A Slow Apocalypse || MM & DT

[Devils Temptation]

CHAPTER ONE

Everything but the Rain

​

---

---

July 5th, 2030
12:13PM

Where were you when the world ended?

Do you remember what you were doing?

Do you remember where you were going?

Do you remember who you were with?

Do you... -
​

---

---

One Year, Two Months, Fourteen Days Prior​

People watching.

On paper, somewhat of a strange hobby to have. In a city like New York, being caught making eye contact with a random stranger would either label a man down as a weird human being or perhaps be seen as a challenge in the inopportune and immensely unlucky scenario that his gaze crossed an individual that had a little too much shit happen to them for one day... but for the most part he found himself safe. Nestled behind glass in a quaint coffee shop on the corner of 52nd Street and 3rd Avenue - one man sat tucked away into a corner with nothing but the low steam of plain cup of coffee, milk and extra sugar. Grasping along the Styrofoam container, he waited for the crosswalk light to snap to white at which point another sea of people would enter his peripheral and strut past his eyes to the adjacent road.

One woman, a little on the younger side with curled black locks and a puffy white feather coat caught his gaze this time around. Nestled beneath it had been a similar white shirt-dress that cut off just at the midsection of her lower leg. The man theorized that she must have been somewhere in her twenties. Older than twenty-two, she seemed to not be a college girl... but younger than twenty-eight, not quite enough to kick the habit of gaudier fashion. Trends like those were best kept in those tender middle years where one was still all too obsessed with individualism. Her all white palette was another eye-catching difference in the city, it was hard to keep white clothes completely spotless. Clearly on the wealthier side...

...something that seemed to contrast all too painfully with the sight of, not even five steps behind her, a towering middle-aged man with a rounded gut. Strong, bulky arms and broad shoulders, the scruff of an unmaintained facial routine causing faint, sharper strands of dark hair to pool over his neck and jaw. Between the white t-shirt and loose, washed out jeans there were a few assumptions that could be made of him. Perhaps someone in labor, judging by his build. High carb food that could be eaten quickly and on the go. Faint bags along his eyes but a seemingly snappy heat to his eyes fit the bill.

"Staring at people again, Rye? You really should kick the habit. Pick up a phone, read a book. Staring out creepily at people walking by is just about one of the weirdest things you do." Snapped from his daydreaming, his gaze tilted just enough to meet the sight of another man who sat beside him in the vacant seat. Croissant in one hand, coffee in the other. He sported blonde hair, bleached a shade lighter to make it look like rays of sunshine... in contrast to the darker, murkier blonde tint of color along the other man's shorter, well-kept hair. Parted to the right with a neatly groomed set of a short beard that combined with his mustache. His companion was clean shaven, only one of many factors that gave off the notion that he was quite young.

"I like to think about how it might be to strike up a conversation with them. You don't? You see someone walking on the street and want to think of what their life story is? People are pretty interesting to me. Nowadays though... even more than before, can't say it's a good idea to strike up a talk with anyone, Julius. Or anything, for that matter." Dressed in a tailored dress shirt, baby blue with one button undone to show the faint feathering of chest hair atop well-defined pectorals. In every capacity, a well-dressed and well-kempt man. It was not the fact that he was sloppy or even that he was not well-spoken. His height and build may have been intimidating but one flash of that smile would end up putting most at ease. Even more so than him, the younger man sitting beside him fell further into the approachable category. Lankier physique with younger cheeks and a large pair of thick glasses settled on the bridge of his nose. Light-pink dress shirt nestled into a set of khakis and sleeves rolled up to give him an ever more carefree vibe while he sipped on his drink and bit down on his croissant in alternating movements.

"Haaaah.... you can say that shit again. When's the last time you talked to anyone outside of your circle? Shit, feels like even the most basic interactions get you a dirty look nowadays... it's a complete breakdown of trust." Breakdown...? And yet the city seemed to continue alive without seemingly a care in the world. It was just an act, really. Food scarcity had reached to such high volumes that nearly three quarters of all restaurants and establishments in the city had closed down at that point. Those that did manage to survive had begun charging ridiculous prices. Of course, there was always a way for the overtly wealthy to exist and in response there was always a way to scrape grunge off the bottom of a gutter to remain. "The things I'd do to get a fucking banana... when's the last time you seen one, Rye? God, it must be at least a year or two -" Drooping over the edge of the counter, Julius closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh while his coworker returned to watching people.

Quietly, his gaze wandered from something that felt like a stain on an otherwise bustling city that still showed life. A line. Not too unusual for some high end restaurants and designer stores... though this one was certainly not for anything like a prestigious restaurant. No. The woman from before... and the man too he had seen walking down the street, both stopped to wait at the same line. A line that had only grown longer and longer throughout the months and years. Julius seemed to notice the brief glance from Rye, to which he spoke up again.

"Soup kitchen again... line just gets longer and longer every day. Honestly, I might end up going soon too. Food has been a little tight this month... they lifted the recent embargo on flour but at this point - it feels like everyone has their own shit to worry about... it'd be nice if we just had enough to go around. Well, whatever. At least the two of us aren't out there, right? If only California didn't decide to collectively fuck us over with their grain riots earlier this year." Low laugh to cut through the unease at the sight of the line. Stuffing the remainder of the pastry into his mouth, he would drown down the rest of the food with one swig of the cup - crunching the container and tossing it to a nearby trash can before hopping off his seat and making his way to the front door. "Come on. We'll be late if we don't hurry back -"

ZZZZZZZZZZZZT -
All the lights in the coffee shop would snap shut at once, with it the various people on their phones would momentarily look up with an occasional groan or harsh vulgarity slipping out of the now darkened room. Another blackout. They were growing increasingly more common as the grid of the city was starting to grow increasingly more strained with less resources and manpower. The demand was lower too, of course, but it was not decreasing anywhere near as quickly... "The trains are going to be down as well until the power is back on. Might as well stay here for a little bit." Ryder remarked, pushing his friend to the back of his mind. Never once did he pull his phone out, no point. The Internet would be flooded with the inevitable dooming, between power outages that struck cities regularly to the rising cost of even the most basic of meals, how the homeless and employment rate rose... all of it still seemed a step removed. Perhaps the writing was already there on the wall, had Ryder bothered to look at it. Heat had started to build faintly in the building - summers had been getting hotter. Itchy. Damp. Uneasy. He suddenly did not want to be here.

