Tiffany had decided, all things considered, she was pretty fucking sick of the color grey. She felt she was well within her rights to have had enough of it; sometimes it seemed to be the only color left in the entire world. 

The skies had been grey since the day the bombs fell, when they weren’t black with smoke. Without lights or decorations, all that was left of the cities were mountains of grey rubble, and each and every day Tiffany had to wade through more and more falling grey ash. Even the other people she’d seen scurrying about in the corner of her eye from time to time were mostly wearing grey, probably in hopes that they wouldn’t be spotted and shot for wearing bright colors by other survivors.

Tiffany herself was not exactly the most colorful young lady, but she had decided not blending into the ash all around her perfectly was all right with her; she’d rather wear clothes and gear that suited her than throw some grey rags over herself in hopes nobody noticed her. She had always been a fairly tall girl, and like most of the people still living after the bombs, she was lean but had strong, hard muscles all the more noticeable from the lack of excess fat to hide them. She was wearing steel-toed hiking boots, a pair of very tough but weather-beaten khaki cargo pants, and a plain red shirt with a tough black jacket over it to keep out the wind. What her face looked like, the color of her eyes, even her skin tone were hard things to determine; no skin was bared to the elements. She wore black leather gloves at nearly all times, along with a warm scarf, and a combination of bandanas and a pair of goggles she’d found kept her head simply a bundle of cloth with a glass visor poking out. It was not an attractive getup, and the filth and ash clinging to it made it even less so, but it beat the hell out of choking to death on all the ash and dust in the air. Her large backpack was something of a worry if there really were raiders about, but Tiffany hadn’t been that concerned that people would single her out; with her figure and clothing, nobody could tell right away that she was a woman, and the large machine gun she was carrying had thus far served as an eloquent and effective warning to people that might try their luck on a better day. 

Not that the backpack was a whole hell of a lot of use now, she realized as she picked her way through the city. The damn thing was almost empty, and it had been weeks since she’d found anyone else’s food stores to replenish her supplies. Still, she wasn’t going to leave it behind; it was a stupid mistake to lose one’s backpack when you had no home and a distinctly finite number of pockets to carry things in. 

Tiffany gave a hopeful glance at the sky, but was disappointed. It appeared there weren’t any birds around she could take down, either; there were less and less animals around as the days dragged on. She was starting to regret she’d decided she wanted no part in eating dog when she’d found that golden retriever a few days ago, but her backpack had been heavier then, and cutting up a family’s pet for meat still troubled her on some level. She wondered if that was going to be the death of her sooner or later. 

Nah…there’s gotta be some deer or rabbits that have survived, they’re just not close to these heaps of rubble. If I keep moving away from the cities, I might find better pickings in what’s left of the woods. She thought to herself, trudging absentmindedly through ankle-deep ash. 

She’d had a map when this had started, but she’d always been terrible with maps and none of them reflected the landscape as it was now anyways; She was just wandering aimlessly at this point, like she had been since the bombs fell. Had it been a couple of months ago? A couple of years, maybe? Her sense of time hadn’t been so good since everything exploded and the sun tended to hide behind clouds of smoke or ash, but she did know she’d been wandering for a long time. She didn’t even know what city or state she was in anymore. After a while, one blasted heap of grey rocks started to look exactly like the other hundred heaps you’d walked through to get to it. 

Tiffany sighed, trudging on. Life was about the journey, not the destination, she’d heard it said. Well, if that was the case, she ought to be fine, since hers was a journey that did not appear to have a destination. If there was civilization anywhere, it was not advertising, and she had few illusions she was more likely to just walk right past it even if it did exist. Settling anywhere was just inviting starvation; roving onwards, even with no direction or idea where she’d stop, would at least give her the chance of finding more food. Sooner or later she’d likely just drop dead or be shot by some opportunistic bastard she hadn’t spotted ahead of time, but she wasn’t interested in what-ifs and maybes in this sort of environment. She didn’t feel like dying, so she’d keep moving. That was all there was to it. That was all there ever would be to it. 

