Things weren't always this empty.

Once, not so long ago at all, the world was a vibrant tapestry of people and their lives. There were a great many people who'd led a great many normal lives in the world that had once been here, but they were all gone now. Where?

Virgil hadn't the faintest fucking idea. He also didn't really care, truth be told.

For some reason when he'd gone to bed some six months ago he'd woken up the next day to find the rest of the world had vanished, and he was still here. Actually, tell a lie, it wasn't everyone who had disappeared. His five close friends were still here with him, so that was good. It wasn't like they'd had many other people who cared about them outside of their little circle anyway. Outcasts and misfits all, and the best damn people Virgil had ever met in his life.

It was a little concerning, the fact that they were all still here when everyone else had vanished, but he'd successfully pushed all feelings about that sort of thing off to the side for now. It wasn't like he could do anything about it, not unless you counted 'worrying' as something.

Nah. Questions about what had happened were best left to Cygnus. He'd always been the one with the book smarts in the group, so Virgil was content to let him deal with all of that. Virgil was content to just accompany him on their trips across the almost-silent city to get food and gather supplies, as well as spend some quiet quality time with him when they got back to the apartment they'd lived in for the last year and which had become their permanent home when the world had vanished overnight.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

There wasn't much sunlight anymore, well, not direct sunlight anyway. The sun must still have been there because it was still light out during daylight hours instead of being permanently dark, but none of them had seen the sky in months thanks to the thick blanket of fog that hung over their heads. It wasn't like they were really able to make sure the sun was still there, but they felt confident enough in their guess that at least the sun was the same as it had been before.

There were other concerns as well of course, chiefly the monsters that crept around in the darkness, but they were a secondary concern most of the time. Were they dangerous? Quite possibly. However none of them had ever so much as entered the apartment complex they lived in, let alone gotten close to their actual apartment, so they were far from the minds of any in their group most of the time.

Strangest of all was perhaps the fact that the six of them had adapted so well to their new lives. They lived together, cooked for each other, made sure the apartment was clean, accommodated for one-another's quirks and eccentricities, and generally made sure the apartment felt like home for all of them. In all honesty, Virgil was pretty sure his life was going better now than it ever had before.

Still, the six of them needed to eat, and that meant that supply runs were a common occurance for him and Cygnus. A pity that such runs meant diving into the lairs of strange creatures from time to time.

At least his life was exciting nowadays.