Shoving to his full height, that growing pit would have him, without another word, just pushing past Julius and leaving the coffee shop as the blonde ran after him. "Hey! Where are you going?! You know that's a dead zone over there! Are we talking back? At least take a bike!" Dead zones. A term that had popped up as of late... and who could have even thought that it could be applied to a city like New York? Blocks and neighborhoods completely devoid of residents or businesses - entire blocks cut off from utilities and public transport. They were not sectioned off, of course, but there was no reason to go to them whatsoever other than to walk into No Man's Land. Something dying did not die immediately. Its corpse decayed and rotted, falling off the bone first. Some people refused to believe it - he was certainly some of those people. Things were bad. Incredibly so. But... surely everything would recover?

​

---

---

Another riot.

If there had been one thing the city could have boasted it was the fact that it drew all manners of people to it. Cultures, religions, politics... all in one place. Ryder had heard the start of it beginning to churn in the late hours of that night. Dressed down in a white undershirt and a pair of boxers, the man wandered into the living room and reached for the light switch - before his hand drew back. Electricity had gotten approximately four hundred percent more expensive in the last five years. Instead, he would take a few steps forward to rest against the couch of his living room and lean close enough in so he could rest his cheek against the windowsill and close his eyes. Outside, the night sky was dyed in shades of red and white. Firecrackers and fireworks alike mixing with the deafening noise of chanting and screaming.

Open the curtains.
Look.
LOOK AT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES.
He did not want to.

It was easier to put his hands on his ears and drown the world out in times like these... but maybe that, too, merely contributed to where he found himself now. He found himself feeling sick. Ryder Cressel had never been the type of man who was outspoken. Despite his larger size, he had a softer heart. Slower paced moments, the quaint hour or two spent at a book shop so secretive and antique that there may have been one, maybe two people flitting in every hour or so. SNAP. CRACK. SHATTER. Another surge of noise, the firecrackers had been replaced. Gunshots. Police sirens. Howls at the top of one's lungs through a megaphone.

"STAY INSIDE YOUR APARTMENTS. IF YOU ARE SEEN ON THE STREETS, YOU WILL BE FORCEFULLY DETAINED. STAY INSIDE. STAY SAFE. STAY COMPLIANT." Ah... right. Compliant. That was what he was, wasn't he...? That was what the State wanted them to be. The more forceful the riots, the more violent the backlash from those at the top of the corpse clinging to their power and their momentary gratification. The howl and scream of a dying beast would continue on for another hour at most until everything had gone completely silent once more. Police sirens and all. Only the eerie silence of a city that had, at one point, been filled to the brim with noise.

...God did he miss those nights now.

Everything... everything would be alright, wouldn't it? Slowly, his hands moved off his ears and he let out a deep exhale. Of course. Of course everything would be just fine. How could it be that he, alone, was living through the times that the modern world would fall apart? No. That could not be possible... tomorrow would be better. Rising to shaky knees, the cold sweat that had built atop his face would be wiped off with a quick trip to the bathroom - stumbling halfway through the darkness and just as soon as he had he would find a warm surface to collapse over top of. Tomorrow would be better. A month from now would be better. A year and everything would be fixed.

Everything would be alright.

---

---

July 5th, 2030
12:13PM

The lights went out for the world.
They never came back on again for the remainder of Humanity's lifespan on Earth.

​

Between the riots and starvation, between home scarcity and a lack of electricity, between polarized politics and increasing weaponization against nations that should have been their allies... everyone had ignored the initial signs. There may have been some rumble about it in the news. CME. A Coronal Mass Ejection, scientists had been begging and screaming for the last year but between cut budgets and defunded agencies there was no one to listen to them much less for them to continue on their research. No one to ensure that all the critical infrastructure had been protected behind Faraday Cages, no one to consider the possibility of switching to analog devices, to prepping infrastructure to weather the storm. July 5th, 2030. 12:13PM. The night saw some of the most brilliant displays of aurora lights flying across the skies. Magnetic fluctuations of green, blues, and purples vibrantly weaving through the sky as a beautiful Siren-like Harbinger of what was to come. The effect had been immediate. Street lights shattered and fizzled, capacitors began to glow faint as they drained, trains stopped moving immediately. Phones immediately became dead bricks. Streets turned to mass graveyards for cars. Appliances would simultaneously brick until not even the most basic of electronics could offer anything more than a choke of life.

Silence came first... and then?

Panic.

Wide spread panic, unlike the world had ever seen before in its life. No one would know what had transpired anywhere else... after all, with the massive ejection of solar radiation satellites turned to mere space debris and undersea cables connecting the entirety of the planet had ceased to be little more than glass tubes for decoration. No one would know what was to happen, other than in their own communities. Ryder knew not how the world took it but one thing he did know was...

If there was Hell on Earth, it would surface in the one city that somehow clung to its population through thick and thin. New York City.​

---

---

Five Years Later

Rain... again.

Murky water splattered and flooded along streets and deeper tunnel corridors, signs broken and decayed and the fast growth of vines and creeping tendrils of plants adding a tint of green onto the decaying sight of the city. So much water had flooded and with little to no sewage or prevention, it had started to fill the streets and sidewalks to the point that one had to walk through knee deep water to merely go from one block to the next. The rain never stopped. Perhaps it was some adverse affect with the change of climate, perhaps it was God's retribution on humanity. It mattered not in the slightest. "Shit..." Grunting under his breath, the grizzled man would feel his boot-clad foot strike against mud beneath the water. A shuffle of something in the fluid beneath. A rat, or perhaps some fish. He cared not to dare and even try and find out. Slung around his body had been makeshift layers of clothing, decayed hoodies, shirts, jackets, and coats that formed one overall outfit barely maintaining itself. Thicker bundles of hair had grown along his beard, the grime and dirt along his cheek helping him settle in perfectly fine in how filthy the city had come to look.

Grazing his palm over his forehead, he would slip the strands back and out of his eyes. Hot. Humid. And the fucking rain. It would never stop. Never, never, NEVER.

Grabbing at the edge of a nearby chain-link fence that had all manners of holes carved through it, he would drag himself out of the water to sit up along one of the nearby ledges of a stone railing leading up to a brownstone. Windows shattered and door broken in... one might have been frightened at the mere fact that someone, a looter, might have still been in the area. Yet, the man knew that not to be the case. He had hoped for it. People in the area meant resources, after all. Food, clean water, clothes... and meat. People were no longer very particular, the man had taken note. One too many nights of starvation and suddenly it did not feel so immoral to indulge. Skipping along the edges of the railing, careful footwork along the windowsills would have him avoiding the water below. 178th Street. A line had burst and the water was especially toxic. Never a good sign when even rats were floating dead in the water... rats that had thrived in the sudden and vivid vanishing of humanity.

