Nila tipped back her head and let the crushed rocks spill into her mouth. Wind cut past their tent, and she clamped her hand over the cup to keep the dust inside from escaping.
“I suppose you drank it all.” Vo wiped dirt from his face with his upper arm.
It hardly qualified as a graveyard. Nineteen graves in a single row, no fence, no road, no flowers. The foliage grew unchecked. Raw boulders from the nearby stream served as tombstones. They didn’t need markings, for each grave contained the same person.
Me.
A sheen of fresh rain coated every mossy branch and shrub. Fog hung low against the leaf-strewn earth.
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It was my job to lead us out of our underground dwellings when the surface was finally safe. I expected to encounter many things upon our emergence. Destruction, scorched earth. But not a summoning.
It was just lying there. Waiting for us. A metal cube. When I picked it up, it projected a trail of red footprints on the cracked ground.
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Gray. My entire world is gray. The foliage is dead, and the sky’s covered with a cloud of pollution. The factories, the prison buildings, our radiation-resistant uniforms. Even our skin is gray from malnutrition and lack of sun.
I adjust the mask pressed against my face and step off the bus from the women’s penitentiary, following the line of other prisoners toward the factory.
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Amara hummed as she worked in her tiny lab, her makeshift greenhouse tucked into a corner of the roof of the industrial complex. She remembered reading about a study done many years ago on the positive effects of music on plants. What must it have been like back then to have so many plants to study?
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I hated to see myself.
It happened from time to time. Living in the ruins of an old mall, there were bound to be a few mirrors around. Granted, I didn’t have much use for department stores anymore—I’d already raided most of the men’s departments for practical clothing
“Do you really think this’ll work?” It hurt to ask the words, but I had to know.
“You designed airplanes. If anyone can pull this off…” My wife Stella patted the side of the hulking drone, the result of a month’s hard work. An arm-length sewing needle rested against her shoulder, the thick steel dwarfing her long, delicate fingers.
As head of security, Teddy saw every newcomer as suspicious, but the sixteen-year-old also hungered for news of life elsewhere. He lounged in a tattered lawn chair and set his hands onto the plastic folding table. The olive-green tent around him snapped against the poles as he waited to see why the boys on the watch had called him over, but the faithful shelter stood against an oppressive wind.
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The grass is cold. I lie there. The wind accompanies me while I watch a large family of small black ants. All of them traveling together. Some carrying leaves, some carrying sticks, all fulfilling a purpose. All being part of something. Envy grows within me as I stare at them.
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The human must’ve been shocked upon its awakening to see a bear using a computer. The sight of a bear alone would’ve been enough to set alarm bells ringing, but one checking emails over a morning coffee was something else entirely. It explained the hysterical cries issuing from the human’s mouth.
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