The city of Cedartop was a right mess, a proper apocalypse. Everything was burning; houses, cars, office buildings, and especially gas stations. Although maybe only one office building in five was on fire and perhaps only one house in twenty, there wasn't a single gas station that wasn't billowing black smoke.

The city had been absolutely trashed by the events of the past hour; nobody in town was still "okay" by any reasonable standard. But the main problem wasn't the extent of the injuries or devastation, as bad as those were. The problem was the complete lack of resources of any sort. Suddenly people could no longer even help themselves, let alone give or seek help from others. The global power outage was just the beginning: radios no longer worked, nor generators, cars, telephones, or most of the things you might broadly categorize as "technology."

This lack of technology to such a complete extent turned out to be supremely isolating. Travel was limited by each person's own two feet, while long-distance communication now just meant shouting. Medical assistance primarily consisted of whatever someone thought they once saw on television, and there was no hope whatsoever of stopping the fires. There were no firefighters, paramedics, police, or coordination of any sort. People were instead left to care for themselves with only the knowledge and items they had immediately on hand.

Every few minutes something new exploded; perhaps it was the propane on someone's backyard grill or the gas tank of a car. Maybe even someone's house would go bang for reasons entirely unknown. It was impossible to tell over such large distances, and without the clamor of emergency responders, the periodic sound of explosive destruction carried and haunted.

Into this absolute mess of a city rode Gary, David, and Samantha on horseback.

The highway they had been riding along ran south around the eastern edge of town before turning west again to enter the city closer to the river. This meant that they were also much closer now to where the chemical plant had exploded, and here the blast had left significantly more damage than further north.

The trio rode their horses down the middle of the main highway leading through the town, picking their way around the debris as they went. They had slowed from a gallop down to a quick trot upon entering the city limits, and there was a lot to take in now that they were here. The road itself was empty but for the occasional abandoned vehicle. Bits of rubble littered the street and sidewalks, and a thin layer of dust and masonry covered everything, including the abandoned cars. The most disturbing aspect of all, though, was the sound.

It was nearly silent; distressingly so. You rarely even notice the sounds of the city, but they are always there, even in the smallest of towns. You would at least expect to hear the occasional revving of a motor many miles away, or the staccato sputtering of compression brakes on the highway. The persistent noise pollution of civilization is far from comforting, but the unexpected absence is unnerving. That wasn't even the worst part, because in that relative quiet you could hear the sounds of disaster from miles around. There was the roaring and popping of fires in every direction, the booms and crashes as weakened structures eventually gave way, and the urgent shouts of people trying to deal with it all.

"We should establish our priorities ahead of time," said David, "There are a lot of people here who could use our help."

"So we help them, of course," Samantha asserted, indicating that there wasn't even a point to discuss.

"We came here for Evelyn," Gary reminded her, "and I think she's injured. If she could walk then we would have crossed paths with her already."

Samantha bit her lip and spoke a bit more slowly, "Maybe you two should fill me in a bit more. What's happened to Ev?"

"We don't actually know. Gary's just inferring based on the fact that Evelyn told us she was headed home from the grocery store well over an hour ago. Even if she was on foot, she probably could have made it this far by now. Further, we expect that her car would have at least continued working long enough to bring her part of the way here. I just think..."

David paused his explanation and considered the scene around them. Samantha didn't take her eyes off him, but continued to chew her lower lip, waiting for him to say more. Finally, he looked back at her and continued.

"Look," he said, "I'm sure there are people we can help, but I'm worried about Evelyn. Every time we see a collapsed wall or building, I worry that she's buried under it. And every time we see a car that's overturned or burned out, I worry that we'll find her inside it. She knew when we would come looking for her, so she knows that we are already on our way. Wherever she is, she's waiting for us, perhaps praying that we'll hurry. Now that I've seen what's going on here, I'm worried about her, Samantha."

Samantha nodded, "Let's find Evie first before doing anything else, then. What should I be looking for?"

