She had managed to speak, and then she had made it all the way upstairs and into her room, where she had stayed all night, without freaking out and running away.

She was proud of herself for all of those things. Or at least that was what she kept telling her Rat brain.

She was even still there come morning, and that was real progress.

Her Rat brain, on the other hand, was not happy. She had lain awake late into the night, watching the moon pass by, wondering if it had been there on previous nights, or if she just hadn't noticed it.

It was so hard to remember sometimes.

She had tried to reason with herself. It had been a good social interaction, normal almost. She had contributed to the swarm, to the family dynamic, and had not been rejected or punished for it. This was a good thing. She was in a good place, it was safe here. The people liked her, they gave her food, they didn't attack her when she spoke.

But still, it screamed at her, this was weakening her, this would make her vulnerable, and this would make it harder for her to leave when everything inevitably went wrong. She should pack her bag and go before they realised their mistake.

The air in here was too warm, she would be better outside, under the trees, she hadn't hidden her new den well enough, she should-

Why did her brain have to be like this all the time? It was exhausting.

She was so, so tired of it.

-

By the time she awoke the next morning, the other three were gone, leaving the house empty. There was some food on the stove and a note for her on the table, weighed down with a square of something that looked almost like chocolate, and she nibbled on it as she sat, enjoying the novelty of having the place to herself.

Theoretically, they went out every day, so she always had the chance to have the house to herself, but she was normally gone herself by now, coming back only after they returned.

She didn't spend much time indoors if she could help it.

She looked around. The kitchen was bright and cosy, the washing folded in one corner, the stove as off as it ever got and all the doors and windows thrown open. Even the back door was open, and the through-draught ruffled her hair.

She was clean, with new clothes on, and happier than she had been in a long time. She hadn't realised how alone she'd been. How long since she'd spoken to... To anyone. Even in the Before.

The buildings had collapsed yesterday, and things were changing in the City, but the woods seemed stable, if maze-like at times. She should find herself a den there, for if the city became uninhabitable. But she wanted to explore the city more, before it fell apart.

She had found a shop selling bikes the other day, except there were no tires and the wheels were all in pieces. She had found another which at first glance looked like a cafe, the walls plastered with pictures of food, but there had been no kitchen, no serving counter, only tables. It was very strange, and she had eaten her lunch sitting in one of the booths, admiring the pictures.

She finished her breakfast and chocolate, swinging her legs from the chair.

She briefly considered rummaging through the house, exploring the cellar, which was still mostly filled with junk, or seeing what the others kept in their bedrooms, but... They respected her privacy, so she would respect theirs, no matter what her inner rat said.

She also didn't want to be indoors, the breeze was nice, but the walls around her were stifling, the humidity building as the morning heated up.

She would check out the City more tomorrow, she decided. Today she would see if she could reach the other edge of the forest.

-

The three of them walked through the city, occasionally ducking into new buildings or pointing out the more interesting flowers and structures. It was almost a jungle, by this point, and they were walking down the centre of the road, avoiding the puddles and ponds which now littered it.

"Kid has the right idea of it," Shim stated, watching his feet, "shoes are a mistake."

Rust snorted, and Quilt looked down at her shoes.

"No," he continued, "I'm serious, you guys should ditch 'em, it's so much easier."

"I'd rather not stand on a bit of glass or sharp rocks," Quilt yawned at him, kicking her own shoed feet along the ground, and Rust nodded in quiet agreement.

"Nah, have you guys seen any broken glass since we got here? Even where the buildin's came down yesterday there ain't nothin, it's all just concrete. Nothing else. I went and had a look last evenin'."

He briefly described the uniform mound of rubble, and Rust frowned, "that's weird. I wonder what we would have seen if we were there as it happened. Would it have been a normal collapse, instead of this strangely sanitised thing?"

Shim shrugged, wiggling his toes, and they kept walking.

Over the past few weeks, they had covered the whole of this area in paint. The more they took from the store, the more they seemed to find the next time, and they had liberally splashed the buildings in bright primary colours. Mixed with the plants, it gave the whole area a sort of bohemian feel.

They had repainted the outside of the store, and tried to make use of the twisted street signs, pointing towards it so that other lost souls might find their way to safety.

"I don't think we've ever been to the end of the road, all the way to the other side," Rust said, "I wonder what's out there."

"Probably more forest," grumbled Quilt, "more bloody trees and plants."

