Every death in the Barghain Settlement was meaningful. Especially when it was a mid-thirties woman. Especially when it was your wife.

Barghain had grown in the nearly two decades since the Fall, as everyone was calling it. By slow accumulation, at first, as people from all over made their way into the triptych of towns of Barghain, Majorette, and Mount Away during the first years. Then, by natural accumulation, as kids were born and grew, as kids were wont to do.

As he stood vigil, and the four slowly lowered the coffin into the new grave, he remembered how that had been a contentious point. He had not really cared, but Maria had wanted kids.

Both had been high schoolers when the Fall hit. When the world went wrong. How they both laughed, in the later years, about the fears of global warming and pandemics and all the specters raised by media hungry for clicks. Nobody had ever guessed at the real apocalypse.

Maria had been near Barghain when the technology stopped, and one of her friends brought her in, realizing early that, with all modern things gone, half of the country would starve. As for Leif himself, he’d been hiking in the hard trails of the eastern Rockies, and failure of the GPS had been his only indication that something had gone wrong. That, and the weird lines twisting in the sky for an hour, which he’d taken – naively – as weird contrails before passing over him eastward with nary a hint of what they truly meant.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In the Old world born, in the New one settled…” intoned the pastor, making his prayer.

Leif disagreed with the stressing over the differences between the Old and Fallen worlds, but he let the drone of prayer wash over him. The ceremony, after all, was as much for the small community of Barghain as it was for him. To remember her, struck in her prime. Cancer, the single MD of the small town guessed, deprived of all the pre-Fall paraphernalia.

After the end of the condolences and wishes, he grabbed a shovel, along with two of his closest friends, and they started to shovel the fresh earth back over the coffin. Over Maria.

Over a life ended, and a new life, alone, just begun.

When the pack of two dozen refugees arrived, it was a major commotion. Leif had come back from tending the main orchard he owned. Most of his friends were calling him to start selling the land, as it was too much for a single man, even with farmhands. Without heirs, they argued, what was it good for?

They were mine and Maria’s, and that’s enough, was his single answer.

“So, what is it about?” he asked.

“The war in the east,” Cade Ortiz, a farmer from the south side, answered.

“War?”

“The goons in New Rawlins claim that they’re the real deal, the old United States. And some criminals hid in a town that said ‘no, not your business’.”

“And they went to war for that… wait, was that the kerfuffle I heard about last year?”

“Sounds like. They sent troops, friends came back, and before long it was dozens of towns on both sides. Those,” he said, pointing to the refugees, “had enough.”

Leif shook his head and watched. Men and women, a few kids – no babies apparently – and they did look tired. Part of him, remembering decades ago, tried to guess if Barghain could afford them, but that was then, and it was now. With fewer and fewer Changed attacks every year, the cold equations of survival had been buried. And besides, it was the mayor’s problem, not his. He’d been lucky to get accepted after months in the wilderness, just days after one of the first waves. It wasn’t his place to judge others’ worth.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The apparent leader of the band was talking animatedly with two of the town guards, but there was no real urgency or anything. The others were looking at the town, probably trying to gauge where they’d ended. One looked around and then his gaze suddenly stopped.

Looking at Leif.

He had no idea why the man had frowned or looked away before his gaze went back to look in his direction. But he had the burning sensation the man had a sudden interest in him, and he had no idea why. He wasn’t familiar, and he didn’t think they’d known each other before the Fall or something.

Then, the expedition leader barked a few words, and the man turned to help organize the refugee band, and Leif was left to wonder what that was.

He was looking at his wife’s grave when the unknown voice from behind him came.

“You’re Leif, Leif Vian?”

“I am,” he answered.

He turned slightly, spotting the man that had come to his side. He recognized him as one of the newcomers to Barghain. In particular… the man who’d seemed interested in him for some unknowable reason.

But that was not the place to confront the anomaly, so he turned back to watch the gravestone.

“Your wife?”

“Yes. Dead for five years, as you can see.”

Others might have offered condolences or something, but the stranger remained silent. And why not? The sting of Maria’s passing was dulled by the years, and the time for condolences and words was gone.

“Do I know you?” he finally asked.

“No. Until we arrived… I don’t think I met you. I sure would remember.”

Leif didn’t think he was particularly memorable, but that didn’t stop him from asking why.

“Because you don’t exist.”

Leif’s gaze snapped to the man.

“In nearly a decade… you’re the first.”

“What do you mean, I don’t exist?”

“It’s complicated.”

“So… you get that sense of age.”

“It’s more complicated than that. Unless you were very young, or even born after the Fall… it’s a close thing. But otherwise, when I look at someone, I have some kind of… I don’t know, a feeling of how long you’ve lived, how good you are at living, maybe.”

The two men were sharing a beer at the Barghain’s main inn. Adam Carolla, the man from the east, had insisted he’d pay.

“I’ve asked about you. You’re… a kind of normal guy. A widower, maybe, but that’s not something special.”

“Yet your sense – if that’s what it is – says I’m special.”

“It’s more like you’re not. You don’t even exist, according to that special sense. People do. Kids do. But you don’t.”

“And how much do you trust that…”

“It’s one of those magical things you hear about.”

“If technology doesn’t work anymore, magic does, you mean,” Leif snorted.

“Pre-Fall, that’s what people wrote books around. And it turns out they’re right,” Adam replied.

Seeing Leif’s interrogative glance, he elaborated.

“I heal fast. You can hit me, and I barely notice. And… well, I have this sense for almost as long as the rest.”

A memory, decades old, bubbled.

“You could call it spider-sense?” Leif joked.

“It’s not about danger, so I guess not,” Adam replied, acknowledging the allusion.

“Then what? How accurate is it?”

“Very. At least when I have multiple people to compare. And I’m good enough after years to guess where anyone fits. But you don’t. There’s a void when I look at you. You… you don’t exist, as far as this sense of mine is concerned.”

“And everyone else does.”

“Yes. Every person. Even horses. Even the Changed beasts do. I’ve met a handful of Minotaurs, and I can tell how old they are, even if they’re not really of our species. But you…”

Adam spotted the change in Leif’s demeanor. But before he could ask, the man simply pushed his tankard and stood up.

“It’s late. And I should be home. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Adam asked but the invisible man didn’t answer and left the inn without another word.

He found him at the graveyard, as he had the first time. Leif had avoided him for days after that aborted discussion in the inn, and Adam had no idea what had prompted that.

“You’re persistent,” Leif said.

“And you’ve avoided me somehow. But I guessed you’d come here sooner or later.”

“I wanted to apologize to her.”

“For what?”

“For… not giving her the kids she wanted.”

Adam frowned, before replying, “that happens. No one’s fault.”

Leif sighed.

“Changed can’t have kids with others.”

“What? You think you’re a Changed?”

But Leif didn’t answer and simply looked at the grave.