The end of the world was nothing like he'd read it would be like in the stories.

In the stories there was always a great tumult of some sort, some last hurrah as humanity willingly obliterated itself in an act of cosmic bravado and stupidity that would surely make more advanced beings tut and shake their head in pity, if any such beings existed that was. Maybe there was a great war that resulted in nuclear devastation, or perhaps a truly devastating epidemic would ravage the world and lead survivors desperately searching to find a cure before humanity was truly gone from the world. Maybe it would be something completely out of the left field. Maybe it wouldn't be humanities fault after all, and instead some alien race or demonic horde would turn out to be real and decide that they wanted earth for their own. Really, in the stories the possibilities were endless.

Virgil had always loved reading, especially fantasy stories and post-apocalyptic tales. Perhaps it was for that reason that he'd found the fact that none of that had happened strange. He'd never read a story where the world just... vanished. No, that wasn't quite right; the world itself was here, exactly as mankind had left it, but mankind itself was just gone. None of them knew why, none of them knew how, and none of them really knew if they even wanted the answers to those questions. All they knew was that the six of them had gone to sleep on the twelfth of August, and when they'd woken up the next day it was to a world completely turned on its head.

He moved deftly through streets of cracked asphalt and moss-choked office blocks, making sure he kept up with Cygnus. The eldest of their small group by a very small margin, Cygnus had nonetheless been the one to take up the unofficial position of leader. Cygnus was everything Virgil had ever hoped to find in a partner, and the last year of their life spent together had been blissful. Even the fact that the most recent six months of that time had been spent covered in fog and mist, without a single other human in sight outside of their small group of friends, had failed to put a dampener on Virgil's happiness.

Cygnus might have occasionally still struggled to show it, but Virgil had caught him with a genuinely heart-warming smile enough times to know that he felt the same.

No matter how happy they may have been together no amount of love could fill an empty stomach, so supply runs around the now completely empty town were commonplace.

It was strange, to know that one day he'd gone to bed in this town and it had all been normal, then he'd woken up eight hours later to find that everyone was just... gone. There was a permanent blanket of fog that had settled across the sky now, and in the span of that eight hours he'd been asleep on August twelfth going into the thirteenth somehow every single building in the city had found itself completely overgrown with moss and vines.

In his opinion it was a nice improvement to the concrete brutalism that had dominated the city before now, and had he been as poetically-minded as his namesake he'd probably have made some witty remark about nature reclaiming mankind's temporary projects and using them for its own purposes, but he knew he wasn't poetically-minded enough to attempt something like that.

Of course it wasn't just fog and moss that the end of the world had brought. There were also... things. Creatures. Virgil wasn't exactly sure what they were, and for that matter he knew that it was a favourite debate topic amongst their small family of friends in their apartment. Sterling, in a rare display of outlandishness from one of the most logically-minded members of their group, was convinced that this scenario was actually the rapture and that mankind had misinterpreted what the rapture would actually entail.

Building from that, he thought that the creatures were all angels or demons.

If they were angels, then they were unlike anything that any religious artwork had ever depicted them as being. Just owing to their size alone, some of them were completely unmissable.

Above ivy-choked apartments and empty suburban streets huge creatures roamed, their flesh the pale white of moonlight, seemingly unaware of the little group roaming the streets below. Not that any of them were surprised by this; the creatures were so large and inhuman that even if they had seen their group it was unlikely they'd recognise them as prey.

Assuming they were predators, of course. And that they even needed to eat, for that matter. None of them had ever so much as seen the creatures bow their necks to reach the floor, nor did they react to any apparent form of damage. Wrinkled moonlight-white flesh just sort of... Virgil wasn't really sure how to describe it, for the creatures really did defy conventional description. They were enormous, lacked any real visible facial features save wrinkles the size of trenches, and several of them appeared to have tentacle-like appendages that sort of waved around limply in the air every now and again.

None of them knew what the giants were waiting for, what they were looking or feeling for, nor did they know why the huge creatures were so sedentary most of the time, but none of the people in their group were overly keen on trying to shake them out of that sedentary nature. Better to keep them relatively still so that the six of them wouldn't be accidentally stepped on.

They also happened to have the texture of mushrooms, weirdly. Tasted too gamey for his liking though. Don't ask him how he knew that.

Still, as huge as the leviathans were, they weren't really the dangerous ones. The dangerous ones ranged from the size of cats to elephants, and for some reason the sheer amount of malice they exhumed felt palpable. Every one of their little group somehow knew that if one of those creatures caught them it was basically game over. Unlike the massive creatures, these 'smaller' ones just felt plain wrong. It was like someone had taken a series of images and creatures from the mind of a sick person in the midst of a fever, then twisted them until they were barely recognisable.

