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I spent a lot of time alone. I try to tell myself it’s because of safety or caution, but I was like this before too. I guess I just prefer my own company. People would find that shocking, I had a way of making friends with someone quickly. Just never well, I would make them as fast as I can burn them. The only constant in my life being change. Well, that was even prior before. After a while, I just ended up talking to people online. In private discords and social media dms, they see me as this façade. In a sense I suppose they were right, in the immortal words of Vonnegut “We are what we pretend to be.” I was pretending to be in charge and they indulged me. I had frequent fancies of holding court, funny how we say that. Holding court, evoking the specter of a monarch that has long since been killed. It took me three months after power went out to admit I missed them, and another five before I gave up on waiting for a savior.
The American Empire as it existed was the most powerful force on the planet, completely invulnerable to invasion by land or sea. The American people were a group of rugged individualists who cared more about protecting themselves than ever obeying a government. Which made it ironic that when the government told them to obey, they bent over and took it. The myth of the frontier cowboy fighting off the government was never real, they just wanted the government to kill the people who were considered lesser, inhuman. Climate change forced people like that into the country and into enclaves of those who believed in something. Unfortunately, they believed in peaceful solutions. A lot of people will tell you that the fracture started when they bombed New York, as someone with a front row seat I know better. It was over for them when the kicked dog learned to bite.
I was lucky, coming home from upstate when I saw the city burn. If you’ve never seen it count yourself lucky, a city burning is a beautiful and terrible thing. It never burns cleanly, all the debris of people’s lives going up in smoke just like their hopes and dreams. God the smoke, the sky was blotted out for miles in every direction for weeks. I can still smell it on cloudy days right before the rain comes in. I heard the rain makes your nose sharper, could be attributed to that. I just assume it’s my memories haunting me like a ghost I can’t kill though.
I didn’t have a gun, most people in the city didn’t. I realized I needed to correct that mistake immediately. I just drove for a while until I got to a state that wasn’t going to ask questions. I tied my hair up and wore loose fitting clothes before putting on a deep voice and heading into the gun store, the place was cleared out. People were panicking and when we panic, we fight or flee. My anxiety must have shown on my eyes, the shop owner took pity on me. He grabbed a shotgun from under the counter, the one he used to defend the shop.
“I doubt we’re getting another shipment, I’m gonna shutter and go home to my family. You should do the same.”
I suppress a bitter laugh and nod solemnly before leaving. He couldn’t have known, everyone I loved was either dead in the fire or impossible to contact now that the power was down. That was day one, I knew I didn’t have a lot of options on where to go looking as I did. New York had fallen, so I can either take my luck with going to Chicago or make the trek to the west coast. I looked at the shotgun in the passenger seat and considered just ending it there. I was always too much of a coward for suicide.
I just started driving west, lost in the sound of my music and doing my best to avoid the traffic on the main roads. I did my best not to stop for gas at anywhere for too long, I had a couple hundred that was evaporating fast. I was in the heartland, and they’d made it clear how they feel about people about me. I was nearly at Chicago when I remembered my friend telling me she lived a couple hundred miles outside the limits. Lost in the wind, I figured might as well see if she’s safe. It’s unlikely I’ll ever get a chance to check on my other friends.
When I arrived at her address I was greeted with an honest to god trench with barbed wire, it looked new and not too shabby. I couldn’t exactly call ahead, and I doubt she would take kindly to me barging in, so I stood there contemplating. Luck was on my side because she was doing a perimeter sweep when she saw me.
“Ember?”
“Hi Maya, you staying here or planning to leave?”
She nodded her head towards the encampment like I was stupid and then checked me out in a way that bordered between flirting and appraising. I blushed and refused to meet her gaze.
“I didn’t know where to go and I remembered you lived around here and I was hoping you’d come with, or I don’t kn-“
“Do you have a plan?”
“No, I just started running.”
“I saw the news, I thought you were-“
A dam I was building up inside burst, I was so convinced I was going to be alone forever and yet here she was. Despite being a cloudless day, I felt the rain streaming down my face in short sobs. Maya ran over to me rifle slinged across her back and held me until I could form words again, I realized I desperately wanted to never let go.
“It’s all gone, I… it’s just me.”
She invited me inside after bringing my car in and closing the gate, we sat in her living room on her comfy couch and drank cheap whiskey. Her hand was on my thigh, and then on my cheek, and we were making out. It wasn’t the first time but never with this much hunger. She was on top of me and biting, trying to consume me like if she just marked me enough, I would be okay. She stripped me, and I stripped her, it was messy and honest like nothing but sex could be. She didn’t have any lube so I sucked her cock until she was satisfied and I couldn’t wait any longer. It hurt for a moment, but I bit into her shoulder to suppress the pain.
It was my first time having sex without a condom. I woke up with a pounding in my head, a soreness in my ass, and a wet feeling in my panties. Maya was there with me, gently petting my hair.
“So, what do we do?”
“Do you want to fight or survive?”
I leaned my head against her chest and pondered the question.
“I think I want to-“