Gary gave the rundown: "She left the grocery store on 3rd street right after the power went out, driving that blue car of hers. We think that all of the cars stopped working a few minutes later. She wouldn't have known her car would stall, so she may not have, um... handled the incident gracefully."

"That's a tactful way to describe her driving," Samantha quipped. "But would she have stayed with the car? Is that what we should be looking for?"

"Yes and no," said David. "She wouldn't stay with the car unless she had a really good reason to, but she would have left us a note telling us where she was going. So yeah, we should look for the car first."

With that plan, the trio fanned out across the road and set out on a systematic, high-speed search for the car. With the speed their horses could provide, it took less than 10 minutes before Samantha called out for the two others to look at something.

"Is this Evelyn's car?"

David was the next to arrive. "Oh no," he said under his breath, dismounting and hurrying over to inspect the vehicle. It was off the road in some wild blackberry bushes, up on its side. He peered in through the windshield to see if there were any clues as to Evelyn's status or whereabouts.

"That is just way too much blood," he said. "Oh wait, there's even more. Damn. This is not good. I don't know if she..."

"It looks like she got out of the car on her own," Samantha interrupted. "Look here, and here, and then here's her footprints."

David came to Samantha's side. "Oh, right. But also, it looks like her leg was injured pretty badly in the crash. Look at the blood here on top," he pointed to the driver's side door of the upturned car, "that came from scooting across with blood soaking through her pants." He then crouched and indicated the footprint Samantha had discovered, "and then she landed on only one foot. See here? She avoids putting weight on her left leg, which agrees with the blood pattern up top. I can't imagine she could have gone far."

"What have we figured out?" Gary asked while climbing down from his horse. "Can you tell where she went?"

"It looks like she just wandered around for a bit," David observed, "like she was looking for something, maybe checking something. I can't quite tell which direction she ultimately set off in though."

"And her card? Did you find it?"

"Right... Hey Samantha, we're looking for what looks like a business card. Like this," David held up one of his own, "but hers are red and white. She may have left two of them since there would be quite a lot to report after a crash. It will tell us about her injuries, what she needs, where she's going, and everything else we might need to know in order to help her."

The three of them searched for several minutes, and eventually David found it tucked into the frame of the car.

David read the note, sighed and stared out into nothing for a bit. Then, just to be sure, he read the note again. He shook his head. He read it again, swore a bit, and stared up at the sky.

"Something wrong?" asked Gary.

"This is your daughter. She wrote this," he finally said, handing Gary the note.

Gary read it and snorted. "You raised her too," he accused.

"I did not!" David defended.

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"Did too, I saw it myself."

"I didn't! I just... I helped. That's all."

"Oh, don't be like that. You did a really good job."

"What's the issue?" asked Samantha.

Gary wordlessly handed her the notecard. She read it, flipped it over, and then read it again.

"Well... 'Jewelry, dumbass.' That's... huh, yeah. That really is something, isn't it."

"No. It really isn't," David corrected. "There's nothing there."

Samantha sighed, "perhaps Evelyn is saying that there is something important about jewelry. Or does this mean we're supposed to find some that she left here? Anything I missed about how jewelry is connected with all of this?"

Neither of the men had any idea. While they tried to come up with how to proceed, David asked to borrow Gary's pen to at least leave a note for Evelyn, just in case she came back to the car. The only pen Gary had on him was the fancy crystal one he had made himself. He was pretty proud of the creation and always kept it with him, meaning to use it and then forgetting he had it.

Something about the pen was odd. David held it up and just looked at it for a moment. The casing was made of lab-grown blue sapphire, cut in a way that always shone in the light. But now the pen seemed to shine of its own accord, and a few gentle wisps of blue vapor trailed behind it, almost invisible.

"It's that glowing mist stuff again," he observed, "apparently it's not completely gone."

"Hold on, that stuff is real?" asked Samantha in surprise. "But wait, why is it blue now?"

"What color did you expect?" asked Gary, eyebrows raised.