Tiffany paused when she found a dead man lying in the road ahead of her. She glanced around quickly to make sure she couldn’t see anyone lying in wait for her, and cautiously approached him. 

A smell quickly tipped her off to the man’s death; sure enough, when she examined the body, she saw he had been wounded what was probably quite a while ago, but hadn’t been able to treat it properly. Nasty gashes on his stomach and left leg had gotten badly infected, and just recently had dragged him to his grave, it seemed. Tiffany reached out quietly, closing the unhappy man’s mouth and eyes for him, but quietly removing his backpack. As she’d hoped, he’d been carrying a decent supply of food and a rather nicer knife than Tiffany had at the moment; he even had a Leatherman, and Tiffany inspected its various tools with satisfaction before relieving him of his belongings; he wasn’t going to be needing them anymore. The poor devil hadn’t had a first aid kit like she did; if he had, he’d probably still be alive right now. 

Someone else would probably have exploited the corpse; it was not lost on Tiffany that it might draw out some vultures to eat if she left it there a while and rested, but she could see this man had died feverish and in a lot of pain. She felt only pity seeing him, not a sense of opportunity. As such, she took a moment to carry the body over to the side of a building and quietly began to stack rocks on top of it. She couldn’t dig a grave, not in all this blasted concrete, but she could give the poor bastard some semblance of a burial, at least. She hoped he would have taken some comfort in knowing his body wouldn’t be left to decompose in the middle of a street. When the body was covered up, she placed a large stone near the man’s head. 

It’s a crappy tombstone, and I don’t even know your name…but I can’t do any more than this. I’m sorry. Both that you had to die like this, and that I’m the only one that could even do this little for you. She thought quietly. Carving the tombstone would just be bad for the knife blade and she knew nothing about the man lying under it, so she sadly turned away and kept walking. Even the windfall of food and better tools than she’d had before didn’t cheer her up at all. 

However long it had been that she’d been stuck out here, it had hardened her. She hadn’t been very strong or fit before the nukes, and she recalled being a pretty picky eater with some concerns about her weight. None of that was left; Tiffany had needed to pick up a lot of skills on the fly and toughen up like hell to live out here, and the luxury of picking what she wanted to eat was long gone. Even so, she would gladly go back to being wimpy and sheltered if it meant the world could come back; strong as it had made her, she had no illusions about what she was and what she was living in. 

Survivor my ass. I’m a scavenger living in a hellhole of burned rocks. She thought bitterly to herself. All those people that wrote about the post-apocalypse or made their movies about it hadn’t seemed to consider certain things, like how it was dark and filthy, or that for the most part people were too busy keeling over full of tumors, choking to death on ashes, or committing suicide to form raiding bands or pockets of pseudo-society. She was pretty sure she hadn’t seen a group bigger than three people since the sun had vanished, much less anything that could even mockingly be called a community. It was all just lonely scavengers like her, scrounging for something to eat once or twice a day and avoiding each other in case it turned out the books and movies were right about post-apocalyptic bandit gangs. She didn’t have a ton of ammo for her gun, but given how rarely she fired it, she didn’t think she needed to be that sharply on the lookout for more firepower. She found herself doubting anyone else was going to be riding around in leathers and feathers looking to kill or rape people just because the world was ashes, but avoided people all the same; a lot of the scavengers she’d seen had pistols or shotguns, and Tiffany had no intention of getting shot in the face because she decided to try and make conversation. 

Live and let slowly starve to death, I guess. She thought to herself, kicking a little rock. 

The rock bounced down the streets for a little bit, the noise it made amplified by the quiet of the ruined city around it. Tiffany paused in surprise as she heard movement a little further down the street, and her eyes widened behind her goggles as a tiny girl ran out to where the rock stopped bouncing, giggling a little. 

Tiffany hadn’t seen a little kid in quite some time; hell, most of the survivors she’d spotted were grown adults, typically with their teen years well behind them. One had to assume the blasts hadn’t wiped out all the children, but the sight of one so young caught Tiffany rather off guard. 

