow of the citrus trees, whose leaves shone like emeralds, despite the dust the wind mercilessly threw day and night.
That night, the Vacíos broke into The Refuge. Once human, now they were nothing more than shadows of flesh, with bulging eyes and festering sores that seemed not to feel. Their screams echoed like the cry of a pain they no longer understood, only God knows what kept them alive and drove them to chaos and destruction. Bitter Soldier's heart raced when they appeared, not out of fear for himself but for the lemon trees, which had become a symbol of resistance in this broken world.
The battle raged throughout the night, a chaotic symphony of shadows and gunfire, screams and inhuman growls that broke the silence among the glowing trees. The Vacíos grew in number, but the Cartel had weapons, people with fierce determination, and luckily, some sanity left. They fought until dawn when the first rays of a sun that never arrived began to creep over the ash-stained horizon.
The next day, he walked among the trees, touching the leaves with a mixture of relief and exhaustion. He felt the life still present in them, a small victory in the midst of so much death. Bitter knew that his fight was just beginning. The world outside the plantation was still dangerous, but within this piece of land, protected by the lemons, he found a purpose. He knew then that he would fight, not just for survival, but for the well-being of the only family he remembered, for the one he fought for, and for the one that gave meaning to the gray days that seemed to have no end.
And with the sun never appearing, illuminated by his own feelings, Bitter accepted his fate, not without first deciding to remember that in the midst of despair, and though the world was in ruins, life could still bloom, one lemon at a time.