#exodusstart

She had the pack of supplies cooling off to a side as she tended to the fire in front of her, a bowl of soup at her side for supper. She wasn’t going to do much traveling come nightfall, and the sun was coming to set. She’d have to keep her guard up much of the night if she wanted to not get eaten by whatever mutate roamed these edges, but she had a fire going and she’d tracked no signs of creatures around.

The sand and those who waded in it made for soundless footsteps, but she could see the silhouette approaching. She was tucked into the turn of a dune that towerd high. The jagged cut of the rock provided shelter from one end, the other one eighty she could keep an eye on.

The gas station was in the middle of no where. Beyond the blacktop, everything faded into flat country and endless night in all directions. The few street lamps were swarmed with moths and their lights fizzled yellow and sickly, but somehow made the place look like a beacon on the highway for miles in any direction. The nearest bar was a four mile walk east, a little further out, but he hadn’t seen a car blur by in hours. Summertime. Everyone was getting plastered, at least everyone Wyatt knew. Part of him wished he was partying alongside them, if just to witness any insanity. The other part (the louder part) was adamant he take the night shift and earn some extra cash.

The man across the counter grunted something that might have been construed as a greeting, and Wyatt responded in kind. He’d started remembering the regulars, and this guy always got a Slim Jim, a six-pack of Bud Light, and two packs of filterless Camels, came to $17.92.

“Have a good one,” he muttered, shoving the receipt in the bag and handing the man’s spoils off to him in a paper sack. As he was leaving, the bell over the door sounded, synonymous with a blinding flash of headlights pulling up to a pump. It wasn’t a car he recognized. Instead of fucking with the unpacked box of Big Red in the aisle, or restocking the beer cooler, Wyatt pushed himself up on the back counter and took a long drink from a tall can of Pabst.

The pulp of the wood sloughed off easier when it was wet. It was a trick his grandfather had taught him, sitting in the back of an old Ford under their oak tree. He was young to hold a knife so big — as long or longer than his whole arm — but he was strong for his age, they’d told him, clapping him hard on the back and thrusting the sheathed blade against his chest. The hilt cramped his fingers, and the strenuous motion of scraping away the wood burned his biceps, but he kept going. There was one thing the men in his family couldn’t abide, and that was weakness.

If he could avoid having that disappointment directed at him for as long as he lived, he imagined he’d live a long while.

Ezra pulled the cigarette from between his teeth, and finally looked up from his work. He’d gotten through two dozen in an hour; not mad. As he exhaled a plume of smoke, he set his knife aside and exchanged its weight for that of a long-neck. Pale, piss-flavoured suds lingered within. Hunting didn’t pay for the good lager. When he noticed someone eyeing what was left of his six pack, he spoke up.

The markets were busy, he dodged people idly as he relished in his own aloneness, and the peace that came from the detached bustle of the crowd. It was short-lived, however, and his stomach lurched at the sight of one of the men he had been avoiding coming around the corner towards him - one of the two who stood on the brothel’s door. Without even allowing himself a moment to think, Octavian ducked around the back of one of the one stalls where he would be hidden from sight. Though he tried to appear calm, and unsuspicious, he knew he was not entirely successful in that measure. “Do me a favour...” He asked of a figure that stood near him, with a view of the alley he had ducked out of. “Tell me, the man in the black coat, the insurmountably ugly one, is he still standing over there by the corner?”

Now, stuck in a bar filled with a somber mood and bogged down by the injuries she’d suffered during the sinister fog, Rory was inspired. She turned to the person sitting next to her and said, “Hey, wanna watch me do a trick?”

For as long as she could remember, Charlotte’s days had always ended with her wandering around Dillinger Market, seeing if any of the remaining vendors were selling anything of use to her. It was a way for her to mentally cool down after a day of bartering and dealing with idiots that came to her booth without getting erratically angry at them. Keeping calm was difficult. But a couple of days prior, she’d gotten jumped by three people while en route to Fervention; usually this wouldn’t deter her, since it wasn’t the first time it’d happened, but it definitely shook her up because she wasn’t able to fight back and she felt useless; she was still sporting bruises on her face and neck. So, instead of remaining at the market, the moment Charlotte closed shop, she began walking towards Fervention, carrying her items with her and hoping that no one would get to her again.

Sam was beginning to hate her daily trek to Feverton -- sorry, Fervention.

She pulled the bandana away from her face and let it hang -- sand crusted -- around her neck. Her blonde hair was crusted with clay and dust and it would take too long to try and shake it out all at once. Sometimes, she wondered if any of this was worth sticking around for. Surely, there had to be some place left in the world than Colorado. Or at least, what used to be Colorado. Everyone who had stayed -- herself included -- seemed to be more like a ghost than anything. If she didn’t know better, she might have guessed this was Hell. But Sam didn’t believe in ghosts, and she didn’t believe in Hell.  In another life, Sam believed in the power of computing. She believed in answers, but what was there left to answer? Only one question was left, a question she found herself asking daily: What comes next? Call it the end of days, the end of the world, the end of time, but Sam knew it wasn’t the end. It was only the beginning of the end. It wouldn’t be the end until Earth was lifeless, dead, and burnt dry. She had passed up the chance to survive, but why? Her own curiosity? She had lived longer than she had imagined, everyone had. For a mass extinction event, the planet sure was taking it’s damn time, and in the meantime, she just had to kill time. Sam dropped her canvas bag on the table and slid into the seat.