They, too, had gotten a taste of human flesh.

Without conventional tools of extermination their populations boomed and anyone who dared to be caught with even a handful would have been nothing more than a picked clean skeleton on the ground. Faint ridge of sweat spilled over his brow with the strain of grabbing against another ledge causing his bicep to faintly bulge. Atrophy had set in to some extent, the lack of protein had assured it but he hardly lived on anything more than five hundred calories at most every day. Yet, despite that, he was in far better condition than most in the city for one and only one reason. As the man came to a halt at the end of the street, the entirety of what was left of Manhattan was sprawled in front of him. The larger skyscrapers had yet to collapse even without proper maintenance, perhaps a testament to human ingenuity... Central Park had splattered like an overgrown heart that reached and sprawled to adjacent streets and neighborhoods to leave a notable green spot that devoured all in its path.

One final time... he took a deep inhale and looked over the city.

After The End, as he had coined it, people took no more than a week to turn on one another. Fighting for food, water, resources - people tried their best to be civil but when it came abundantly clear that logistics had broken down, no more resupply trucks, no more food to be found in grocers, no more heat to keep their homes warm... they began to tear at one another. The death toll on the first week was massive. Elderly and hospitals in particular. Attrition would dictate that over that first year, seventy percent of the city's population would perish or move. In the remaining four years after, another twenty percent would share the same fate. The remaining ten percent? They did anything to cling to the rotting husk that was New York City. Cannibalism, eating rats and roaches, gang warfare... trafficking and mobbing. Anything would be done to cling onto a scrap of life and quite frankly, the man was no different. At the start of The End, he sat with his hands to his ears, shut his eyes tight like some sort of coward.

This was what he - Ryder - was rewarded with.

Every single day he contemplated finding the highest ledge and just jumping to his death. This was not living. It was Hell. So why was he still here...?

One day...

One day, he was hoping there was something more.

That the rain would stop. That the people would come to his senses. That there was anything here but tearing into one another.

Never. The world took everything but the rain.

In some sort of cruel, painful joke... showering down that one thing that could have killed him had he gone long enough without it. Encouraging him, coaxing him, pushing him to live. The city was warped and broken but it had been the only place he could get what he needed to live. Food. Proper sustenance, shelter from the elements - the moment he crossed that bridge it was forfeiting his life. He had no talents, no skills other than surviving desperately like gum on the bottom of a shoe. Climbing to the top of the ramp leading up to the bridge, he did not hesitate. Five years. Years upon years of brutal stories and nightmares that would follow him to his dying days - and he did not look back.

Ryder did not care if he died, starving and writhing in the woods.

He was tired.

He just wanted the rain to stop.

---

---

One Month, Eleven Days.​

Hunted.

Ryder was a fool for thinking it would have been any different outside of the city than it was inside... that the first face he would see would miraculously, in some way, throw their arms open and accept him. That he would hear a human voice, that someone would confide in him at how crazy the world had become and laugh off their worries. In truth, he had not been expecting it. When he had met that man on the intersection, though he cautiously nodded - a hand remained behind his back and clenched at the knife that he had messily holstered in the waistband of his pants. He had not eaten for days. Everything had been completely cleaned out and the only option was to rob or attack other survivors. Surely, the man he encountered had the same idea... firearms still worked just fine but all he had was one bullet. Enough to shoot an animal if he found one and keep himself alive a little longer.

...

Clearly he had not been the only one thinking on that. The nervous snap of eyes, the way they came to a complete standstill - both refusing to so much as share a word with one another before the sudden motion of a drawing hand would have Ryder yanking his own gun out and firing on the greasy trigger - nearly at the same time the other man had, though his aim was far better. Nailed straight into his skull, a splatter of blood before he lifelessly fell to the ground but not before giving Ryder a souvenir lodged against his torso. A single vitriol-filled vulgarity snapped out from his lips. "FUCK! FUCK...! YOU MADE ME FUCKING DO IT. WE COULD HAVE LEFT THIS ALL BEHIND -- BUT YOU JUST CAN'T, CAN YOU? YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE --!" Yelling at the top of his lungs to the lifeless corpse that he hobbled over, blood gushing from the side of his torso - a hand grabbed at the man's collar to yank him off the ground and shake him like the anger-fueled snarl of Ryder would make him suddenly spring to life.

What was he saying...?

Why was he even saying this? That man hadn't been the first person he had killed and he would not be the last. No - it was just... a sudden breakdown. The futility and the pointlessness of everything. They had both shot with the same idea in mind, to kill the other and take what they had on them so they could live another day and repeat the process to another human being. Where did it end? Calling that living was fucking laughable. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed at the bullet wound. Blood spurt out from the hole, not nearly so much that it had hit something vital but enough to make the already weak man feel even more lightheaded. There was little time to loot. All he could do was lean down, nearly falling onto the asphalt of the highway to grab at the man's pack and rummage a single protein bar. He cared not if it was expired. It did not matter. Stripping away the plastic, he dropped his gun and replaced it with the still faintly clutched handgun the man possessed. Heavy. It had ammunition in it...

...hah.

As if any of that even mattered. Exhaling, he dragged himself past the rows and columns of dead and vacant cars to leave at the random ramp down off the highway to stumble into the wilderness. Ryder knew not where he was, or where he was going. All he did know was that he did not want to die somewhere another person could have seen him. Trail of blood spilled behind him, hand grabbing at bramble and tree trunks alike. Whatever road had lead down off that highway would fade to nothing. A mere dirt path at this point, no signs of any homes, nor any suburbs. Remote. Completely remote. A place like that, he thought, would have been fine. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere peaceful. A few more steps was all he had in him until he arrived at...

​

Flowers blossoming behind a makeshift wooden fence. Rustic and dreamy, he wondered if he was hallucinating. Fumbling forward, he would fall onto the grass and pressed his back up against one of the sturdier wooden posts. One hand gripped at his wound. Color had long since drained from his face and gray streaks hung under his eyes in the form of heavy eye bags. Cold sweat along his brow and a few more sharp, rapid breaths before his head tilted back to look up at the gray sky.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

...Again?

"Ha....ha...!" Croaking out a laugh, he closed his eyes and took one more deep breath with the splash of rain starting once more. "Even until the very end... this is the last thing...? What a damn joke..." There he would lay, conscious flitting in and out of coherence until his head slumped down entirely for his final resting place... showered in the very same rain that he had ran miles to escape from.

