A Slow Apocalypse || MM & DT

Devils Temptation · Mar 29, 2025

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 · Mar 29, 2025

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 · Mar 29, 2025

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 · Mar 30, 2025

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?"

Devils Temptation · Apr 2, 2025

This is Aman Homestead,

A place he had no knowledge or recollection of, even before the End. Rye's gaze had broken from the woman's features, settling back down onto his hands and the sheets they were furled into. Aman Homestead. A place that felt like a slice out of Heaven placed into Hell. To him it may have seemed like that but had he reflected a little more, he was sure he would come to realize one thing. All he knew was the city. The frog at the bottom of the well may not understand the sea, but it knew the height of the sky. Of course there had been more out there... he had deluded himself into thinking everything had been as terrible as where he came from - even if he was not fully convinced this place was as perfect as she seemed to insinuate. His thoughts would have been snapped in the moment the cat jumped onto his bed, a panicked jerk followed by... immediately relaxing. There was no telling how he would respond to something else alive, one might've even assumed that someone like him ate anything he could get his hands on just to survive but there was a genuine glint of affection in his eyes and the cracked corners of his lips even looked like they mildly turned up in the embers of a smile on sight of that cat.

you're in his spot.

"Oh." Single, soft whisper of acknowledgement and the somewhat defeated look on his face that had him assured to the fact that he could not move out of the way even if he had wanted to. Every part of his body was sore now that the adrenaline had long since worn off and all that was left was pain and emaciation. "I don't hurt cats. They kept the rats away. I wouldn't eat them even if they were all I had. We're clear." Rats...? The man had spoken so solemnly about them, as if they were an even bigger issue than starving to death. While he made no attempt to reach for Clawed, there was a visible way he seemed to relax in the presence of the furry creature, shoulders going somewhat more slack in that moment and his eyes fluttering close to enjoy the warmth that bundle provided to him.

How far did you come, anyway?
Where are you from?

Silence.

Burlington. Right... he had gone into New Jersey. It was a toss up what direction he was going. Pennsylvania was a likely bet - he hadn't bothered to read the signs, they wouldn't have done anything for him. Rye finally tore his gaze from the cat to instead return it to the woman's gaze. He liked the way she looked at him. Not with some sort of infernal hunger or urgency but with something a little more gentle. A look that made his heart clench up in the same breath that it made him want to hide away like some sort of ugly, rotting corpse. It made him feel ashamed. To live, to survive, to even exist in that moment. The tense of his brow and the furrow of his expression had that flicker of pain hitting him all at once and he would pry his gaze from her once more. Ryder wanted to keep eye contact with that warm gaze but at the same time, he could not bare it. If he told her where he was from, it was obvious what she would think.

All people from there were the most degenerate of animals. Yet, at the same time, he had all but given up.

"New York City. Or whatever was left of it in the aftermath of the End. Most of us died off but there were more than enough to organize. You either join one of the big players or you spend your life wandering as a third party... if you get caught, you're lucky if you die. If you don't... they have other uses for you." A shudder, hand grabbing at his hair with a sudden squeeze. Ryder's knee would push up briefly, just so he could lean his forehead against it. He was so far gone that even the memory of all that would not make him gag. It should have. It really should have and it was just a further display of how... terrible things had gotten in that sphere of the world.

"I got tired of calling that living... so I left off the bridge, followed the highway. I guess I ran into someone else down on their luck that wanted to loot me..." A pause. This one, he would have actually risen his gaze to stare into her eyes. "...I killed him. I hope he wasn't from here." Rye admitted in an odd moment of honesty. Why? Why did he care where the guy was or wasn't from...? He couldn't put his finger on it, not yet at least. Biting down on his lower lip, he hesitated again on elaborating on the city. One hand instead, shakily, rested on top of the cat's body to stroke along the back. On occasion, the small complaint would have him localizing his appreciation to smaller areas and then after a few moments of silence, Rye would merely apologize to the woman. "I'm sorry. I would rather not talk about it." Silence could've been taken as incrimination for the type of man that he was. The worst of the worst. Those were the only sorts that could survive from up there.

She must have known it too - any who did were promptly shot and put in the dirt.

He did not know what or how she would respond, if she would give him space or tell him to leave -- but before she could make that decision at all, once more he reached for her. This time, not the clamp around her wrist. A much softer squeeze to her hand. "My name is Ryder... thank you for helping me." Before his hand fell off of her own just as quickly as it had grazed her - practically like a ghost had touched her with how thin he was. Laying back down onto the pillow, he vacantly stared up at the ceiling. Maybe some grotesque thought had been twirling in that mind of his, it was impossible to tell. Not without him opening up more. He did, however, make a little space for the cat. Almost so subtly and silently that it was unnoticeable but sure enough, the warmest spot of the bed that he had been sitting against was allowed to the ginger cat who promptly stole it and loafed right up against the man.

Madam Mim · Apr 12, 2025

"New York City. Or whatever was left of it in the aftermath of the End."

The old wooden chair creaked as she leaned back and put a hand over her mouth. "Jesus..."