The girl was barely four feet tall, if that; she appeared to lack Tiffany’s concern for covering her face, as Tiffany could see she was a cute young girl, maybe five years old at the most, with chocolate brown hair and surprisingly innocent blue eyes. She was wearing a a panda hoodie that was a little too big for her; the hood and torso of it were white, but the sleeves were black, and a pair of little black balls on the hood made for “ears”. The girl didn’t appear to be carrying anything with her or have a drop of caution about coming out into the open; completely ignoring Tiffany, she kicked the rock herself, laughing as the rock went bouncing again. Tiffany carefully tucked her rifle back as far as it could go; she didn’t want this kid to think she was a threat as she approached. A girl that little wasn’t on her own, that was certain, so that meant she had parents nearby. The last thing Tiffany intended to do today was get shot by an overprotective mom seeing some stranger with a gun approaching her kid. 

The little girl looked up as Tiffany approached, and waved to her without a trace of fear.

“Hi!” She chirped innocently. She was probably a little less than five, Tiffany guessed; she had the voice from that point in life where kids are full of enthusiasm but not full of volume control. Still, Tiffany considered this a more positive start than the girl screaming and running away, and nobody had put a load of buckshot in the back of her head for walking up to the kid, so she waved back, a tad nervously. The little girl smiled, but then perked up as a voice came calling.

“Anya! Anya!” 

“Over here, Daddy!” The girl said happily, running over as an older man walked into view. 

If the little girl’s innocent appearance had seemed out of place in this grim environment, her father’s looks were an effective reminder that Anya was living in the same hellhole as Tiffany. The man was tall, a little taller than her, and had jet black hair compared to his daughter’s brown. He was wearing dirty black pants and a dark overcoat, but what Tiffany’s eye was drawn to were the bandages. She’d seen men like him before; people who had been hurt horribly during the bombs and didn’t have the luxury of removing their skin coverings, people that seemed to be more gauze than flesh by the time she met them. This man’s arms and hands were both swathed in bandages, and through the holes in the ratty grey shirt he was wearing, she saw more bandages over his chest and stomach. The most obvious, however, was his face; between his forehead and his nose, the man didn’t have a face, just a bunch of tightly bound white bandages, a single slit allowed so a tired-looking dull green eye could gaze through. The man looked like he’d been on death’s doorstep more than once, and might still have a foot in the grave given how pale what little skin she could see was, but the tired expression in the man’s eye didn’t match the warm smile he gave the little girl as he picked her up and hugged her tightly. 

“You shouldn’t dash of like that, Anya. You never know what loud noises like that might be.” He scolded gently, shaking his head. Anya frowned.

“Sorry, Daddy…” She mumbled, but her subdued mood couldn’t last long and she pointed at Tiffany. “I found somebody, though!” 

The man looked up at Tiffany in surprise, but tentatively offered his hand to shake.

“…It’s nice to meet you. My name’s Sigmund, and this is my daughter, Anya. What’s your name?” He asked. 

“…Tiffany.” Tiffany said slowly. Sigmund didn’t seem that surprised to hear her voice, just nodding; for a guy with only one eye and too many bandages for good peripheral vision, he was sharper than he seemed. 

“It’s a pleasure, Tiffany. Are you on your own out here?” Sigmund asked. Tiffany paused, not sure she should answer that. Even if he was traveling with his kid, there was no guarantee Sigmund was trustworthy…on the other hand, she had a gun, and as far as she could see, he wasn’t going to be able to pull one on her without dropping Anya on the floor. After a moment, she nodded.

“You’re the first group I’ve seen in a while. Most people travel alone these days.” 

“It’s a bad time to be traveling in. I can only imagine being alone makes it worse.” Sigmund sighed. 

“Is it just the two of you traveling together, or are there others with you?” Tiffany asked, deciding Sigmund ought to at least confirm it was just him and his daughter. 