@Madam Mim

 

[Madam Mim]

Year 6 A.C.
Spring

Out off of State Route 22A, just south of what was once Burlington and now is nowhere and nothing, there was a town. It is a village now, where fewer than 400 souls cling to some semblance of normalcy. Normalcy was used only as a mathematical term for more than 110 years, until Warren Harding's campaign used it incorrectly in his 1920 campaign slogan and popularized it as a replacement for the word normality. "A return to normalcy," in the aftermath of the Great War that shook the world to its foundations. How fitting. They must have thought the world was ending then, too.

So had the city people who had come here in the beginning days, searching for salvation only to become the plague they had fled. All but five had been given proper burials; the people who had buried them didn't do that horrid mass grave nonsense. They weren't city folk, thank you very much. A few of the desperate had dug them up again, kept cool and mostly fresh by the earth, but those were the summer crickets anyway. The village ants cozy in their burrows had tried to help them, but weren't willing to put their own families at risk in the end. Even here the seriously sick and many of the elderly had gone within a fortnight of the lights going out, and the rest had followed if not in the hard summer hotter than those of their childhood, then in the long, frigid winter. Many more just...picked up and left. After the first few waves from the city, after that first year, nobody came down State Route 22A anymore and vanishingly few left. The exit had cracked first with frost heaves then with the green and living things that had waited patiently under the asphalt for so many decades.

The crack of pistols echoed from the highway. Sound traveled far these days. Today it traveled from the highway to the village hidden just out of sight by the green and breathing world.

Off of the exit ramp, turn left, and the once-gravel road had mostly fallen to grasses and shrubs, the occasional sapling springing up through the cracks. This was once called Main Street, but now it is the only thing that could be properly called a street at all. Today the historic windmill in the roundabout, centuries old and beloved by all who chose this place, creaked to life. It was hooked up not to a millstone as it used to be, but to a generator. Tonight there would be a gathering in the conference room of the old public library. The building itself was a two-story affair built of the telltale municipal brick that marked every formerly-public building of the town that was, and that was where its modernity ended. Wooden boards creaked underfoot, dust motes danced on shafts of golden sunlight, acidic paper yellow and brittle with age smelled in that perfect way of used bookstores and dry attics. The people of the village had set up a rack of tools--most that didn't require batteries or plugs but a few had been scrounged--alongside seeds, cookware, musical instruments, boardgames, and shelves of books someone had arranged by subject for using them all. The lights, found in a metal warehouse, buzzed and pulsed with the turning of the generator but would emanate a welcoming yellow glow come sundown and call the villagers to her. The days when the generator ran were agreed to be days of fellowship, so that they wouldn't forget their neighbors, and break the isolation for those few who lived alone. It was good to keep an eye on one another, lest they turn into city folk. Maybe tonight there would even be a movie, played on the old rolling cart that had been kept in the AV cage behind the circulation desk.

That is the library on Main Street, the center of the village, at the end of the cul-de-sac formed by the roundabout. This is also Main Street: a local hardware store, long since looted though they'd had the decency to wait until the owner had died; a used bookstore, now the unspoken library annex; a thrift shop where plastic clothes rotted on hangers; a church; a pharmacy; a smattering of restaurants and coffee shops all long since abandoned, including a patisserie which everyone missed; and off of the left-hand exit of the roundabout was an antiques mall which had been picked through but not yet entirely cleaned out.

The pharmacy was guarded in agreed-upon shifts. It and the hardware store had been among the first to be looted by the desperate and the underprepared. The most desperate, regardless of their preparedness, had needed medications like insulin, lithium, and statins...but those things weren't needed anymore. An unknown number of opioids had been stolen or taken by force in the early days, for getting high or for intentional overdose, and hoarding had been a problem until the owner had started standing at the door with a gun and letting people in one at a time then carefully checking their bags on their way out. He was dead now. After things had settled down a stock had been taken, three-person shifts agreed upon, and while things like antibacterial cream and aspirin were free game now a note was required from the veterinarian for things like antibiotics and narcotics. People these days donated surplus from their gardens and plants like lavender, licorice root, and marijuana hung in dried bunches from the ceiling for anyone to take at their leisure. Lately, because need had been expressed at the last meeting, folks had also donated cut strips of old, clean cotton sheets or clothing to use as bandages and volunteer guards spent their shifts rolling them into manageable rolls or tying bundles of cut squares together for easier distribution.

The church, which had the wherewithal to call itself a cathedral by virtue of its stained glass and golden crucifix, functioned these days as a sort of village hall since it had enough room to seat everyone. Village meetings, like the fellowship potluck gatherings at the library, were also held on days when the generator ran and, like the potlucks, were encouraged but not required. There was no local government to require them, only a loose association of neighbors who'd agreed not to act like the city folk. It was also where the library TV cart was wheeled for movie nights, before being returned to its cage in case of another Event. One of the Relentless Faithful held makeshift sermons on Sundays for anyone who had refused to abandon the God who had long abandoned them. The village meetings tended to be more popular.

The crack of the pistols echoed over Main Street. It traveled down both turns, echoing off the windows of the antiques mall to the left and meandering down the exit to the right, but it did not travel much further. It did not travel to the far-out places where lived those who had no want or need of potlucks and meetings, and little need of pharmacies and libraries.



At the Main Street roundabout, take the first exit to turn right. Travel down the gravel road until it turns to dirt, then travel more until it is nothing but a barely-there path worn through the weeds and vines. Turn left at the old Elks Lodge. Travel until it is not lcear whether this is the right way, until there is a stream. Turn right and follow the creek upstream. Away from Main Street, past the Elks Lodge, along the stream, breathe deep the green, humid air. Push aside briar and bramble, tread upon fern and flower, and know that no asphalt was ever laid here. Know that turning right off of the highway would have lead to the same creek, eventually. Pass the sparse, crumbling homes and rusting cars. Eventually there is a clearing. Except that it is not a clearing, because there is a home here.

A clearing with a home would also imply a lack of trees, of which there are many, and a grass lawn which would be considered the most despicable of sins by the woman who lives here, even in the Before Collapse years. The home is large and white and Victorian, with a wrap-around porch and the quintessentially New England turret. She loved the turret, which had once been an indoor dining area a century before but had been relegated to the porch by some previous owner. The driveway had once been gravel but now was mostly dirt, worn down by weather and time. An old pickup truck from decades Before Collapse is parked in the driveway, but it has not moved for years; most folk never realized that gasoline expires until it was too late. A family of squirrels lives in the upholstery. The house was too large for her, but then again it hadn't always been meant for just her. All of the windows and doors were thrown open for this, some of the first warm weather of the year. There hadn't been a need for locks in years. The steps to the porch are not to be mounted yet.