New York had been on the news nearly constantly in the months and years leading up to the solar flare that had knocked out any electronics that hadn't been in a Faraday cage. Whenever the topic had turned to politics or current events, her work colleagues had always signaled an end to the topic by pointing out "yeah, but at least it's not like New York." Riots, flooding, and rolling blackouts had all been commonplace, according to the news, and some of the shots they'd shown on television had been shocking and gruesome. In the immediate aftermath, cities had burned. Intentionally or unintentionally, Burlington had been a glow on the horizon for a week and a half. Smoke from Boston and Toronto had eventually reached them and choked out the sky for almost a month. But the strongest, blackest, greasiest, foulest-smelling smoke had always come whenever the wind turned and brought it from the south. Many villagers had assumed that they had just set fire to their own city--City Folk were like that--but she knew better. Sure there might be some localized fires set by opportunists, but what had made the cities burn was the grid failing and infrastructure crumbling. Broken gas mains, downed electrical wires, entire power stations overloading before shutting down, starting and spreading through the abandoned parts of the cities before spreading. Her parents in Boston--

She bit off that thought, instead listening to the stranger. His voice cracked as he spoke, though whether from emotion or the rust of disuse she wasn't sure. But the distress was enough that he clenched his hair and curled up on himself, and all she could think to do was rub his back as soothingly as she could manage, ready to pull back the second he showed any sort of discomfort.

"I hope he wasn't from here."

She shook her head. "He wasn't," she said confidently. "Nobody leaves here." After a few moments she laughed nervously and rubbed the back of her neck. "Sorry, I watch--used to watch--too many movies, that kinda sounded like the start of a horror film didn't it? What I mean is nobody leaves here if they don't have to. We've got everything we need and the rest of the world leaves us alone mostly; no reason to go out and risk somewhere like New York. It's not as free as it used to be, y'know being able to travel all around the world and stuff, but it's better than anything else we've got right now. Anyone who does leave is big news, and we haven't had big news like that in at least a year or two."

"I'm sorry. I would rather not talk about it."

She nodded and sat back in her chair again. "That's fine. You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to." Half-remembered techniques from a therapist who she didn't even know still lived.

He took her hand, more gently this time though she still stiffened slightly, and introduced himself. Ryder. He let go quickly and turned his focus to the cat. She nodded and watched as he pet Clawed, who shifted and moved until he was curled up against Ryder's hip. She blinked.

"Oh. Um, Rosemary."

Her own name sounded foreign in her ears. It had been so long since she'd introduced herself to anyone, and she spoke so seldom to others that they rarely bothered using her name. Before it would have sent her spiraling down a thought trail of the "realness" of a name, and maybe it would later this evening as she read before blowing out the candle, but right now there was too much to do. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"Do you like reading?" she asked the silence suddenly. "I'll go get you more water and bring you some books. You should rest, but I've got stuff needs doing. Haven't even collected the eggs yet, and it's honeying day." Rosemary stood suddenly, grabbing up the pitcher and the empty plate and disappearing through the door.

This is the room. It is not small, but neither is it cavernous, and clearly meant for more purpose than just a guest room. The comforter, cheap and thin but warmer than anything the

man has had in years, is a deep orange with little white flowers on it and two of the pillows on the beds have shams to match. The other two are dark olive green, which matches the linen sheets which are newer and of a higher quality than the comforter, which is left over from her college days and has been loved to thinness. The bed is narrow, a daybed pushed against the window with a single small, round wicker table as a nightstand and a cream-colored curtain blowing gently in the six inch gap between the bed and the window. Clearly the bed had been pulled out and a book on the shelf above, marked with a ribbon, indicates what other uses this room may have when it is not occupied by gutshot strangers. Other knicknacks and potted plants on the shelf, mass produced tat bought Before but hung with care, may give a clue as to the regularity of visitors before the lights went out. Still, the pillows are soft and the mattress is comfortable, a far cry from the damp concrete, rotting wood, and decomposing trash heaps of the city. Next to the bed is a painted ladderback wooden chair, white with a caned seat that appears to have been repaired several times, and a purple paisley cushion that's been tied on in hopes of making it slightly more comfortable.

A look around the room reveals a haven. Soothing nature-beige walls with wooden shelves and distinct zones. On the wall opposite the bed is a yoga mat, with an exercise ball and neatly racked dumbbells pushed against the wall though she does not use them as often as she thinks she should except through the long winters. On the shelves above the dumbbell rack are several bands, rollers, and other equipment she bought when she "didn't have ti

me" to exercise at any of the gyms that are by now dilapidated and of no use to anyone. Those are also used mostly in winter, except for a particular roller which she uses to soothe aching muscles after the long days of labor in summer and fall. In the corner is a closet, rarely opened. On the wall adjacent to the window is a desk with paper and pens neatly tidied away, a mechanical typewriter, and a spiralbound notebook. The notebook is open to a page with a line drawn down