“There used to be three of us, but Mama’s not here anymore.” Anya said sadly, looking down. Tiffany flinched, seeing the girl had gone from smiling at her to near tears in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

“I-I’m sorry.” She said, feeling terrible. Anya held on to her father tightly, closing her eyes and not saying anything. Sigmund closed his eye for a moment, before looking at Tiffany. 

“Anya’s right. It’s just been the two of us for some time now. We’re headed for the coast.” He said, a certain amount of forced calmness in his voice. Tiffany cocked her head.

“The coast? Why?” She could imagine the nukes had probably left the sea alone, at least, but that seemed some pretty cold comfort considering what they’d done to the land.

“You haven’t heard? The last few wanderers we met were talking about it. People are looking for the boats there.” Sigmund explained.

“…Boats?” 

“We’ve heard Australia survived the bombings. The continent’s mostly in tact, and trying to get in contact with survivors in other nations. If the rumors are true, the coast might be a place for us to join up with the refugees and leave this rubble behind.” Sigmund said. Tiffany could tell just looking at him he wasn’t bullshitting her, either…there was a mixture of hope and desperation clinging to Sigmund’s face and voice as he spoke. He didn’t just believe this, he NEEDED to believe this. Tiffany, however, was not quite so hopeful and not nearly as desperate.

“That’s a pretty big if, Sigmund. Don’t you think there’d have been more than just rumors of boats for refugees if some country survived the bombings and wanted to help? What if there’s nothing on the coast?” She asked. Anya frowned, giving a little whine of discomfort; apparently Sigmund had not discussed the possibility of failure with his daughter. Tiffany felt bad about bringing this up in front of the kid, but she felt she needed to say it.

Surprisingly, Sigmund didn’t seem so distressed by the question.

“It might just be a rumor, but it’s one I’m willing to bet on. Australia is a continent, but it’s out of the way and wasn’t involved in any of the rumblings that set off the bombings. Given that most forms of communication are dead, it’s not likely they could get the word out that easily.” Sigmund hugged his daughter before pressing on. “Besides, if we go to the coast and find nothing, how’s that any different from wandering through the cities finding nothing?” 

Tiffany thought for a moment, but had to admit, Sigmund had a point. She didn’t have any goals or destination in mind; even if it was a load of crap, Sigmund was at least walking towards something. Still, expecting anything more than nothing opened up the possibility of being disappointed…

“Would you like to come with us, Tiffany?” Sigmund asked, distracting Tiffany from her thoughts.

“Me? Are you sure you want to ask a total stranger to come along with you?” Tiffany asked, taking an unconscious step back. 

“Why not? Unless you’re headed somewhere…there’s strength in numbers, and I feel like the three of us would have a better chance than just me and Anya.” Sigmund said. He gave Tiffany a small, weak smile; this set off a little flicker of suspicion in her mind, but she couldn’t deny that the idea was more tempting than just scavenging out here until she ran out of resources and died. She let out a little sigh.

“I’ll believe those boats exist when I see them…but I don’t have any particular direction in mind, so I guess I can keep you two company until we find the coast.” She said casually. Anya seemed cheered up by this immensely, lifting her face to smile at Tiffany. 

“Really?” She asked hopefully. Tiffany was surprised how eager Anya seemed to have her with them; she wondered how long it had been since the little girl’s mother had died. She wasn’t so naive as to think Sigmund hadn’t even been considering her full backpack and loaded gun when inviting her along, but Anya didn’t seem to have the mindset to even notice those kinds of things. She just seemed excited by the prospect of having someone joining her and her father on their little journey. Tiffany just gave the girl a little nod.

“Really.” She said, not really knowing what else to say. Sigmund smiled.

“You won’t regret it, Tiffany. Ready to get moving again, Anya?” 

“Ready, Daddy!” The girl chirped, perking up. 

Sigmund set the little girl down on the ground, holding her hand tightly as they started walking. Tiffany walked along beside them, feeling a little out of place in the scene, but blinked in surprise as she felt something brush her hand. She looked down to see Anya holding up her free hand to Tiffany’s with a hopeful expression on her face. 