Instead the eye turns to what had been sinful suburbanesque lawn when she had bought the home ten years ago, back when it was just a house with no metal roof for water collection and no solar panels to run the refrigerator and the attic fan. Now it was not that. A homeowners association might see the lawn as a weed-choked eyesore, a city person might see the property returning to nature and its keeper resigned to inevitability. What was actually there was food, and medicine, and beauty, and pest control, all living together the way nature had always intended. It had shielded her from the worst of what had happened. In the front flower beds there were flowers, but that was not all that they were. In the yard there were fruit trees, nut trees, and a willow tree with scars in its bark. There were shrubs and vines, with more fruits and nuts and things that would soothe the minor aches and pains of life after thirty and illnesses without the industrially produced syrups and pills they had all taken for granted. Around the side of the house was more, and in the back even more with fruiting plants and vines that hadn't yet shown their heads this season. In the center of the back yard, clear of the trees, is an herb spiral as far across as she is tall, with earth and stone mounded to shoulder height, growing everything she didn't have room for on the land and topped with her namesake. That had been his idea, and the only good one he'd ever had. There is also a greenhouse, set toward the back of what might be considered the yard in the only truly sunny spot available, full of the sorts of luxuries that make her wary of the village meetings and potlucks and leaning upon one another.

The children of the village--there are children, and they are guarded as precious--think she is a witch. They dare each other to step on her property, to knock on her door, and tell slumber party legends about her. Their parents shush and scold them for saying such things, but privately wonder the same in the backs of their own minds.

She stands under the sky, barefoot in the back yard. She is near the greenhouse. She wants to stand in the sunlight. The wind presses her sundress against her legs as she stands with her arms open and to her sides, her toes curling in the thick, soft moss that grows where garden does not. To her, moss under her feet is the feeling of life and a reminder that she is alive and that even when she is not, she will continue to live through the moss and the mushrooms that will take her body. It is still one of the first warm days of the year. Crocuses blossomed and died probably weeks ago--what used to be counted as weeks--and now the sun finally warms her skin after months of long, grey New England winter. Later she will lay naked and welcome the sun as a lover, but it is still too cold for that. Dark curls fall across her face as the wind picks up and she smiles. Slowly, slowly. Now is not the time for the freckles sprinkled across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose to grow closer. That will come in time. Everything in its own time, even she had had to learn that at first. The comforting hum of bees, which she has not heard in many months. The rustle of wind in trees and grass. Song birds as they return from their migration and hop about in the yard. Her smile blossoms into a grin. She takes a slow, deep breath and smells rain on the wind. She opens her eyes just as a drop falls onto the tip of her nose.

Well, better check her traps before the rain fell. She stepped lightly through the garden, careful not to disturb any plants or bugs that were still sleeping through their long winter nap, and grabbed her bow and quiver off of the back porch. The ammo was reusable, it didn't draw attention the way gunshots did, and she wasn't likely to come across much of anything that would fight back. If they did fight back, she'd gotten good enough over the years and she was quick enough on the draw that she didn't fear any sort of malnourished city folk getting the jump on her.

Deer hadn't been reliably safe to eat Before Collapse, not without testing them first, and obviously that wasn't available now. Best to avoid them altogether; she didn't fancy coming all this way just to die a horrible death due to some prion disease. But there were still turkeys, foxes, all sorts of smaller game that to her knowledge hadn't been susceptible to the Chronic Wasting Disease that had been steadily spreading through white tail deer populations. She left out traps for the even smaller game, rabbits and weasels and squirrels and whatnot which were even more prolific. She hated it, if she were honest; she had a soft spot for animals, epecially small ones, and getting closer to her meat supply had been the one part of all of this that had truly ever bothered her. People were horrid, but animals were innocent. It wasn't their fault humans had first taken over and then fucked up the perfect clockwork that was Planet Earth, they didn't understand what was happening or why. So she tried to trap or hunt no more than once a week, less often if the beans were growing and eggs were plentiful, and made sure to use any pelts and bones that got taken in the processing out of respect and necessity. Last fall she had made a pair of rabbit fur mittens, and the previous summer a bear had been charging for the cat and she'd pulled the trigger before she'd even realized what she was doing. She'd cried and apologized the entire time she cleaned it, but that had been good eating for the season, a warm winter coat that would last her years, and plenty of bone buttons and sewing needles and cooking spoons on top of everything else. Organ meats usually got fed to the chickens unless she'd been feeling peaky or noticed pits in her nails; she kept trying to eat them, she knew she should, but she could never get past the texture.

It had been a wet spring so far and an even wetter winter, but over the past few days or maybe weeks--she didn't keep time with clocks or calendars anymore, there was no point--there had been a break in the damp and the sun had started to warm the earth. Now with the rain returning it wouldn't do, if she had caught anything, to let it spoil. If nothing else she could use the fur; the sheep farmer with whom she traded eggs for wool had gotten some chickens of his own, and now until she could think of something else to give him she was on her own for fibers she could spin into yarn for socks and sweaters. She had been from the city, once upon a time, and as such tended not to trust others in the village for resources. Old habits died hard, she supposed. If she hadn't seen the writing on the wall, if she hadn't desperately sought escape during the first Pandemic, she would never have learned to stand on her own two feet. So every now and then she put in an appearance at a village meeting--she might tonight, actually--just so they would stop sending people to check and make sure she wasn't dead. It was her business if she was dead or not, goddammit, and the distant neighbors somehow had a knack for knowing just when she was baking and it would be rude not to offer them some. But mostly she wanted to be left alone, and she wanted to keep the villagers from poking around the greenhouse. This place had been her peace Before Collapse and she wouldn't have them ruining that now. She would trade, barter, and gift for whatever she needed and left the rest alone; she wasn't a charity case. It wasn't her fault all they'd had was gardens and rain barrels before the lights went out and had had to learn and teach each other on the fly. She did, however, enjoy a good visit to the libary or bookstore and was sure to donate whatever herbs she could to the pharmacy whenever she had some to spare. There was self-reliant and then there was selfish, after all.