the middle, with SOW on one side of the divide and YIELD on the other, written in a neat hand. There is one word on each line written in the left-hand margin, and numbers on some of the lines in the "sow" column, but those are not visible from where the stranger sits in bed. There are shelves over the desk, just as there are shelves over the weight rack, but these are filled with reference books and text books on anthropology and linguistics, cult behavior and brainwashing, all organized by topic then author then title, and a stack of papers on a two-tiered wooden tray. The upper tray is labeled UNGRADED, while the lower is labeled GRADED. A place for everything and everything in its place. There is nothing in the "graded" tray; the world ended on a Wednesday. Sandwiched among these, however, is an incongruous book longer than it is tall, with a green cloth cover and a spine emblazoned in silver with six characters: O + R 2023. Like the rest of the room it is dust-free; unlike the rest of the room it has the distinct feeling of not having been moved in a long time. On the wall over the desk but under the shelves is a frame. The paper in the frame declares Rosemary May Levitz-Richardson to have been awarded the degree of a Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology, dated in the spring of 2026. But the work she had put into a PhD is as useful now as Dartmouth University which had awarded it, which is to say not at all. Not that certain of those in her life Before had thought anthropology to be of any use then, either. On the shelves of the final wall, the wall with the door she had closed behind her, are art supplies: paints and charcoals tucked neatly into labeled bins of woven water hyacinth leaves, colored pencils and paint brushes and palette knives tidied away in mugs that had broken and been glued back together, canvases filed away on a flip file made of two trouser hangers cobbled together and of course organized by size. Two bins, labeled CLEAN and DIRTY, sit on the floor and several sized easels are folded and neatly stacked against the wall. "Clean" is full of bar rags stained with old paint but otherwise serviceable, but "dirty" is entirely empty. Watercolors and oil pastels are dried and cracked, the caps to oil paints all but permanently fastened with the dried crust of time, and all of the colored pencils are sharp but the pencil sharpener was last emptied long ago. Like the incongruous book, there is no dust but that does not mean that it has been moved.

All of this the stranger can see, but there is more. There is a garden.

Out of the window next to the bed, if he pulls aside the curtain he can see the garden. The garden is yet green. It is too early in the year for t

he sort of weather which will bring with it the riot of color of which the garden is capable, with flowers blooming and leaves maturing into deeper greens and reds. Right now is the time for peas and lettuce and broccoli, and all of the other green and leafy things that like cool weather and rainy springs which could turn back to winter at a moment's notice, though summer is now closer than winter. But still there is some early color: the forsythia hedge at the extreme left side of the garden is in full bloom, and even from here little flecks of purple can be seen among the plain grass of the walking paths as the blue-eyed grass creeps out among the first plants to welcome back the world. To one side there is a wooden swing that looks out over the adjacent pastures, and near the back half-hidden by trees is a glass greenhouse built from a patchwork of old, reclaimed windows and glass porch doors. Near the greenhouse is a small wooden table with two chairs, only one of them pulled away from the table. In the center of the garden is a spiral, its plants only just peeking up for now but it is early in the year yet. Later she will pluck and cut and dry and and mix and

will have herbs for food and medicine through the winter and if she is lucky--and she usually is--have enough to gift or trade in exchange for something she needs in return. Things in the village both good and ill have a habit of coming back around again, and she prefers to send good around lest it come find her. Near the house--attached to the house though he cannot see that--is a laundry line, its far end attached to a tree in the back of the

garden. Today was towel day, and so the freshly laundered towels washed with homemade soap and water collected from the roof are pinned to the clothesline and sway gently in the breeze. At this latitude it is still early days and she misses the warmth of a tumble dryer, but the weather is warm and dry enough that she cannot justify the resources it would cost to run it. This is the garden, but it is not all of the garden, only that which he can see. From the second floor of the house, however, he can see the neighboring mountain and what used to be pasture returning to nature. Pioneer species did not take long to reclaim what has always been theirs, and high bushes and shrubs have taken over where cattle once grazed and what used to be mown and exploited for monocropping. In a few years the first saplings will start pushing their heads above the level of the shrubbery, but right now this is the home of foxes and rabbits and hawks and deer and other animals that live at the edges.

The wind brings with it the smell of wet and green and living. It is what once would have been called afternoon, but only just, and so the breeze is still chilly and a little damp. In the garden chickens cluck contentedly and pick at the ground. Honeybees buzz above the forsythia and some early clover. Somewhere near-ish but out of sight and not close to the house a donkey brays and goats baa. In the far distance a rooster calls.

The cat stretches and grunts quietly, squinching his eyes shut tight and spreading his toes wide. He covers his face with his arms as he stretches, then rolls slightly onto his back, pushing out his chest and purring expectantly.

"Well, Clawed likes you at least." Rosemary bumped the door open with her hip and came in with a stack of books clutched in both arms and a pitcher gripped precariously with her fingers. "I um...I didn't know what kind of books you like, so I figured I'd start with a selection." Sheepishly she set the books down on the little painted wicker side table then pushed them as far as they would go to one side so she could set down the pitcher. That done, she fished in her oversized apron pocket and pulled out the lump that had been deforming it, which was a cowbell. "I can't afford to sit with you all day, I'm sorry," she said, "but if you need anything you ring that. I'll hear it anywhere in the house and most places where I work outside. You should try to rest up as much as you can, and I'll be back with dinner. Doc said we should start you on maybe eight hundred calories a day, get you used to eating regular meals again, then work you slowly up to normal portions. I don't raise meat but I've got plenty to barter with the folks who do. Once I'm sure you're not gonna fall out on me I'll go into town on a generator night and see if there's anyone willing to trade. I know some people had a tough winter but the hogs did alright I hear. How's bacon sound?" She smiled wanly, certain that he hadn't had bacon--real bacon--in at least five years if not longer. Things hadn't exactly been rosy immediately before the lights had gone out, either, and lifestyle channels and accounts had long been suggesting trendy ways to go meatless while still hitting gains at the gym.

