“You two will be more than enough for just a half hour or so,” Theo assured them. As he watched the sun dip below the horizon, Florian wasn’t so sure. He could eke out twenty minutes of breathing exercises at a time and Joe could hardly do a couple of minutes.

“Theo, I don’t think we can handle it on our own just yet. I tried the spell yesterday, and it drains me faster than the meditation does. We could do twenty minutes, maybe. Why is it so important that you go out, anyway?”

“That is none of your business, Florian. I will be gone for twenty minutes, then.” Theo closed the front door behind him, and as Florian went upstairs to view the fields around them through the window, he found that he couldn’t spot Theo anywhere.

He heard a wolf howl. The children looked up at him, more fear in their eyes than at any point in the past week since Theo had led the two Hellwolves back to their house. Me too, kids, Florian thought. Still, he had a job to do. Calming his heart, Florian began to imagine the house underneath an invisibility tarp, with all of their scents blocked by the tarp as well. It was a bizarre mental image, and it was difficult for Florian to focus on it.

As he felt the magic begin to work, as he began to impose his will, Florian could already feel the beginnings of the mental drain. Still, from what information Ellie relayed every now and again, no wolves stepped onto the field, none had discovered them.

Something like ten minutes passed. Beads of sweat began to form on Florian’s forehead. The headache was already beginning, but he had to keep going for at least another ten minutes before he could pass the baton to young Joe. Every minute was a battle with himself, an ever-growing part of him demanding that he stop inflicting such pain to himself.

When the headache grew to a migraine, Jake whispered to the others in typical Jake fashion – which is to say, not at all. “When is Mr. Theo coming back?”

Ellie shushed him. Florian cracked open an eye, looking at the old grandfather clock that had once been stowed away in the corner of the attic. It had been twenty minutes. The magic faltered; his focus was waning.

Florian turned his eyes to Joe, who despite a brave attempt to look stoic, was shaking as a tree in the middle of a hurricane. Closing his eyes, Florian withdrew into a corner of his mind, focusing on the bizarre spell he had constructed.

He knew pain, then. It seemed to be a tunnel that had no end in sight, no light to guide him through. Instead, driven by necessity, Florian held on, ignoring every hushed word and muffle footstep. Only when he felt a man’s hand grip his shoulder did Florian release his spell, crumpling to the ground in a heap. Oblivion.

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When Florian woke up, the remnants of his headache receded in the face of his rage. He stormed downstairs as fast as he dared, approaching the table to see Theo eating an entire can of tuna – one of the five they had left.

“You said twenty minutes. That, Theo, was not twenty fucking minutes!” Florian yelled. “You refuse to explain why the fuck any of this is happening, you refuse to explain where it is you come from, and you refuse to explain why you felt it so necessary to leave us here, alone. And now you eat the last of our food,” Florian’s hands were clenched so hard his knuckles went white. Florian knew the Theo noticed, but Florian couldn’t care less.

“You will know more in time, Florian. You need to continue practicing. Trust me, I am investigating these matters. In fact, that is precisely the reason I left last night,” Theo explained calmly, putting the can back on the table. “And I have indeed noticed that our foodstuffs have grown dreadfully sparse. I will hunt some game tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. I mean to investigate every night until I fully understand what it is I must do.”

Florian saw red. He took a single step forward, when a tinny voice inside him told him to stop. While it was true that Theo had withheld information from them, Theo had continued to protect him and the children night after night. Florian needed the safety net that Theo provided, even if it seemed like that net was growing more and more unreliable.

“Fine. Just bring something back,” Florian uncurled his fingers, shoving them in his pocket. “I’ll go outside and get some water from the well. It’s my turn to clean up.” Taking the large tub near the doorway, Florian left the house and slammed the door behind him.

Back when he had been a student, only three short years ago, taking nice, hot showers had centered him. The water that he would get now would be neither hot, nor would it be a shower. Still, it made him feel cleaner, and he definitely smelled better for it.

The bath had done little to extinguish the anger – or was it frustration? Leaning against the stone base of the well, Florian watched as the weeds that now claimed the ground sway in the wind, completely free without humans around to tear them out. In the end, weeds did what they did best: survive.

Florian supposed that humanity was like that, now. Three short years was enough for society to crumble. The internet and all digital electronics broke when the Hellwolves arrived, and from there the vast, untracked hordes of monsters made their way through cities first, spreading into the countryside like the plague. At least, that’s what they said on the radio.

A wolf howled somewhere in the distance, this one a normal, regular Earth wolf. Florian tried calling to it, using a rough imitation of the translation magic Theo had used in the beginning. His voice sounded normal to him, but the wolf approached from the edge of the fields, slowly at first but faster once it realized that it was Florian that was summoning it.

Almost like a dog, the wolf ran to Florian’s side and looked up at him with a serene expression. Florian reached for it, and when the wolf did nothing, Florian scratched the overgrown dog behind the ears. It seemed to enjoy that.

“What’s happened to us, buddy?”

The wolf woofed, but despite the modified translation spell, it still sounded like gibberish to him. Somehow, the thought of not being able to speak to animals was disappointing to him, as if it were something he expected. Still, the companionship was nice as Florian watched the wind blow across fields where humans had once stood.