It took her a long time to check the traps, during which dark clouds rolled in but did not yet burst. With each neighbor fled or dead, families had expanded their holdings as they absorbed their neighbors farms, yards, pastures, and houses. She estimated that she had about fifty acres at this point, not bad for starting out with a little half-acre lot sandwiched between farms, but of course there were no more records to check that number only the memory of conversations with neighbors long gone. Most of it that hadn't already been wooded she'd let return to nature and tapped the trees for maple and birch sap, pine resin, and willow bark. The greatest asset she'd acquired along with the land was the creek that ran through it, putting her mind at ease for fresh water should the well ever dry up. There was the lake, of course, but that was days worth of travel and who knew what was out beyond their borders. No, the creek was safer. With her quiver on one hip and her knife on the other she stepped carefully, still barefoot, through the brush as she checked her traps. Nothing. With a sigh she pushed a few drooping curls out of her face and followed the creek to the treeline. It was starting to sprinkle in earnest now, and if the clouds were anything to judge by soon it would become a downpour. Before she would complain about the traffic noise in this field, about how it was the perfect scenery but the highway ruined it. Now it was beautifully silent. Perfection.

She tried not to feel guilty about that thought.

The last trap was also empty. With a sigh she reset it, then straightened and caught a glimpse of a shape. With a frown she stepped carefully closer. A man! A...stranger? Just sleeping in the grass? Did he not realize that Lyme disease was still very real and that treatment was exceedingly hard to come by? But as she stepped closer she saw the dark stain that had blossomed across his ragged clothes. Her heart skipped a panicked beat. She advanced with even more caution and carefully started peeling back the shredded layers of cheap fabric. Not a stab wound. A bullet. With a curious tilt of the head she unsheathed her knife and held it close under his nose then started counting to thirty. It took more than fifteen seconds, but breath fogged the steel.

The pumping of legs and arms. Straining muscle. Screaming lungs. A mind blank except for one thing. Save him. The creak and click of old metal and the bicycle is halfway down the driveway before she manages to throw a leg over it and actually pedal. It screams down dirt roads and through grass, over rocks and roots, and finally to gravel and around the roundabout. She is soaked before she reaches the Elks Lodge. The pharmacy bell doesn't tinkle but yelps in alarm and she wishes they would get rid of it. Blessedly, the veterinarian is in the back. She--the veterinarian--attaches the rickshaw-cum-ambulance to her own bicycle and follows her not back the way she came, but out of town toward the highway and back around to where a neighbor's neighbor's property once stood. They are as careful as they can be. They use blankets and mop handles to keep him still, but even so he is jostled and bumped over the grass. The mop handles have been slid into pockets sewn into a sheet, a collapsible stretcher, and she helps the veterinarian bring him up the steps of her home and clears off the large dining room table.

Who is he? Where did he come from? Who shot him, and why? Is he dangerous? These are questions she cannot answer. But this is her home, it is her property, and he is here. She accepts that responsibility. If he is dangerous...she accepts responsibility for that too. He would not be the first man she has killed to protect her home, but there are so few of them left that she feels she owes him the benefit of the doubt.

---

It had been two hours. The stranger had been carefully maneuvered upstairs and was sleeping for now. She scrubbed at the blood on her table with a stiff bristled brush, hoping to get it all out before it dried. Who had the spare fabric for a decent tablecloth anymore? The bullet, squashed with the force of ejection and the sudden stop when it had hit a rib, sat innocently on one of her good saucers. "Good" being relative and in this case meaning only a little chipped and never having been broken and glued back together. She wished sometimes that she'd kept her Correll dishes from her college dorm days, but these had been gifts.

"He's lucky you found him," Doc Cubbins said, stepping out onto the porch and using overflow from the gutter to rinse the blood off of her hands. That was very considerate of her. "And that you were able to get me here as quick as you did. Another half hour and he'd be fertilizer. Not that I condone human fertilizer," she added quickly. "If you can get literally anything else, I mean."

She smiled and shrugged, and used a rain-dampened towel to wipe the soapy, bloody water from her table. Good as new. Well...good as the new it had been when she'd found it in a thrift shop over a decade ago. She tossed the stained towel out into the rain, then dug under the sink for a moment before finding a tin of beeswax and starting to rub it into the wood. Doc Cubbins watched her with her head canted to the side.

"So you're gonna take care of him then?" A nod. "And if he's city folk? You gonna take care of that?" Another nod. Doc shrugged. "Alright, then. Your food, your funeral. Just...come get me if the wound starts turning funny colors alright? And get yourself out of those clothes." Their eyes met and she quirked an eyebrow, a smirk playing at the corner of her lip. Doc rolled her eyes. "You'll catch your death of cold," she snapped. "Don't give me that look. Nor that one neither!" But the women had both seen the way their sopping clothes clung to their bodies, the damp locks the rain had plastered to their faces, and the air was suddenly heavy and humid with silent memory.

Then suddenly she turned, and disappeared into the pantry. She returned a moment later holding a clear bottle full of golden liquid. Mead was payment only for the most valuable goods and services she could only get from one person, or only at certain times of year. Doc stepped back and shook her head.

"No. No! I'm not...oh." She took it with a dazed sort of look as it was thrust into her hand, and her host canted her head toward the back door. "Ah...thanks. Take care of yourself then, yeah? Go change into something dry, start a fire if you got the wood for it. Can't take care of him if you're sickly too."

Out on the porch the cat watched curiously from his cushion on a creaky wicker chair while Doc struggled with the patchwork of umbrellas she had cobbled together to go over her bike. She didn't like going out in the rain if she could help it. She tossed the bottle into the rickshaw and walked the whole thing around the wrap-around porch to the front, biking off into the growing evening gloom.

---

Days to nights to days again. She watched over the stranger, unsure when or even whether he would wake up. In the meantime she busied herself with carefully removing his clothes, affording him all of the modesty she could, then sliding a tarp under him to avoid getting the bed wet while she carefully cleaned him with a clean rag, rain water, and a bar of homemade soap. There were some more...intimate areas which couldn't be avoided--the dude was ripe--but she made it up to him by digging in the basement and returning with clean underwear and a comfortable if not slightly motheaten set of cotton pajama pants and a t-shirt, all mostly his size if not very slightly snug. The shreds of his old clothes were picked through to see if there was anything useful left, but not really. Polyester shit from the city--or at least a city--that had never been manufactured to last.

Then she carefully cleaned his hair, his face, his beard. She didn't know if he liked his beard this way or if it was the standard caveman beard she'd seen most men sporting After Collapse. Either way, she figured it would be a nice gesture to trim the straggly strays with scissors. With his hair combed out, he almost looked like he could have belonged in the village...but he clearly didn't. Malnourished and gaunt, bags under his eyes, premature grey streaking his hair and beard. He was clearly from the city, but whether he was city folk was yet to be seen.

The whole process had felt like a ritual. Like maybe if she put enough care into bathing and grooming the stranger who hadn't asked to be saved, he might be saved anyway. She put the same care into changing his bandages, cleaning and dressing his wound, and washing the bandages for reuse. When she was done she looked over him. Please be saved. They had all seen too much death. Why would she have been brought to him if not to save him? No more death. Please, no more death.