After making sure Ryder had everything he needed she started toward the door, but paused with her hand on the doorknob. "You're in Vermont, by the way," she said, turning her chin over her shoulder to address him. "Don't think I ever told you that. A bit south of what used to be Burlington. We've got a finger of Lake Champlain a couple hours walk away, but the lake proper is maybe a day's walk that way." She pointed toward the front of the house. "We got lucky, not many people knew we were here to begin with so once the initial chaos was over life wasn't too much different. Except, y'know, the lack of electricity. But even that's not entirely gone." She smiled a little wider and winked. "Get some rest." The door latch clicked, and she was gone.

Devils Temptation · Apr 14, 2025

You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to.

In a world without laws, boundaries had ceased to exist. People's property was everyone's property. Hell, people themselves were property. There was little point in even caring to think that anyone would give a damn about what someone would or wouldn't want to do. Consent was superficial as well. Yet, here she was, defying the entirety of that descent back into chaos. Rye would have said he was baffled if not for the fact that the strangeness of the woman was something he was starting to see as reality. An odd reality. One that was welcome, no less, but a woman like her felt like she should not have survived in this world... in what he had begun to perceive as this world.

She did not suit it. Not in the slightest.

Oh. Um, Rosemary.

Rosemary...

Ryder took a deep breath and recited it in his own head. He did not want to say it out loud, not yet at least. Something felt foreign about calling someone by their name - much less using one's own. People were easier to take down if they were not likened to an identity. Rye was not the only one who considered something like that a burden. Passively, he would just stare up at her for a few more passing moments - doing nothing to cut through the silence nor to reign in some sense of the awkwardness that had loomed between the two of them. He had no strength, no energy to show even the slightest scrap of a personality.

Just enough to exist in that moment. That's all he had.

Do you like reading?

"I haven't read in years." Ryder responded... but it wasn't exactly the question she had asked. "Yes. I liked reading." Did he like it now? No clue. Books that were not maintained would decay, rain especially would do considerable damage to even modern books. Had something ended up in his hands he would not have even known if he would enjoy it... much less be able to read properly. "Okay. Thank you." This time when she stood, he made no attempt to reach for her or to halt her. Her life was completely separate from his own, he knew that well. No one lived in this world without being able to live on their own... she was no different.

When she had finally walked away and disappeared past that door, he would wait a few more moments and then tested his voice once again.

"Rosemary." A pause. It felt wrong on his tongue.

"Rose." Even more so than the last. They were not on that casual sort of basis. Another lean back against the pillow and his eyes would settle close, hopefully just to rest and not to sleep.

Cracks. Chips. Tears. Rot.

Buildings had not yet fallen to pieces in those bustling once-sprawling cities... but all of them showed intense wear. Not at all in the way that this room, this home had. There had been wear here, yes, but it showed the wear of a consistent, comfortable life. None of the drip of that ensuing rainstorm had been spilling down past the roof, the windows were sealed adequately to curb the flow of wind, there was proper warmth instead of the occasional bone-chilling shudder that had him twisting into one odd angle after another just to stay warm. The bed was soft. Too soft. When Rye leaned onto his side, he winced ever so slightly at the plusher warmth that nestled against the ache of his wound. Surreal had been one word to describe it and quite frankly, if not for the occasional pain that was still wracking his leg he might have very well thought that he was still in some sort of haze.

There had been an attempt to get up - good leg leaning off the ground first. The floor did not give away underneath him to confirm that he had, in fact, been trapped in his own conscious. "Okay..." Gritting his teeth, he attempted to move the injured side of his body into a standing position and the slightest hint of pressure applied it had an unpleasant sear pulsing along the edge of his gauzed and patched wound -- assuring him that he could get up if he wanted to open that wound up again. "...fuck." No dice. At least he could sit up off the edge of the bed for now and peer a little deeper into the room around him.

Excess. To someone like him who had lived scrap to scrap, this entire room felt like excess. Far more than one person deserved in an era like this - not that he was under any sort of misconception that she did not deserve this. Only that people in general did not live like this anymore. Fighting for scraps, clinging to survival. That was what he had seen as synonymous with 'life' at that point in his life. His attention moved from one part of the room to the next, a faint light-headed rush hitting his skull at how there was just so much. Rye's interest, in particular, landed upon her desk. Numbers and words. In a rush, he would read them and confirm that yes - he could, in fact, still read just fine. Some sort of professor, it looked like. Far further along in her education than he had been when The End came, he had managed to get through on just a bachelors before settling into his career. Academia hadn't really came that easily to him - so there was some hint of respect there. Degrees hardly meant jack shit anymore... not his, not hers. There were no more institutions, likely no more higher education. Once their generation passed, would everyone in the world collectively cease to remember those centuries of information that had been accumulated? Most of it had already happened. Records that should have lasted well into the future had been reduced to utterly nothing.

...Something about that had been terribly lonely in his eyes.

Maybe he would ask her to tell him something, something that might have very well no longer remained in this world after her parting. He did not know where he would take it but if at least one person knew, it would last a little longer. Something about her field. Something only she would have known. Something that Professor Levitz-Richardson took some pride in.