The other two ignored her, Shim splashing through puddles and staring around. It reminded him sometimes of those late-night walks home through the forest, but that had been a tamed thing, surrounded by buildings and houses. Permitted to exist, cultivated and maintained as much as any public building.

Sometimes- he never told his ma- but sometimes he would walk home across the disused railway bridge, sliding down the embankment at the end. It was where the addicts and homeless hung out, supposedly, but although he had seen the signs he had never seen the people. That was the closest he could get to a true wilderness, a forgotten place in the heart of the city. A place of loose stones and twisted metal, a place existing on its own terms.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

His ma would have killed him if she'd found out, but she never had.

He blinked, eyes watering in the morning sun.

He had so few memories. Such small nothings to build his whole personality off, but wasn't that just part of being a kid, when it came down to it?

He wondered how the Wildcat was doing, inside her head. She had spoken twice yesterday, her words thick and hesitant, but she knew how to speak. What else did she remember, was she having to rebuild herself from nothing, like he was?

He couldn't be that much older than her, five or six years at the most.

Maybe she had rebuilt herself, out in the City. She had gone from being a normal kid with a ma and a dad and a life, a nice home somewhere, to being here, with no memories and nobody to help bring her back. She had become wild.

Somewhere behind him, somebody shouted his name, one of his school friends maybe? They met him outside sometimes, when he was working the earlier shifts. They probably wanted to pick up dinner and hang in the park for a bit, but he had to be home for-

Curious who it was, Shim turned, and then staggered as the past few weeks came crashing down on him.

He stared back down the empty road, and wondered what he had heard.

-

"It was probably one of the monkeys," Rust said, as they retraced their steps, "but it doesn't hurt to look. You're sure you heard a voice?"

"I'm sure," he said, "I think. I was so sure, but I was also a bit in my head, I thought…"

He trailed off, and Quilt patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, if there's somebody out there, we'll find 'em. And if there isn't, well we'll find whatever parrot or monkey's eaten their voice!"

He laughed a brittle laugh, and they walked on in relative silence.

There was no such thing as silence in the city now, the constant shriek of the birds and animals around them, the groan of the trees and the rustle of the bushes. The frogs in the ponds and the way the wind twisted around the buildings, they all had their own unique sounds.

If somebody had shouted him, it would be a wonder that he'd heard it at all.

They came to an intersection, standing at the crossroads and looking down the four directions.

"Hmm." Rust made a sound in her throat, "They could have gone either way, but if they were trying to attract our attention, why run."

"I don't know if we've been down any of these roads," said Quilt, "but is it possible it's just the city fuckin' with us? You said you heard music, when you found me, and I was also cookin' on a stove that didn work, so you know. Place is weird sometimes."

Shim wiped his brow, the day was heating up around them. "It was probably just in my head. I thought it was somebody I knew, I thought I was comin' outta work, or on my way home. For a moment, I was back there, then…"

Quilt bit her lip, then took a deep breath but didn't say anything in response, and he glanced over at her.

"We'll find people, maybe not today, but some time, we gotta. We can't be the only people here."

"I dunno," she countered. "If we are people who've fallen out of heaven, and we ain't managing to get hold of the person in charge, what if nobody else falls out."

"You're still on that? How do you explain the city changin' around us, then?"

She shrugged, "just our influence. Us being here is making reality go 'oh shit, these people need heaven junk, I better give them heaven junk to make 'em happy'."

Rust glanced over, "doesn't seem to be making you happy, though, and what about the kid, she almost died."

"She seems fine now though, she didn' die, in the end," Quilt said, and then sighed, "and she has us to look after her. She looks happy. You and Shim are happy, right? It's just me that's bein' a grouch, don't mind me."

She stuck her hands in her pockets and started walking purposefully down one of the side roads, and the other two jogged to catch up. "I wasn' made for this kinda life. I want people, other people- not that you two aren't great- but I want pubs, bars, company, sex, all that good stuff."

Shim coughed and looked away, and Rust rolled her eyes at him. "You're as bad as she is, don't pretend to be coy now."

"Sorry but you're not my type," Quilt nudged into him, and he staggered away, one foot landing in a pothole, scattering frogs in all directions.

"See," he said, changing the subject and untangling the duckweed from his toes, "this is why not having shoes is great."