Some very vaguely humanoid, some were much more animal-like, and others still reminded him of nothing he'd ever quite seen in his entire life. According to Sterling these creatures were the demons, which Virgil guessed was why the boy had made the connection that the big things had to be angels as a result. Again, if these things were demons then they were like nothing anyone had ever depicted in Sunday school.

He'd seen some of them closer than others, and far closer than either he or Cygnus had ever wanted him to. Not that his boyfriend was any better in that regard; more than once Cygnus had been practically staring down a strange monster from out of their wildest nightmares whilst quite literally holding his breath in the hopes that whatever the creature was would pass him by and let them both be. Words couldn't do justice to just how scared they both were when moments like that came along. It was half of the reason they tried to avoid going out on the night, for the creatures tended to avoid natural light. It didn't seem to stop them all that much, but it did seem to make them disoriented and uncoordinated in their movements.

The other reason they tried to avoid going out at night was far simpler, that being the fact that hopping from building to building in the dark was a great way to misjudge your step and take a nasty fall. They'd all lived through a fucking apocalypse after all, so the last thing they wanted was to find out that one of them had died to something lame like tripping and breaking their neck.

He pushed his thoughts away from both the topics of loss and of the world that was. Everything that once had been was lost to them now.

For some of them, Virgil included, that hadn't been much to be honest. Actually, for most of them it felt like everyone else disappearing had been a gift at times. Say what you would about the apocalypse, but his anxiety went a lot less haywire at the thought of going outside in the middle of the day because there weren't exactly any people around for him to interact with anymore. The others were, by and large, much the same to be honest. In fact Virgil was pretty sure Cygnus was just happy he wouldn't be kicked out of his apartment after his rent was increased and he couldn't cover the cost. Couldn't pay rent if there was no-one to pay it to, after all.

Out of all of them it was Madison who had been the one to be hit the hardest by everyone and everything disappearing. The other five members of their group, Virgil included, hadn't had the most stellar home lives and as such were simply happy to still have the family they chose around them. Madison was different, however. She'd had a very nice home life, and all of them had remembered how kind and welcoming her mother and father had been to them all whenever they'd visited. She'd opened up about missing everything a few months ago, and all of them had felt their hearts ache for her.

Sometimes she'd wake up and think it was all a dream, thinking everything was how it used to be. She'd remember the ticking of her grandmother's antique clock in the hallway of her home, the faces of friends and acquaintances she'd met on the street and in the park. She'd remember the old coffee house she'd used to go to, and the long walks she'd used to love along the waterfront.

None of them could afford to be out that long nowadays.

She'd reminisce about her school life, reading books for her English class and complaining about having to analyse literature for her homework. Then there was the calm desk jobs she'd worked, and the hectic craftswoman ones in between that. Of course, the one thing she remembered more than anything was the time she'd spent with them for the two years before the end that she'd known them. After all, they'd spent most of it in her family's countryside semi-detached house. She still maintained she was so very lucky to still have all of them, but none of them were under the impression that such thoughts dulled the pain of having lost so much already.

Almost paradoxically the rest of them had never really thought of things the same way she did back then. Most of them had gone through the last few years in a haze, as though the world was simply moving around them, but looking back he sort of understood what she was on about now. There was something missing, a hole where everyday interactions used to be, and it was one that they couldn't really fill. Their memories of the past all resurfaced from time to time, but it was always something they tended to push down a little. None of them wanted to dwell too much on the past, for one reason or the other.

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In all honesty, Virgil felt the same half the time nowadays. He probably had before as well, but just didn't realise it at the time. Still, he was just lucky that he hadn't had as much to lose to begin with. Madison had lost a lot more than the rest of them, by pure virtue of having the luckiest life out of all of them before the end. A loving family, a good circle of friends, stable income, a warm home, three meals a day, good grades, the works. She still had the good circle of friends, and they'd come together to make this apartment their own warm home where they might all get three meals a day, but the rest of it was gone forever. They were just kids after all, on the cusp of adulthood, yes, but still kids. There was no way they'd even be able to work out what had happened, let alone turn back the clock and bring everyone back. The world was gone, and this was just their lives now. Better to get used to it soon, he'd thought at the time. He'd not realised then that no-one could ever get used to this. It wasn't something that could ever become normal.

Either way though, the rest of the world was gone, and they were still here. Whether they missed the world that was or remained unaffected by its passing, they had to live with what had happened nonetheless.

He was broken from his musings by a particularly messy street, cars all half-rusted and ivy-coated. God, but sometimes he couldn't help wondering what had happened to everyone else. Had it been painless? Had it been quick? Were they in a better place now, or were they simply just... gone? Had there ever been a moment of realisation, or had it happened instantly?