Tiffany hesitated for a moment, but slowly took Anya’s hand in hers. The little girl beamed up at her, starting to hum as the three walked. Tiffany could swear she saw Sigmund smile to himself out of the corner of her eye.

I won’t regret this, huh…? She thought to herself. She found herself hoping that Sigmund was right.

—

It was a long time before the three made camp for the night. Sigmund started up a fire with practiced ease, and joined Tiffany in fishing out some food for the night. Surprisingly, Sigmund had managed to find eggs in his scavenging, which combined well with the onions, peppers, and cheese Tiffany had been holding onto to make omelets for all three of them. Tiffany lowered the bandana over her mouth and started to eat quietly. She noticed Anya watching her after a while, and glanced a the little girl curiously as she swallowed a warm, steaming bite of omelet. 

“Something the matter, Anya?” She asked curiously. Anya pointed at the various wrappings around Tiffany’s head.

“Why don’t you let your face show?” She asked, cocking her head. Tiffany shifted uncomfortably.

“I feel more comfortable like this. Besides, it’s safer with all the ash and dust in the air…your dad covers most of his face, too.” 

“Daddy’s got burns. Did you get burned, too?” Anya asked worriedly, scooting a little closer to Tiffany. She shook her head quickly.

“No, nothing like that…I’m just being careful. I feel that covering everything up helps keep the bad things in the air out. It makes me less of a target, too.” Tiffany explained. People seemed less likely to pick a fight or try to intimidate her if they couldn’t see her face; that didn’t leave them a lot to focus on but some shiny goggles and a big gun. “I just find it more practical than walking around bare-headed. It’s kind of like your hoodie.” 

Anya frowned, tugging a little on her panda hood. “Mama gave this to me…” She murmured sadly. Tiffany flinched. She hadn’t meant to upset Anya by bringing up her mother again…

“She must have loved you very much.” Tiffany said, feeling awkward. After so long with nobody to talk to but herself, she wasn’t used to having actual conversations anymore, particularly not with an emotional little girl. Anya, for her part, just sniffed and nodded her head.

“She did…Mama always wanted to make sure I was happy.” She said sadly. “S-She carried me when I was tired, an’ sang to me when we were sleepy, an’ played with me or told me stories even when she was very tired…s-she always smiled before she had to go away…” Anya’s voice trembled a little, and Tiffany could see the unshed tears in the girl’s eyes before Anya put down her plate to wipe at her face with her sleeve. Sigmund came over and quietly gave his daughter a tight hug; turning around in her father’s arms, Anya clung to him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder. Sigmund rocked Anya gently, humming a quiet tune unfamiliar to Tiffany with his eye closed. 

Tiffany focused on her food, pretending she didn’t see that Sigmund was crying as he comforted his daughter. 

Hours later, with Sigmund and Anya fast asleep on the other side of the fire, Tiffany lay awake, looking up at the sky and thinking. 

Had she cried when this had all started? When she woke up and everyone nearby was dead? She was sure she had. She could remember how much everything had hurt, starting out, straining one ligament after another as she was forced to get stronger quickly by the unforgiving environment. The broken blisters, the loneliness, the sight of everything in ruins…she had to have cried. 

She just didn’t remember what it had felt like. 

As Tiffany lay there, she realized she didn’t remember what she’d felt when she accepted her parents and family were more than likely all dead; she didn’t even remember the exact moment that had become reality to her instead of a worst-case scenario. It had just sort of happened, as if one day she just knew it was unlikely anyone she knew and loved had survived the bombings. This knowledge combined with Anya’s tears earlier disturbed Tiffany in a way she found difficult to put her finger on. 

It was not a valid comparison, of course. How could she be expected to react to death in the family like a child would? She was a grown woman, she’d moved out and been living on her own when the bombs fell. Her mom and dad had been two states away when the world went to hell, while Anya had probably seen her mother die right in front of her. It would be stupid to expect things to be at all similar between the two of them, even though both of them had lost parents to this tragedy. So what was disturbing her so much?