Most of the room had some capacity of being makeshift but in a way that had made some sort of sense. Art supplies, surprisingly enough, had not been a new sight to him. As chaos descended, art was one of those few things that humanity had clung onto - even in the city. Graffiti and markings skewered all along the concrete and asphalt, depicting everything from warnings to events. Certainly not as well-contained as to be done with color pencils or water color but... it felt comfortable. Not everything was so different here. There was, however, one keen difference. The complete and utter lack of any sort of decaying electronics. The city had been skewered with fallen power lines, cracked computers, electronic billboard displays cracked and shattered open. Wires strewn everywhere but lifeless - cars totaled or unresponsive. Everything here looked to be contained, perhaps not functional but not broken either. Nothing after The End worked if it required electricity... though that may have been more of an unproven myth than anything else. He had certainly not been knowledgeable enough to know what had or hadn't been fried... nor did he particularly care. Without the massive power plants supplying the entire grid of the United States, even finding any sort of electricity to test with was nigh impossible.

Generators were fried. Batteries were fried. There was nothing.
There was something more captivating than that. Ryder had not cared very much anymore about how the world used to be - too many years in Hell had him completely giving up on anything returning to how it should have been... or even thinking that anything had any capacity to come to a sense of normalcy. That was why this place and, by extension, the garden had been so overwhelmingly beautiful.

Decaying skyscrapers, cracked streets, tunnels drowned in water. That was what had been familiar for him... and in that moment he could feel nothing but relief that he saw nothing of it when he looked out the window. Even the highway he had been walking along was nowhere in sight, it had been entirely green as far as the eye could see.

His wound ached again. He wanted to get up. He wanted to walk, maybe even barefoot for a little while along that land. To smell the air, to savor the moment. For him, life off the highway was terrifying. To get lost wandering in the wilds, incapable of hunting or collecting water... but also cursed to steal every scrap of what he could from other living humans. It was both a curse and a blessing. Ryder was only alive as long as he was because he took what little resources he could from others, from the decayed remains of civilization. That was precisely why he could not leave the highway. All it had taken was a single hour of getting lost for him to never find his way back, that was his fear. It had been the same reason that, when he was shot, he had left. No point in clinging to any apparent lifeline when his life was pouring out the side of his gut.

Palming his wound, his eyes fell back down to the cat.

"It's nice." A lackluster compliment at best, spoken not to the one who ran this entire operation but to the cat by his side. One hand nestled over the top of his head, fingertips on occasional testing the waters for where his touch and no-touch zones were...

Well, Clawed likes you at least.

By the time she had returned back to the room, Rye's injury had forced him to lay back down again. Speaking in her presence was still somewhat awkward. The cat knew not what he was saying but she would. "I don't think I have a preference." Not at the moment. His thoughts did wander back to asking about something she wrote... but something darker in his mind told him that digging up past skeletons was not worth anyone's time. Grabbing at book atop the pile, his thumb gripped against the top off the cover to part it open. Rather than washed away, damp pages there were dry and clear, dark lettering in front of his eyes. Words that he could have strung together and comprehended. Fucking unbelievable... biting his inner cheek, he snapped the book shut again and set it aside.

I can't afford to sit with you all day, I'm sorry,

"You shouldn't." Not quick to have small talk with her but quick enough to tell her what she shouldn't do... he would quickly clarify -- "I don't want to take up that much of your time and effort. I have already at this point. I don't like being indebted to anyone." Another hand accepted the bell, before his free hand nestled against his torso once more almost like the wound ached when he spoke to her in that way. "At some point, I'd like to pay back everything you've done for me and move on. I don't know anything about this lifestyle but I should be decent enough manpower... hopefully." Leaving. He already spoke of leaving in spite of just getting there. No one in this world wanted to watch over another human being, there was barely enough to go around for just one person. Societies were no longer feasible, so when she so much as even spoke of one here it felt like there had to be some sort of catch. Eternally distrustful, it looked like.

How's bacon sound?

...His stomach churned.

A less than favorable response.

"Yeah. Sounds good..." His eyes fell onto his lap once more, taking in one more deep breath to stop anything from rising in his stomach. Why? Why was the thought of meat unpleasant for him again after everything he had done at that point? Such bullshit. Ryder took a moment to calm himself and make sure he wouldn't add more work onto her plate.

You're in Vermont, by the way,

"Wha -" Some hint of life. Some hint of a reaction. Some hint of his baffled jaw hanging open when she told him that. "...Oh. I thought this was New Jersey. I thought I was going South. God, I'm fucking lost..." Running a hand over the top of his head, he would ruffle through those messier strands. Far smoother now that they had been washed a little by her - but there was one thing that was teetering on the tip of his tongue... but he would just swallow it and allow her to move on. "Thank you." Electricity was not entirely gone... there was a society here. Everything was just ridiculous.

At some point, the man had fallen asleep. As much as he struggled to keep his eyelids open, the strain on his body had it collapsing into a deeper slumber... and a familiar scene would end up replaying in his head once more.

An etched skull.

Reavers.

When he was skeptical of a society existing, it had not meant that he had not seen one before. There were a few in the remnants of the city. Those people, if he could even call them that, were not a society of people. Demons would have been a better way to put it. Dust and blood caked the wood in front of his vision, no longer had he been in the haphazard yet comfortable attire that Rosemary had donned him in, instead broken layers of hole-infested fabrics clung to his body. Every step he took on that theater stage had made it feel like the rotted board below was going to bust at any given moment... normally a place like this would have been abandoned, no one to perform, no movies to watch -- no one had use for theaters anymore.