Samantha withered for a moment when the two of them looked at her. She hadn't intended to mention this to anyone; up until this moment she had assumed that she had just imagined it. Seeing glowing mist wafting off her hands while she was alone feeding the horses -- it was easier just to assume it had never happened. Being questioned now about the details of what she assumed to be a weird hallucination was unnerving.

"I thought it was green," she finally admitted.

"Did you happen to be wearing any jewelry at the time?" Gary asked.

"I don't know if you'd call it jewelry; I've worn this since I was a little girl." She showed them a simple leaf-shaped pendant hanging from a leather cord inside her shirt. "It's not a real emerald, obviously; you wouldn't give something that expensive to a 9-year-old."

"Green," Gary observed, "I always keep that pen with me, and for me it was blue. I wonder if that's the connection."

"Do you think Evelyn knew about this?" asked Samantha.

It was too significant a coincidence to ignore. While taking notes an hour ago, David had come across the suggestion that the glowing essence might be useful in treating injuries, but they couldn't make out any further details. Evelyn was injured, in urgent need of medical attention, and this was the only thing she had mentioned on her note card. They had spent almost ten minutes at the crash scene already and this was their best lead.

"Wait, are there even any places to find jewelry around here?" asked David.

Gary just shrugged, and Samantha rolled her eyes. "I don't even like jewelry and yet I somehow know and you don't?" She let out an exasperated sigh. "There are three stores in total. The closest one is that way."

They proceeded in the indicated direction, looking for clues all the while as to whether they were on the right track. After a short while David picked up on some footprints that he insisted were left by Evelyn. He said something about how she apparently managed to stop the bleeding, and that it seemed like she knew where she was going. With that confirmation, they hurried toward the store.

They rode north, and the further they went, the less severe the blast destruction. But that didn't mean that the people they saw weren't in trouble. Now that the trio were no longer scouring their path for clues, they began to notice the scenes along the way in a much more personal sense than before. Most striking was the disparity in circumstances between the three of them versus all of the people around them. Not only were they entirely uninjured, they were even on horseback and packing enough first-aid supplies to save multiple lives. They looked like the cavalry, here to save the people in their time of need. But rather than stopping to help, the trio just rode on.

Each member of the team reacted to the situation differently. Gary hardly noticed, instead lost in his own little world working out the implications of their recent discoveries. Samantha, on the other hand, met the eyes of people they passed, a sad expression of longing on her face. Several times she began to turn her horse toward a group of people gathered around someone before glancing back at her companions and returning her focus to their destination. David neither ignored the situation around them nor did he respond to it. He took in all of the details, making mental notes about where people needed help and paying special attention to which situations had gotten Samantha's interest. But he never let his focus drift from his objective of finding Evelyn and making sure she was safe.

When the store finally came into view David sped his horse to a run, leaving his companions behind; the sight in front of him was not comforting. While most of the blast damage this far north was minor, the jewelry store was completely torn to pieces.

David dismounted and ran to the store. He felt the need to hurry to find Evelyn, but his experience with danger forced him to slow down and examine his surroundings. It was never wise to rush into an unknown situation, especially when you were in a hurry. And while the store probably wasn't dangerous, something was definitely off.

Getting closer, he could see why the store was in tatters. The adjoining shops all funneled the blast wave into that one storefront, giving it a shock many times more powerful than anything within miles had experienced. However, that didn't explain the security gate.

The store had a metal security barrier made of interlocking bars that employees would pull down from some hidden compartment above, and then lock into place when closing the store. This hadn't been the cheap kind used in malls, this was seriously strong protection. It would have taken an entire crew several hours with specialized equipment to cut through the thing, and it would have easily withstood the blast that broke the windows and destroyed the shop. In fact, the bars blocking the windows were still intact and undamaged, but the gate that blocked the door had been completely obliterated. Chunks of metal hung from the sides in ragged lines and solidified rivulets, while the majority of what used to be the gate lay on the ground in a single, shiny puddle. Not in his wildest dreams could David even begin to imagine what could have caused such focused destruction, as though the forces of reality themselves had decided to simply unmake the barrier blocking the entrance.

