Myra couldn’t see. She couldn’t think. Her breath came in great heaving sobs as she stumbled through the dust storm. She spat purple mucus and the wind carried it away into the brown, dusty abyss.

Her foot sank into something. It crunched.

Looking down, she saw a small ribcage and a few scattered bones that could have been legs.

“Pehinka?” she whimpered. She raised her foot and continued forward, trembling despite the warm wind.

Not as warm as Before.

Nothing was as warm as Before.

Miraculously, her sweeping arms found the remains of her home. She recognised the sheet of metal that Papa thumped his work boots against before he was allowed inside. It had withstood the fire, but the boots were gone.

She went inside, although ‘inside’ was not the correct word. There was no roof. Most of the interior walls were now charcoal. The external walls had better luck, but large sections had still crumbled. A neighbour’s barbeque sat on its side in the hall.

Ravaged.

A layer of dust covered everything her family had ever owned. The swirling wind didn’t seem to disturb it, like it was caked on for good.

“<>”

The little girl stifled a shriek. Tears sprang to her eyes and she clamped her hands over her mouth. She tasted sand.

“<>”

She paled, and her knees shook. She escaped to the living room, almost walking to the left before realising what she might find if she did so. Instead, she went to the right and hopped over the back of the couch, flopping onto the burnt-out leather and melted springs.

If she’d gone the other way, she might’ve seen them. It wouldn’t be real unless she saw their bodies.

Like Pehinka.

“<>”

She buried her face in the scraps of the coarse material, hiding from the voice that seemed to follow her everywhere she went. Both hands blocked her ears.

She cried.

A layer of dust settled on her huddled form. Very soon, she would blend in with the couch.

She cried, and cried, and cried.

**************

Pilot awoke with a lattice of dewdrops spread across his shirt. His body gave a small, involuntary shiver and the lattice collapsed, sending a wakeup call of near-frozen water onto his chest.

He yelped and bolted upright, wincing at the ache in his injured foot. Water trailed off his body and dripped either to the ground or into the open waist of his pants.

In the morning light, he could finally see his surroundings. There was an abundance of dry firewood under the trees to his left, practically begging to be burned by a poor weary traveller. A few meters further there was a natural refuge under an archway of leafy branches — dense enough to ward off the dew — whilst enough fallen ones laid around that he could’ve assembled a shoddy mattress and kept his body off the bitterly cold ground.

He could’ve had a decent night’s sleep, compared to whatever that was.

Pilot had never seen the girl before in his life. He felt sorry for her, and extremely glad it was just a dream. Feeling her anguish as she accidentally crushed that puppy’s bones was heart-wrenching. And the feeling of fear as she passed the place where her parents had burned gave him another round of shivers.

But her spotlight-blue eyes burned brighter than the rest of the dream. Before the dust storm came through and distracted her, Pilot thought she might just stare and stare and stare until she bore a hole right through him.

His stomach grumbled. That pesky vole from the night before hadn’t bent to his will in the slightest, despite the voice’s screen telling him it would.

Unless it was too big? But the only rodent smaller than that would be…nothing much at all.

With numb fingers, he brushed the last droplets of water off his chest. They pattered onto the pine needles and soaked through into the ground.

“Excuse me, um, lady? Last night you said that I used my Power wrong. Can you elaborate?”

When the voice responded, he noticed an orange glow escaping his scar and showing through his shirt.

“<>”

“I prefer this. What should I call you?”

“<>”

To him, that sounded ridiculous and confusing. He sighed and opened his mouth to complain.

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“<>”

“Thanks, System.”

He looked down at the grey ash of his ‘campfire’ and grimaced. It was lucky he woke up at all — he’d certainly done nothing to increase his odds.

The forest remained as eery and solitary as the previous day. It guided him and his aching foot through an ocean of undergrowth and pine cushioning until he thought he might just be treading in circles. He walked for hours. A brazen thought urged him to pull out his matchbook and set fire to a huge pile of pine needles and dry wood.

He shook his head, and the thought vanished.

For now.

His stomach had accepted its emptiness, reigning in the rumbles in exchange for a direct attack on his psyche. Everything was beginning to look edible — the pine needles would be sweet to suck on, and the dotted mushrooms gathered at the base of some trees were surely fine for human consumption.

He abstained. The Gem beat as powerfully as ever. It pulsated in his chest and threw out a dim slash of orange light with each heartbeat.

It was comforting.

After two more hours of haggard travel, Pilot was starting to doubt that he would ever make it out. When a squirrel bounced along a low-hanging branch in front of him, he barely had time to react.

He snapped into focus, trying to latch onto the rodent with his mind. Something reached out from within him. Something desperate and carnal and morose.

The squirrel froze mid-step, losing its balance and dropping to the forest floor without even a squeak of confusion.

In his haste, he almost lost the control he had stumbled upon. The extra limb he now seemed to possess shrank, the rodent’s willpower fighting against his own. Its tail twitched. It was a miniscule movement in the physical realm, but a defiant stomp against his mind and Power.