When was the last time I laughed? The last time I cried, or screamed, or truly felt scared or angry? She wondered to herself. Nothing really seemed to come to mind. She’d been sad from time to time, and annoyed by the relentless grayness of the world, frustrated by all the dirt, and on rare occasions very lonely, but it was so…muted. Tiffany glanced over at the sleeping girl and her father and wondered what it said about her that Anya had displayed more emotion in the ten or so hours she’d known her than Tiffany could remember feeling in the last few months. 

Tired and troubled, Tiffany rolled over and closed her eyes. 

—

Anya seemed to be perfectly happy again after a night of rest, and in fact stuck close by Tiffany as they continued to walk. Tiffany gave the girl a little pat on the head, but resolved to keep quiet for a while so she didn’t say something wrong. She instead glanced at Sigmund.

“I’m curious; how do you know this way will take you to the coast?” She asked. Sigmund seemed quite certain they were going the right way, but Tiffany hadn’t known where she was going since she crawled out of the rubble.

“There’s next to no landmarks left anyone can recognize and navigate by, but that’s not quite the same thing as there being no landmarks left at all. We were lucky enough to find enough left of a few to get a pretty good idea of where we were, so I know if I keep our path more or less a straight line in this direction, we’ll hit the coast eventually. From there, it’s just up or down until we find the boats.” Sigmund explained, smiling weakly at Tiffany. She considered this for a moment, but decided she believed him; she didn’t detect any hint of a lie or false hope in his voice, and his explanation was plausible. The main problem was if there would be any boats for them to find at the shore, something she was still not convinced of. 

Tiffany’s thoughts were interrupted by Anya tugging on her sleeve gently.

“Miss Tiffany?” She asked.

“Yes, Anya?” Tiffany replied, looking down at the little girl. Anya studied Tiffany’s head. 

“Could you take off all that stuff on your head? Even just for a little while.” She asked innocently. Tiffany found herself wondering if all the coverings were disconcerting for the little girl. If her father had his face covered from the nose up because of burns, was Anya imagining some sort of terrible wounds under her bandanas? 

“Why?” Tiffany asked, after a moment of consideration. Anya frowned a little; that had clearly not been what she’d wanted to hear. 

“It’s just that you’re with us, now, and we don’t know what you look like.” She explained. “I’d like to see your face, so I’d know.” 

Tiffany had to admit Anya had a point. Her typical reasoning of keeping ash and dust out of her mouth and looking like less of a target didn’t really hold water here; Sigmund and Anya only rarely needed to cover their mouths, and she hardly needed to look tough for a five-year-old girl and a wounded man with one eye.

“I guess it’s OK…” Tiffany said, lowering the bandana over her mouth down to her neck and removing the one she’d tied over her hair, pushing her goggles back up to her forehead. Doing so revealed a head of short but shaggy blonde hair, utterly filthy in spite of being covered most of the time, deeply tanned skin, and a pair of dull brown eyes. Tiffany was hardly a beauty queen, even if she hadn’t been sleeping outdoors in the ashes and eating whatever she could scrounge for years; her nose had been broken, possibly more than once, she had an ugly little scar at the left corner of her jaw and a long, thin one running from her right temple to the bridge of her nose, dividing one of her eyebrows in two. She had a decently pretty, heart-shaped face, but lean times and the beatings of weather had not been any gentler with her skin than they had been with anything else. Her mouth was, for the most part, a tight little line from lack of use except for eating. Despite all this, Anya beamed up at her.

“I thought so! You are pretty!” She said happily. She took Tiffany’s hand as they walked.

“Now I can see when you’re smiling.” She said, sounding very satisfied with that knowledge. Tiffany looked down at the little girl in surprise, but remembered what she’d said last night; Anya’s mother had smiled for her all the time. Considering how weak and tired Sigmund’s very expressions seemed to be, Anya might have been hoping for Tiffany to step in for her mother. 

She’s a sweet girl, but she’s not a very good judge of personality. I don’t know what leads her to expect that from me. She thought to herself, but let her coverings remain as they were and did not let go of Anya’s hand. 