And yet, this time around, every seat was filled with men and some women.

Packed to the utter brim with the occasional howl and chilling laugh resounding along the arched ceiling of that theater. Every single one of them - or at least most from where Rye had been standing would have had that skull etched into their body. Arm, thigh, face, chest. The mark of a Reaver. The mark of having given up one's humanity.

"...Are you going to uphold your end of the bargain?" Rye turned around, looking to a man on the steps behind him, head shaved. Fur-lined coat but no shirt and the mark of the Reavers etched straight along his sternum.

"Hah... sure, sure. What was it you needed again? Boots? We got a pair for some rat fuck like you - don't ya' worry about that. All you gotta do is run the gauntlet and win. If the other guy doesn't kill you, I will. I put a lot on your shoulders, you know? I'll make it fucking hurt if you make me lose it." People could always find a way to entertain themselves in some capacity. Rye turned around once more, numbness around his shoulders and throat at the situation he had found himself in. The Gauntlet. Two unlucky fuckers placed atop one stadium with the sole intention of slaughtering the other - the Reavers would gamble on who would win... and the winner would get what they had asked for. It was one of the only ways to get half-decent shit in the city.

Of course, goods weren't the only thing people fought for.

Slaves were put up here sometimes as well for no other reason than the fact that the blood sport was a thrilling way to spend and pass the time - to gamble on two people grinding each other to a pulp. Some 'criminals' by the Reavers standards would be put up there to just execute one another for the leisure of those watching. Rye had been one of the lucky ones... he could actually walk out if he had won.

Boots might have sounded like a terrible fucking reason to take someone else's life... but in the flooded city, it was impossible to survive without them. If a wound on his foot would not kill him, the infection in the waters would have. "Wagers close in five minutes." A mechanical clock would slowly tick in front of the stage. Standing across from him had been a man of similar stature to him. No affiliation carved onto his body and a collection of torn and tossed together clothing. Another wastelander. People who did not belong to any particular faction or any particular 'society' - people who survived off the scraps of what was remaining. It was someone just like him.

"One minute! GET THE REST OF YOUR FUCKING BETS IN NOW!" Yelling louder to grab the attention of the rowdier crowd, the howls only seemed to grow that much more intense - entire theater shaking and shuddering like an earthquake of feral energy had overtaken everyone. Thirty seconds. Twenty. Ten.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

"ALRIGHT, make that fucker feel sorry for even being born!" Mercy was a forgotten concept next to compassion. The man across from Rye lunged at him without a second thought in those glazed eyes, rusted knife drawn from his hip. Both of them were provided with weapons. Rusted, dull, not easy to end a life with. The Reavers wanted the show to go on for a while, they wanted to laugh and cheer... taunt and savor the sadistic view. Rye had lucked out. It had not been his first time in the gauntlet... but it had been his opponents first. He moved like a raging bull, fumbling along dusted and cracked sheets while trying to get close enough to plunge that knife - he held it with both hands instead of one, in front of himself while shoving his entire weight forward as if his target was stationary.

He wished it was someone older, someone more experienced.

He wished it was someone he was sure had killed already in their past.

He wished.

Not someone young, terrified... someone that fueled the deafening cheer behind himself.

Gritting his teeth, Ryder would not allow that knife to plunge into his body. Shoving his forearm along the gripped palms, he forced the knife up and drew his own - struggling against the younger man for all of about ten seconds before the far filthier tactics of winning a fight would come out. His foot dug harshly against the shin of his opponent, holding on tight to his wrist to prevent him from swinging or plunging the knife. A brief gasp of pain and the reeling of his body presented enough of an opportunity for his fingers to lurch forward and pry into the soft, fleshy tissue of an eye socket. The once discomforted grunt had turned into a full on scream that had only deepened that much more when Rye's body crashed down onto the writhing body.

All around him, the joy was overwhelming.

Look at him squealing like a pig!

How fucking boring... couldn't even last five seconds.

This is the best part - y'know they last for pretty long even on the ground!

He drowned it all out. The knife raised and it plunged down in the same breath, driving into the chest of the man. It could barely even penetrate with how rusted it was. Shoves, slams, pleading begs... drools, tear, splatters of blood. All of it would mix together into one big, numbing mess. Again and again, he would raise that knife and plunge. Deeper every time like he was carving up a piece of meat. Ten strikes and he was still resisting. Eleven and he was still begging. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen...

CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.

...When had he stopped moving? Rye did not know and he could not afford to care in that moment. He just wanted it all to be over. He wanted that knife in his throat or he wanted to be out of there as soon as he could be. Inevitably, the once alive human had fallen to nothing but a corpse in front of him. A Reaver standing at the steps of that theater rushed out, grabbing Rye by the collar to pry him off. "Nice! That's what I fucking wanted!! You never let me down, Ryder! Hahahaha!" The match was called right then and there, half the crowd filled with arguments and yells while the other gloated and shit-talked as if an execution had not just transpired in front of them. His ears felt like they were ringing. His 'connection' would've escorted him off the stage to where he could get his 'payment' - talking about some pointless, cruel bullshit that he did not care to listen to. All except for one part that had stuck to his mind like glue.