On the first day his breathing was shallow and ragged. On the second morning it had evened out, and by night he was breathing normally. It was nearly lunchtime on the third day before he opened his eyes. The sun filtered wetly through leaves still shaking off the damp and gauzy curtains moved gently by the breeze.

"You're safe." It was the first thing she said to him, and the first thing she'd said in days. "I found you in the field. You're in my home and you're safe." Gently she smoothed his hair off of his forehead to feel his temperature. "Your fever's broken, too. That's good. Doc said she'll come by tonight to check on you, but I think you might be out of the woods. Here. She said I shouldn't give you too much at once or your body would uh...reject it all. But we should have you back to normal meals in no time. Wait no, not all the way..." Before he could sit up she pulled several pillows she'd had on standby from the floor and helped him into a partially-upright position in a way that wouldn't aggravate his injury. Then she promptly handed him a plate: a single boiled egg, a small portion of home fried potatoes, and a cheese cube. There was a pitcher of water on the night stand. "How do you feel?"

 

[Devils Temptation]

A blur.

Flitting in between one fever dream after the next, Rye could not understand it in the slightest. Why was this happening? A slow, pitiful, cold death where he was little more than a stain off the bottom of a shoe - that was what he was expecting. If not the gunshot wound, the chill from being rain soaked should have been enough to do him in and yet felt the struggle in contrast to the embrace of death. Something like that would have been preferable... when he was victim to just his memories and his thoughts, his head went to ugly places. Painful, terrifying depths and voids - the one he saw in those moments his body desperately clung to life were visages of the city in the aftermath of what he would call 'the Downpour'. Out here, the rainfall was not nearly as damaging to those rows and columns of a concrete jungle where even a few inches would make the world flood.

Drowning.

He felt like he was constantly drowning.

The world grew submerged and he, despite all his struggling, only grew deeper into that void of wet and dark. Death would have been preferable to that terrifying sensation of being swallowed... but it would not quite take him. The clench of his fist, the occasional grit of his teeth, cold sweats that broke into faint hints of momentary panic showed hints of - albeit concerning - life within the man... she would finally get to see what the color of his eyes were on that morning that he awoke, seemingly so much more peaceful than when he slept. It was foolish but... it was no longer dark when his eyes were open. Stormy gray orbs that stared in an empty gaze off into the distance, focusing not on her but at a random spot along the wall beside the window. Warm. Dry. The bed was warm. The clothes were warm. It would have felt like the afterlife if not for the aching pain that emanated from where he had been shot.

You're safe.​

No response.

I found you in the field. You're in my home and you're safe.​

No response...

She said I shouldn't give you too much at once or your body would uh...reject it all.​

Only then did he finally grab at her wrist to prevent her from helping him to any food. The strength behind his grip was weak and measly, enough to fight off had she wished... though he cared not to pry her to the floor or throw her off her seat. "Why bother? You should not waste food on a stranger. Much less someone like me." Hoarse. His mouth felt so dry that he could barely swallow... if not for the fact that he spoke to himself on several occasions to stop himself from growing insane, he was sure he would have forgotten how to speak - turned into some sort of monster who operated solely on feral instinct just for the mere prospect to live another day. Her voice... the voice of another person. It felt like a wire being twisted into his heart when he heard it. How long had it been...? His grip loosened and she could slip her hand out from him without much trouble.

Even if he wanted to scramble off the bed, his body would not dare to allow him. His stomach churned in simultaneous delight and unease at the plate she handed him, his throat ached at the sight of water - but he made no attempt to reach for either. Merely, his gaunt fingers dug into the covers and he stared down at the sight of what he wore. Washed, groomed, dressed.

How do you feel?

"Why did you help me?" All the worst options in the world had rushed through his mind in that moment, that they planned to use him for labor, or to scrap his body for sustenance, or for some sick form of entertainment... humanity had all but degraded in those final aching days of the world but none had degraded quite as much as the 'city-folk' as she had called them. None of it made sense. Someone shot was just a liability. They could not help with gathering food, supplying shelter, or protection - not until they were fully recovered. In that time they were a mouth to feed and there was seldom anywhere safe to keep them. Ryder could not even dare to comprehend that she would take a risk for no reason. So...

She must have wanted something from him in return.

That was the only thing he could think of in that moment.

Good people did not exist anymore in this world... he knew that better than anyone. Grabbing at the pitcher of water first, he poured himself a glass and brought it to his lips. The satisfaction that oozed out of his body was blatant and practically overwhelming. Relaxing shoulders, eyes faintly dilating, a happy half-groan that he choked back before drowning the entire glass down his mouth and wiping the residual droplets that stained along his facial hair. "If it's an organ you want, or you need forced labor for something, go ahead and take it. All I ask is that you show a little bit of mercy and kill me sooner rather than later. You can do that for me, can't you?" Maybe not. She had all the power in that moment and they both knew that. Ryder did his best to appeal to her humanity... if there was anything like that left, after all.

Carefully, he picked the plate up and stared at it...

...

...shutting his eyes tight, he drowned out the feeling of what he thought it could be and ladled a spoonful to his mouth - eating slowly like she had encouraged. One bite. One bite and it might have looked like even that much had been beyond what he was capable of eating. The man's hand would tremble, his head would droop. Perhaps there was a mess to clean up on her horizon... but it wouldn't have been vomit. Droplets. The rush hit him all at once, he felt his vision get blurry and as harshly as he clenched his fist to prevent the tears, they spilled out regardless. "Fuck... this is so unreasonable... it's been so long -- it tastes so good..." Scraps, some practically poisonous. Rotted meat, roots, the occasional product that stood the test of time with how chock full of chemicals it was. Some of what he had up until that point merely to stay alive, he could gag in the memory of. This, for the first time in what felt like five years, felt like a meal. His first meal.

"Shit..." Burying his face against his shoulders to cover up the mess of his face, he collected himself from the rush of emotions to continue on the remainder of what she had prepared for him, picking up the pace but never quite so fast that his body spat it all out. The plate was completely cleaned off within a few minutes at most with a satisfied sigh. His gaze lifted to meet her own once more. The first time he had taken a look at his 'savior' in proper. Her hair. That was what caught his eyes first. Deep red in ways that reminded him of the auburn crisp of a leaf during the change of fall. A warning that winter was soon approaching. What about her? Had she been a warning of something worse to come? Ryder had all but accepted it but a small, completely choked and silenced part of him hoped she was not.