And of course, there was perhaps the biggest question of all: why hadn't the six of them been taken? Was there a reason, or had they just been forgotten? Virgil didn't know. He suspected he'd never know. To be honest, he didn't care either. Right now he had better things to do than worry about all of that.

"Ah," Cygnus said, coming to a stop and holding his hand up in a gesture that generally meant 'stop', "we're here."

Virgil smiled, nodding. He'd been getting a little worried about making it here before it got too late to head back before nightfall.

"Well, thank God for that. I thought my feet were about to fall off."

He wasn't, of course. He wasn't even that tired. He just felt the need to make a joke and break the tension. He'd started accompanying Cygnus on these supply runs four months ago, not wanting him to be heading out by himself. Also, and he'd never admit this because it completely went against his image of hating the outdoors, but he'd really missed heading out and enjoying nature in that time. Well, this wasn't exactly nature besides the moss and ivy, but it was something.

Cygnus pulled out a bowie knife and started hacking away at the ivy choking the doors of the building they'd been headed towards, a relatively small supermarket, so that they could enter. Virgil drew his own bowie knife and began to help, but it wasn't easy. The ivy was thick and woody, and he needed to saw through it more than cut it at times. It took the two of them somewhere around twenty minutes to get enough of the ivy out of the way, and a couple more for Virgil to pick the store's lock. After that though they were in, and though it was perhaps not the first thing he should have thought of he was always surprised to find the absence of rot on any fruits or vegetables. There weren't many fruits and vegetables in the store, but there was an isle of commonly used cooking ingredients that contained them in a large fridge. Cygnus made a point of ignoring them, and Virgil did the same. They might not have looked or smelt rotten, but as soon as you cut into the skin or took a bite out of it it seemed to putrefy in the mouth, becoming intolerable and borderline dangerous.

He'd seen some of the smaller creatures shovelling the camouflaged rotting fruit into their maws before now, well, the ones that had mouths had done so anyway, but it only ever seemed to make the creatures either sick or angry. Well, actually it was probably sick and angry, but anger seemed to be their standard emotion anyway. Did the monsters actually even feel emotions or were they just-

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, getting his mind back on track. It was just another mystery they couldn't even begin to solve to be placed on the pile with all the others, he guessed. It didn't matter, because he had a job to do at the moment. Right now he needed to ignore the innocuous looking fruits and vegetables and look towards gathering up another bagful of non-perishable foods. If it were only the two of them living together they'd probably only need to make one or two trips a week, but as there were four others waiting for them back at the apartment these trips were basically a daily affair.

Luckily meat was, for some reason, exempt from the apparent putrefaction-in-the-mouth effect. Small mercies and all that, he thought to himself. I'll take what I can get at the moment. It made recipes that relied on meat a damn sight easier to make, even if most of them were slowly trending towards more vegetarian meals over time anyway. At some point they'd probably be relying purely on the fruits and vegetables they grew themselves to survive, but right now they could enjoy bacon for a little while longer. Dairy products as well, which was a godsend; Virgil didn't know if he'd have survived if he hadn't been able to have pancakes the last six months.

Whilst his life certainly would have been easier in that he'd have had to make a lot less trips out with Cygnus if it were only the two of them, their small group didn't just spend every day sitting around whilst Virgil and Cygnus were out of course. They'd set up a small vegetable patch on the balcony of their shared apartment, one that needed to be tended daily to ensure it remained healthy and that none of the vegetables went bad without any of them realising it. It wasn't much, mostly consisting of a few potted onions, a few tomato plants entwined with the railings of the balcony, and a strawberry plant that was mostly used by Madison for baking or Sterling for making jam.

Seeing as those strawberries were some of the only fresh fruit he was able to have anymore, he thought they were one of the greatest additions to the apartment's little balcony-garden that had been made so far. As for Wesley who didn't like strawberries and hadn't been able to eat an apple in six months, he was less enthused. Still, beggars couldn't be choosers, if strawberries were all they could muster at the moment then they would have to do.

"So what exactly are we looking for? Anything specific or just generally anything we think might go down a treat for the others?"

Cygnus smiled a little at the half-joke, though didn't turn to face him for he was busy rifling through his backpack for one tool or another.

"You focus on grabbing anything we might like in terms of food, I'm going to grab another round of toiletries and cleaning supplies. Actually, that last bit can wait, I'll grab a few food items I know we're low on as well."

"Anything else?"

Cygnus nodded, now turning around with a smirk that made it really hard to tell whether he was being sarcastic or not.

"Well, afterwards I'm going to go up into the employee section and see what they've got back there. The storage area is bound to have just as much in it as the storefront does, so it seems a waste to ignore it all. I'll probably spend a bit of time taking the batteries out of any electronic devices, since I don't want them going off and the batteries might come in handy."