"Pretty big fella you ended up gutting, eh? You know, those savages... guess they ain't so much now that I think about it, folks that used to eat people back before The End. They used to call people 'long pork' - reckon we'd be eating pretty good. Bet you'd get some nice meat yourself if you joined the Reavers. What do ya' say? Bacon sounds real good, doesn't it...?" There was nothing that sounded less appetizing to him than that word.

It made him fucking gag.

He despised it.

He hated everything about it...!

Screams filled the bedroom, the nightmares had gone on for quite some time after until one had inevitably made him snap up in a cold sweat. The room was completely dark but that only added more to the terror of it all. Rye thrashed and kicked even as his body resisted with pain, adrenaline would overwhelm it and he would end up falling off the side of the mattress still fighting demons that were not even present. "F-FUCK!! DON'T TOUCH ME --!" No one was even there... but it felt like there had been someone still clinging. Hands around his throat, his arms. Grabbing at his mouth and jaw, reaching for his eye, choking him out and digging into the wound of his torso to tear it apart into a bleeding mess on the ground. It took him a few minutes to realize that everything was okay - that he wasn't back in the ring, or in the city.

Death did not frighten him.

It was how brutal and painful it sometimes was to get there that did.

The bell had rung at least a few times in his panicked cascade onto the floor - though the noise of him thrashing and yelling would've reached far more than any sort of bell. It had been completely dark outside at that point. Sometime past midnight. Where was he...? Everything felt like it was making him choke and drown and as much as he wanted to swim the only thing he could do was grab the edge of the bed to keep himself anchored. Curled up against the nightstand, heavier breathing had his throat drying. Fuck. He wanted to throw up. Nothing in his stomach wanted to stay down.

Fuck. Fuck --!

Footsteps.

Everything came to him at once and he would remember where he would have been. That he was in another's home. Once she came upon him, she would find him leaned up on the floor, against the bed with sweat drenching along his brow and face. Most of her room, luckily, had been spared but the stare he gave her was anything but comforting. "...Don't fucking touch me!" Cold, blunt warning. He was not at all in a right state of mind in that moment, the erratic breathing and the panicked flicker of his gaze from Rosemary to any other noise in that room would've been a dead giveaway. She had not left anything in the room that he could have used as a weapon... or had she? There was a stranger in her home. Someone she could not trust. There was no telling what he could have or would have tried to do.

Killing him and having that peace of mind would have been so much easier.

Another deep breath, head resting against the wood behind his hair. "Just... just give me a few minutes, alright? Just a few minutes..." Rye pleaded with her, breathless tone going just a little bit softer and so too had his calming nerves. The room was nothing like his nightmares. The scent, the sight, the warmth. All of it served to slowly piece together that he wasn't where he once thought he was.

Madam Mim · Friday at 4:38 PM

It was a normal day, apart from the stranger convalescing in her home. The goats gave milk, the chickens gave eggs, and if she looked very closely the pea flowers were starting to turn out into tiny pods. The first harvest would be ready in a couple of weeks. She read on the porch and sipped her tea and watched songbirds hop through the grass alongside her chickens and wondered what it would be like to peacefully forage alongside a giant like that. The sun shone on her face and later in the afternoon Clawed descended from his nap with the stranger to come nap with her on the porch.

Rosemary often felt guilty for liking this existence, for sometimes being glad that it had all stopped. Before Collapse had, even on its most peaceful days, felt chaotic. The center could not hold. They had all lived in a world of constant heartache and disaster, entertained by the meaningless and the mindless. She couldn't leave her phone in the next room without feeling some sort of separation anxiety, and her students had been even worse. When they bothered showing up at all. She wasn't their mother but she was frequently irritated by the kids who wasted their parents' money and her time signing up for electives they didn't even bother to show up or do the work for, then had the gall to act surprised when they failed. She was certain that the world was still awful--Ryder's appearance, if nothing else, confirmed that--but the difference now was that she didn't have to know about it. She had her little village of 400 and that was as far as her worries went; no government stripping her of rights over her own body, no algorithms deciding what she liked, no techbros stealing and selling her information. It had all just...disappeared. With it had disappeared the noise from the highway, from planes overhead, from lawnmowers and oversized audio systems. In a single instant, one she had been prepared for because she was among the few who had actually bothered to pay attention, all of it was just gone. In its place was quiet, and the accompanying room to think, and to breathe. Sure, she missed television and traveling, Doordash, the guarantee of timely medical testing and treatment was the really big one, and god who she wouldn't kill for a bottle of sriracha! But over all because she had known, and prepared, and had gotten to know her neighbors who also prepared for just this sort of thing, she had survived and thrived after the end of the world. Sure, she could have given up her job in the city and just subsistence farmed for the rest of her life, but she still had property taxes, grocery bills, insurance premiums, entertainment subscriptions...and now there was none of that. She owed no one and no one owed her, unless it was a neighbor she knew personally and debts were settled quickly around here. She liked it this way.

And that made her a horrible person, didn't it? Especially after seeing Ryder. The malnutrition, the scars, the haunted look in his eyes...it was horrible outside the village. She had always known that on some level, and here was evidence staring her in the face, sleeping in her office, eating her food. And even if she hated the pain that others were in she enjoyed this life. Because the pain of others was no longer her problem; out of sight, out of mind. But...wasn't this the way humans had evolved to live?