 

[Madam Mim]

His eyes were grey like the rain that had brought him here. She tried to speak to him like she would anyone else, to get through to him, but clearly he wasn't seeing her. Possibly wasn't even hearing her. She couldn't blame him; if he'd stayed in the city this long then clearly he'd seen some things. Done some things. Her eyes softened. She reached out, smoothed back his hair to check his temperature.

The hand reaches out. Calloused fingers that have known death curl around her wrist like claws. Shackles. They are not strong but they belong to a man. The nails are shorn short only by her own nail clippers but the ghosts of their ragged and chipped talons digs across her skin, phantom scratches. Her shoulders are rigid. A muscle defines her jawline when her teeth clench. Fine lines appear at the corners of her eyes and the edges of her lips. She does not fear that he could hurt her, he is too malnourished and weak, but it does not stop the feral animal in the back of her mind from arching its back and bearing its fangs. This is a feeling that is familiar to her. It is a thing more common to Before Collapse than to After. He tells her not to waste her food and the animal agrees, dares him proudly to try and move her strong and healthy body nourished by her food that she should not waste.

She took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders back away from her ears. "Think I'm probably better situated than you to decide who I share my food with. I'll take it under advisement, though." She kept her voice soft, friendly. God knew how long it had been since he'd heard a friendly voice, he didn't need her getting defensive. With her free hand she grabbed the glass off of the night stand. "Drink some water." She wished he would let go of her arm.

Finally he did, and relaxing came a little more easily to her. It was no longer a conscious effort to unclench her jaw or untense her chin. "How are you feeling?"

But he only answered her with a question of his own. "Why did you help me?"

She shrugged. "You looked like you needed help," she said. "Getting gutshot will do that to a guy. A man needs help, you help him."

She knew what he meant, she knew why he had asked. It was a question a lot of folks who passed through asked of not just her but anyone who gave them food, water, or a place to sleep for the night. But it wasn't a question she felt like answering simply because she didn't know, other than some remnant in her conscience of Before Collapse. Not all of the villagers were willing to take in strangers, which was fair after everything that had happened in the immediate aftermath of the lights going out, and they asked those who were willing why. Every time the answer was the same: it's just the right thing to do. That had gotten more than one person killed, robbed, or worse, especially in the beginning before the city folk started starving to death. It had gotten her to one night with blood and screaming and a very healthy crop of potatoes that year. But especially as the refugees from the city had become more and more wraithlike, their muscles atrophying to nothing, it was a gamble she was willing to continue to take. Because it was just the right thing to do.

But he didn't trust her yet, which was fine. After all he'd seen and done--orders of magnitude worse than her she was sure--she didn't blame him. It'd take some time. Hopefully in the meantime he wouldn't get it into his head that she'd wasted valuable medicine and mead and time getting him help only to for some reason poison him. But he was pouring himself water, so that was encouraging. She smiled a little.

"Drink," she encouraged. "There's plenty, and it's clean. But maybe..." she put a hand gently on his wrist without actually holding it, "a little more slowly. Wouldn't do any good if you just pee it all out." But then he demanded to know if she wanted his organs or forced labor and she laughed quietly. She couldn't help it, not because it was funny but because it had taken her so off-guard. "What, they still got open heart surgeons in the city? The hell would I need an organ for?" She leaned her elbows on her knees as she watched him drink more water, more slowly this time but still faster than was probably advisable. "As for forced labor?" She shrugged. "No need. There's no food riots out here, haven't been for a long time. I told you, you're safe."

While she spoke he picked up the plate, eyeing it dubiously. She sighed and prepared to logic him through it, explain that it would be ridiculous for her to save him only to immediately poison him, but then he picked up the spoon and shoveled potatoes into his mouth. He...lurched, sort of, and she grabbed the small plastic bucket she'd had at the ready and set it on the edge of the bed. But he wasn't puking...he was crying. Because it tasted good. All it was, really, was potatoes cooked in lard with some salt and herbs. But she supposed that after surviving off of whatever he'd survived off of, it was like dining at a Michelin star restaurant. Her heart broke for him in that moment, and for a second she felt like crying too. How had they gotten here? How had they as a species come to this? Fifty years ago someone like him would have lived a full and whole lifetime without ever going to bed hungry. Someone like him could have, if he'd chosen, gone a whole lifetime without getting into so much as a fistfight let alone a fight to the death over enough scraps to last another day. Alas, that these evil days should be mine. She sighed, and smiled wanly, and looked away to give him some privacy.

After a few moments he gathered himself enough to continue eating, slowly as she had told him to do. Finally he looked at her, and it occurred to her that this was the first time that he had. It was like wild animals, she supposed; they didn't look each other in the eye either. That seemed to be the norm with wanderers from out of town. The survivors of the village, whatever else they had gone through, had been privileged enough to have remained domesticated. Beyond the sallow cheeks and sunken eyes and wasted muscle, if she used her imagination until he'd eaten enough, he looked like he could have been an academic in another lifetime. But now the sunken eyes were wild and haunted, the hands hardened, the ribs visible. She could only imagine what she looked like to him...hopefully not another predator.

"This is Aman Homestead," she said evenly. "It's my home and you're safe within its borders. You're probably safe anywhere in the village, really; we don't get much in the way of travelers anymore let alone raiders. Helps that you couldn't really see us from the highway even Before. We took down the sign and cluttered up the exit pretty early on, so nobody really knows we're here. We keep ourselves to ourselves, and I keep to myself a little more than that." An enormous ginger cat, fluffy and heavy and slightly cross-eyed, jumped onto the bed. He was already purring like a diesel engine.

"Mrrrow?" said the cat.

She nodded. "Oh, of course." She scratched under his chin, eliciting tiny little kneads on the blankets over the stranger's shin. "This is Sir Clawdius Purrcival Toebeans the Furred, and--"

"Mrrp!"

"Sorry, Doctor Sir Clawdius Purrcival Toebeans the Furred--he's an expert healer, you know--and you're in his spot." She smiled. "You can call him Clawed. You're safe here, but if you kill, eat, or hurt my cat in any way not only will I kill you I'll make sure it hurts the whole time you're dying." Her tone remained light as she pet the cat, her expression friendly as she looked from the cat to him. "Clear?" Sir Clawed draped himself across the stranger's leg, still purring, and rested his chin on the stranger's other knee. That was a good sign, in any case; historically Clawed was a reliable judge of character. "How far did you come, anyway?" she asked after a few moments of silence. "Organ harvesting...we never heard of anything like that from the people coming out of Burlington. Things were bad, cannibalism and all that, but not organ harvesting and forced labor bad." Her eyebrows twitched together briefly. "Where are you from?"