Virgil just nodded. Personally he thought they had more than enough batteries, but Cygnus was always insistent that they get more no matter how well stocked everyone thought they were. Normally his boyfriend despised mess, but for some reason keeping an entire drawer full of loose batteries he'd ripped out of remotes and devices from shops all across the city was fine.

Sometimes Cygnus really didn't make any sense to him sometimes, but damn him if he said that he didn't his boyfriend's illogical side incredibly endearing for some reason that he hadn't been able to work out yet.

As Cygnus walked off to begin looking for toiletries, Virgil busied himself with aimlessly wandering the aisles for a little while. Yes, he knew what he was supposed to be grabbing, but he'd learned very early in the post-disappearance word that it was always better to scope out what was in arms reach first and then begin grabbing things, not to just start randomly picking out boxes and hope for the best. Well, sometimes he still did if his anxiety was playing up and he felt like he was being watched, but normally he was fine to take his time making sure he grabbed things they all liked.

Here was a good example; there was an aisle of comforters here. The apartment could always use more comforters to make sure Wesley always had somewhere soft to rest if he passed out at any point during the day. More than that, it was apparently really expensive if the price tag was anything to go by.

Oh, the joys of a post-apocalypse.

Maybe he shouldn't have taken quite as much joy in taking things he'd never have been able to afford before the disappearance, but sometimes it was nice to know that there were upsides to the world upping sticks and vanishing overnight.

Something glinting caught his eye then, a little speck of light nestled amongst blankets and comforters. He grinned to himself as he dug it out.

"Hello... what do we have here?"

In his hand was what looked like an honest to God diamond ring, a brilliant light blue indented into a silver band. He slipped it onto his ring finger, grinning. A perfect fit. What was such a nice ring doing there? Had someone dropped it in the store before vanishing? Maybe, he thought to himself, it came off when whoever owned it reached to pull out a blanket and it got caught on a fibre. It was as good a theory as any he could come up with, so he just shrugged and stuffed one of the expensive comforters into his backpack. Whoever had owned it before, and whyever they'd left it here, they weren't exactly going to be around to ask for it back.

Maybe the end of all things had left him a little less moral than he'd once been. Back in the world as it once was he'd never have dreamed of picking up a discarded ring, not even to hand it into the proper authorities for he'd always been too anxious where talking to strangers in public was concerned. Nowadays he hardly even blinked if he saw discarded personal effects in the town he called home. Then again, he supposed that he'd always been like this and there was just nothing to really reign him in now. Put it this way: if the world reappeared tomorrow, then Virgil and his friends were going to owe a whole lot of money in stolen goods to half of the town at this point.

Silly as it was, that thought did make him smile a little. If the world came back tomorrow he wouldn't really care either way to be honest. It would be nice to have people back, but he'd probably get tired of everyone and wish things were back like they were now after a week or two of forced social interactions.

Moving to the next aisle over he picked up a few small boxes of cup-a-soup, as well as a few other choice just-add-water foods. Yeah, they weren't particularly good, but they were quick and easy to eat. Following that same logic he walked over to the fridge section, which still worked because the electricity hadn't gone out yet for some reason, and picked out about a dozen or so ready meals that he knew they all liked. Simple things to keep them going in day-to-day life when no-one in their group who knew how to cook had it in them to do so. Hey, everyone had bad days from time to time, Virgil wasn't going to judge. Cygnus and Madison normally took care of breakfast and lunch whilst Madison instead tended to work with Sterling on dinner, but if the three of them all happened to be particularly tired or down it was always good to keep a reserve of food they only needed to heat in the oven or microwave.

As for why the rest of them didn't cook, well, Virgil didn't really have an excuse, but the Alistair twins were actually banned from the kitchen by group order. They were both banned for very different reasons, but they were banned nonetheless. Lyla was banned because she'd once managed to set fire to dish soap whilst washing up, and Wesley was banned because quite frankly it just wasn't safe for him to be cooking in the kitchen. Sharp objects and burning heat were poor bedfellows for someone who might collapse at any moment with little to no prior warning. Still, he liked to help out with cleaning after breakfast and dinner, so no-one would ever say he was trying to use his condition to get out of cooking. Not that any of them would of course, he was one of their dearest friends and woe betide any who would have insulted him for his sleeping disorder, but it did mean that his talents were best applied outside of cooking.

"Hey, Virgil!" Cygnus called out from the other side of the store. "You mind coming here for a second?"

"Of course!" He called back, zipping his backpack shut and putting it back on. "I'll be there in a moment!"

What was it that Cygnus had found now?