“Bastard,” he murmured. He held his mental grip while a small part of his brain commanded his body to walk forward, inching toward the paralysed squirrel. Each step engaged his other senses, prying away his tentative grip.

At last, he bent down and grabbed the squirrel. He twisted its neck and pulled.

Relief.

The connection instantly broke, mercifully releasing him from the effort of maintaining it. He went to his knees and breathed deeply, calming his racing heart.

I did it, System. I controlled something. Fuck, I’m hungry.

System stayed silent.

His mouth already salivated, but he knew not to eat the thing raw. His stomach was very confident that it was lunchtime, so he granted himself a rest break. He’d need a fire to cook the thing, and something sharp to pierce the skin. Only then could he get to the meat.

With vision on his side, finding firewood was simple. The rays of light filtering through the canopy practically guided him to it like a spotlight on a stage performer. If only they could show him the exit to this maze, that would be even better.

After preparing a fire and skinning the squirrel, albeit clumsily, Pilot had the first meal of his new life. He ate the charred outside and stared suspiciously at the undercooked meat before tearing into it anyway.

This was his reward. Discovering his Power was cause for celebration.

While he chewed (and chewed and chewed and chewed, God this thing is like an old boot!), he concentrated on bringing back the Interface that the System had shown him before. To his disappointment, his capabilities hadn’t expanded, but one section of the thin grey bar was now light blue.

Some kind of progress. System?

“<>”

“Thanks.”

Feeling invigorated despite the lacklustre meal, he kicked some dirt over the dregs of the coals and set off. The forest felt more alive, more accessible, like one giant organism rather than just the sum of a million moving parts. He felt in tune with his surroundings, confident he would soon leave their clutches and escape into something more open.

Something more occupied.

A dreadful thought entered his mind, one he had managed to banish thus far, but never destroy. What if there was no one else? What if he was wandering this forest, hellbent on finding civilisation and some kind of human contact, but there was none to find? Once upon a time, that plane had been completely full of passengers, far surpassing the usual limit of four hundred and forty travellers. If he were the only one to survive…

He had to assume the asteroid didn’t erase the rest of humanity. He had to.

Suddenly, he hoped that his dream was real. If the girl was alive, then there was hope. If she was real, he might bust out of this forest, follow a well-loved dirt track for a couple kilometres, then stumble into a warm home where a great big bowl of stew awaited him.

He might.

**************

When the tears stopped coming, Myra lay in silence. She figured if she squeezed her eyes shut for long enough, the voice might go away. The world might go away.

Stray particles of dust floated into her cocoon. When she took a particularly deep breath, some flew up her nose.

She sneezed.

The bundle of dust that was Myra shifted, her brown blanket dissipating further with each sneeze. It fell away like a polar bear shaking off snow.

When she was finished, she sat up. The wind had settled. She could see the far wall of the living room, and blue sky above.

There were footsteps outside.

She ducked down, wishing for her dusty camouflage to come back. Unless she moved, she couldn’t hide herself from the street. She considered clamping her eyes shut and cowering like she had been doing, but some instinct forced her to take action. Myra was a child no more. She was a survivor.

The worn leather scrunched as her weight shifted. It was a miracle that the legs were still supporting the couch — up close, she could see the severely melted plastic and the charred cork within. The footsteps were coming closer. A haggard rasp accompanied them.

The nearest shelter was behind the arm of the couch. They wouldn’t see her from outside, but if the owner of the footsteps came into the house, she could crawl back to where she was now like a demented game of hide and seek. She wriggled across the floor, taking care not to place too much weight on any particular floorboard. They always creaked when Papa walked on them.

Whoever was outside stopped to inspect something. She heard them push on her swing set, then there was a clatter as if it fell apart at their touch.

Will I fall apart as well? If they touch me, will I die?

Safe behind the arm of the couch, she raised her eyes.

Only to look straight into the shocked, melted face of her mother.

Myra screamed. The sound tore from her throat like every nightmare she’d ever had was coming to life around her. She screamed as if producing the ear-splitting shriek would somehow take away the slack-jawed, eyeless monster in front of her.

The swing set destroyer ran along the dirt and hopped up the front step into the house. Myra felt their presence enter the room.

They didn’t hit their boots on the metal. It’s not Papa. They’re going to break me like they broke the swing set.

Panic consumed her until she was sure something in her would collapse. Her screams quietened as she ran out of oxygen. Once again, she couldn’t breathe.

The footsteps came forward. At last, she saw their owner. He was gaunt, covered in blood and holding a blade in one hand. Rags of what used to be a singlet shirt hung off his malnourished body, and he was naked below the waist.

“Shaddap with the whinin’, ya little rat. I’ll take care of ya, I’ll take goooood care of ya, won’t I?”

He snatched her up to his chest and held the knife before her eyes, then dragged it across her cheek to her left ear. She felt the sting of blood running down her face.

“Where should Ol’ Tarry take ya? What will I do with ya?”

Myra’s breath came back in whistling wheezes, quickening. A warmth grew in her stomach like fire burning within, expanding. Her head fell back and she saw stars and she saw Pehinka and she saw blood and she saw—

Myra exploded into a ball of light.