—

Anya fell asleep before Sigmund that night; Tiffany watched the man quietly wrap his daughter up with his own coat before sitting down by the fire. Without his coat, Tiffany could see clearly that Sigmund was not a strong or healthy man. She was lean, but strong, and knew it well, but looking Sigmund over, she thought of a brittle stick. His arms and legs were thinner and weaker than she’d realized, and she could see ribs pressing up against the bandages and torn, ratty shirt he was wearing. And yet this man had carried Anya the last two hours of their journey today, and kept up with Tiffany’s own pace; Tiffany had to admit, she admired his drive. 

“You’re a good man, Sigmund.” She said, breaking the silence. Sigmund looked up at her in surprise, but nodded.

“…Thank you, Tiffany.” 

“I haven’t seen many kids since the bombs fell, especially not ones as healthy and happy as your Anya…what you’ve done is amazing.” Tiffany sighed, poking the fire. “You and your wife must have been very strong to get this far and keep her safe.” 

“Mary wasn’t my wife.” Sigmund said quietly, making Tiffany jump a little. She paused, not sure what to say to that. Sigmund looked at Tiffany. 

“We were living together, but we weren’t married…her parents were very religious, and they gave me hell about not proposing faster. Sometimes I wonder if they were right to be mad at me about that…at least their way, they’d have seen their little girl in her white dress before the bombs fell.” Sigmund paused for a long, awkward moment before closing his eye and pressing on. 

“We were lucky, I guess…nobody else was alive for miles when the bombs fell, but me and Mary were both completely fine. I think we kept each other sane, really…I was sure I’d have completely lost it if I’d been the only one to make it out, and she felt the same. But we were still together, and still alive, so we had the drive to make it work. We salvaged what we could and started walking…and after we’d walked I don’t know, fifteen, twenty miles…? We saw a little house, mostly caved in. Shadows burned into the ground of a couple that had been outside when it hit, but Mary heard something. There was a baby in there, crying.” Sigmund shifted a little, opening his eye and looking up at the night sky.

“I think there was some sort of miracle inside her then, because she lifted what looked like half the goddamn house up so I could get the kid out of the wreckage…a healthy baby girl, maybe a year old at best, completely unharmed by the bombing or the house nearly falling in on her. To this day, I’m still not sure I believe it’s possible to explain without accepting God.” Sigmund smiled sadly.

“Mary fell in love with the little girl the moment she laid eyes on her. We didn’t even need to discuss it, she was coming with us. She didn’t give birth to her, but Anya couldn’t have asked for a better mother than Mary. I don’t think Anya cried once for the first three years she was with us.” 

There was another long pause, and this time it seemed Sigmund had no intention of going on without being prompted. Tiffany frowned, but finally forced herself to spit it out.

“…What happened to Mary?” 

“She got sick. I don’t know if it was radiation, something in the water…maybe something from before the bombs. All I know is that she wasted away for a year in front of us, never letting Anya see her sad or hurt. Mary always asked me to make sure Anya was fast asleep before she’d let herself cry with me.” Sigmund’s fists clenched quietly, and he hunched over, speaking to the floor now. Tiffany strained to make sure she could still hear. 

“I’ve never felt that helpless in my life. Mary was dying right in front of me, trying to convince Anya nothing was wrong, and there was nothing I could do. I just…watched her. I had to watch her get thinner and weaker until there was nothing left, and then explain to Anya…” Sigmund was shaking as he sat.

“…Explain to Anya…that she had to go away. That she wasn’t going to wake up. All I could do afterwards was just hold her…” Sigmund looked at Tiffany. 

“I don’t know if I’m a good man or not, but I’m too weak for this world. I was too weak to do anything for the woman I loved, and now I don’t have the power to help my own daughter.” He said bitterly. 

“What are you talking about? You’re taking her to Australia! You’re getting her away from all this death!” Tiffany protested. It didn’t matter if Australia was anything more than a hopeful pipe dream anymore; Sigmund had been desperately forcing himself to believe in it, and now Tiffany hoped that would help. 

