A man with short brown hair, fair skin (save for a few cuts), and stubble came across kylos in front of his house, with his cat, crying. He immediately felt terrible, he was barely put together himself, he just suffered great loss himself, yet he couldn't bring himself to turn away from a kid who clearly just lost his family and had no one left, so he approached the kid tentatively. Kylos saw him approaching, he was kinda worried but he had nothing to lose, he lost everything, his mom told him to not ever trust a stranger, but she'd been wrong about aliens, she was probably wrong about this too. He reached his hand out to kylos and asked him his name.

"Kylos. My name is kylos."

he said, "what's your name?"

"Morte is my name."

"I saw that you were looking really down, like you cried recently, what's wrong?"

he murmured, trying not to make much noise in case they were listening. "What's it matter to you?"

Kylos said, with the expression as if he drank spoiled milk, he was mad, confused, terrified, and it created one terrible pill to swallow. "It matters a lot to me, i just lost someone important to me too, and I'm assuming you have as well"

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he said it gently, trying not to sound too pushy, as he might make him uncomfortable. "..." Kylos didn't respond. "Morte what's happening?"

Kylos asked that question after a moment of silence. Morte was taken aback, racking his brain for trying to explain the situation to an 8 year old without scaring him, he decided he couldn't, so he said whatever he could, without sugar coating it: "aliens have invaded, our army is losing, they are terrifying, they don't care for age or gender, all they want is carnage, and lastly the earth is deteriorating and we need to make it to Pasadena."

Morte said it as if he was talking to an adult, he couldn't sugar coat it if he wanted this little boy to survive. "..." Kylos looked wide-eyed, terrified. "...how do we get there?"

Kylos was taking the situation a lot better than most kids his age, though Mort was pretty sure he was just numb after watching his mom's and sisters life slip away and only being able to save his cat. A terrible pill to swallow, especially for an 8 year old. "We walk" Mort stated plainly. "How do we walk from the southern coast of Alaska all the way to Pasadena, California?!"

To tell the truth, Morte hadn't thought about that, he himself had no idea, he just knew he had to find a way. He knew it might take months or even years, but they'd get there eventually.