Stepping through the hole in the door, David entered the shop. He cautiously looked about for anything hiding in the shadows that might have destroyed the gate, but he saw nothing. Shattered glass covered nearly every surface, and it cut into the soles of his boots with each crunching step he took. Evelyn was clearly visible, lying unconscious in the middle of the showroom. Her posture suggested that she wasn't merely napping; she had passed out, perhaps from injury or exhaustion. As he got closer, the situation looked even more grim.

Her clothes were sliced and tattered, and she was covered all over in mostly dried blood. It had been smeared all over her face like she had gone to rub her eyes or scratch at her cheek while absently forgetting that her hands were wet with the stuff. Her pants had been completely soaked through, just as David had suspected after seeing her car. The extent of it all suggested a severed artery, something Evelyn shouldn't have survived long enough to walk this far. Still, as he looked more closely, David couldn't find any sign of injury.

He knelt at her side and called her name, but Evelyn didn't respond. He called her name again, and lightly touched her face. Evelyn smiled. No sounds, no words, but she had at least recognized something about him. David felt himself near tears at seeing that smile, but he kept his voice steady. She wasn't out of the woods just yet.

"Evelyn, are you okay?" He searched her for some source of all the blood he could see, some injury he could tend. Nothing.

"Mmm," came her weak reply. It may have meant something, or perhaps she was just trying to sleep.

He kept searching for any injury and continued to come up short; her clothes were telling a story that her body simply didn't agree with.

"Evelyn, are you hurt?"

She scowled at him with what looked like annoyance. Her eyes were still closed but it seemed like he might be getting reactions from her. She shifted around as if to get comfortable. At least now she looked like she was sleeping on purpose instead of merely unconscious. Plus, since she had repositioned herself, he could see where her pants had been torn from whatever punctured her leg. There were two clear holes, an entry and exit if he had to guess, but the skin appeared to be intact. He lifted her knee and tried to assess the area, but there was nothing to find. There wasn't even a healed-over wound, not even a scar.

"What happened to your leg, Evelyn?" he said, mostly to himself. This was definitely where the blood had come from judging by her clothes, and yet there was nothing. In response to his question, Evelyn inhaled as if she was about to speak, but then just let the air back out again with another quiet moan.

"Was it really injured?" David asked himself, "Or... it seems like..."

The lack of a scar brought his attention to something he'd glossed over a minute or two ago, and he went back to verify. Evelyn had a large scar that she preferred to keep hidden. It ran from her collarbone to her left arm, the result of an injury when Evelyn was ten. The memory of it was seared into David's mind more even than hers, as he had been responsible for keeping her safe at the time. It was one of the many times Gary had left little Evie in David's care while he stayed with Evelyn's mother in the hospital. A single mishap that David could have prevented had come within an inch of ending Evelyn, had left her with a scar that didn't fade, and had drastically changed the way David approached planning and danger. It set the cautious pattern that had kept David alive through all his adventures that followed. She never brought it up, she never blamed him, but the scar that Evelyn always tried to hide reminded David of the time he could have, and should have, protected her.

The scar was gone. He had seen it there just a few hours ago, clear as day. And yet it was gone. David traced with a finger where the scar used to be, thinking he must be missing something. Evelyn smiled again at the touch and pressed her cheek against his hand, like a cat looking for scratches. She sighed.

David sat back up; the girl was definitely conscious. Perhaps not entirely awake, but awake enough. Clearly she wasn't injured if even her scars were gone. What they needed now was answers. The others had arrived, dismounted, and were crunching their way into the jewelry store.

"OK Evelyn, come on, wake up." He felt like he was getting her up for school. This was starting to become silly. She grumbled like a teenager trying to sneak an extra minute of sleep. Samantha and Gary were inside now, asking questions and making comments in the background as they examined the store.

"Come on, Ev wake up," he said, picking up her hand.

Evelyn begrudgingly opened one eye, then eventually the other. David flashed an overly cheerful smile to her and then spoke:

"Hi! I have questions."