Rosemary brought soup to the stranger, but he was sleeping deeply. Maria had told her to let him rest, let his body heal, so she did. Instead she returned the soup to the pot, putting the lid on and leaving it warming gently just in case he woke in the night hungry. Then it was again, weirdly, business as usual: evening yoga, a walk, tea, winding up the old Victrola, a book, bed. Her sleep these days was dreamless and peaceful.

Until screams woke her in the night.

Because of the city folk who had come in the immediate aftermath of the solar flare, instead of carrying around her phone from room to room she now carried with her a shotgun. It had been years since she'd needed to use it for anything other than bears or wolves, but still she would carry it to wherever she was working, prop it against the wall or the side of the house, and go about her business. But when a man cried out in the middle of the night, waking her from a dead sleep, she had it in her hands and cocked before she remembered that it was probably her guest. There was a thump and the clang of the cow bell hitting the floor. With a soft curse she threw open her bedroom door and ran down the hall to the office, throwing that door open so violently it rebounded off the wall with a bang. With her shotgun braced against her shoulder she swept an arc to clear the room. No one.

Not no one.

"Ryder!"

He was on the floor. She reengaged the safety and leaned the gun against the wall before rushing to his side.

"Don't fucking touch me!"

Rosemary froze where she was, a few steps from the man on the floor. She recognized that look. Slowly she raised her hands up to shoulder height and nodded. "Okay, I wont," she promised. When he asked for a few minutes she nodded and slowly sank to her knees to wait it out. Curly hair had come out of its loose, thick braid, falling wildly around her face. A t-shirt hung off of her frame in a way that it hadn't used to Before, with a silhouette of the Grand Canyon and retro-style lettering advertising the same. Overly-large sweatpants that hadn't originally belonged do her had been hemmed and taken in so they would fit and now read YALF down one leg where she'd had to cut off the bottom so she wouldn't trip. Warm hazel eyes watched him as he slowly remembered where he was, that he was safe, that nothing was going to happen to him that he didn't want to happen.

"Everyone here has the dreams, too," she said solemnly after a few quiet minutes. "Well, the younger kids don't. They're too little to remember, I think. But the first six months, with folks dying without electricity or medicine that had been keeping them alive, other folks coming from the city to try and take what we had...It's nowhere near what you've been through, I know, but it was hell. Everyone's traumatized, I think, some just more than others." Rosemary very pointedly did not ask him what his dream had been about. Everyone had learned that lesson early on.

She was quiet again for a long while as they sat together on the floor in the dark, only moonlight shedding on their faces. "Did you know," she said after a while, "that archaeologists found fossilized human bones from the Paleolithic that had been broken? But what was remarkable about this bone was that it had also healed. See, normally animals in the wild when they break a bone, they're on their own. Usually they die, either from predation or infection. But the skeleton with this bone was found buried with others, all different ages, presumably a family. You see, by all accounts humans shouldn't have lasted as long or made it as far as they did, let alone become the planet's dominant lifeform. We're so small and so helpless for so long compared to other animal babies, we don't have fangs or claws, we can't see or hear particularly well, our heads are too big, and our backs--evolutionarily--haven't evolved to deal with being bipedal. We're smart but we have zero defense or offense. It makes no sense that we didn't go extinct before now, right?" She smiled a little as she looked up into his eyes. "Except...there's that broken bone. The one that healed. The one that meant that that ancient human was incapacitated, helpless, for weeks or months and their family, their tribe, whoever, protected them. Fed them. Helped them get mobile again. As a species, we put all of our skill points into cooperation and community. That got us literally to the moon." She smiled a little wider. "Can you imagine if something like...like lions or scarab beetles or hawks built a craft in defiance of gravity and god to go land on the moon? Not for resources or any evolutionary advantage, but just to see if they could? It's insane what community's gotten us, isn't it?" She shrugged. "I dunno, I just think that's neat."

She waited a few minutes longer then looked at him again. "Can I help you back in bed?" Once she'd gotten consent to touch him, she crawled over and wrapped one of his arms across her shoulders and slipped an arm around his back, careful not to touch his bullet wound. After he got his good leg under him, on the count of three together they hauled him up, mostly relying on her strength. She had joked with some villagers before about the collapse of modern civilization at least being good for "farm girl gainz," but for once she actually felt it. Whether it was through her own strength or his extreme malnourishment and starvation she lifted him easily and helped him sit on the bed. "Wait right there. You didn't have any dinner; you need to eat if you're gonna get your strength back. Oh but um..." She paused as she started for the door and gestured at the plastic bucket she'd left at the foot of the bed. "If you feel like you're gonna puke please try to aim for the bucket. There's only so much that lye soap and river water can get out."

Rosemary returned ten minutes later with a tray. There was a mug of bone broth, a small hunk of cheese, and water. And--

"Thought this might be a nice treat." She grinned and revealed what she had been hiding behind her back. It was a piece of toast, homemade...with strawberry jam. "Bet you haven't had anything sweet in a while, huh?"

A Slow Apocalypse || MM & DT

Devils Temptation

Withdrawn

Madam Mim

One Big Medieval Mess

Devils Temptation

Withdrawn

Madam Mim

One Big Medieval Mess

Devils Temptation

Withdrawn

Madam Mim

One Big Medieval Mess

Devils Temptation

Withdrawn

Madam Mim

One Big Medieval Mess