“I’m not going to make it that far, Tiffany.” Sigmund said quietly; the note of absolute, certain despair in his voice silenced Tiffany. “The burns are the least of my problems. I’m dying.” Sigmund looked Tiffany in the eye. “I can feel my body giving up and shutting down all around me. When I cough lately, it’s mostly blood. Whatever killed Mary is inside me now, and I’m out of time.” Sigmund  was cut off by a sudden spasm of coughs, and Tiffany was horrified to notice little red flecks appear on the ground  as Sigmund covered his mouth; a thin red stream seeped through his fingers. After a moment, Sigmund had cleaned the blood away, and looking very tired, turned back to Tiffany.

“Tiffany…tomorrow I want you to take Anya and go on without me.” 

“Absolutely not!” Tiffany growled, only keeping herself from shouting out of consideration for Anya. “Anya’s your daughter! I can’t take her away from you!” 

“Anya is still recovering from watching the woman who raised her die. Since then, she’s needed me…but I’m afraid seeing me die is going to destroy her. I can’t do that to her, not after everything she’s been through. I want you to take her in search of the boats and let her last see me healthy enough to pick her up and kiss her goodbye one last time.” Sigmund said. He sank to his knees, lowering his head.

“I’m begging you, Tiffany…please, take care of Anya. I don’t have any time left.” He said weakly. 

“She’ll never see you again if you do this. You’ll die out here, completely alone! What if there’s a doctor at the boats and we get there tomorrow?!” Tiffany said.

“You haven’t been sure there are any boats. You’ve never let yourself get your hopes up since you joined us.” Sigmund said tiredly. “This way, no matter what happens, Anya will have hope I can catch up to you two until she’s old enough to understand.” 

Tiffany slapped him, even though she regretted it immediately; she hadn’t realized just how weak Sigmund was, and the blow knocked him down hard. She forced herself not to calm down; she’d found where her real anger had been sitting, and she meant to put it to work. 

“Don’t talk about giving someone else hope when all you’re doing is giving up. If hope is  so important to you, then take a risk. Fight until the very end, and make yourself believe you’ll find a way through so your little girl still has a father when she escapes this hellhole. You and Anya both deserve better than a lie covering an end this horrible.” 

Sigmund sat up, rubbing his jaw, and Tiffany softened a little.

“Sorry about that, by the way. I hadn’t meant to hit you that hard.”

“It’s not a problem.” Sigmund said, shaking his head. He sighed. “Maybe you’re right. We’ve gambled this much by coming this way, I suppose daring to hope a little more is only natural.” He smiled tiredly at Tiffany. “Does this mean you believe there really are boats now?” He chuckled weakly. 

“Believe nothing. There’d better be a fast track to Australia at the end of this road.” Tiffany said, pulling a blanket out of her bag and offering it to Sigmund. “You get your rest. Living’s your priority for the moment, leave the hard stuff to me until you’re feeling better.” 

“You’re a very remarkable young woman, Tiffany. I think Mary would have liked you.” Sigmund said quietly, accepting the blanket and closing his eye as he lay back.

Tiffany stayed awake long after the other two were asleep, looking at the dying flames. 

She was stuck with them, now; there wasn’t any way she’d be able to leave either of them behind no matter what after this. Against all odds, she actually found herself hoping they would hit the shore tomorrow and find their way onto a boat to Australia. Hoping Sigmund would be able to will himself to live long enough for civilization to save his life rather than dying in the dust here or collapsing dead on the beaches with his daughter. Hoping Anya would get to see what the world had looked like before it got bombed to hell, and grow up doing something more than scrounging for a living off piles of charred rock. 

Hoping she could have a real life somewhere across the waters, be among people again…could continue to really feel, the way she felt for the dying man under her blanket and his innocent daughter right beside him. 

Tiffany fell asleep without dousing the fire, letting it burn as one last candle of hope…and praying reality did not snuff it out.