"Are you gonna become one of those health nuts?" Quilt asked, and then she frowned at Rust, "are you vegetarian?"

"What?" Rust blinked at the non-sequitur, unsure how the conversation got here. "No? I used to raise meat chickens, I lived on a farm, why?"

Quilt shrugged, "Just keep meaning to ask, figured if we're influencing this place, it might be why we don't find much meat."

"It's 'cause finding meat would be weird," Said Shim, "vegetables and grains and stuff, sure, I can see that, but meat is like…"

He gestured at the ecosystem surrounding them, "somethin's gotta die for meat, nothing's gotta die for vegetables."

"A carrot's gotta die," said Quilt, and he narrowed his eyes at her.

"If you're sayin' that carrots have souls- and we've already determined that chickens have souls- then I am gonna bloody starve to death, and it's gonna be entirely your fault."

"Look, I'm just saying, if-"

Rust tuned them both out, looking around instead, hands in her pockets and her trousers rolled up. Maybe she should ditch the shoes, she was only wearing sandals anyway, her boots entirely unsuited for the tropical weather.

She had spent much of her childhood barefoot, running around in the forest. Her mother had believed that children should feel the earth beneath their feet, and her father had been too cheap to buy shoes she was only going to grow out of in a few months.

Hippies before their time, she thought, health nuts, as she slipped the sandals into her bag and hiked up her trousers. She would have to get Shim to shorten them, once he had the machine going. There simply hadn't been the time to do it so far, and the light in the evenings was so poor.

-

She caught up to them a minute later, smiling at their bickering. Children, the both of them.

"-So we've agreed that carrots don't have souls-" Shim continued, -"and that cabbages are the devils lettuce, but we haven't agreed on-"

She looked around. He was right, or she, Rust couldn't remember which of the two had said it, but they hadn't been down this street yet. There was none of the telltale marks of paint that they tended to leave behind, and the greenery was pristine and untouched.

They often had to fight their way into buildings, Rust was carrying the axe and secateurs in her pack, but there were no signs of that here.

She dipped her feet into a puddle as she passed, letting the water wash over her ankles, and then stuck her head through an overgrown doorway.

It wasn't a hollow, but it looked like… Offices? Council chambers? She didn't have much experience with city buildings. Shrugging, she pulled back and headed towards the next one, stepping over twisting branches and ducking around the scrub that was starting to take root in the cracks of the pavement.

Overhead two birds briefly squabbled, before breaking up and going their separate ways, and she wondered what would be here in a month, in a decade. She had spent so long hurtling towards death, that to be young again, to not have that inevitability hanging over her, was quite something. Although, they had been lucky so far with sickness and injuries. The girl had been the closest they'd come to danger.

Maybe that was a part of the place, and they would just exist here now, forever, as they had done after the End.

It was a strange thought, and not one she particularly liked, but let future Rust sort that out. It wasn't a now issue.

She tried the doors on the next building, only to find them bound shut with vines, and decided to pass on that one.

The next one though, the doors there stood open, inviting her to enter.

That was new, as she hadn't seen any open doors before, they were always the same, two doors of shiny steel and glass, closed shut and heavy to open.

She waved to the others and then stepped inside, sighing at the immediate temperature difference. It was always cooler inside the buildings, the concrete a good heat-sink, and it was a relief to be out of the sun.

There was a distinct smell of dust in the air and she could feel grit sticking to her feet as she walked, making them feel strange, both wet and dry at the same time.

The inside consisted of a long, low corridor, with doors off to either side, and she could see a glimmer of light which was the other side of the building, far off in the distance.

She tried one of the doors and found it locked, but the next was open.

It looked like a storage room, all dust and gloom, and she shut the door again, carrying on.

Halfway down the corridor, she found a set of stairs leading up, and grumbling about the lack of accessibility, she ascended to the first floor.

-

The first floor was unlike anything they had found before, and entirely unlike the ground floor. Instead, it was a high-ceilinged, wide-open space, with big windows on all sides.

She could see a glass dome, far, far above, the mid-morning light filtering in as beams, and around the edges of the space she could see floors, stretching up, and up, and up.

The shelving was all dark brown wood, and there were small, superfluous ladders scattered about, seemingly more for atmosphere than any real function. Wrought iron railings and small chairs and tables completed the look, and what a look it was.

Rust stared up for a minute, and then nodding to herself, descended to fetch the others.

At long last, they had found their library.